Playing Political Chicken - Reid Wilson - NationalJournal.com

You are what you eat, in more ways than one. That is to say, the burger you grab on the run and the beer you pop open while watching your favorite television show gives consumer researchers clues about your political ideology. But some of our consumer choices reflect a deeper connection to the brands we know and love, one that goes beyond mere habit and becomes a part of our self-image.

That deeper connection is one of the reasons that comments by Chick-fil-A's chief executive struck such a chord, both with liberals who took issue with Dan Cathy's opposition to same-sex marriage and with conservatives who lined up for a chicken sandwich on an appreciation day organized by evangelical leaders like former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

Consumer researchers have found a strong correlation between our spending, eating, and drinking habits and our political actions. If you eat at Chick-fil-A restaurants, Cracker Barrel, or Arby's, you're more likely to vote for Republicans, according to consumer data. Democrats are much more likely to get their chicken from Popeyes or Boston Market, shop at Whole Foods, and grab sliders from White Castle.


Playing Political Chicken - Reid Wilson - NationalJournal.com

More Tax Preparers Than Cops!

"Up to 1.2 million tax preparers make a living navigating the labyrinth US tax code for taxpayers. We have more professional tax preparers in the United States than law enforcement officers (765,000) and professional firefighters (310,400) combined."

http://www.facethefactsusa.org/facts/when-tax-complexity-puts-dinner-on-the-table/

Great Ben Quayle ad . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cgg0VcO9vWY

Roberts Switched Views to Uphold Health Care Law

(CBS News) Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court's four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama's health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations.

Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy - believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law - led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.

"He was relentless," one source said of Kennedy's efforts. "He was very engaged in this."

But this time, Roberts held firm. And so the conservatives handed him their own message which, as one justice put it, essentially translated into, "You're on your own."

The conservatives refused to join any aspect of his opinion, including sections with which they agreed, such as his analysis imposing limits on Congress' power under the Commerce Clause, the sources said.

Instead, the four joined forces and crafted a highly unusual, unsigned joint dissent. They deliberately ignored Roberts' decision, the sources said, as if they were no longer even willing to engage with him in debate.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57464549/roberts-switched-views-to-uphold-health-care-law/

America is digging itself into a deep fiscal hole. In 2009, the federal government spent $3.5 trillion, but took in only $2.1 trillion in revenue — thus spending $1.67 for every dollar it collected. The resulting $1.4 trillion deficit was equivalent to 10% of the nation's economic output, the highest percentage since the end of World War II. America's publicly held debt now totals $7.5 trillion, about 53% of gross domestic product — the highest it has been in more than 50 years.

"Pundits are saying that President Obama is starting to lose support among his own party. To give you an idea of how bad it's gotten, today Jimmy Carter compared him to Jimmy Carter." –Jay Leno

Mitt Romney - "how would I turn this country around? First I could start by doing the opposite of everything the President is doing. @ the Faith & Freedom Conference.

Green: Religious diversity a boon | Amarillo Globe-News

Green: Religious diversity a boon | Amarillo Globe-News

Hilary Rosen and the M word

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/04/13/hilary-rosen-and-the-m-word/

I have a different take on this whole business. When Hilary Rosen made her now-famous comment that Ann Romney had never worked a day in her life, I think Rosen was trying to use code words to refer to… the M word.

Mormon, that is.

Here’s what I think Rosen wanted people to think about: Ann Romney is one of those Mormon women, who have been brainwashed since childhood by their extreme cult into thinking that they have to grow up to be baby factories. And she is, too; lookie all them kids she had. Man, she’s a one-woman population bomb. Sixteen grandchildren!!! Little better than a slave, really, to her husband.

So when (let us continue in her voice) Mitt asks her what she thinks women around the country think, she can’t possibly know. She’s in a religous fog, you see, one which normal women, real women, would never tolerate.

Don’t you folks realize that the Republicans are going to run a Mormon for president? And if he wins, then what? He’s gonna try to do that to all the other women in the country donchaknow. And turn the country into a Mormon theocracy!

At which point I drop back out of her voice to my own. And I want to assure you that I don’t believe any of the above.

The M word will be a peculiar thing in this campaign. The Democrats don’t want to come outright and start using it, because it goes against their purported dedication to tolerance and diversity. It’s also problematic because Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, is Mormon. Plus, it’s a bit reminiscent of JFK’s Catholicism and the way his opponents tried to claim that electing him was the same as putting the Pope into the White House.

