Ok, I’m still alive, everyone. It’s been hectic, and I have had very little time to follow the news or even post. I’m hoping that will change in the near future. I can’t even get the cartoon I planned on putting up here to load (I thought it was pretty good). What good news stories have I missed?
Update: I’m not terribly good at this yet, but I got the cartoon up at FaceBook. Look me up there! If that doesn’t work for you, I could even email it to you. Feel free to send such a request to: richard.murray.001@gmail.com
March 28th, 2009 at 7:18 am
The most significant news you’ve missed? Probably Chuck Grassley’s newfound verbal punchiness. Last week he complained that our highest earners among the American corporate elites wouldn’t act honorably and, you know, follow ancient samurai tradition by performing seppuku, more popularly known as harakiri.
Now he’s going after Kent Conrad’s wife.
March 28th, 2009 at 9:03 am
oh man, where have you been?
/ who are you?
March 28th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Okay, here’s something new in the World of Palin:
Palin stands firm on consent.
For me, I’m neither inspired nor turned off by Palin’s insistence on parental consent for minor’s having abortions. The issue for me is a wash. But I wonder how her stance will sit with non-SoCons like Kristofer Lorelli or Aron Goldman?
Were she to run for the ’12 nomination, her actions here could endear her to the SoCon GOP base, but also serve as serious ammunition from the Dem side if she were to make it to the general election. The Dems and the MSM would shudder with glee at the idea of portraying Palin as a heartless, radical right-wing “Christianist” wacko.
Put differently: No, there’s really nothing new under the sun.
March 28th, 2009 at 9:40 am
MarkG,
Everyone is reading the Anchorage Daily News to go find out what the heck Palin is doing, hahahah. Polling suggests that parental consent is supported by an overwhelming percentage of Americans.
Americans Want Parental Consent for Teen Abortions
Still, majority considers themselves pro-choice
http://www.gallup.com/poll/23905/Americans-Want-Parental-Consent-Teen-Abortions.aspx
“According to a November 2005, Gallup Poll, 69% of Americans favor laws requiring women under 18 to obtain parental consent for any abortion; only 28% are opposed to this. Support has hovered around the 70% mark since opinion on the issue was first measured by Gallup in 1992.
Although the bill passed by the Senate this week deals with preventing people from skirting state parental consent laws, these results suggest that support for such enforcement would be high.
Support for parental consent is slightly higher among men than among women (74% vs. 65%). The policy is widely supported by Republicans and independents, but even a majority of Democrats favor it.
Younger Americans, aged 18 to 29, might be expected to have more sympathy for the freedom of minors to act without parental consent, but that is not the case. There is no difference by age group on this question, with 69% of those 18 to 29 favoring parental consent, compared with 71% of those 30 to 49 and 68% of those 50 and older.”
I haven’t seen any poll that suggests there has been a dramatic change in opinion on this subject of parental consent. The poll states that 78% of Republicans, 71% of indies, and even 59% of Demcorats support parental consent laws even though the percentage of people who considered themselves pro-choice increased to 51% and the percentage who considered themselves pro-life decreased to 41%.
So we can draw the inference from this poll that plenty of people who consider themselves pro-choice or would not characterize themselves as pro-life support parental consent.
March 28th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Think about it…59% of Americans according to this poll consider themselves “pro-choice” or would not tell a pollster whether they consider themselves pro-choice or pro-life. If we are to assume that everyone of the 41% who considered themsevles pro-life support parental consent laws, then we only get to 69% if nearly half of the remaining 59% who considered themselves pro-choice or would not tell a pollster whether they considered themselves pro-choice or pro-life support parental consent as well.
March 28th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Hey Richard, about the only thing new is that country is a little deeper in debt and legislation is in progress which will put us in a hole that we may never get out of, the Russians have announced a strategic military buildup and the Chinese have told us to stop worrying about theirs.
March 28th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Interesting polling, TB. But my gut tells me that such an issue would yield very different results with slightly different polling questions.
“Do you agree that girls should be required to obtain the consent of their parents before getting an abortion?” might poll quite differently if the “girls” were called “female minors.”
That’s what my gut tells me. But then again, my gut is often wrong, and it is getting far too big for its britches…
March 28th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Here’s an interesting take from a neo-con regarding Obama’s continuation of Bush’s expanded counternarcotics program in Afghanistan
Obama’s Afghan Mistake
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/03/obamas_afghan_mistake.asp
Illinois is still rapping me for my oil prices comment, hahahahah. Take it up with Obama and the 53% who voted for him, they heard what him, Chu, and Salazar said about oil prices pretty clearly. Whatever I wish for has no bearing on whether prices rise or fall, ahahha.
