National Support for Gun Protection Grows While Support for Abortion Slips
A Study by the Pew Research Center (which is typically liberal so this is great news!)
Overview
Public attitudes on a pair of contentious national issues – gun control and abortion – have moved in a more conservative direction over the past year. In both cases, the changes have been driven in part by relatively large shifts among men, while opinions among women have not changed very much.
For the first time in a Pew Research survey, nearly as many people believe it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns (45%) than to control gun ownership (49%). As recently as a year ago, 58% said it was more important to control gun ownership while 37% said it was more important to protect the right to own guns.
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted March 31-April 21 among 1,521 adults reached on landlines and cell phones, also finds public opinion about abortion more closely divided than it has been in several years. Currently, 46% say abortion should be legal in most cases (28%) or all cases (18%); 44% believe that abortion should be illegal in most (28%) or all cases (16%). Since the mid-1990s, majorities have consistently favored legal abortion, with the exception of an August 2001 survey by ABC News/Washington Post. Read more
Supreme Court Justice Souter to Retire
Not devastating news, but news none the less.
NPR has learned that Supreme Court Justice David Souter is planning to retire at the end of the current court term.
The vacancy will give President Obama his first chance to name a member of the high court and begin to shape its future direction.
At 69, Souter is nowhere near the oldest member of the court. In fact, he is in the younger half of the court’s age range, with five justices older and just three younger. So far as anyone knows, he is in good health. But he has made clear to friends for some time that he wanted to leave Washington, a city he has never liked, and return to his native New Hampshire. Now, according to reliable sources, he has decided to take the plunge and has informed the White House of his decision.
Factors in his decision no doubt include the election of President Obama, who would be more likely to appoint a successor attuned to the principles Souter has followed as a moderate-to-liberal member of the court’s more liberal bloc over the past two decades.
Various observers and supporters feel that Obama will nominate another woman to the high court, which has only seated one female since Sandra Day O’Connor retired.
Possible nominees who have been mentioned as being on a theoretical short list include Elena Kagan, the current solicitor general who represents the government before the Supreme Court; Sonia Sotomayor, a Hispanic judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; and Diane Wood, a federal judge in Chicago who taught at the University of Chicago at the same time future President Barack Obama was teaching constitutional law there.
President Obama’s choice has an excellent chance of being confirmed by the U.S. Senate, where Democrats now have an advantage of 59 seats to the Republicans’ 40.
By the time a vote on a successor is taken, the Senate is anticipated to have a 60th Democrat, as the Minnesota Supreme Court is expected to approve the recount that elected Democrat Al Franken over incumbent Republican Norm Coleman in that state.
It probably would not matter if Republicans disapproved of Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court since the possibility of 60 Dem. votes not including the RINOs would trump any type of real filibuster. For all we know he could appoint Koh to the Supreme Court – wouldn’t that be lovely?
A little Sharia Law never hurt anybody…j/k!
Breaking: Obama Administration Overrides DHS, CIA, etc. Will Release Chinese Terrorists
Human Events reports:
Moving quickly to release Chinese Uighur terrorists into the United States, Obama administration officials have — for the second time — overridden objections of federal agencies responsible for national security.
The first time — as I reported on April 20 — the White House overrode the inter-agency panel it created from all the national security agencies to review all the cases of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners. That panel found that the seventeen Uighurs — members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement captured at an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan — were too dangerous to release in the United States.
I reported in more detail here.
Flashback: Milton Friedman Explains the Economy to a 5th Grader (2003)
Congress could use some of this sage advice!
So relevant to today… Congress did you hear that governments historically have never had much luck in fine-tuning an economy? Get the hint and move out of the way!
“The one thing you know about economics is that you don’t know”
Listen to Friedman’s response about steel tariffs – relate that to cap-and-trade; same scenario. Economics as I learned in college has a cause and effect for everything around it. It’s very methodical and analytical… I like it! 
Cat Fight! Michele Bachmann and Barney Frank Duel Over ACORN
MEOW! Go get ‘em Michele!
Two partisan heavyweights did battle Thursday over an amendment prized by conservatives, as House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) withdrew backing for a bill that would have toughened regulations for community organizing groups.
Frank withdrew his support from an amendment offered by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) that would forbid groups like the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) from receiving federal grants if any of their employees have been indicted for voter fraud.
Good! Why should any groups that claim to be non-partisan receive our taxpayer funds when they are anything but non-partisan? I personally wouldn’t care if the group was conservative or liberal, I don’t want my taxpayer funds going to either.
After approving the amendment by a unanimous voice vote, Frank announced Thursday he was mistaken to back the bill, and said he’d offer a substitute that would apply the amendment only to groups with employees who are actually convicted — not just indicted. Frank’s version would also take into account the employee’s position in the organization, and how long ago the conviction had been handed down.
Frank is flip-flopping because ACORN and groups backed by George Soros have more power on Capitol Hill than most want to admit. He wants to make it appear that he is writing legislation that will not be misconstrued (funny how that’s never what Democrats want in any of their bills – they prefer being vague so they can find loopholes to help themselves). Stipulating that an actual conviction is necessary would delay the withdrawal of funds which is all that Frank is trying to do.
“Focusing on an indictment and letting an indictment be the trigger of penalties would be a violation the basic rules and fairness of American law,” Frank told The Hill. “So if one person is indicted, the whole “innocent until proven guilty, etc”� just goes totally out the window.”
When has fairness or the law ever applied to Democrats? These groups shouldn’t be getting taxpayer money anyway – especially since they are trying to pass themselves off as non-partisan when they most definitely are not!
“The temptation to indict someone you don’t like — after the Ted Stevens thing, I don’t even know how anyone could think about that,” he said.
Typical liberal counterpoint (passive-aggressive) and typical Barney Frank – lay the blame elsewhere and try to make the person asserting the statement out to be mean-spirited or bigoted.
Bachmann blasted Frank for “siding with ACORN,” a group that had stoked the ire of many conservatives for their efforts to turn out the vote for President Obama during the 2008 elections.
“Are we expected to keep forking over tax dollars to these organization when they’re under the cloud of suspicion of a public criminal indictment?” Bachmann asked in a statement.
“If nothing else, this shows us just how much influence ACORN and others have over Chairman Frank and the Democrat party,” she said. “Your tax dollars are being abused.”
Right you are Bachmann - keep on fighting the good fight!
Another funny side note:
Chairman Barney Frank accepted the amendment right there in front of the whole committee — I assumed because it was his very own language as passed under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA) of 2008 — and the amendment was then passed by unanimous voice vote.
So he originally approved all of this when he wrote it – but something made him change his mind. He thinks that these facts aren’t on record and that the media will be able to cover all of the Democrats’ messes up forever. This is similar to Pelosi’s amnesiaon waterboarding.
