Political Digest for April 25, 2012

Off to DC to see the Congress Critters. Limited posts. ~Bob

Mitt Romney is projected to wrap up five-state sweep with win in New York's GOP primary, AP reportshttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/24/romney-sweeps-five-primaries/
Haters supporting other candidates will continue to help Obama by attacking Romney. ~Bob.

Surveys: Republicans more open-minded, better informed than Democrats
http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/22/science-say-gop-voters-better-informed-open-minded/#ixzz1stzk1ZVV
Excerpt: On eight of 13 questions about politics, Republicans outscored Democrats by an average of 18 percentage points, according to a new Pew survey titled “Partisan Differences in Knowledge.” The Pew survey adds to a wave of surveys and studies showing that GOP-sympathizers are better informed, more intellectually consistent, more open-minded, more empathetic and more receptive to criticism than their fellow Americans who support the Democratic Party.

Frequently Asked Questions about the Expiring Bush Tax Cuts
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=21848&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD
Excerpt: Who benefited most from the Bush Tax Cuts? Liberals emphasize the fact that the rich received the greatest tax cut, but this is measured in absolute dollars. However, tax benefit is best measured as a percentage of income that payers were allowed to keep. When assessed this way, the cuts helped the poor most because, after all rate cuts and credit expansions are included, they were allowed to keep the greatest percentage of their income.

5.4 Million Join Disability Rolls Under Obama
http://news.investors.com/article/608418/201204200802/ssdi-disability-rolls-skyrocket-under-obama.htm
Excerpt: A record 5.4 million workers and their dependents have signed up to collect federal disability checks since President Obama took office, according to the latest official government data, as discouraged workers increasingly give up looking for jobs and take advantage of the federal program. (Obama, making everyone crippled in some way. With pulmonary fibrosis, I auto qualify for disability, but have chosen to go on working as long as I can. ~Bob.)

Obama Admin: The War On Terror Is 'Over'
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/04/23/Obama-war-on-terror?utm_source=e_breitbart_com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Breitbart+News+Round+Up%2C+April+24%2C+2012&utm_campaign=Breitbart+News+Round+Up%2C+April+24%2C+2012&utm_term=More
Excerpt: “Now that we have killed most of al Qaida,” the source said, “now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.” (Legitimate Islamism? Meaning we think we can use other means to destroy freedom, subjugate the infidels and keep women from having any rights. This is hubris and will be punished. ~Bob.)

Cocaine Literally Rots Your Brain
http://gizmodo.com/5904581/cocaine-literally-rots-your-brain
Guess I won’t try it. Makes you liberal. ~Bob. Excerpt: Cocaine turns anybody that takes it into a bit of a douche—we all know what. But while there's plenty of evidence that the drug affects heart function and screws up the brain's natural reward system, here's another reason to avoid it: scientists have found that it, quite literally, rots your brain.

For first time since Depression, more Mexicans leave U.S. than enter
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/for-first-time-since-depression-more-mexicans-leave-us-than-enter/2012/04/23/gIQApyiDdT_story.htmlExcerpt: A four-decade tidal wave of Mexican immigration to the United States has receded, causing a historic shift in migration patterns as more Mexicans appear to be leaving the United States for Mexico than the other way around, according to a report from the Pew Hispanic Center.

Why the rent is too damn high by Stephen B. Meister
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/why_the_rent_is_too_damn_high_PlagdLk7wdK8wlkuyNGEjP#ixzz1sxdkfdCA
Excerpt: Fans of rent control cheered yesterday when the Supreme Court declined to take up a case challenging New York’s rent-stabilization laws. Yet killing the rent laws would be the best way to get us back to broadly affordable housing. In March, Manhattan rents blew past their 2007 high: The average rent (excluding rent-stabilized apartments) is now $3,418.

Who Is 'Racist'? by Thomas Sowell
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/04/24/who_is_racist/page/full/
Excerpt: Whatever the ultimate outcome of the case against George Zimmerman for his shooting of Trayvon Martin, what has happened already is enough to turn the stomach of anyone who believes in either truth or justice. An amazing proportion of the media has given us a painful demonstration of the thinking -- and lack of thinking -- that prevailed back in the days of the old Jim Crow South, where complexion counted more than facts in determining how people were treated.

