Last Call For A Possible Tea Kay Oh

In just a month, PPP has found that NC Dem Sen. Kay Hagan has gone from a healthy lead over her possible GOP challengers in 2014 to tied or behind them.

The North Carolina Senate race has tightened up quite a bit in the last couple months, with early attacks ads on Kay Hagan and the unpopular rollout of Obamacare taking a toll on her poll numbers. Hagan is now basically tied with her Republican challengers, leading Heather Grant 43/40, Thom Tillis 44/42, and Mark Harris 43/41 while trailing Greg Brannon 44/43.

Over the last two months Hagan's approval rating is pretty consistent. It was 43% in September and it's at 44% now. But her disapproval has spiked from 39% all the way up t0 49% over that period of time. It's no coincidence that the decline in Hagan's approval numbers tracks pretty closely with a big decline in President Obama's popularity over that same period of time. He's gone from having voters in the state pretty evenly divided about him in September at 48/49 to disapproving pretty strongly at 43/53.

It seems likely that the difficulties with the rollout of Obamacare are helping to make life more difficult for Hagan. It's always been unpopular in North Carolina and currently 38% of voters say they approve of it to 48% who disapprove, numbers pretty consistent with what we've found over the years. But what's really hurting Democrats is its being back in the news- 69% of voters say its rollout has been unsuccessful so far to only 25% who deem it a success. 49% say the rollout has been 'very unsuccessful.' Republicans (87%) and independents (75%) are pretty unanimous in their sentiment that the Obamacare launch hasn't gone well but even among Democrats only 41% give it positive ratings to 52% who think it's been problematic. 

It's hard not to say at this point that the Obamacare rollout hasn't hurt Democrats.  It has, and Hagan's numbers are pretty indicative that  the constant "both sides do it" Village message, that Obamacare is just as bad the GOP government shutdown, has taken hold.

Luckily, you can always count on the GOP to overplay their hand.  I expect another government shutdown this winter, and when it does, people are going to be reminded that the real problem in Washington isn't the guys trying to get health care to millions, but the guys trying to take that away.

Having said that, there's zero point in Hagan trying to run away from Obamacare now, and it's a message Alison Lundergan Grimes should keep in mind too.

It's Not Over Until It's Over, Cranley

Cincinnat Mayor-elect John Cranley to streetcar supporters:  "The conversation about the streetcar is over."

Over the last two days, Enquirer readers have sent more than 500 emails to Mayor-elect John Cranley using the Enquirer’s ‘talk to your government’ tool.  The vast majority contained the same plea: Save the streetcar.

Cranley’s reaction to those emails: “The conversation about the streetcar is over.”

Cranley said he welcomes any advice or input on how to make Cincinnati a bike-friendly city with better mass transit.

“I think, big picture, this was not and never was a question about whether diverse mass transit options, walkable neighborhoods, and non-car commuting options are are critical to our future. They are,” Cranley told the Enquirer.

“The conversation about the streetcar is over.  What I would like to do is ask that these folks talk about what we can do that will move us towards the goals I share with them.”

And the city’s continued work on the streetcar? Cranley declared it “very offensive.”

Cranley's going to find out damn quickly that even compared to other mid-sized cities, Mayor doesn't make you king.  Going out of his way to antagonize and dismiss the people who don't agree with him is going to make his job that much harder.

And let's remember, the Cincinnati Enquirer endorsed Cranley three weeks ago because of his ability to cut deals and reach across party lines: 

The city needs his political agility. Surround Cranley with opposing points of view, and he’ll wheel and deal until he builds a coalition.

During his nine years on council, he not only reached across party lines, he drove to fellow council members’ homes and sat in their kitchens courting their votes. The next day, on a different issue, he’d find new allies and build an entirely different coalition.

He doesn't look like a dealmaker to me, he does however look like an arrogant douchebag.

