Pinch Us Because We Must Be Dreaming

From The Marston Chronicles

There is no way that what is happening can be real so I must be dreaming as are we all. I can prove to you that this must be the case and that we must all be having the same hallucinatory dream. Think back to 2003 for a moment. You are in a bookstore and you see a best selling novel set a few years in the future in Washington DC that is all about political intrigue. In this novel the author has made up this scenario whereby you are asked to imagine this future he has created.

In this future set just a few years ahead, we are asked to believe America has elected a black male President when blacks make up only 12.3% of the population and we have done this before even electing a female President. Okay, that is realistic enough since there are a lot of intelligent competent black Americans who have the necessary credentials to run this country. One can image Colin Powell being President or even getting a two for one by electing a black female President like Dr. Condoleezza Rice. However, the author wants you to believe that instead we have elected a black male who was known for having strong socialist tendencies based on his own statements. Not only that, but he has clearly associated with unsavory characters who have been known unrepentant domestic terrorists, blatant racists and convicted felons. Now who is going to believe that we would elect anyone who could not get a security clearance to be his own bodyguard and essentially give him the highest security clearance of all?

Everyone knows what a field day the news media would have pointing all of this out to the American public. After all, you get Pulitzer Prizes for pulling down a politician with a track record like this. There would be a news media feeding sensation with each of them trying to outdo the other to reveal in a breathless voice the next documented (or maybe even undocumented ones like Dan Rather did) scandal. What publisher would accept a manuscript with such a cockamamie premise? If that is not enough to invoke disbelief, the author wants you to believe that we would elect a man President who spent his formative years going to a Muslim school in a place like Indonesia. How could he be a "natural born citizen" under such circumstances even if he was born in Hawaii? Why would anyone believe we would elect a man with Muslim sympathies a mere seven years after 9/11?

We are all willing to suspend belief for the sake of a good story but this is getting ridiculous. Finally, this man has no experience in business and has never had to meet a payroll. Most businessmen would not hire him to push a wheelbarrow and even then only to satisfy an affirmative action quota. But actually he has been an affirmative action bonus baby all the way. He has never had to earn anything because it all has been handed to him on a silver platter because of the color of his skin. The author wants us to believe that the American people would actually do such a racist thing because of some imaginary guilt complex about slavery on the part of the 74.3% of the American people who just happen to have white skin.

But wait, it gets even better. Along with electing this black President, the American voters gave his party control of both houses of Congress including a filibuster proof Senate. They in turn have tried to jam a legislative agenda down the throats of the American people that is opposed by a clear majority of the people. They have ruled that carbon dioxide is a "pollutant" and giving the EPA authority to regulate anything producing more than 250 tons of carbon dioxide in a year. That includes the vast majority of all businesses, and all schools, hospitals, shopping malls, etc in the entire country. They are passing a so-called health care reform bill that requires everyone to obtain health insurance or pay a fine for not doing so. Failure to pay the fine gets you a jail sentence. The bill even contains language that makes it impossible to ever repeal certain provisions of it.

Everyone knows that the cardinal rule of politics is to get re-elected. This author actually wants us to believe that even though they do not have one single vote from the opposing party, that politicians would commit political suicide by passing such a bill. Such foolish things are only done by ideologues and they make poor politicians. Not only that but the author has them get the necessary votes to do so with out and out bribes right out in front of a credulous public. When this is pointed out to them, their attitude is: Too bad because we are going to do it anyway. When it is pointed out that the Constitution does not give them the authority to do this, their attitude is: The Constitution allows us to do whatever we feel is necessary because we can always find enough liberal activist judges who agree with us. What politician in the real world could ever be so credulous and naive?

Even political novices know that messing with social security and medicare is the third rail of politics. How can the author want us to believe that any politician would pull $500,000,000,000 out of medicare for any reason whatsoever when some of them represent districts where one out of every four voters is over 65? He wants us to believe that the largest association of retired people would sell out their membership by approving this bill. He wants us to believe that the AMA would do the same thing. Obviously this author does not know the first thing about American politics. You really just cannot make stuff like this up and get anyone to believe you. That is why this cannot be some book published in 2003 that has all this nonsense in it.

