• Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for May 26th on 15:28

    These are my links for May 26th from 15:28 to 19:44:

  • California,  Census,  Hispanic Vote

    Census Watch: California Latino Population Booming

    I had posted on this previously here but here are more of the numbers.

    California’s Latino population grew nearly three times as much as the state as a whole in the last decade, making the state home to more than a quarter of the nation’s Latinos, according to a new Census Bureau report.

    While California’s population grew by 10 percent, the 2010 census found, the Latino growth was 27.6 percent, accounting for more than 90 percent of the state’s overall population gain. Latinos accounted for more than half of the nation’s growth during the decade and now are 16.3 percent of the U.S. population.

    Latinos, the census said, now are 37.6 percent of all Californians, up more than five percentage points since 2000. That percentage is exactly the same as that of Texas, with both states trailing only New Mexico, at 46.3 percent.

    Many states have seen higher Latino growth rates than California, some nearly 150 percent, such as Alabama and South Carolina.

    Latinos now trail non-Latino whites in California by about four percentage points. They are expected to become the state’s largest ethnic group by mid-decade.

    This will mean more Hispanic officeholders as the California Redistricting Commission draws new Legislative and Congressional boundaries based on the census. It will also mean the California GOP may shrink further into irrelevancy like New York, Massachusetts and Maryland since the Republican brand has been tarnished by the national party’s postion on illegal immigration.

  • Herman Cain,  Michele Bachmann,  Mitt Romney,  Polling,  President 2012,  Sarah Palin

    President 2012 GOP Poll Watch: Romney Leads on Issues, Palin on Social Values

    According to the latest Gallup Poll.

    Mitt Romney, one of the two leaders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, receives generally equal support across Republican political issue groups. Sarah Palin, the other leader, has a more segmented appeal, with greater support among Republicans most concerned about social and moral issues, and less interest from Republicans focused on government spending and power.

    The largest segment of Republicans (36%) continue to say government spending and power is their top concern. Romney does best in this segment, followed by a group of four candidates between 10% and 13% support. Herman Cain, the less well-known candidate — who nevertheless generates a good deal of positive intensity among those who know him — does slightly better than Newt Gingrich, Palin, or Ron Paul within this issue group. Paul, an avowed libertarian, has made the push for restraining government power the hallmark of his political career, but he does not have an unusually strong position among these Republicans.

    There has been some talk around the nets that Sarah Palin’s latest bus tour is a charade and that after she milks the media or attention and adoration will withdraw and endorse Herman Cain. Interesting, because Herman Cain has been drawing a lot of attention around Tea party circles.

    The second-most-prevalent group consists of Republicans whose most salient issue is business and the economy (31%). Republicans in this group are most likely to favor Romney and Palin, with Paul and Gingrich lagging slightly behind. Romney is the only major GOP candidate who has an MBA and is one of the few candidates who have extensive experience in the corporate world. Cain’s experience includes his position as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, but he does not do particularly well among Republicans whose main interest is business and the economy.

    Fifteen percent of Republicans say their main political interest is social issues and moral values. Mike Huckabee dominated as the candidate of choice among this group in previous months, and his announcement on May 14 that he would not be running therefore left a void. Palin now fares best among this group, receiving 23% support, followed by Romney at 18% and Paul at 11%. No other candidate gets double-digit support. In April, Huckabee led with 26% support among this group, while Palin received 18%.

    Another 15% of Republicans say national security and foreign policy is their biggest concern. Romney and Palin tie for the lead among this group, with Cain coming in third, slightly ahead of Gingrich.

    Without a doubt Sarah Palin entering the race will be a game changer. It means that Tim Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman will be dead as an alternative to the “establishment candidate” in Mitt Romney. Michele Bachmann will remain a wild card since she will command a large presence in Iowa, the first GOP caucus state.

    And, here is a poll of GOP issue priorities:

    So, what does this all mean?

    Romney’s roughly equal appeal among the four issue-defined segments of Republicans is one of the most interesting outcomes of this research. Romney in general has high favorable ratings and low unfavorable ratings, but he does not generate the same type of intense feelings as do other candidates. These data suggest that Romney does well among Republicans in all four issue segments, but doesn’t have unusually strong appeal in any.

    Palin, on the other hand has a more segmented appeal. With Huckabee’s departure from the GOP race, she now fares best among Republicans who say social and moral issues are their top concern, and essentially ties for first among those who favor business and the economy and national security/foreign policy. Palin, however, lags among the largest group of Republicans — those most focused on government spending and power.

