The latest numbers in the Indiana Senate race from Rasmussen:
Following his vote for the national health care plan, Democratic Congressman Brad Ellsworth's support remains stuck in the low 30s, while two of his Republican opponents now earn 50% or more of the vote in Indiana’s U.S. Senate race.
The GOP still stands a good chance of picking up perhaps 7 or more Senate seats in November, but Democrats caught a break last week when Tommy Thompson decided not to challenge Russ Feingold in Wisconsin and George Pataki announced he wouldn't run against Kirsten Gillibrand in New York.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen told a forum at Columbia University yesterday, "Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing. Attacking them would also create the same kind of outcome...In an area that's so unstable right now, we just don't need more of that."
The Marco Rubio campaign says Charlie Crist has halted all its TV advertising in the Orlando and Tampa Bay markets where the anti-Rubio spots were airing.
The U.S. Geological Survey maintains that the earthquake that hit the remote Tibetan town of Jyeku (the Chinese call it Yushu) in the early morning of April 14 measured 6.9 on the Richter scale, while the Chinese government has said that the quake's intensity was 7.1 (which would mean that it was approximately the same strength as the brutal earthquake that recently hit Haiti). By any measure, though, this was a strong quake that has devastated an area largely untouched by China's economic miracle.
"Do you realize," CNN's Susan Roesgen asked a man at the April 15, 2009, tea party in Chicago, "that you're eligible for a $400 credit?" When the man refused to drop his "drop socialism" sign, she went on, "Did you know that the state of Lincoln gets fifty billion out of the stimulus?"
Roesgen is no longer with CNN, and CNN has only about half as many viewers as it did last year. But her questions are revealing. They help us understand that the issue on which our politics has become centered -- the Obama Democrats' vast expansion of the size and scope of government -- is really not just about economics. It is really a battle about culture, a battle between the culture of dependence and the culture of independence.
Last week, U.S. and Brazilian officials signed a defense pact that will significantly enhance bilateral military ties. “This agreement will lead to a deepening of U.S.-Brazil defense cooperation at all levels,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared. While the agreement does not explicitly discuss U.S. access to Brazilian bases, it does mention naval visits. I would not be surprised if it eventually led to some form of U.S. military presence in Brazil.
“Greetings in the name of freedom,” proclaimed the newly minted prime minster, Robert Mugabe, during Zimbabwe’s independence celebration in 1980. His words marked one of the most brilliant transitions of power in recent history, as the last conflict of the post-colonial retreat faded into history. The white rulers of the renegade Rhodesia had ceded power to African nationalists, after assurances by British mediators that free markets and democracy would be preserved.
So now we know why the self-proclaimed “most transparent administration in American history” continues to stonewall rather than reveal the official responsibilities of Justice Department lawyers who volunteered their services to America’s enemies during wartime. Like any good Democrat, Eric Holder says he is doing it for the children.
Normally placid, neutral Switzerland has been going through a rough couple of years. First there was financial scandal, when Swiss banking giant UBS was caught helping U.S. clients evade taxes. Then came intense international pressure to overturn the country’s banking secrecy laws. It didn’t help when Swiss voters last November endorsed a ban on minarets, drawing international criticism, notably from Muslims. Two months ago, none other than Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi joined the notorious Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and fanner of flames during the Danish cartoon controversy, in calling for jihad against Zionism, foreign aggression, and—Switzerland.
Sen. Tom Coburn caused a stir when he recently suggested that Fox News had spread the falsehood that you could go to jail under Obamacare for not buying insurance. Bill O'Reilly said this week when he interviewed Coburn: "We researched to find out if anybody on Fox News had ever said you're going to jail if you don't buy health insurance. Nobody's ever said it."
You may be able to tell more about the tone of yesterday's Tax Day protest by the coverage it's getting at the Huffington Post. These are the Top 20 "most outrageous" signs the site could muster. Incredibly tame stuff, and one of the pictures is of a Tea Party infiltrator, not a Tea Partier. Even the Huffington Post reporter covering the event wrote, "Despite some caustic, angry rhetoric and a reputation for vitriol, Tea Party protesters have been unfailingly polite to this reporter." When the people whose professional mission it is to find hateful Tea Party pictures can't do better than this, it says something about the true nature of the crowd.
