DO DEMOCRATS COMMIT HATE CRIMES AGAINST BLACK REPUBLICANS? By Frances Rice Racists! That incendiary charge hurled by Democrats at Tea Party activists protesting against ObamaCare was shown to be totally false by Jack Cashill in his article “A Closer Look at the Capitol Steps Conspiracy”. Given the Democratic Party’s 150-year record of racist rhetoric and racial violence – from the days of slavery until today – it is astonishing to see Democrats sanctimoniously playing the race card. A display of unmitigated gall describes how Democrats are falsely comparing anti-ObamaCare protestors to the anti-civil rights racists of the 1960′s who were Democrats. Democrats get away with this racial hypocrisy because they know with absolute certainty that the true history of civil rights has long been buried, and the racism exhibited today by Democrats against blacks, particularly black Republicans, will be ignored by the mainstream media. For instance, the liberal media expressed no outrage and not one word of condemnation was uttered by any Democrat after SEIU (Service Employees International Union) thugs attacked Kenneth Gladney, a black man. Gladney was beaten, kicked and called a racist name while working as a vendor at a health care reform town hall meeting in St. Louis on August 6, 2009 called by U.S. Rep. Democrat Russ Carnahan. The assault was a calculated attempt to intimidate and silence Tea Party protestors and town hall activists. On the morning of the Gladney attack, the White House presented to Senate Democrats a “battle plan” to quell the protests. The advice given to the Democrats by the White House was to “punch back twice as hard”, and the first casualty was Kenneth Gladney. In the emergency room of the St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, Gladney was treated for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face suffered in the attack. The six people arrested in the Gladney case, including a Post-Dispatch reporter, were charged with mere misdemeanor ordinance violations, with a total of ten charges spread out among the six offenders. Not one Democrat rushed to a microphone to denounce the attack against Gladney as a “hate crime”. Based on the lack of any outrage by Democrats over the Gladney beating, it seems that the newly enacted “hate crime” legislation pushed by Democrats would not apply to cases of hateful brutality against black Republicans. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law by President Barack Obama on October 28, 2009 and is designed to punish crimes of violence against people because of their race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. At the core of why Democrats are feverishly painting conservatives and Republicans as racist, especially Tea Party activists, is the need to divert the public’s attention away from the fact that President Barack Obama and the Democrats in control of Congress are slowly and deliberately transforming America from a free society with a representative form of government into a socialist dictatorship. A move applauded by the Cuban Communist dictator Fidel Castro. Obama is now governing as a hard-core leftist, after campaigning for president as a centrist. His cynical charade was designed to convince the majority of white Americans to vote for him, the very citizens Obama now castigates as racist. What Obama and the Democrats are ignoring while trying to silence protestors with charges of racism is the fact that average American citizens are angry because they do not want socialism. They understand that ObamaCare and Obama’s out-of-control spending will produce massive deficits, high costs for consumer goods and fewer jobs. Citizens have tried to communicate this message to Obama and the Democrats in every way possible, from protesting in record numbers to historic votes against Democrats in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts. Obama and the Democrats have chosen, at their peril, to ignore the will of the people and enact the economy-wrecking ObamaCare with one-party rule, bribing unprincipled Democrats with sleazy deals. The powerful video posted on YouTube called “America Rising: An Open Letter to Democrat Politicians Patriotic Resistance” implores Americans to hold Democrats accountable in the 2010 elections. A video posted on YouTube called “We The People” provides an inspiring call for us to take back our country from the socialists. In the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this call is made for all Americans to unite, engage in nonviolent civil disobedience and vote in November to stop the Democrats from shredding our Constitution and governing without the consent of the governed. History shows that during the 1960′s Democrats used racist slurs and brutality against Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Republican until the day he died, and other nonviolent activists who were trying to stop the Democrats from denying civil rights to black Americans. Today, Democrats are using similar reprehensible tactics against conservatives and Republicans, especially black Republicans, who are trying to stop the Democrats from stripping civil liberties from all Americans. While claiming to be racially sensitive, Democrats use racist invectives to denigrate black Republicans, demeaning them as “sellouts”, “Uncle Toms”, “House Negroes”, “House N-word”, or worse. The list of black Republicans attacked by Democrats is long and includes RNC Chairman Michael Steel, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, General Colin Powell and Justice Clarence Thomas. On the left-wing Internet