March 28th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Biggest news is Geithner’s AUDACIOUS power grab, he wants to confiscate privately owned American property when and if he feels the need. Apparently he is charmingly unaware of his own corrupt nature and gross incompetence.
March 28th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Greta makes her prediction for 2012: Newt Gingrich
http://gretawire.foxnews.com/2009/03/18/lets-start-guessing/
“My guess (and let me emphasize now) is Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
As noted above, I have no inside track on this but am merely guessing and looking at it from the outside like you. I watch the Former Speaker going around the country beginning to lay the groundwork on very important national issues like health care. Many of the possible contenders are focusing on their own states right now which open the door for Gingrich to focus on the entire nation and get a leg up on them. You have to start early in the race for the White House, you have to have stamina, thick skin and you have to plan.”
March 28th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Best news of the day so far!!!!
BC nixes invite to former radical
Students hope to host William Ayers off-campus
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2009_03_28_BC_nixes_invite_to_former_radical:_Students_hope_to_host_William_Ayers_off-campus/srvc=home&position=also
“Boston College yesterday abruptly withdrew two student groups’ invitation to former radical William Ayers to speak on campus Monday.
A BC spokesman said he was unaware of the plan for the controversial figure to speak on campus until contacted by the Herald yesterday afternoon. But students last night were scrambling to hold the speech off-campus.
‘After meetings between administrators and students, the decision was made to rescind the invitation,’ spokesman Jack Dunn said. Dunn declined to say why, adding only, ‘We feel the appropriate decision has been reached.’”
March 28th, 2009 at 11:28 am
#3 MarkG,
I am a federalist. I could care less.
March 28th, 2009 at 11:38 am
NY-20: Murphy 47, Tedisco 43 (DCCC)
By Eric Dienstfrey
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/ny20_murphy_47_tedisco_43_dccc.php
“The DCCC’s poll was taken earlier this week, before the Siena College poll released Friday that showed Murphy leading Tedisco by four percentage points, 47 percent to 43 percent.”
March 28th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Not All Quiet on the Western Front
By Nicole McCleskey
http://blog.pos.org/2009/03/not-all-quiet-on-the-western-front/
“As Obama prepared to take office in early January, Westerners like voters across the country expressed more optimism about an Obama Administration, providing him with a pre-inaugural approval score of 67% approve/14% disapprove…But, mirroring his national erosion of support, Obama’s approval ratings have sagged a bit over the last 60 days, dropping a full ten-points to 56% in the West since Obama assumed office. Fully 37% of Western voters now register a disapproval rating…
While election night data showed Congressional Republicans losing to Congressional Democrats by ten points in the West (40%-50%), current polling not only shows the generic GOP candidate with a 50%-39% lead in the West, but tied (42% each) with the generic Democrat on the national level. Naturally, we will look to future polling to confirm the shift but, clearly, there is a trend.
These trends are harbingers of good news for Republicans. Without question, Western voters were angry, frustrated and fed-up in 2008… and they came out to prove it on election day. Even though GOP candidate paid a price at the polls in 2008, recent data shows the GOP picking up some needed ground. Could Democrats’ success in the West be fleeting?
NOTE: For the purposes of this analysis, we have not included California in the group of Western states. Western states include: AZ, CO, ID, NV, NM, ND, OR, SD, UT, WY, WA.”
March 28th, 2009 at 11:59 am
See below for a link to an interview I had with a guy that says “Bristol’s baby” is really Sarah’s baby through an affair. I, of course, offer no opinion on it but it is really to be taken quite seriously as the source is impeccable.
LOL.
Kristofer/Palin are such a joke.
March 28th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Obama cites North Dakota floods in call for climate change action
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=obama-cites-north-dakota-floods-in-2009-03-25
“If you look at the flooding that’s going on right now in North Dakota and you say to yourself, ‘If you see an increase of two degrees, what does that do, in terms of the situation there?’” Obama told reporters at the White House Monday. “That indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously.”
Outraged yet?
March 28th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
16. Actually, if there would be a global temperature rise of 2 degrees, North America would dry up significantly according to scientific models, heh. (I believe in climate change myself, but I’m a liberal so that’s expected)
I also want to defend Sarah’s stance on parental consent for abortions – but I’m one of the extremely rare pro-life Democrats, so I doubt many others hold my position.