Below are my pictures from last night, when thousands gathered on the Washington Monument lawn for a rally. The loopiest thing I saw or heard was Victoria Jackson's "Communist in the White House" song, which is exactly what the title suggests, and was about as odd you'd expect from any Victoria Jackson performance.
Yesterday the Senate voted 85-13 for John McCain's anti-VAT resolution. The lack of any substantial support for a VAT in the Senate would suggest that, even if the president's fiscal commission recommends such a tax when it reports in December, Ross Douthat is right and the chances a VAT will be imposed prior to the fiscal crisis are small. Whew.
Ramesh Ponnuru makes a good point over at the Corner:
Most conservatives are convinced that it's a major problem that 47 percent of Americans pay no income taxes. I'm not. The argument -- which has been steadily picking up adherents on the Right for ten years -- is that people who pay no income taxes are likely to perceive big government as a free good and therefore become more supportive of it than they would be if they paid income taxes. A secondary argument is that it is important, as a matter of both morals and civics, for everyone to pay taxes.
Of course, almost everyone does pay taxes, if you include sales taxes and payroll deductions for Social Security and Medicare. And as Ponnuru points out, "the distinction between income taxes and payroll taxes" probably doesn't strike the people who pay them as deeply meaningful.
If Florida 19 was a referendum on health care, what about HI-1 and PA-12?
1:06 PM, Apr 16, 2010 · BYMatthew Continetti
At a Democratic fundraiser yesterday, President Obama mocked the Tea Party and downplayed opposition to his health care bill. The president said that conservatives and Republicans had called Tuesday's election to replace retiring Representative Robert Wexler, Democrat of Florida, a "referendum" on the health bill. Democrat Ted Deutsch won. "Maybe it was" a referendum, the president said.
More from Obama's speech at the DNC fundraiser last night:
Now, this [health care] reform is not perfect. There are going to be adjustments that we’re going to have to make. This is going to take a few years to fully implement, because we’ve got the responsibility to get it right.
But when you turn on the television, you’ve got pundits saying that the country is still divided on health care; it’s not universally popular yet. Folks, I want to repeat what I said in Maine: It’s only been a couple weeks.
"It's only been a couple weeks" seems like a precursor to Obama's inevitable 2012 slogan: "It's only been a couple years." Not quite as catchy as "Yes, we can," but after will.i.am does the "it's only been a couple of years" remix, I think it will take off.
Could a midterm takeover of Congress be a bad thing for Republicans?
11:50 AM, Apr 16, 2010 · BYVictorino Matus
On the face of it, a Republican takeover of the House (or Senate) would seem a good thing—a clear repudiation by the voters of Obama-Pelosi-Reid and the agenda they've proposed. GOPers can claim victory and hold their heads high. But to quote Senator Bill McKay in The Candidate, "What do we do now?"
The followers of Democratic Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias--let's call him the Ali G of Illinois--are going after Republican candidate Rep. Mark Kirk for ... his support of Israel, saying that the congressman only supports Israel because it is politically prudent of him to do so. (Here's video of Kirk talking about Obama and Israel.) Steven Sheffey, who is co-hosting a little "Meet and Greet" at a law firm in Chicago next week with Ali G, sent out a mass email reeking of mass desperation. Sheffey writes:
Fifty-one percent (51%) of voters in New Jersey, a state Barack Obama carried handily in 2008, now favor repeal of the recently-passed national health care bill. That includes 41% who strongly favor repeal.
The Hill reports on President Obama's remarks at a DNC fundraiser in Miami:
President Barack Obama struck a hyperpartisan note Thursday, telling Democrats that he was "amused" by the Tax Day Tea Party rallies.
Obama, addressing a Democratic National Committee (DNC) fundraiser in Miami, did little to endear himself to the Tea Party groups protesting around the country, saying "they should be saying thank you" because of the tax cuts he has signed into law.
New York Times: "Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, and are no more or less afraid of falling into a lower socioeconomic class."