website called “The News Blog,” Democrats posted a doctored photograph of RNC Chairman Michael Steele while he was the Lt. Governor of Maryland and running for a Senate seat. Democrats depicted Steele as a “Simple Sambo” with a blackened minstrel-style face, nappy hair and big, think red lips. The cartoon caption read: “Simple Sambo wants to move to the big house”. This contemptible racist stereotype is the same one Democrats used to demean black men during the era of slavery and segregation. Dr. Condoleezza Rice was the object of particularly vicious racist attacks by Democrats. In addition to several other appalling images of Dr. Rice produced by several Democrats, cartoonist Jeff Danziger denigrated Dr. Rice as an ignorant, barefoot “mammy”, reminiscent of the stereotyped black woman in the movie “Gone with the Wind” about the slave era black woman who remarked: “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies”. This is the type of racist stereotype Democrats used to demean black women during the era of slavery and segregation. A video was shot by WKRN Video Journalist Beau Fleenor at Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee that shows Al Sharpton demeaning Gen. Powell and Dr. Rice, when Sharpton was asked to give his opinions about whether Powell and Rice were “House Negroes”. An article that appeared in a Portland, Oregon paper was one of many exposing how hardly a ripple of protest was made by black Democrats when Harry Belafonte publicly denounced Gen. Powell as a “House Negro”. Posted on the Internet is an article entitled “A Black Man, The Progressive’s Perfect Trojan Horse” by black entertainer Lloyd Marcus exposing Democratic Party racism toward black Tea Party protestors. The truth about Democratic Party racism can be harsh medicine, but is sorely needed to finally eject the race-baiting poison injected into our body politic by Democrats, the architects of modern-day racism. As stated by author Michael Scheuer, the Democratic Party is the party of the four S’s: slavery secession, segregation and now socialism. A prominent pundit affirmed that the Republican Party is the party of the four F’s: family, faith, freedom and fairness. Civil rights history details are in the NBRA Civil Rights Newsletter that is posted on the website of the National Black Republican Association. Written out of our history books are the following facts. The Republican Party was started in 1854 as the anti-slavery party and, after the Civil War, Republicans amended the US Constitution to grant blacks freedom (13th Amendment), citizenship (14th Amendment) and the right to vote (15th Amendment). Republicans then passed the civil rights laws to ensure blacks could exercise their Constitutional rights, including the Civil Rights Acts of 1866, 1867 and 1875. After Democrats took control of Congress in 1892, Democrats passed the Repeal Act of 1894 that overturned civil rights legislation enacted by the Republicans. It took Republicans nearly six decades to finally achieve passage of civil rights legislation in the 1950′s and 1960′s pushed through by Republican Senator Everett Dirksen over the objection of the Democrats. In addition to their reprehensible of record of fighting against civil rights legislation, Democrats have a long history of racial violence. Recorded by liberal professor Dr. Eric Foner in his book “A Short History of Reconstruction”, is the horrifying fact that Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan in 1866 to lynch and terrorize Republicans – black and white. The Klan became the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party, killing over 2,000 black Republicans and over 1,000 white Republicans. The violence against the 1960′s era civil rights protestors was inflicted by Democrats. Democrat Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor in Birmingham let loose vicious dogs and turned skin-burning fire hoses on black civil rights demonstrators. Democrat Georgia Governor Lester Maddox famously brandished ax handles to prevent blacks from patronizing his restaurant. In 1954, Democrat Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus tried to prevent desegregation of a Little Rock public school. Democrat Alabama Governor George Wallace stood in front of the Alabama schoolhouse in 1963 and thundered, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” All of these racist Democrats remained Democrats until the day they died. One survivor from that era, Democrat Senator Robert Byrd, a former recruiter in the Ku Klux Klan, is still a Democrat and a prominent leader in the Democrat-controlled Congress where he was honored by his fellow Democrats as the “conscience of the Senate.” It does not even make common sense to believe that after the Republicans spent over 150 years fighting the Democrats and won, the racist Democrats suddenly rushed into the arms of the Republicans. In fact Democrats declared that they would rather vote for a “yellow dog” than any one in the Republican Party, the party for blacks. If our soldiers did and do voluntarily put their lives on the line to preserve our freedoms, then we can do no less. If Dr. King had the courage to fight for civil rights for blacks in the face of racist slurs by Democrats and threats of imprisonment or death, then we surely have the courage to stand up for our civil liberties in the face of such threats. This we owe to ourselves, our country and future generations. Frances Rice is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel and Chairman of the National Black Republican Association. She may be contacted at: www.NBRA.info

