Archive → January, 2011
Gallup: Dem identification down
After making historic gains in the US House last November, GOP confidence is high; but that could quickly turn to overconfidence if the latest Gallup Poll is accurate. According to the latest survey, only 31 percent of Americans identify themselves as Democrats. That’s down five points from 2008, when Barak Obama swept into office, and the lowest the Dems have polled since 2003.
But if the GOP thinks the nation is turning to them, well… don’t jump the gun.
Those identifying themselves as Republicans stand at 29 percent currently, according to the same poll. That’s up from a low of 27 percent a year ago, but still nowhere near the 31-34 percent highs the GOP enjoyed in the late 1980s and the early part of the 2000s. In fact, it’s still a pretty low number, almost as low as the retails supplies of the Wii Black.
So what does this all mean? Well, those identifying as independents are polling at 38 percent, the second-highest result in the last twenty-two years. So while the GOP made big gains this time around, these poll results indicate that independents haven’t bought into Republican rhetoric just yet, and the new House leadership needs to prove themselves before the numbers start swinging the GOP’s way once again on a reliable basis.
If the party abandons the principles it ran on, or event produces lackluster results in the economy, the next election cycle could switch control up once again.
Arizona Congresswoman shot
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot by 22-year-old punk Jared Lee Loughner, a MySpace and YouTube user who posted mendacious, incoherent ramblings that are too asinine to bear repeating. Yet somehow he slipped through the system just enough to free as a bird today when he decided to go to an Arizona grocery where Giffords was appearing, with the intent to kill.
While Giffords, who may have been fond of Ladies Hats at times, is currently expected to survive despite being shot in the head, Loughner’s attack left six people dead, including a federal court judge, as well as 12 more who were injured. Among those dead were a nine-year-old girl.
Giffords is a three-term congresswoman who gained attention by being one of the rare Democrats to fend off a challenge from a Tea Party-backed Republican last November. A member of the Blue Dog contingent of the Democratic Party, Giffords is counted as a moderate in the House.
WonderfulPessimist.com wishes Rep. Giffords a safe and speedy recovery. Our prayers are with her and her family.
As for her attacker, let’s hope Loughner winds up in that Arizona prison where they still have chain gangs… at best.
Three new female governors take power this year… all GOP
Three new female governors will occupy US governors mansions beginning this year, and all of them are Republicans.
The new Governors are Susanna Martinez of New Mexico, Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, and Nikki Haley of South Carolina. Martinez has already taken office while Fallin and Haley will be sworn in later this month.
Martinez, Fallin and Haley join Jan Brewer of Arizona and M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut as GOP women occupying governors mansions nationwide.
By contrast, the “party of feminism,” the Democrats, have only two female governors in office. They are Beverly Perdue of North Carolina and Christine Gregoire of Washington, who just won re-election this past fall.
So, even with Sarah Palin out of office, conservative women are definitely on the rise, with a 5-2 advantage in our nation’s governor’s mansions. Guess which party is the real party of opportunity for women?
Perry new head of RGA
Texas Governor Rick Perry has been selected as the new head of the Republican Governors Association. He succeeds Haley Barbour, and will strike the most conservative take on the organization in years, a welcome reform. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was among the RGA’s leadership in recent years, typical of the watered-down nature of the group.
No longer. Joining Perry are Louisiana governor and Reaganite conservative Bobby Jindal, as well as New Jersey’s Chris Christie, Nikki Haley and Susanna Martinez. Overall, it’s the most conservative board of leaders to serve as heads of the RGA in years – possibly decades. While Dems concern themselves with apidexin reviews, let’s hope that Perry and company eye a much more important prize: continued conservative victories across governors mansions and statehouses throughout the US.
Fed up with being force-fed artificial sweeteners
The entire US diet is being controlled lately, it seems, by the needs of diabetics.