So the Democrats don’t really want to come out and accuse Mitt Romney of the crime of being, you know, a Mormon. But they sure want us to think about it, and to fear it — especially women. Man, look at his wife! right out of the 1950′s, isn’t she? Ozzie’s Harriet, she is.

It’s nice that it backfired so badly. Perhaps it will make them gunshy about bringing it up again. But they’ll find other ways of obliquely referring to the M word, you can be sure about that.

And if they become shrill and desperate, they may start using it directly. If that happens, it’ll be a sure sign that they think they’re losing.

Santorum not so strong with Pennsylvania folks - Washington Times

Santorum not so strong with Pennsylvania folks - Washington Times

Santorum not so strong with Pennsylvania folks


Spending raises conservative doubts

By Ralph Z. Hallow

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The Washington Times

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Former Sen. Rick Santorum won union support after helping push through federal funding for new sports stadiums in Pittsburgh and a tunnel leading to them. (Associated Press)Story TopicsBusiness_Finance

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More Sharing ServicesShareHOUSTON — After a big win in Saturday’s Kansas caucuses, Rick Santorum is riding high almost everywhere but in his native Pennsylvania.



While Christian-right leaders such as James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Tom LeFever, Rebecca Hagelin and Richard Viguerie were holding a fundraiser in Texas for the former senator Friday, some in his hometown of Pittsburgh were expressing doubts about the candidate’s reliability as an advocate of small government and fiscal integrity.



“I guess you could say there’s a disconnect between Rick Santorum’s claim to be a small-government fiscal conservative and the Pittsburgh tunnel project he pushed for as a U.S. senator,” said Jack Brooks, a former top official in a powerful Pennsylvania trade union that backed Mr. Santorum’s failed Senate re-election bid in 2006.



Mr. Santorum, running a shoestring campaign to wrest the Republican nomination from front-runner Mitt Romney, has claimed to be “the true conservative” in the GOP race. Not surprisingly, his rivals on the national scene say he is anything but. A campaign ad by his rival, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, tags Mr. Santorum as a “fake fiscal conservative.”



Newt Gingrich, appearing on Fox News on Sunday, again questioned Mr. Santorum’s conservative bona fides.



Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rick Santorum listens to his wife, Karen, as he is introduced during the Cape County Republican Women’s Lincoln Day Dinner on Saturday in Cape Giradeau, Mo. He won the Kansas caucuses Saturday. (Associated Press)What’s gone largely unnoticed, though, is the deep skepticism about Mr. Santorum’s fiscal and social credentials on the right among those who know him well from his hometown of Pittsburgh.



A staunchly pro-life Catholic with backing from Protestant evangelical leaders, he represented Pennsylvania, first in the U.S. House and then in the Senate, before losing to Democrat Robert P. Casey Jr. in 2006.



Mr. Santorum’s emergence as the main challenger to Mr. Romney is based in large part on his appearance as one of the Republican Party’s most successful amalgamators of social and fiscal conservatism.



Yet from Gov. Tom Corbett to U.S. Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, state GOP Chairman Rob Gleason and on down the political food chain, no major GOP politician in the state has endorsed Mr. Santorum.



One complaint is that Mr. Santorum’s claim of being the only truly small-government conservative among the three top GOP nomination contenders is undermined by his support of big-government spending while in the Senate — especially when it comes to the mile-long Pittsburgh tunnel project that was part of a deal with Mr. Brooks and his union.



In exchange for helping push through federal support for the project, Mr. Santorum won the endorsement of the state’s building and construction trade unions — including Mr. Brooks‘ 14,000-member carpenters union.



Even Sen. Arlen Specter, then a Republican from Pennsylvania, turned against the project when its overruns climbed to $450 million and then hit $528 million.



“We had a deal with Santorum,” said Mr. Brooks, whose Greater Pennsylvania Regional Council of Carpenters, along with other major building and construction trade unions, endorsed Mr. Santorum after the senator went to bat in Washington for construction of the tunnel under the Allegheny River. The tunnel’s only stop is at the two taxpayer-funded sports stadiums built with Mr. Santorum’s support.



“Very seldom are you going to have a union endorse a Republican,” said Mr. Brooks. “But the project created 4,000 jobs” — even if they were temporary — for workers in the construction and building trades.



Critics, including Mr. Specter, say the tunnel’s gargantuan costs far exceed its projected benefits to western Pennsylvania.