That is why this must be a dream. We must all be having this dream at the same time because it just cannot be true. It makes no sense whatsoever. What a total nightmare! Pinch us all so we can wake up and know this was just a bad dream. I just pinched myself and I am still having this dream. How about you? Are you having the same dream? If you are not, help me wake up. Please? Pretty please with sugar and molasses on it?

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Where the GOP Can Pick up House Seats

CLICK ON MAP TO ZOOM IN
The red districts are the best bets for the Republicans because the probability of capturing the seat is 80% or better. A table showing the details is available at: Marstonchronicles.info - Republican Best bets.

The pink districts are the next best bets for the Republicans because the probability of capturing the seat is between 70 and 80%. A table showing the details is available at: Marstonchronicles.info - Republican Better bets.

The pale blue districts are the third best bets for the Republicans because the probability of capturing the seat is between 60 and 70%. A table showing the details is available at: Marstonchronicles.info - Republican Good bets.

The purple districts are the fourth best bets for the Republicans because the probability of capturing the seat is between 50 and 60%. A table showing the details is available at: Marstonchronicles.info - Republican Fair bets.

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Will GOP Regain Control of House?

From The Marston Chronicles

The last time the Republicans took control of the House was 1994. The Democrats regained control in 2006. Obviously there should have been some signs showing these dramatic changes were taking place. There was a definite sign of what was going to happen and that was what the generic congressional ballot polls were showing. The generic ballot results are obtained by the pollsters asking some variant of this question:
"If the election for U.S. House of Representatives were held today, would you vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate in your congressional district?"
The generic ballot has been shown to be an accurate predictor of the eventual vote in midterm elections. The link takes you to a Gallup table proving this point. To illustrate what this is all about, here is the Gallup graph of the generic ballot for 1994:

1994 Generic Congressional Ballot -- Preferences of Registered Voters

Here is the one for 2006:

2006 Generic Congressional Ballot -- Preferences of Registered Voters

The differences reach out and grab you. So what does this mean for 2010? A graph like 2006 means the Democrats will retain control of the House but one like 1994 means the Republicans will regain control. Keep in mind that we are a year away from the election and that makes predicting the final result much more difficult but it does give us some clue as to what will happen. So what has the generic ballot been saying lately?

Date Republicans Democrats Spread
11/5/09 - 12/7/09 44.2 43.4 Republicans +0.8
11/5/09 - 11/16/09 45.0 44.5 Republicans +0.5
10/29/09 - 11/8/09 42.5 45.5 Democrats +3.0
10/1/09 - 10/18/09 39.67 43.0 Democrats +3.33
9/10/09 - 9/20/09 38.67 41.33 Democrats +2.67
8/20/09 - 9/1/09 41.0 42.5 Democrats +1.5
7/10/09 - 7/26/09 42.25 43.5 Democrats +1.25
6/4/09 - 6/29/09 35.0 40.0 Democrats +5.0
5/25/09 - 6/1/09 36.0 44.0 Democrats +8.0
4/20/09 - 4/27/09 35.33 39.33 Democrats +4.0
3/10/09 - 3/29/09 38.5 42.25 Democrats +3.75
1/21/09 - 1/25/09 28.5 44 Democrats +15.5
10/20/08 - 11/2/08 38.83 47.5 Democrats +8.67
Marston Chronicles Generic Ballot Averages for the Last Year

As you can see the Democrats were home free from the last election through the middle of November because it was all Democrat and looking like the 2006 graph. All of a sudden the public disapproval of health care started showing up and the Republicans pulled into the lead. In 2006, the Republicans never pulled ahead. Suddenly, it is beginning to look like a 1994 year and not a 2006 year. If this keeps up, the Republicans will regain control of the House. Only time will tell if this will hold up.

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Exploding Political Myths

We are using official Census Bureau figures in a table of the states ranked from the most Democratic to the most Republican to refute several political myths. The Census Bureau figures can be found at: Fast Facts for Congress. Blogging websites do not handle tables well, so to see the table, go to Marston Chronicles.

Myth # 1:
People 65 and older vote more Republican. That used to be true but now they no longer favor either party.

Myth # 2: White people tend to vote more Republican as opposed to minorities. States with a high percentage of whites show no more tendency to vote for either party.