Low Tide With The Fish

While everyone's suddenly so very worried about President Obama's approval rating, congressional Republicans might want to pay attention to the fact they have an approval rating somewhere around that of genital fungus.  Gallup's latest numbers:

Americans' approval of the way Congress is handling its job has dropped to 9%, the lowest in Gallup's 39-year history of asking the question. The previous low point was 10%, registered twice in 2012.

These results are from a Gallup poll conducted Nov. 7-10.

Congress approval fell to 11% in October, during the U.S. government shutdown. Although the shutdown is now history, Americans' views of Congress have not recovered, but instead have edged lower. By contrast, Americans' confidence in the economy has begun to improve in the last several weeks. The continuing depression in Americans' views of Congress has occurred even though the troubles with the rollout of President Barack Obama's signature Affordable Care Act are now dominating U.S. political news.

It's like people outside the Beltway aren't completely obsessed with the "problems plaguing the Obamacare website" and instead have bigger issues on their mind...and see those issues improving thanks to the President.

Meanwhile, America has given up on Congress, and anti-incumbent fervor is at an all time high.  You'd think Republicans would realize that the entire House (which they control) and only one-third of the Senate is up for re-election next November.  If "throw the bums out" is the message voters want to send, the bums getting tossed would be the GOP.

No wonder they're too busy concern trolling the President.

StupidiNews!

• Testimony on the Healthcare.gov website turns towards the GOP-led House as both parties are demanding answers from White House tech chief Todd Park.
• Hawaii's state Senate has approved a same-sex marriage bill, and Democratic Gov. Bill Neil Abercrombie says he will sign the bill making the state the 15th to legalize it.
• Fracking will put the US back on top of world oil production by 2015, according to the International Energy Agency, but the Middle East will catch up within 10 years.
• President Obama has named Treasury's Timothy Massad to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulating derivatives, but Senate confirmation will be needed.
• With Blackberry on the financial ropes, the Pentagon is looking into alternatives for secure communications.

Last Call For The Cooch

Stuart Rothenberg makes the argument that it wasn't women or black voters that won Virginia for Terry McAulliffe, but Romney voters who lost Virginia for Ken Cuccinelli, and that Virginia isn't blue or even purple, but still red and the GOP's to lose (and apparently they did).

The survey data are pretty clear on why Cuccinelli lost. He lost because he was unable to match Romney’s percentages with key demographic groups that almost always vote Republican. Those voters showed up at the polls, but too many Romney voters crossed over to cast ballots for McAuliffe or Libertarian Robert Sarvis. 

The Republican nominee for governor won a plurality of male voters (48 percent), but well below the 51 percent that Romney won in the state last year. Cuccinelli would have gained an additional 48,000 votes if he had matched Romney’s percentage, much of which would have come from McAuliffe, thereby completely erasing the Democrat’s 55,100 victory margin. (See Virginia’s total vote here.) 

Add in white women (Romney won 59 percent of them in the state in 2012, while Cuccinelli won only 54 percent this year) or wealthy voters (Romney won 51 percent of voters earning at least $100,000 a year in Virginia in 2012, while Cuccinelli drew just 43 percent of them and lost the category to McAuliffe) and the Republican would have had a comfortable victory last week. 

And if you don’t want to focus on gender, the marital status numbers tell the same story. Romney won 55 percent of married voters in Virginia last year, while Cuccinelli won only 50 percent of them this year. That’s about 75,400 fewer married voters than a Romney-like Republican gubernatorial nominee should have drawn. 

Though you hear a lot about the changing face of the electorate, both nationally and in Virginia, that’s not why Cuccinelli lost last week. 

The Virginia election in 2013 was one where the Republican nominee would have won merely by attracting the votes of the same people who voted for Mitt Romney. The party’s candidate for governor did not need to improve his showing among young voters, African-Americans, Hispanics or unmarried women. He just needed to get white guys and their wives. 