March 28th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Matthew,
According to the poll that I linked, 59% of Democrats, while they may not consider themselves “pro-life,” support parental consent laws.
Unless there’ some other poll out there, I’d say that parental consent receives tremendous bipartisan support.
March 28th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
10 Tommy,
You know, I’m starting to think that Gingrich ought to be the man. The worst possible thing right now is that our party has nada in terms of ideas, we aren’t willing to push for anything, so we’ve got nothing to unite us. All we’ve got is our collective hatred of Democrat shortsightedness and naivety. The frontrunners are far too controversial to unite the party and lead it back in
Gingrich is the man who would reawaken the party – conservatives know him and love him, and moderates, independents, and centrist Democrats are almost all pragmatic by nature. Obama could toss out his tempestuous past, but if the country is still looking shaky domestically, Gingrich’s plans are going to talk louder than Obama’s tarring campaign to them.
And if Obama is uberpopular in light of a strong recovery, Gingrich would at least be a great Goldwater to unite the party once again behind some forceful ideas. A Republican recovery would only be delayed as long as the Democrats manage to govern well.
March 28th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Matthew,
I’m sort of curious personally, do pro-life Democrats take a good bit of heat from their more leftist counterparts?
March 28th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
MPC,
The final Democracy Corps poll (the one run by Carville) before the election had Newt’s favorables under 30%, around where Rush was at. Newt is one of the most unpopular figures in the country…I haven’t seen a recent poll with his favorables even at Pelosi-level. The fact that so many people still hate Newt after twelve years suggests that his goose is cooked with most of America.
I don’t agree with Frum very much but he penned a well-written article on the New Majority about the myth behind Goldwater’s loss. He pointed out how the Goldwater loss didn’t actually usher in conservatism but rather provided LBJ with the majority in the Senate and House he needed to usher in the Great Society because Democrats everywhere won seats from the landslide.
I would hope for Newt to pick one of our young guns and take him or her under his wing. I love some of Newt’s ideas and would love to see them promoted by a ’12 candidate other than Newt Gingrich.
March 28th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
#21 is exactly right. Gingrich’s negatives are incredibly high, and his popularity is below thirty percent in most of the polls that I’ve seen. And that’s not counting his incredibly messy personal life.
In most polls, Palin is over twice as popular as he is, and she is considered by many people to be unelectable.
Even Romney would be a better candidate than Gingrich.
March 28th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Barack Obama Approval/Disapproval
Rasmussen
Overall 56/43
GOP: 26/73
DEM: 87/13
IND: 45/53
MEN: 53/46
WOMEN: 59/40
WHITE: 50/49
BLACK: 91/9
OTHER: 57/39
March 28th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Plenty of ideas out there. Bad ideas. What we need is competent, precise, IMMEDIATE EXECUTIVE ACTION by someone who still understands and adheres to Constitutional principles. That would be Romney, and perhaps a handful of others.
March 28th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
20. It depends. Some are okay with it, but just as many have problems with it. I’ve had some people say I don’t respect women and such.
March 28th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
That’s what I suspected, really.
I guess you have extremists on both sides of the aisle. It really bothers me when people get too dogmatic about policies and dismissive of outside opinion.
March 28th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Ron Paul 2012!
March 28th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
#2 If you seriously don’t know who I am, I really have been away too long!
Sec Geithner’s an absolute joke and embarrassment to Pres Obama (as if he needed any help in that area!). He’s an intentional tax cheat (I will embarrass anyone who wants to claim it’s just an “oversight”) who only got in based on overwhelming Dem majorities. He’s said several things since that should seriously concern each and every American (hello, open to changing the world currency from the dollar?). Now he wants to be given the ability to seize private businesses “for the good of the country?” The only thing worse than a fool in charge is a fool in charge who thinks he’s the smartest man in the room. Thankfully, it looks like he’ll be shot down on this one.
Spkr Gingrich is someone I would LOVE to see as Pres (unless my suspicions about the latter portion of his term as Speaker are correct), but I seriously doubt he could rehab his image unless he started running for something somewhere else. Much rather he became Education Sec first. Better yet, he could become RNC Chair if Chrmn Steele isn’t able to start bringing in some results in ’10!
March 28th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Who says the Geithner power grab is going to be shot down? Is that the way it’s going? What a temporary relief that would be! I’m not a huge financial business owner, but I would like that possibility to be there for me and my children should we choose that in the future.