Americans Still View China as World's Leading Economic Power

Americans Still View China as World's Leading Economic Power


February 10, 2012
Americans Still View China as World's Leading Economic Power
Expect China to be leading power in the future
by Jeffrey M. Jones
PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans believe China is the leading economic power in the world today, by a significant margin over the United States. This is the second consecutive year the majority of Americans have viewed China as economically dominant; previously, China held a smaller lead. By contrast, in 2000, Americans overwhelmingly believed the U.S. was the leading economic power.

The U.S. economic downturn and the continued expansion of the Chinese economy are the likely factors behind Americans' belief that China is the world's top economic power.
Still, the vast majority of Americans name either the U.S. or China as the world's leading economic power. Relatively few Americans regard Japan (7%), the European Union (3%), India (2%), or Russia (less than 1%) in those terms. Japan has ranked third in recent years, but finished ahead of China in 2000.

China Also Viewed as Likely Power in the Future

Looking ahead, Americans still expect China to be the leading economic power in 20 years, but by a slightly smaller margin over the United States, 46% to 38%. These opinions, though similar to last year's, have shifted in the past. In 2000, when the U.S. economy was strong, and in 2009, shortly after Barack Obama took office, more Americans believed the U.S. rather than China would be the top economic power in the future. In 2008, just as the recession was beginning, and in the last two years as the economy has continued to stagnate, a plurality of Americans have thought China would be the top power in the future.

Seniors View U.S. as Leading Economic Power

At least a plurality of Americans in all key subgroups believe China is the leading economic power today, with one notable exception -- senior citizens. Among Americans aged 65 and older, 50% say the United States is the leading economic power and 41% say China. Americans under 50 are particularly likely to believe China is the leading economic power.
Seniors, as well as those aged 50 and older, are also less inclined than younger Americans to believe China will be the leading economic power in the future.

Democrats, independents, and Republicans hold similar views as to which country is the leading economic power today. However, they differ with respect to the future -- independents believe China will be the leading power, while Democrats and Republicans are divided as to whether China or the United States will be.
Implications

Officially, the United States still has a larger economy, based on gross domestic product, than China. However, if China sustains its current economic growth rate, it will surpass the United States' economy as the largest in the coming decades.

Americans clearly acknowledge the growing influence China has on the world economy, and believe it is already the leading economic power in the world. That view likely has been affected by the economic downturn in the United States in recent years, which means opinions could change if the U.S. economy starts to recover.
Survey Methods

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Feb. 2-5, 2012, with a random sample of 1,029 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample includes a minimum quota of 400 cell phone respondents and 600 landline respondents per 1,000 national adults, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents by region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cell phone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.
Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and phone status (cell phone only/landline only/both, cell phone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2011 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
View methodology, full question results, and trend data.

Sherman Frederick Obama's plan: Eat the rich, chain the poor Posted: Jan. 29, 2012 | 2:05 a.m. President Obama is right about one thing: Because we live in a marvelous country with unmatched opportunities, all citizens must to do their "fair share" to support her. There are only two hitches: The president doesn't really mean it, and there's no consensus on what is "fair." When the president rails about tax equality and fairness, he does it not in the context of a serious debate on tax reform, but as a 2012 re-election tactic. You know this because the president has plenty to say about the unfairness of billionaires paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries, but he goes mute on the unfairness of letting half of American citizens escape without paying a dime in federal income tax. In that regard, Obama policies have become the democratic threat Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville observed in the 1830s: "A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it." And therein lies the great divide for the 2012 presidential election. We all want equality, but those who lean toward free enterprise want equality foremost in liberty, and those who lean toward socialism want equality foremost in servitude to the entitlement state. So when President Obama says he wants everyone to pay his or her "fair share," listen up. What usually comes next is a profoundly unfair plan that gives large numbers of citizens a free ride at the expense of the so-called "rich." In 2011, the income tax broke down like this: The rate for the poor was 10 percent, the rate for the middle class was 25 percent and the rate for the rich was 35 percent. But after tax credits were applied, that translated into the top half of Americans paying 97.3 percent of the federal income tax burden and the bottom half paying 2.7 percent. There's no fairness in that. Of course, the income tax is just one tax. The bottom 50 percenters certainly paid into the system via other taxes, primarily the payroll tax. But so did the upper 50 percenters through capital gains, among others. And that's the underbelly of Obama's rhetoric: He advocates an acceleration of this imbalance. This is not to say that the U.S. tax code isn't a complicated mess. It is. We desperately need a good, sane discussion on tax reform. (A little discussion on spending wouldn't hurt, either.) But sanity and fairness are not what Obama is angling for. He's looking to grow a constituency who look to him and his party for a free lunch, just as de Tocqueville warned. Reform means that we look at the whole system, loopholes and all, and try to come to a national consensus on what "fair share" really means. It certainly cannot mean that 50 percent of Americans get to pay virtually nothing in income tax for the privilege of living in this country. The starting point for an honest conversation would be the principle that everyone should pay something in federal income tax. And yes, that means "the poor." When President Obama stands before the American people, like he did last week in the State of the Union address, and invokes that supercilious tone to preach to us about hard work, success and the American dream, his policies of class warfare expose him as a politician of style, not substance. If we're going to create an "economy built to last" everyone should pay a "fair share"? Zero, Mr. President, is not fair. Sherman Frederick, former publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, writes a column for Stephens Media. Read his blog at www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm.