That conclusion, which is based on an evaluation of all of the data, not on merely cherry-picking one or two variables, ought to be little comfort for Democratic strategists worrying about the makeup of the midterm electorate.

The real lesson is Cuccinelli was so awful a candidate, he lost Romney voters to Terry McAullffe.  Also, Rothenberg is trying to draw 2014 turnout from 2013 numbers?  Seems bizarre to me.

Personally, drawing too many lessons other than the one major one is pointless: when Dems show up and vote, they win.  When they don't, the GOP does.

Big Dog Tears Up The Furniture Again

The closer we get to a 2016 Hillary Clinton run, the more likely Big Dog Bill seems to take pot shots at President Obama.  This time around it's Obamacare, and of course the former president just has to take a swing at this pinata.

Former President Bill Clinton said in an interview published Tuesday that President Barack Obama should make sure Americans can keep their existing health plans, even if that means tweaking the Affordable Care Act.

"I personally believe, even if it takes a change to the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got," Clinton told the site OZY in a recent interview. 

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) has introduced a bill that the House will vote on later this week. It would "grandfather" in all health insurance plans that existed as of Jan. 1, 2013, not March 23, 2010, meaning that insurers could continue to offer a number of plans that they have been forced to cancel under the Affordable Care Act. 

Clinton preceded his comments by telling the story of a man he met last week, who he said doesn't qualify for subsidies because he makes more than 400% above the federal poverty level. He has a wife and two children, and Clinton said his policy was canceled and replaced by one that doubled his premium.

"They are the ones who heard the promise, 'If you like what you've got, you can keep it,'" Clinton said.

Yanno Billy Boy, I distinctly recall you trying to fix the health care system about 20 years back when I was in college, and it blowing up in your face.  Glass presidencies, stones, man.

And people wonder why DEMOCRATS IN DISARRAY is a permanent fixture of our pundit class. Clinton is far from the only Democrat taking pot shots at Obamacare, too, but he's the one who should definitely know better.

Bad Stuff On The Internet Is Obama's Fault Too

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board does its part for fair, levelheaded assessment of the Most Hated Man In The History Of Everything, blaming Obamacare web site phishing scams on the President.

The tech squeeze is apparently so bad that chief U.S. technology officer Todd Park is too busy to testify before Congress. The House Oversight Committee is probing what went wrong in the development process, but Mr. Park can't attend the Wednesday hearing because he's "occupied full time on the critically important work of improving the website," according to a White House letter rebuffing the invitation.

Is Mr. Park personally rewriting code? Chairman Darrell Issa issued a subpoena compelling him to appear, and maybe he can also address the emerging problem of ObamaCare fraud. That includes the way the law was sold and rolled out, but especially the profusion of identity thieves and scam-artist pages that are now pretending to be Healthcare.gov and are tricking people into divulging sensitive information or buying fake products. Important consumer warning: If an insurance shopping website is usable, it's not the federal government's.

Durr hurr Obamacare is fraud!  Duur hurr anyone who got through got scammed!  We're so infinitely clever!

Look guys, what's your big plan to replace Obamacare that's so much better?  Maybe you should devote a few columns to that, instead of this junk.

StupidiNews!

• With the death toll from Haiyan rising into the thousands, stunned survivors in the Philippines try to prepare for the next typhoon, Zoraida.
• Mexican authorities have detained a 32-year old American ex-soldier on suspicion of leading one of northern Mexico's most infamous kidnapping and ransom gangs.
• Gas prices in the US are the lowest in two years and below $3 a gallon in several parts of the country heading into the Thanksgiving travel season.
• The trend towards gluten-free grain products is rapidly growing among America's largest bread and cereal makers, and gluten-free products could be a nearly $7 billion share of the market by 2017.
• Amazon has announced a deal with the US Postal Service for limited Sunday delivery in certain major US cities.

Last Call For 40 Acres And A Moose Lady

Sarah Palin bravely compares the national debt to slavery because they're totally the same when your brain has frostbite.