    Cain, overall one of Republicans’ top five choices for their party’s nomination, despite being recognized by only a third of Republicans, places strongly among Republicans whose most important issue is government spending and power. Cain also does well among national security and foreign policy-interested Republicans.

    The other two candidates among Republicans’ top five choices for the nomination — Paul and Gingrich — do not have highly segmented positioning across the GOP interest groups. Paul does less well among those interested in national security and foreign policy, and Gingrich does less well among those interested in social and moral values.

    I say it is likely to see a Mitt Romney versus Sarah Palin face-off for the GOP nomination, unless the Bush donors tire of Romney. Then, at this late date, they will try to coerce Chris Christie into the race. In that case, Sarah Palin may win in a three-way contest.

  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for May 26th on 14:20

    These are my links for May 26th from 14:20 to 15:10:

    • Republicans need to ‘man up’ on Medicare reform – Yuval Levin wrote:

      [T]he new Medicare Trustees report says the program is five years closer to bankruptcy than it seemed to be last year: Its trust fund will run out of money in 2024. But the real shocker in this year’s report is a letter that the chief actuary of Medicare attached to the very end of the report, basically saying that things are much worse than the trustees suggest. The letter (which starts on page 265 of the document and pretty much makes the prior 264 pages moot) first says that the trustees were compelled to adopt some near-term assumptions that are highly implausible.. . .

      Then it says that Obamacare, because it calls for across-the-board cuts in Medicare funding but does not put in place the market mechanisms for encouraging greater productivity in health care, spells disaster for Medicare providers, and therefore for Medicare recipients

      In other words, as Yuval put it, the message for Republicans (whether they embrace Ryan’s plan or not) is: “Medicare as we know it is on the fast lane to ruin. It’s not the House Republican Budget that is undoing it, it’s the current structure of the program, exacerbated by Obamacare. House Republicans have proposed one way to fix it, which would also help reduce health-care costs more broadly. Surely there are also other ways, but the Democrats haven’t offered any.”

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      The GOP needs to go on offense.

    • IPAB, Obama, and Socialism – They’re back. Rationing, death panels, socialism, all those nasty old words that helped bring Republicans victory in 2010, and that came to seem so impolite after November of that year. They’re back because of IPAB. Remember that acronym. It stand for The Independent Payment Advisory Board. IPAB is the real death panel, the true seat of rationing, and the royal road to health-care socialism. President Obama won’t admit to any of that, but his speech in response to Paul Ryan’s plan did push IPAB out of the shadows and into public view, however briefly. If Republicans don’t seize the IPAB issue and run with it, they’ll be losers in 2012. Policy wonks and political junkies may know a bit about this health-care rationing panel, but most Americans have barely heard of it. That has got to change. And the only way to expose and explain the dangers of IPAB is to tell the truth about Barack Obama.

      In his speech on the deficit, Obama pointed to IPAB as an answer to Paul Ryan’s plan. In Ryan’s vision, competition among insurers will force efficiencies and lower prices. Under Obama’s plan, in contrast, health-care prices for the elderly would be controlled by IPAB. Ryan’s plan puts consumers in the driver’s seat, but also exposes them to the risk of bad choices and limited subsidies. While Obama’s plan offers government-guaranteed care, IPAB’s price controls will lead to one-size-fits-all rationing. As IPAB caps Medicare payments for various services, the elderly will be unable to obtain many kinds of care, or will experience de facto rationing via long treatment delays and sharp declines in the quality of care. And by the way, IPAB rationing will hit many current seniors, whereas Ryan’s reform of Medicare will never affect anyone now 55 or older.

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      Read it all

  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for May 26th on 11:50

    These are my links for May 26th from 11:50 to 12:42:

  • Barack Obama,  Death Penalty,  Sodium Thiopental

    Arizona Sidesteps Obama Justice Department Over Sodium Thiopental and Executes Murderer

    Donald Edward Beaty

    Despite the Obama Administration’s best efforts to prevent it, Arizona last night executed Donald Edward Beaty.

    Donald Edward Beaty, 56, died at 7:38 p.m. local time at a state prison in Florence, Arizona, officials said, in an execution delayed for more than nine hours by a legal dispute over one of the drugs used to kill him.

    Beaty, convicted of killing newspaper carrier Christy Ann Fornoff, had won a temporary stay from the Arizona Supreme Court after his lawyers objected to the last-minute substitution of a drug to be used in the lethal-injection mix.