Myth # 3: A state with a lot of black Americans will vote Democrat. It is true that black Americans do overwhelming favor Democrats but they do not drive a state to become Democrat probably because they do not turn out very well with 2008 being a major exception. It is true that the eight most Republican states have a low percentage of black Americans. Of course once the percentage of them goes above 50% like in DC then that is enough to make DC the most Democratic area in the country. On the other hand, states with an extremely low percentage of minorities like Vermont and Maine are solidly Democrat or Socialist.

Myth # 4: A high percentage of Latinos will drive a state Democrat. This is obviously not true since the most Latino state of New Mexico is a swing state and a solid Republican state like Texas has a 35.9% Latino population. However, the converse is true. With the exception of Texas and Arizona, all the solid Republican states have a low percentage of Latinos.

Myth # 5: Better educated people tend to vote Republican. This used to be true but now the exact opposite is true. Depending on your political views, one can say that smarter people are Democrats and only stupid rednecks are Republican or that better educated people remain brainwashed by their left wing professors for the rest of their lives.

Myth # 6: The Republican Party represents the fat cat rich people. If this was ever true, it certainly is no longer the case. The median household income proves it. In the fourteen most Democratic states they all have higher than the norm incomes with the exception of Vermont and Maine. In the Republican states, they have lower median incomes except strangely enough in three of the five most Republican states. Alaska has to pay higher than normal wages to get people to be willing to withstand the extreme cold. Utah is heavily Mormon (who tend to vote Republican) but they also tend to go to Brigham Young University in droves and that may explain the better income. What is going on in Wyoming is not clear but something surely is.

Myth # 7: Because Democrats spend a lot of their time trying to help the poor and downtrodden, these people return the favor by voting for them. A higher percentage of the people in Republican states are below the nationwide poverty level. Likewise, the Democrat states have fewer people living in poverty,

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TANSTAAFL

Perhaps you recognize this as an acronym for the ungrammatical expression, "There aint no such thing as a free lunch." The point of this expression is that nothing in life comes free. The critical word is "comes". Those things you give are free if you truly do not expect or want anything back in return. Anything you receive comes at some cost to you. Such is the case with a so-called free lunch. Not only is someone or some institution paying for it, such as a charity or the government, but it still comes at a cost to you. There is no way anyone in this country can get a totally free ride. We all pay taxes. Even if you pay no income taxes, you still pay sales taxes on most things you buy and so do charities on the things they buy.

Of course, there are those who do everything they can to get as much of a free ride as possible and let others pay for it. Believe it or not, this comes at a terrible cost to such a person. It comes not as a monetary cost but as a loss of something far more important: freedom. Such a person is now dependent upon someone else or some institution for their very sustenance. How is this any different from being a peasant or serf totally dependent upon the whim of the local baron for everything? We no longer have barons running our lives but something far worse: the government. So what makes the government far worse? The baron only ruled his own estate; the government rules all of us.

So what is so bad about that since we live in a democracy? All that means is that we get to elect the people who decide exactly how much some unelected government official gets to run our lives at literally the point of a gun. Now none of this is usually all without some purported "good" intent. The problem with this is that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". Most of what the government promises to do for us sounds good on the surface. As always, the devil is in the details. After all, who can argue against free lunches for the poor kids at school, free health care for those who cannot afford it and for that matter everything free for all of us who cannot afford it? Where do we stop and who gets to decide who is poor and cannot afford some good thing?

That is where we come back to tanstaafl. Who is going to pay for all of these "free" goodies that are not free at all? Some folks propose that the rich pay for all of these freebies. They already pay 70% of all taxes in this country. Soaking the rich to subsidize the poor says they should pay 100% of the taxes. Obviously, the rich would soon be on their way to some tax free haven more than they already are if we did that. Even if they stayed, how much more would we raise in tax revenue? There is only another 30% to be gained on top of the current amount. In fiscal year 2009, all of the governments in the United States are expected to have revenues of $4,636,000,000,000. If we get the rich to pay all of the taxes, that 30% will raise another $1,390,800,000,000 for a total of $6,026,800,000,000. That should solve the problem, shouldn't it? Well, no, because all of those same governments are expecting to spend $6,456,000,000,000 in that same year. In other words, all of the various governments are already planning to run a deficit of $1,820,000,000,000. Making the rich pay all of the taxes will not even cover the projected deficit.