In Iowa, Sarah Palin compared the federal debt she says shackles Americans to slavery.

The government, like a slick marketer, seductively offers “free” services, said Palin, a conservative provocateur and former vice presidential candidate who makes occasional, high-profile trips to politically-important Iowa.

“Our free stuff today is being paid for by taking money from our children and borrowing from China,” she said at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition's fall fundraiser at the State Fairgrounds Saturday night. “When that money comes due – and this isn’t racist, but it’ll be like slavery when that note is due. We are going to beholden to the foreign master.”

Cause what's a little slavery comparison that smacks of anti-Chinese racism between friends?

She said told the Iowans, who have the ear of presidential candidates, that they reflect what’s good about America. "You’re unpretentious, hardworking, humble, very candid. You tell it like it is and you’ll tell a politician exactly what it is that you’re thinking," she said.

Conservatism, she said, is partly about “moving the poor and the underemployed out of poverty and out from the shackles of dependency on government.”

“We’re not wards of the state but free men and women who can live good and productive lives without D.C.’s appointed best and brightest telling us what to do,” she said.

To recap, long-time government employee is telling everyone that government is evil, so vote for these people who promise not to govern to run your government.  This advice coming from Gov. Quitty McHalfterm, who couldn't handle running Alaska.  Sure, you can trust her judgment!

The Next Battle For Our Veterans

Just a reminder this Veterans Day that the last decade has not been particularly kind to our men and women coming home from overseas or from stateside service, and that they face serious economic issues when transitioning back to civilian life.  Bryce Covert at Think Progress recaps the new battles our vets now face:

1. Unemployment: While all veterans currently have an unemployment rate of 6.9 percent compared to the national average of 7.3 percent, recent vets are clearly having a tough time getting a job. Those serving since September 2001 to the present have a rate of 10 percent, meaning 246,000 recent vets are out of work, a figure that has risen by 37,000 since last year. Recent female vets also have a higher rate than male ones, 11.6 percent compared to 9.6. Recent vets are also more likely to have a service-related disability than past periods — 28 percent versus 14 percent of all veterans — and of those, around 70 percent were in the workforce, compared to 87 percent of those without disabilities. While the unemployment rate for returning vets has been declining, the challenges they have faced in returning to the civilian workforce have been devastating and may be linked to higher suicide rates.

2. Poverty: In 2010, more than 986,000 veterans under age 64 had been in poverty during the previous year. Their exposure to poverty makes the safety net all the more crucial for veterans: One in five households that relies on the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) has a veteran in it, and they also rely on food stamps from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). That’s why the recent automatic SNAP cut is impacting about 900,000 veterans. LIHEAP is on the sequestration chopping block, while food stamps are likely to be cut even further during negotiations over the farm bill.

3. Homelessness: Veterans are disproportionately likely to experience homelessness. While they make up 7 percent of the general population, they are 13 percent of adults who are homeless. In a recent survey of homeless people in San Francisco, more than a quarter had served in the military, and on a given night in 2012, the Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that over 62,000 veterans were without a home. While overall homeless vets tend to be heavily male, female veterans make up the fastest growing segment of the homeless population.

4. Mortgage problems: Foreclosure rates among members of the military have been very high since the crash in 2008, with more than 20,000 active-duty veterans and reservists with government-sponsored mortgages losing their homes in 2010. That figure was up 32 percent from 2008 and was the largest loss since 2003. Worse, up to 5,000 active members of the military may have been improperly foreclosed on thanks to robosigning and falsified paperwork and others were overcharged on their mortgages. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is on the case in protecting veterans, and President Obama announced a plan to address improper foreclosures in early 2012 that had a particular emphasis on helping military veterans.

America's veterans deserve better.  We asked them to sacrifice for our country and then we turned our backs on them.  While we're celebrating what it means to have served, let's remember that the contract with our country goes both ways, and that we as taxpayers need to return that favor.