© National Black Republican Association, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

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From VolunteerTV.com:

Lenoir City schools chief Wayne Miller says the public school system has taken several beatings over the years, and because of all of the changes and proposals from Nashville, many teachers have already walked out the door.

“As of the challenges have gotten more and more centered around the political aspects Ive had [...]
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OTHER CHANGES
Republicans now have complete control of Virginia.   They control the House,  the Senate and the Governor’s Mansion.    The next time you hear them complaining about Democrats remind them that they run the whole show.   They can no longer complain and blame it on someone else.  They must take responsibility.    Will they lead the state into the future or return it to the 1940′s and the last century?  

One of their first acts is an attempt to outlaw birth control.     The republican government wants to tell you when and how to get pregnant and how large to grow your family.     This is the get the government out of your life they always talk about?     I have trouble believing you knuckle dragging right wing sheep voted for these idiots to run your state.

We’ve covered the litany of so-called “personhood” measures—conferring legal rights on fertilzed eggs—that have popped up around the country since Mississippi voters defeated just that sort of effort last November.     Now Virginia could become the first state in the country to actually pass personhood legislation.

On Tuesday, the Virginia House of Delegates passed a bill introduced by Delegate Bob Marshall (R-Prince William)   by a 66-32 vote.     The bill, like other “personhood” measures, would amend the definition of the word “person” under state law to include zygotes, thereby granting them legal rights.

The summary reads:
Provides that unborn children at every stage of development enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of the Commonwealth, subject only to the laws and constitutions of Virginia and the United States, precedents of the United States Supreme Court, and provisions to the contrary in the statutes of the Commonwealth.

It will be interesting to see what happens from here.    The bill now must be cleared by the state senate to move forward.    But earlier this month, a panel in the state senate rejected a bill that would have limited abortions to the first 20 weeks after conception.    This latest bill would be far more restrictive, potentially prohibiting all abortions and likely some common types of oral contraception. Virginia’s House of Delegates also recently passed a new law forcing women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion.

Passage of this latest bill in the House of Delegates makes Virginia “dangerously close to making Virginia the first state in the country to grant personhood rights to fertilized eggs,” says Tarina Keene, the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia.    She noted that the state code mentions the word “person” 25,000 times, which would give this redefinition a broad reach into many aspects of the law.     The measure now faces a vote.

The Republican-controlled House of Delegates voted 66-32 in favor of defining the word person under state law to include unborn children   “from the moment of conception until birth at every stage of biological development.”

The measure now heads to the Senate, which is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats but with Republican Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling wielding the tie-breaking vote.

Republican Delegate Bob Marshall, an abortion opponent who introduced the legislation, said the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States would not have been rendered if Texas state law had regarded the unborn as a person “in the full sense.”    “So this is a first step, a necessary step, but it’s not sufficient to directly challenge Roe,”    Marshall said
in a phone interview.

Virginia’s approach differs from failed attempts to define a fertilized egg as a legal person in Colorado in 2008 and 2010 and in Mississippi in 2011.

Virginia’s effort avoids involving a constitutional amendment like those states, instead seeking changes throughout the legal code, said Elizabeth Nash, public policy associate at the Washington-based Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health issues.

But she said the intent is the same, with the measure ultimately aimed at banning abortion, contraception and infertility treatment.

“Should this bill become law, it could have a far-reaching impact on women’s access to health care,” Nash said.

“No state, as yet, has adopted anything like this.


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Rick Santorum has a long, colorful history of making bizarre, inflammatory and just plain ridiculous statements about all sorts of important issues.     

Here is a rundown of some of Rick’s “greatest hits.”