Since even making all of the "rich" pay all of the taxes, which isn't happening, still won't cover our existing expenses, how can we in good conscience add one damn thing to our expenditures? That means no new health care, no cap and trade, no nothing. That is the financial aspect of all this mess. That does not cover the loss of freedom in not being able to make your own choices. It is the young people under thirty who will suffer the most. Ironically this is the group that elected the folks currently running the show. People under thirty do not need general health insurance only catastrophic health insurance but that they will either have to buy it, pay a whopping fine or go to jail under the current proposals. That is so their premiums can pay for the health care of their grandparents who really do need it. Not only that, but they will be saddled with the debt this "free" health care will add to the current deficit of $1,820,000,000,000 by at least doubling it to $3,620,000,000,000 for each and every year after it takes effect for as far into the future as we can project it. When will this fiscal insanity cease? January, 2011 (the date the next congress takes office) seems a long way off.

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2008 and 2009 Elections Compared

It seems appropriate to take a look at what happened one year ago. Based on all previous trends in elections, McCain should have won in a landslide 310 to 228 electoral votes. Obviously, that is not happened and the question is why? From a distance of one year after the fact, the answer is now clear. Historically minorities and the under 30 age groups have a very poor record of turning out to vote assuming they are even registered to vote in the first place. It was clear that black voters were going to turn out in record numbers to vote for a black candidate. There was no reason to assume that Hispanics would do that or that young people would bother to vote. However they did do just that and that made a crucial difference in the battleground states. Thus the Democrat turnout (always heavily supported by minorities) reached record proportions.

Still that might have not made the difference in states like North Carolina, Ohio and Indiana if it were not for the Republicans turning out lower than normal. Likewise, many Republicans actually voted for Obama in the interests of proving that America's abysmal racial record was a thing of the past. In this they were disappointed because the matter of race is now more of an issue than it has been since the days of Martin Luther King. Finally a lot of Republicans stayed home because McCain was too liberal or too conservative depending upon the state the voter resided in.

At this point, this is all ancient history so why care? The question is whether the 2008 election was a total upheaval or merely a one time anomaly. The elections on Tuesday provide us with an answer to this crucial question. It was a one time anomaly since the partisan turnout on Tuesday returned to historical norms. The minorities and the young folks went back to not caring much any more about who wins elections. The result was not only Virginia voted Republican but even New Jersey did which it seldom does. This was caused by the independents switching from going 2 to 1 for Obama to going 2 to 1 for Republicans.

What does this mean for 2010? In Virginia, the Republicans carried 9 out of 11 congressional districts on Tuesday. Right now there are six Democrat congressman from Virginia and only five Republicans. Unless things change, there will be 9 Republican congressman and only 2 Democrats from Virginia after the 2010 election. It seems safe to predict that the Democrats will lose virtually all of the seats they gained in the 2006 and 2008 elections. If that happens, the Republicans will regain control of the House of Representatives.
See Charles Krauthammer's article, Myth of '08, Demolished, coming to the same conclusion.

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We Cannot Just Say No

If those of us who are opposed to the current administration and Congress let those same folks ingrain the idea in the body politic that we are merely obstructionist, we are doomed. To just say no is to say we support the status quo and are convinced that since nothing is broken, nothing needs fixing. There are many things in America that are broken and need fixing and everyone should agree on that. The argument is over how to fix what is broken.

Liberals think that the government can fix all these broken things if we will just give them the authority to do so. The rest of us know better because what has government ever done right? History shows that government screws up everything it touches beyond all reason and belief. Civil servants have no vested interest in getting things right. They are only interested in covering their asses so they can keep their position at the public trough. Individuals and competitive profit making business have a vested interest in getting it right.

We need a forum for our proposals on how to fix what is broken. General principles can be done easily such as the ones at: PUMA Coalition Positions. The problem is that philosophical positions are not grabbers with the general voting public as opposed to political activists. To convince the non-activists to join us requires that we have specific solutions to solve known problems. We are going to take a stab at offering some fairly radical ideas on providing these fixes in the order that they are important to the American People as delineated by Rasmussen Reports.

These are: Gov't Ethics/Corruption, Economy, Health Care, Nat'l Security/War on Terror, Social Security, Taxes, Education, Immigration, War in Iraq and Abortion. Each of these problems is laid out along with our proposed solutions at www.marstonchronicles.info

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