It's Always About Power

What better way to signal you don't agree with a meeting of gun control activists in Dallas than gathering outside the meeting point, ready to ambush them with your open-carry firearms in order to terrorize the entire group?

On Saturday, nearly 40 armed men, women, and children waited outside a Dallas, Texas area restaurant to protest a membership meeting for the state chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a gun safety advocacy group formed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

According to a spokeswoman for Moms Demand Action (MDA), the moms were inside the Blue Mesa Grill when members of Open Carry Texas (OCT) — an open carry advocacy group — “pull[ed] up in the parking lot and start[ed] getting guns out of their trunks.” The group then waited in the parking lot for the four MDA members to come out. The spokeswoman said that the restaurant manager did not want to call 911, for fear of “inciting a riot” and waited for the gun advocates to leave. The group moved to a nearby Hooters after approximately two hours.

MDA later released a statement calling OCT “gun bullies” who “disagree[d] with our goal of changing America’s gun laws and policies to protect our children and families.” The statement added that the members and restaurant customers were “terrified by what appeared to be an armed ambush.” A member of OCT responded by tweeting, “I guess I’m a #gunbullies #Comeandtakeit.”

This is not the first time that gun advocates have rallied at MDA events. In March, a group of armed men crashed a MDA gun-control rally in Indianapolis. Other gun advocate groups will hold rallies this upcoming December 14th, the anniversary date of the Sandy Hook shooting. 

This is all about power, like most bullying stories.  The message from OCT is simple: if you dare to hold a public meeting about gun control in the state, you're going to be harassed by a platoon of armed "concerned citizens".  That's not a recipe for disaster or anything, right?




I wonder what the reaction of police would have been if all these "responsible gun owners" had been, you know, black or Latino.  Probably "Obama's Thug Army!11!!" all over Breitbart and Drudge, how there were now "roving gangs of Obama New Black Panther thugs" terrorizing the good white people of Texas, and Obama's DHS is clearly arming black people for a national uprising against Whitey.

40 white guys with guns in a parking lot?  Open carry protest because FREEDOM and who needs the government anyway?  40 black guys with guns in a parking lot?  They'd all have been killed and the government couldn't have gotten there fast enough to take care of the situation, and by "take care of" I mean shoot all the obvious dark-skinned terrorists.

So yes, this was domestic terrorism.  This was the response to say "Our second amendment right to bear arms beat your first amendment freedom of peaceful assembly rights because we have the guns, so screw you."  Also, the fact that we had multiple men with guns versus four unarmed women in a restaurant shouldn't be lost on anyone.

It's always about power with bullies.

[UPDATE]  As the Rumproast crew reminds us, Texas is NOT an open carry state for handguns, so some of these assholes were openly breaking the law on top of everything else.  So yes, everything in the above three paragraphs goes triple in that case.

StupidiNews, Veteran's Day Edition!

• US Marines are bringing in emergency aid to the Philippines to help survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan, government officials are now saying the death toll could be 10,000 or more.
• Some 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War, some US veterans are returning to the country to volunteer or just to revisit, tourism is at an all-time high.
• Congress is moving ahead with a Senate vote to rewrite the US military's sexual assault policy as early as this week, ahead of Pentagon recommendations.
• The US Navy has turned over the nation's first supercarrier to be scrapped, the USS Forrestal was launched in 1954 and its decommissioning cost: $2 billion.
• The Navy is also looking into new coveralls that don't burn nearly as much when they catch on fire, in a relief to sailors everywhere.

Last Call For Breaking All The Rules

Can you imagine the uproar if Democrats in Virginia did this?

Already shaping up to be one of the closest races in state history, a last-minute rule change is stirring up the recount to decide who will become Virginia's next attorney general. 