    But the court lifted the stay after conducting a special hearing on Wednesday morning, rejecting arguments that the state breached Beaty’s constitutional due process rights and protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

    Petitions to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court were unsuccessful.

    So, a lesson to the other states, including California – use pentobarbital rather than sodium thiopental and executions can continue.

    I still don’t think there will be any executions in California within the near future. anti-death penalty activists will come up with another excuse and litigate it.

  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for May 26th on 10:32

    These are my links for May 26th from 10:32 to 11:41:

    • Gov. Christie announces N.J. pulling out of regional environmental initiative – In a blow to clean energy advocates throughout the Northeast, Gov. Chris Christie said this morning that the state will pull out of the region’s "gimmicky" cap-and-trade program by the end of the year.

      During a Statehouse news conference, Christie acknowledged the effects humans are having on climate change but said the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative was doing nothing to solve the problem.

      "This program is not effective in reducing greenhouse gases and is unlikely to be in the future," Christie told reporters. "The whole system is not working as it was intended to work. It’s a failure."

    • Immigration law: Supreme Court upholds law targeting employers – The Supreme Court on Thursday gave Arizona and other states more authority to take action against illegal immigrants and the companies that hire them, ruling that employers who knowingly hire illegal workers can lose their license to do business.

      The 5-3 decision upholds the Legal Arizona Workers Act of 2007 and its so-called business death penalty for employers who are caught repeatedly hiring illegal immigrants. The state law also requires employers to check the federal E-Verify system before hiring new workers, a provision that was also upheld Thursday.

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      Read it all.

    • Craig Huey on Running for Office as a Libertarian Republican and Salvaging the American Dream #CA36 – Daily Bell: How do you view Obamacare? Are human beings born with a "right" to free healthcare? Can charitable, religious and spiritual organizations be sufficiently relied upon to provide a compassionate hand to fellow members of their local communities?

      Craig Huey: We have a God given right to life and liberty. To include healthcare as a "natural" right is a perversion of the concept. Charity and religious organizations have historically in America been there to help those in need. That is now being put in jeopardy by the government. I will fight to change that.

      Obamacare is one of my priorities for repeal. It's corrupt and flawed. It's dangerous to our health and freedom. It's an example of how bad the Washington's out-of-control centralized power is. Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is an unelected, appointed bureaucrat … the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Right now she is using her power to stifle free speech by forcing insurance companies to be silent about the harm being done. Her 1,968 grants of power will call the shots on which days seniors can access their care. These grants of power set Washington as a dictator on how to dispose drugs at long-term care facilities. Bureaucrats will also delineate how dentists and dental hygienists examine your teeth and much more.

      This is not in the Constitution. This is not a function of government. This is not what quality healthcare looks like. Our Constitution specifies that power must be balanced, restrained and never concentrated on one person. This concentration of power can only lead to great harm, abuse and unintended bad consequences. If you've ever been to a government agency, then you know what I mean.

      That's just one reason why I believe Obamacare will be found unconstitutional. Already 27 states fall in agreement saying it's unconstitutional. Just the forced individual mandates are completely contrary to a free society. But until the court does find it unconstitutional, I will be committed to defunding Obamacare. I will fight the tax increase. I will fight 6,000 new IRS agents. I will fight the bureaucratic control of doctors and patients.

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      Read it all

  • President 2012,  Sarah Palin

    President 2012: The Sarah Palin Nationwide Bus Tour Begins The Perfect Storm for Sarah Palin

    The political world is giddy with the prospect of a Sarah Palin Presidential run, especially since the announcement of her national bus tour which begins this Sunday.

    But, is she a real player? What are her poll numbers? You can look here at Flapsblog – and over many months and states.

    The short answer is that she does well with conservatives, but not so well with independents and Democrats. Here is another run down.

    She has an awful lot of hurdles to overcome to reach the White House. Our April NBC/WSJ poll found her with a 25%-53% fav/unfav score, with just 9% viewing her VERY POSITIVELY (her lowest number here ever in the poll) and with 41% viewing her VERY NEGATIVELY (her highest number here). In addition, her fav/unfav among independents is 19%-54%, while it’s 48%-25% among Republicans, 63%-7% among Tea Party supporters, and 6%-83% among Democrats. In other words, she’s adored by conservatives, but not by anyone else. But check that last number on Republicans on more time: One in four REPUBLICANS have an unfavorable view of her. That’s not just a hurdle; it’s a potential roadblock.

    But, does Sarah Palin care, if she beats Obama or not?

    Isn’t this a “perfect storm” for her?

    It seems to be starting out that way.