“The reason Social Security is in big trouble is we don’t have enough workers to support the retirees. A third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion, because one in three pregnancies end in abortion.”
- Rick Santorum, 3/29/11

 “I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people’.”
 - Rick Santorum on President Obama’s race and pro-choice beliefs, 1/19/2011

“…everything I’ve read shows that we would not have gotten this information as to who this man was if it had not been gotten information from people who were subject to enhanced interrogation. And so this idea that we didn’t ask that question while Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was being waterboarded, he [John McCain] doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works. I mean, you break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become
cooperative. And that’s when we got this information. And one thing led to another, and led to another, and that’s how we ended up with bin Laden.”
 - Rick Santorum saying that John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war, doesn’t understand “enhanced interrogation”, 5/17/11

“A lesbian woman came up to me and said, ‘why are you denying me my right?’ I said, ‘well, because it’s not a right.’ It’s a privilege that society recognizes because society sees intrinsic value to that relationship over any other relationship.”
- Rick Santorum on gay adoption, 5/3/11

 “Many women have told me, and surveys have shown, that they find it easier, more “professionally” gratifying, and certainly more socially affirming, to work outside the home than to give up their careers to take care of their children.  Think about that for a moment…Here, we can thank the influence of radical feminism, one of the core philosophies of the village elders.”
 –Blaming “radical feminism” for making women want to work outside the home.  It Takes a Family, Pg. 95, July 2005.  

“But unlike abortion today, in most states even the slaveholder did not have the unlimited right to kill his slave.”
 –Comparing a woman’s right to choose to slavery.  It Takes a Family, Pg. 241, July 2005.
 

“In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might confess that both of them really don’t need to, or at least may not need to work as much as they do… And for some parents, the purported need to provide things for their children simply
provides a convenient rationalization for pursuing a gratifying career outside the home.”
 –Questioning the needs and motives of families in which both parents work.  It Takes A Family, Pg. 94, July
2005.

“The reason Social Security is in big trouble is we don’t have enough workers to support the retirees. A third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion, because one in three pregnancies end in abortion.”
 - Rick Santorum on how abortion is responsible for Social Security’s problems, 3/29/11 

“I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people’.”
- Rick Santorum on President Obama’s race and pro-choice beliefs, 1/19/2011

“Is anyone saying same-sex couples can’t love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too?”
- Rick Santorum comparing his love for his mother-in-law to the love that same-sex couples share, 5/22/2008 

“I don’t think it works. I think it’s harmful to women, I think it’s harmful to our society to have a society that says that sex outside of marriage is something that should be encouraged or tolerated, particularly among the young. I think it has, as we’ve seen, very harmful long-term consequences for society. So birth control to
me enables that and I don’t think it’s a healthy thing for our country.”
 –Saying that birth control is harmful to women, society and our country.  CN8′s “Nitebeat with Barry Nolan”, July 28, 2005.
 

“The notion that college education is a cost-effective way to help poor, low-skill, unmarried mothers with high school diplomas or GEDs move up the economic ladder is just wrong.”
 –Arguing that poor, unwed mothers don’t really need college educations.  It Takes a Family, Pg. 138, July 2005.

“Many women have told me, and surveys have shown, that they find it easier, more “professionally” gratifying, and certainly more socially affirming, to work outside the home than to give up their careers to take care of their children.  Think about that for a moment…Here, we can thank the influence of radical feminism, one of the core philosophies of the village elders.”
 –Blaming “radical feminism” for making women want to work outside the home.  It Takes a Family, Pg. 95, July 2005. 

“But unlike abortion today, in most states even the slaveholder did not have the unlimited right to kill his slave.”
 –Comparing a woman’s right to choose to slavery.  It Takes a Family, Pg. 241, July 2005.
 

“In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might confess that both of them really don’t need to, or at least may not need to work as much as they do… And for some parents, the purported need to provide things for their children simply
provides a convenient rationalization for pursuing a gratifying career outside the home.”
 –Questioning the needs and motives of families in which both parents work.  It Takes A Family, Pg. 94, July 2005.

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	Dennis, click here to tell Republican senators to stop trying to weaken laws against domestic violence and sexual assault. Republicans have decided it isn’t enough to try and defund Planned Parenthood and to prevent birth control from being covered by health insurance plans. Now they are attempting to weaken laws against domestic violence and sexual assault. The Violence Against Women Act was first passed in 1994, providing billions to enhance investigation and prosecution of violent crimes perpetrated against women. It was most recently reauthorized in 2005 by unanimous consent in the Senate. It’s up for reauthorization again, but this time it received zero Republican votes in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Why? Because Republicans want to throw out provisions in the bill protecting victims who are LGBT or undocumented, slash funding for enforcement, and eliminate entirely “the Justice Department office devoted to administering the law and coordinating the nation’s response to domestic violence and sexual assaults.” I’m sure it’s all just a coincidence Republicans are going to the mat to weaken laws against domestic violence and sexual assault, to end funding for breast cancer screenings, and to keep health insurance plans from covering birth control. No war on women happening here. Click here to sign the petition telling Senate Republicans to stop trying to slash the Violence Against Women Act. We’ll deliver the signatures. Thanks for all you do, Laura Clawson, Daily Kos

The Democratic Republican

A conservative, a moderate and a liberal walk into a bar.    The bartender turns, looks up and says “Hello Mitt What will you have today.”