The Daily Press of Newport News, Va. reported Friday that Republican candidate Mark Obenshain had an unofficial lead of just under 1,300 votes over Democratic challenger Mark Herring. That tally did not include full provisional ballot totals, and as of Saturday, a fresh rule change was complicating matters. 

According to a report by WTOP radio, the Virginia State Board Of Elections decided Friday to change rules relevant to Fairfax County, banning legal representatives from helping count votes, unless the associated voter was actually present. The board changing the rules is dominated by Republicans.

What that means is any provisional ballots in Fairfax County will only now be counted if the person who voted shows up in person to confirm they cast it.  Wonder why?  It's a county where the election board is controlled by the GOP, but the county voted 60%+ for Obama in 2012.  It's safe to say Republicans fully expect to disenfranchise more Democratic votes than Republican ones, and in a race that could be decided by a handful votes, that's all that may be necessary to give Republican Mark Obenshain the victory as the state's next Attorney General.

By the way, Mark's sister Kate is a Fox News commentator and author of Divider-in-Chief: The Fraud of Hope and Change, another fine book from the wonderful folks at wingnut crack house Regnery Publishing. Apparently she has no problem with her brother cheating to win.  Funny how that works.

But remember, eeeeeeevil Obama and his buddies are the real fascists who will do anything to gain power because ACORN.

Post-Racial America Update

Remember, the Supreme Court says that we live in a post-racial society, so legal protections based on race aren't necessary anymore.

A controversial neo-Nazi rally was held in downtown Kansas City Saturday afternoon. 

The National Socialist Movement said it was protesting America's immigration laws. 

KMBC's Matt Evans said the protest was scheduled for 3 p.m. at the Jackson County Courthouse, but the majority of the group did not show up until 4 p.m. 

The National Socialist Movement said it picked Kansas City because of what it calls strong support. 

"We're strong in the state and in the area, so naturally we go into areas where we are quite strong and have a good base of support," said Jeff Schoep, of the National Socialist Movement. "The Kansas City area has been very good to us and we have a lot of supporters and a lot of friends here. It's a good location for us and that's why we're here."

Gosh, isn't it nice that we live in a society where hardcore racists can safely and freely express their views that non-whites like me are sub-human animals that need to be driven out of America?  Should you agree with that, apparently Kansas City is the place to live.  Quite the selling point, having a "good base of support" for neo-Nazi militia types.

But hey, there's no evidence of organized efforts to go after non-whites in 2013 America, so you don't need any civil rights or voting rights legislation.  We're past that now, you see.

The New Bar For Stupidity

National Review's Andrew McCarthy lives up to his last name and calls for the impeachment of President Obama over "If you like your health plan".  Also, Benghazi!

Barack Obama is guilty of fraud — serial fraud — that is orders of magnitude more serious than frauds the Justice Department routinely prosecutes, and that courts punish harshly. The victims will be out billions of dollars, quite apart from other anxiety and disruption that will befall them. 

The president will not be prosecuted, of course, but that is immaterial. As discussed here before, the remedy for profound presidential corruption is political, not legal. It is impeachment and removal. “High crimes and misdemeanors” — the Constitution’s predicate for impeachment — need not be indictable offenses under the criminal code. “They relate chiefly,” Hamilton explained in Federalist No. 65, “to injuries done immediately to the society itself.” They involve scandalous breaches of the public trust by officials in whom solemn fiduciary duties are reposed — like a president who looks Americans in the eye and declares, repeatedly, that they can keep their health insurance plans . . . even as he studiously orchestrates the regulatory termination of those plans; even as he shifts blame to the insurance companies for his malfeasance — just as he shifted blame to a hapless video producer for his shocking dereliction of duty during the Benghazi massacre.

He then goes on to complain that cowardly Republicans don't have "the stomach" to do it, but the Democrats should still be really scared because voters will certainly remove anyone who backs the President in 2014 and 2016.

Of course McCarthy's right.  Just ask Presidents McCain and Romney.