Pentagon establishes Defense Clandestine Service, new espionage unit
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-creates-new-espionage-unit/2012/04/23/gIQA9R7DcT_story.html
Excerpt: The Pentagon is planning to ramp up its spying operations against high-priority targets such as Iran under an intelligence reorganization aimed at expanding on the military’s espionage efforts beyond war zones, a senior defense official said Monday. The newly created Defense Clandestine Service would work closely with the CIA — pairing two organizations that have often seen each other as rivals — in an effort to bolster espionage operations overseas at a time when the missions of the agency and the military increasingly converge. (...) The new service will seek to “make sure officers are in the right locations to pursue those requirements,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the “realignment” of the military’s classified human espionage efforts. (Gee, we have a new secret! Let’s reveal it as soon as possible! Obviously, this “revelation” was sanctioned by someone even more “senior,” and if it involves “hundreds” it wasn’t all that secure to begin with. So why was it revealed at all? And, why does it have to be treated as a “leak” when it obviously isn’t? Other than to cheapen the designation “secret,” and still further undermine all respect for confidentiality, this has accomplished nothing useful. It borders on hypocritical to prosecute a Bradley Manning—who badly needs prosecution—while allowing this sort of “leaking” to occur. Either our secrets are important enough to be kept secret, or they shouldn’t be secret to begin with; it can’t be both ways at the same time. Ron P.)

Five Devastating Numbers That Show Obama's Incompetence
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2012/04/24/five_devastating_numbers_that_show_obamas_incompetence/page/full/
Excerpt: Whether you've had some form of head trauma that has caused you to like Barack Obama or like all good hearted people, you can't stand him, his performance has objectively been terrible. Of course, we can debate WHY his performance has been so bad. His supporters would probably blame Bush, Republicans in Congress, ATM machines, fairy dust shortages and people forgetting to click their heels together three times before saying, "There's no place like home."

A Tight Race
http://www.nationaljournal.com//columns/off-to-the-races/a-tight-race-20120423
Excerpt: Although it is always better for a candidate to be liked than disliked, for an incumbent the perception of performance and effectiveness matters far more than likability. Voters didn’t turn sour on President Ford in 1976; they just voted for change. Independent voters like President Obama, but the question is whether they think he has done a good job.

The Left’s ‘Colonel Kurtz’ Summer
http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-lefts-colonel-kurtz-summer/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: Again: you cannot invent a right. The government attempted to do this, and found they could not do so without also violating a right. Why? Because a “right” to a good or service necessitates a violation of the rights of the provider of that good or service or of whomever is chosen to be stuck with the bill, and further, as the citizen receiving the proposed new “right” is also subject to the violation in different time and circumstance, any new “right” is by definition a decrease in liberty for everyone, and might I add “duh.” Reply Forward. (In science and rational philosophy, the author is exactly correct; I agree with him 100%. The problem is that Leftists are not rational thinkers but magical thinkers. They wish it, therefore, it is so. Like Pharaoh’s “So let it be written, so let it be done,” they fully expect to command the rest of us mere mortals as they please, natural laws be damned. I’m not even sure we live in the same world; I KNOW there are no unicorns or vampires in mine. As long as they are certain they can’t win, leftists can get along with others, but whenever they feel strong enough, they’ll do their best to impose their will on the rest of us. After all, it’s for our own good. There is also the small matter of the Supreme Court not having issued its ruling yet. Not only can they decide to delay the decision, they can decide the law is perfectly acceptable just as it is. I found out today my family doctor, an exceptionally nice lady we’ve been seeing for more than a decade, is “going Galt.” She’s calling it something else, of course, and will still practice medicine, but not in the same way or location. I wish her well and will miss her. But, when a society tries to enslave its medical practitioners, it shouldn’t be any surprise the smarter ones refuse to be enslaved. And, of course, that leaves us with…. Ron P)

Corzine, Amid Scandal, Is Among Obama’s Top Bundlers
http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=33436
Excerpt: Jon Corzine — under federal and congressional investigation following accusations that the securities firm he headed illegally took clients’ funds before collapsing — is among President Obama’s top re-election campaign bundlers, raising at least $500,000, according to the campaign’s filing Friday with the Federal Election Commission. Corzine, the former New Jersey senator and governor, and former head of Goldman Sachs, is among 127 individuals (dubbed “volunteer fundraisers” in the parlance used by Obama’s Chicago campaign) credited with raising more than $500,000 through the first quarter of 2012.

Feel-good story: Islamist militants killed by own bombs: Nigerian army
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/International/2012/Apr-23/171105-islamist-militants-killed-by-own-bombs-nigerian-army.ashx#axzz1srE43NSm
Excerpt: Five suspected Islamist militants were killed when bombs they were assembling exploded during a shootout with government troops in northern Nigeria, a military commander said Monday.

Obama Faces Defeat on Pipeline As Democrats Defect
http://townhall.com/columnists/byronyork/2012/04/24/obama_faces_defeat_on_pipeline_as_democrats_defect/page/full/
Excerpt: The president has put his feet in cement in opposing the proposed Keystone pipeline, which would bring newly discovered oil from Canada to refineries in Texas. In a contentious debate, Obama has sided with environmentalists, who fear an accident along a line carrying 700,000 barrels of oil into the U.S. might threaten water supplies. But on Capitol Hill, more and more Democrats are joining Republicans to force approval of the pipeline, whether or not Obama wants it. (We need to punch this issue hard, and right now. If approved and vetoed, and the veto is upheld by the Senate—as it would surely be—the entire blame for the rising cost of gasoline will hang on the Dems’ necks like the Ancient Mariner’s albatross going into the election. Ron P.)