I’m speaking, of course, about the vast proliferation of artificial sweeteners into nearly every major food product on US shelves … whether it’s labeled “diet” or not. This is all well and good for diabetics, but few people stop to consider this: there are people with dietary needs that are different than those of diabetics!
For example, my wife has a severe allergy to artificial sweeteners of any kind. You name it, it’s a risk of anaphylaxis for her. Saccharin. Aspertame (NutraSweet). Sucralose (Splenda). Sorbitol. Xylitol. Stevia. They’re all things that cause her to get sick, quickly. I’ve done hospital runs.
The trouble is that it’s in everything these days. Even products with sugar in them, or high fructose corn syrup, contains loads of artificial sweeteners as well, and most of those products are not marked as “diet” nor do they even feature any labeling warning the product contains artificial sweeteners.
Chewing gum and bubble gum, for example, are lost causes. There’s virtually no gum that isn’t “sugar-free” anymore. You call that consumer choice?
The same goes for pop. While all diet pop has artificial sweeteners in it these days, many regular sodas that contain sugar or high fructose corn syrup also contain healthy doses of aspertame, sucralose, sorbitol or xylitol. Some even contain two more more of these, all without being labeled diet. You must read the fine-print ingredients to even know!
Now, for the average consumer with no food issues, this may seem like a small thing. But when a teaspoon of cough syrup sweetened with aspertame can send your wife to the ER, believe me, you start to take it a bit more seriously.
And if you think this is a mere “pop and candy” issue, it’s not. You have to check everything from yogurt to fruit juice to cocoa to Kool-Aid to donuts and other pastries and, well, anything that’s sweet. Even some canned vegetables are stored in juices containing artificial sweeteners these days. Not always, but often enough that you have to read the fine-print ingredients to avoid a nasty surprise trip to the doctor.
Beware of packaging phrases like, “Now with a third fewer calories” and similar phrases.
And over-the-counter medicine? Forget it. Just about anything and everything from aspirin to allergy tablets are coated these days, usually with a mixture of gelatin and artificial sweeteners. I mean, can’t a person swallow a simple Advil without having to have it taste sweet going down? I’m not that old yet, but when I was growing up, medicine had no taste. Sometimes it was even chalky. But it’s medicine! It’s not supposed to taste good; it’s just supposed to work.
Yet during cold and flu season, just try to find a tablet or gelcap or syrup that doesn’t list aspertame or sucralose as a main inactive ingredient. It’s nearly impossible!
Look, if all this stuff makes the lives of diabetics a little bit easier, mazel tov! Wonderful! But what ever happened to consumer choice? One needs a DLP projector to look back to a time when all this artificial sweetener stuff was hard to come by. Diabetics argued for consumer choice then.
Now, their needs control the food industry almost completely. Only a few rare products offer safe sugar products with no artificial crap in it. Gotta love Heritage Dr. Pepper, for example! Or Sierra Mist Natural. These rare exceptions help, but it only fixes the soda problem.
What ever happened to cane sugar, sugar beet sugar and “pressed cane juice,” hmm? Or the most natural sweetener of all, honey?
And for the love of the LORD, why coat medicine with any sweetener at all, artificial or otherwise? It’s medicine. Buck up and take it, America! You don’t need everything to taste sweet going down.
As national debt hits $14 trillion, ObamaCare repeal looms
Get this: the national debt, run up to these levels largely under President Obama’s watch, is about to hit the $14 trillion mark. And people wonder why the U.S. Dollar is floundering? Amidst this fiscal disaster, too many folks are being critical of House Republicans’ plan to pass a repeal of ObamaCare, the massive overhaul of the US health system widely considered to be a job-killer and an economy-killer, as well as a budget tsunami.
So we’re already in debt up to our eyeballs and folks want to say the GOP has a bad idea by wanting to put the skids on to an entirely new realm of Federal spending (and the resulting increased taxation that will spin out from it?)
Seriously, what is the national media smoking? And can you find it on medical computer carts under ObamaCare?