Watching the Republicans struggling to agree on a presidential candidate, one wonders whether the GOP shouldn’t just sit this election out – just give 2012 a pass.

You know how in Scrabble sometimes you look at your seven letters and you’ve got only vowels that spell nothing?    What do you do?    You go back to the pile.    You throw your letters back and hope to pick up better ones to work with.    That’s what Republican primary voters seem to be doing.    They just keep going back to the pile but still coming up with only vowels that spell nothing.

There’s a reason for that:     Their pile is out of date.    The party has let itself become the captive of conflicting ideological bases: anti-abortion advocates, anti-immigration activists, social conservatives worried about the sanctity of marriage, libertarians who want to shrink government, and anti-tax advocates who want to drown government in a bathtub.

Sorry, but you can’t address the great challenges America faces today with that incoherent mix of hardened positions.    I’ve argued that maybe we need a third party to break open our political system. But that’s a long shot.    What we definitely and urgently need is a second party – a coherent Republican opposition that is offering constructive conservative proposals on the key issues and is ready for strategic compromises to advance its interests and those of the country.

Without that, the best of the Democrats – who have been willing to compromise – have no partners and the worst have a free pass for their own magical thinking.    Since such a transformed Republican Party is highly unlikely, maybe the best thing would be for it to get crushed in this election and forced into a fundamental rethink.

Because when I look at America’s three greatest challenges today, I don’t see the Republican candidates offering realistic answers to any of them.

The first is responding to the challenges and opportunities of an era in which globalization and the information technology revolution have dramatically intensified, creating a hyperconnected world.

This is a world in which education, innovation and talent will be rewarded more than ever.    This is a world in which there will be no more “developed” and “developing countries,” but only HIEs (high-imagination-enabling countries) and LIEs (low-imagination-enabling countries).

The second of our great long-term challenges are our huge debt and entitlement obligations.    They can’t be fixed without raising and reforming taxes and trimming entitlements and defense.    We absolutely cannot just cut entitlements and defense.    That would imperil the personal security and national security of every American.    We must also reform taxes to raise more revenues.

But when all the Republican candidates last year said they would not accept a deal with Democrats that involved even in tax increases in return for in spending cuts, the GOP cut itself off from reality.    It became a radical party, not a conservative one. And for the candidates to wrap themselves in a cartoon version of Ronald Reagan is fraudulent.

Our third great challenge is how we power our future – without dangerously polluting and warming the earth – as the global population grows from 7 billion to 9 billion people by 2050, and more and more of them want to drive, eat and live like Americans.

Two billion more people who want to live like us?    We can’t drill our way out of that challenge, which is why energy efficiency and clean power will be the next great global industry.    Real conservatives – like Richard Nixon, the father of the Environmental Protection Agency, and George H.W. Bush, the author of the first cap-and-trade deal to curb acid rain – believe in conserving.    The current Republican candidates are so captured by the oil and coal lobbies that they can’t think seriously about this huge opportunity for energy innovation.

Until the GOP stops being radical and returns to being conservative, it won’t provide what the country needs most now – competition – competition with Democrats on the issues that will determine whether we thrive in the 21st century.    We need to hear conservative fiscal policies, energy policies, immigration policies and public-private partnership concepts – not radical ones.    Would somebody please restore our second party?    The country is starved for a grown-up debate.

Friedman is a columnist for the New York Times and a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner.

Once upon a time, in a land far away, a right wing republican happened upon a frog sitting and contemplating ecological issues on the shores of an unpolluted pond in a verdant meadow near a pristine castle.   The frog hopped into the republicans lap and said ” I was once a great leader who presided over a land of plenty.   All my subjects were employed and our standard of living was the best in the world and we had cured almost all diseases.   Our educational system was second to none and home ownership was the norm.   If you will save me and take me home I will give to you all the secrets of creating a virtual garden of eden here on earth.”   That night, the republican dined sumptuously on a repast of lightly sautéed frog legs seasoned in a white wine and shallot cream sauce.