THAILAND: Muslims behead a 9-year-old boy (WARNING: Graphic Images)
http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/thailand-muslims-behead-a-9-year-old-boy-warning-graphic-images/
I chose not to watch the video - reading story was horrific enough. Please remember this is a "religion of peace and love". Posy Didn’t get the memo. ~Bob.

Obama’s Undiplomacy: Community-organizing skills don’t cut it on the world stage. By Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/296826/obama-s-undiplomacy-victor-davis-hanson
Excerpt: Most of the criticism of the Obama administration’s foreign policy concerns the failure of “reset diplomacy,” the inability to deal with Iran or North Korea, or the sense that we are ignoring allies and appeasing enemies. All true. But under the radar, there are several developments that are far more disturbing than we seem to realize.

Devious Taxation by Walter Williams
http://cnsnews.com/blog/walter-e-williams/devious-taxation
Excerpt: The Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation does a yeoman's job of keeping track of how much we're paying in taxes and who's paying what. It turns out that American taxpayers worked this year from Jan. 1 to April 17, 107 days, to earn enough money to pay their federal, state and local tax bills. That statistic requires some clarification, and I ask my readers to help me examine it. (William’s may be under-valuing the cost of inflating our currency. When I was a lad—lo, those many years ago—one dollar, backed by silver, would pay for between 4 and 6 gallons of gasoline, depending on what state you made the purchase in. At around $25 to $30 today, that same silver dollar still has enough purchasing power to do that, and perhaps a bit more. The paper dollar won’t even buy one gallon, or in some places, even a quart. The gallon and the amount of silver didn’t change, so the paper dollar must have. A top-end used car costs more today than the first house I bought (for about $18,000) in 1973; a mid-priced new car costs more today than the house I bought (for $33,000) in 1980. Don’t think of them as “dollars;” just think of them as “score-keeping units.” I remember dollars, they were noble things. Ron P.)

Marion Barry criticizes hospitals for hiring Filipina nurses
http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/education/2012/04/marion-barry-criticizes-hospitals-hiring-filipina-nurses/527206
Excerpt: "In fact, it's so bad, that if you go to the hospital now, you find a number of immigrants who are nurses, particularly from the Philippines," Barry said. "And no offense, but let's grow our own teachers, let's grow our own nurses -- and so that we don't have to be scrounging around in our community clinics and other kinds of places -- having to hire people from somewhere else."

Portugal’s Finance Minister: We Tried Stimulus and It Didn’t Work
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/portugals-finance-minister-we-tried-stimulus-and-it-didnt-work/
Excerpt: Defending austerity is not getting any easier for Europe’s politicians. And Vitor Gaspar, Portugal’s finance minister, has it harder than others. The country’s unemployment rate is 14 percent, and its economy, which has been stagnant for years, is expected to shrink another 3.3 percent in 2012.

Svensmark’s Cosmic Jackpot: “Evidence of nearby supernovae affecting life on Earth”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/24/svensmarks-cosmic-jackpot-evidence-of-nearby-supernovae-affecting-life-on-earth/#more-61941
Excerpt: An amusing point is that Svensmark stands the currently popular carbon dioxide story on its head. Some geoscientists want to blame the drastic alternations of hot and icy conditions during the past 500 million years on increases and decreases in carbon dioxide, which they explain in intricate ways. For Svensmark, the changes driven by the stars govern the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. (When an idea or a theory accounts for ALL the known data points, it is called “elegant.” This could be an elegant solution. Although technical—I didn’t understand most of the detail—and offering links to the even more technical original paper, the implications of this are enormous: among other things, it would mean we are exactly backward on the relationship of carbon dioxide and climate. As I am seeing this very soon after WUWT put it up, there are only two comments by readers. Often, when a new idea fails to hit the mark, the comments are quick and brutal as the comment posters are from all sorts of different disciplines, so this will be checked many different ways. That’s why the comments are important and useful. Ron P.)

Thanks, teach: Kids think we're better off dead: Schools brainwash kids into preferring non-existence
http://www.wnd.com/2012/04/2012-school-kids-think-were-better-off-dead/
Excerpt: A 12-year-old girl has responded with the stunning “I wish we didn’t exist” to questions about how she feels about pollution and humanity’s impact on the earth, according to a new video released by Brian Sussman, author of “Eco-Tyranny: How the Left’s Green Agenda will Dismantle America.” The response came from a 6th-grade girl identified only as Kalie, from Gault Elementary. Sussman met her during Earth Day events in Santa Cruz, Calif., recently, where he traveled to ask “What is the most serious threat facing mankind?”