Gingrich's Damn the Torpedoes Morning in America - 2012 Decoded

Gingrich's Damn the Torpedoes Morning in America - 2012 Decoded

Gingrich's Damn the Torpedoes Morning in America

By Jill Lawrence

January 29, 2012 | 7:28 PM | 0 Comments

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Whatever happened to the old politician's trick of answering the question you wanted to be asked, instead of the one that you actually were asked?

If you assume Newt Gingrich wants to talk about his plans for America, he managed to do that maybe twice, and briefly, in a 17-minute appearance Sunday on ABC's This Week. For the most part he aired his grievances against Mitt Romney and Romney's establishment buddies in the kind of subtle language for which he's famous. It was no Reaganesque Sunday Morning in America. It was more like damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

To summarize: Gingrich said the articles and attacks against him have been "breathlessly dishonest." Romney has run "a campaign of vilification." He has been "relentlessly negative," not to mention "blatantly dishonest" by giving "just plain false" debate answers. Which were also "just plain not true" and "just plain actually false." And made it impossible for Gingrich to give a good debate performance Thursday night.

As for Romney's supposed managerial talents, "every time it's bad, he didn't know about it or he wasn't aware about it." The 23 foreign bank accounts that weren't reported. The abortion services covered under the Massachusetts health law. His board membership with a company that got "the largest Medicare fine in history for fraud."

"I want to talk about big issues," Gingrich suddenly interjected at one point. He mentioned housing, jobs and entitlement reform in passing, and offered a one-sentence explanation of his Social Security proposal to let young Americans choose a personal Social Security account (in the stock market) instead of an account handled by the government.

Big issues were then officially over and Gingrich was back to the difficulties of being assaulted by Romney's "carpet-bombs with Wall Street money"; asserting that Romney will "hang out with his establishment friends, managing the decay" of a declining America; and bemoaning that his record of tax-cutting and balanced budgets as House speaker "is wiped away by Romney's totally phony history, which he maniacally continues to repeat." Also, Romney is "fundamentally dishonest" and trying to hide "his liberal record in Massachusetts.

The ratio of complaints and attacks, as opposed to what exactly he'd like to do as president, aside from being visionary, was quite remarkable. It may be that this was what Gingrich wanted to be talking about -- that it was his deliberate strategy, perhaps his only option, given that polls suggest Romney is well ahead of him in Florida.

Romney accused Gingrich of making excuses, just like President Obama. On the other hand, the Romney campaign also unfurled a series of character affidavits from big guns -- two governors (Chris Christie of New Jersey and Bob McDonnell of Virginia); two House members (Jason Chaffetz of Utah and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida), and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Chaffetz said Gingrich's "desperate" campaign had devolved into "character assassination." Pawlenty said Gingrich had gone "over the line" and "way out of bounds."

The avalanche of praise -- the Romney campaign seems to have gone to the thesaurus to find synonyms for "impeccable" -- suggested a certain degree of anxiety, a campaign that simply counters every attack, or both.

First the Republicans skirmished over capitalism. Now it's character. Remember when snarking that someone was "likeable enough" or too green to be trusted with a 3 a.m. crisis call was considered a low blow? Clearly we're not in 2008 anymore.

Greed Isn't Bad—It's What Drives Producers To Make The Things That People Desire - Investors.com

Greed Isn't Bad—It's What Drives Producers To Make The Things That People Desire - Investors.com