What do you call a Republican who makes their money honestly?
Broke.

You might be a Republican if…
You’ll spend billion guarding a bridge against the possibility of a terrorist attack, but won’t spend 20 cents to keep it from falling down on its own.

Where can you find a Republican politician who’s not currently taking bribes?
The cemetery.

What’s the most common name for the smartest member of a Republican household?
Rover.

Rush Limbaugh was riding down a country road in his limo, when his driver accidentally hit and killed a pig.    Limbaugh told the chauffeur to drive up to the farm and apologize to the farmer.    They drove up to the farm, and the chauffeur got out.    He knocked on the front door and was let in, but remained inside for a surprisingly long time.    When the chauffeur returned, Limbaugh asked what had taken so long.
“Well,” the driver explained, “when I went in, the farmer shook my hand and offered me a beer.    Then his wife brought me some cookies, and his daughter showered me with kisses.”
“What did you tell the farmer?”   Limbaugh asked.    The chauffeur replied, “I told him that I was Rush Limbaugh’s driver and I’d just killed the pig.”

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PoliticusUSA on Democracy Corps poll

A new Democracy Corps poll revealed a nightmare scenario for Republicans where not only does Obama get reelected but Democrats regain total control of Congress.

According to Democracy Corps, for the first time in two years the Democratic Party has taken the lead on the generic congressional ballot, 47%-44%.

The bad news for the GOP is that Independents have shifted back to the Democratic Party. In the previous surveys congressional Republicans led congressional Democrats by a net 9 points in October and 19 points in August with Independents, but today Democrats have taken a two point lead.

Why have the Democrats surged? The answer is that the behavior of Republicans in Congress has turned off voters. By a margin of 53%-39% respondents said the more they watched the Republicans in Congress, the less they like what they are offering. Approval of Republicans in Congress has dropped to a new low of 28%, and 8% strongly approve of the Republican caucus.

If congressional Republicans are hurting the GOP brand, the party’s 2012 presidential candidates may be making things even worse. By a margin of 53%-38% respondents said the more they watch the GOP nomination, the less they like what the Republican Party has to offer. Frontrunner Mitt Romney is not personally popular with Republicans or Independents. Only 31% of Republicans and 27% of Independents had warm feelings for Romney. Republicans are cold on Romney, and they are ready to bolt to a third party candidate.

18%-25% of Republicans and Republican leaners surveyed said that they would vote for a conservative third party candidate, and if that candidate was Ron Paul, Romney’s general election support would collapse.

Obama leads Romney by one point (47%-46%) in a two person race, but if Paul gets in, Romney loses 12 points and falls to 34%. Obama only loses three points if Paul runs as an Independent, and overall Paul draws the support of 18% of the electorate. (A third party candidacy by Ron Paul would split the Republican vote, and hand the election to Obama).

A big problem for Republicans was that President Obama remained the most personally popular politician in the poll. Obama now only trails Romney by three points with Independents, and the Democratic Party 5 points and moved into a tie with Republicans on the issue of the economy. The poll also found that Obama has more potential voters willing to support him than Romney does.

All three of these components, an unpopular Republican congress, a cold fish of a nominee, and surging incumbent president could add up to a perfect storm of defeat for the GOP. The most telling statistic is that the more people get to know the Republican Party, the less likely they are to support their candidates.

The problem with generic ballots is that unnamed candidates tend to be more popular than real people, but generic ballots can help gauge the current temperature of an electorate. Right now, the electorate is moving back to the Democratic Party.

The Republican Party could have offset the damage done by their congressional members with a warm, energizing, and inspiring nominee. Unfortunately for them, Mitt Romney is none of those things. Romney tends to leave voters cold, and helps to reinforce the negative impressions that many respondents have about the GOP.

The ultimate representation of Republican voter dissatisfaction is their willingness to vote for a third party conservative candidate. The GOP has become an unpopular party that is seriously in danger of fracturing. Add into this equation an incumbent president who is personally popular and gaining positive momentum in the polls, and the result is the potential for a disastrous defeat.

It is possible, even without the presence of an Independent conservative third party candidate that Democrats take back the House, keep the Senate, and win the White House.

The pieces are starting to fall into place for what looked like an impossible scenario after the 2010 election to become a reality in 2012.

Read the full PoliticusUSA on Democracy Corps poll story.

Democratic Blog News

From the Kingsport Times-News:

The Tennessee Republican Party is backing U.S. Rep. Phil Roe’s so-called “trash and cash” actions involving the 0 billion-plus federal stimulus package passed early in President Barack Obama’s administration.

Roe, R-Tenn., is one of more than 120 House Republicans who voted against the 2009 economic recovery package and then sought stimulus funds, according to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

Last week, Roe presented Takoma Regional Hospital officials in Greeneville with a .3 million stimulus check as partial reimbursement for the hospital’s investment in electronic health records.

Afterward, the Tennessee Democratic Party fired off an e-mail to news media outlets calling the check award a “hypocritical handout.”The TDP e-mail said: “Congressman Roe doesn’t want to spend taxpayer dollars but he’s happy to dole it out. This is exactly the kind of sham leadership that has Tennesseans so frustrated with the Republican Congress.”

Democrats slam Roe as hypocrite for handing out funds from stimulus- Kingsport Times-News.

Tennessee Democratic Party News

The 2011 Texas Legislature slashed the state’s funding of public K-12 schools, colleges and universities. The real motivation for underfunding public education is to replace our low cost public system of education available to every citizen with a high cost private ‘for profit’ education system.

Huffington Post

While for-profit colleges do indeed educate more low-income and minority students than other institutions, this is in large part because support for the traditional alternative, community college, has failed to keep pace with demand.

Though no one maintains a comprehensive list of state funding for community colleges, state and local support for community colleges on a per-student basis declined by 5 percent in 2009 from a decade earlier, according to Department of Education statistics compiled by the Delta Project, a nonprofit research group that studies higher education spending. The total subsidies provided to students by community colleges, including funding from public sources and other outside support, fell by 10 percent over the last decade, on a per-student basis.

The Obama administration has significantly boosted funding for Pell Grants, which are available to low-income students. Over the last three years of the program, the federal government has more than doubled spending on Pell grants, budgeting billion more this year than in the 2007-08 school year. For-profit colleges have captured an outsized share of this pool — roughly 25 percent — despite educating only 12 percent of college students nationwide, according to the most recent federal data.

Had the .5 billion that for-profit institutions received via Pell Grants during the 2009-2010 school year gone instead to fund community college systems nationwide, that money could have created capacity for an additional 629,000 community college students, The Huffington Post calculated, using available estimates for the average expenditure per student. That would represent a 20 percent increase in the number of full-time community college students currently enrolled nationwide.

At California’s community colleges — the nation’s largest system of higher education, serving a quarter of community college students nationwide — an estimated 200,000 students will be turned away from classes next school year, according to the state community college chancellor’s office, following state cutbacks of nearly 20 percent across the entire system. That amounts to more than 7 percent of the entire state’s community college student body, and that does not count those who gave up on plans to enroll due to the difficulties of securing classes.

After accounting for inflation, California is now spending the same amount on community colleges that it did six years ago, despite adding more than 175,000 students in that period, a nearly 20 percent increase. On a per-student basis, the state is spending less this year than it was 15 years ago.

The for-profit college programs that have been absorbing the resulting overflow of students are on average more than five times as expensive as their community college counterparts, according to a Senate report that examined such schools nationally. While only about one in five students at community colleges takes out loans to finance their tuition, four of five students at for-profit two- and four-year schools sign off on loans, according to Department of Education data.

Because of the high costs and high debt loads, students at for-profit colleges are responsible for about 45 percent of all student loan defaults.

In the eyes of public education advocates, for-profit colleges are the inevitable, opportunistic outgrowth of a society that simultaneously rewards those with greater education while it eliminates traditional support for public campuses.

“The economy is essentially telling people that you have to get some kind of post-secondary degree or credential,” said Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. “So the demand is growing very fast, and our ability to fund this function is crashing. It’s not just declining, it’s crashing. The public sector is basically getting out of the business, so the costs are shifting to the individual students.”

Read the full article @ Huffington Post

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I was reading this in the huffington Post and thought it was pretty good.  As you’ll see they build a pretty point of saying that Mit Romney is the best logical choice. Republicans will probably end up nominating him not because they like him but because of other reasons:   While former Massachusetts governor Mitt [...]
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