Let's preface this post by stating the obvious that's it's way to early to make any firm predictions.  A month, much less 14, can be an eternity in politics.

That said, Michael Barone over at the Washington Examiner has some interesting numbers and historical facts to take a look at:

Currently Real Clear Politics reports that Democrats lead Republicans by only 41%-39% in the generic ballot. But there’s a clear difference between the results shown by pollster Scott Rasmussen, who limits his surveys to those he determines to be likely voters, and other pollsters. Rasmussen currently shows Republicans leading 42%-38%...

 

Now comes political scientist Andrew Gelman, on the 538.com blog run by the Obama enthusiast and gifted numbers cruncher Nate Silver, saying that the generic polls suggest that Republicans could recapture a House majority in 2010. I have noticed that over the years generic vote questions have tended to understate the ultimate Republican percentage of the popular vote for the House; Gelman says his research indicates “the out-party consistently outperforms the generic polls.” Gelman says that in current generic polls Democrats get 52% of the two-party vote, comparable to what they got in 1946, 1994 and 1998—all years in which Republicans got more popular votes and won more House seats than Democrats....

 

...Ronald Reagan’s Republicans and Bill Clinton’s Democrats lost more seats in year 2 than in year 6; only George W. Bush of the presidents of the last 30 years saw his party do worse in year 6 than year 2.  Reagan’s Republicans suffered from recession and high unemployment; Clinton’s Democrats suffered from liberal overreach. Both factors could—not necessarily will, but could—work against Barack Obama’s Democrats next year.

Again, it's early, but those are facts.  And they show that the GOP is likely to have a tremendous opportunity next year.  The trick is not to blow the opportunity.  Use it to paint a clear contrast between yourself and  what the public is rebelling against.  read more »

By this point, everyone is familiar with the most recent scandal involving ACORN, (having its employees caught on video in multiple offices offering help in committing loan fraud, setting up a brothel and smuggling in underage illegal aliens to be prostitutes).  But there is a laundry list of other, more serious charges which scream out for a national RICO investigation by the Justice Department.

From Peter Roff over at US News: 

A report issued last summer by the Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, according to Sunday's Washington Times, "presented evidence that ACORN had engaged in criminal misconduct."

Among the findings, the report said, ACORN:

• Engaged in tax evasion, obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting a cover-up of nearly $1 million embezzled by Dale Rathke, brother of group founder Wade Rathke;

• Committed investment fraud, depriving the public of the right to "honest services," and engaging in a racketeering enterprise affecting interstate commerce;

• Conspired to defraud the United States by using taxpayer dollars for partisan political activities;

• Submitted false filings to the Internal Revenue Service, and the U.S. Department of Labor; and,

As everyone knows by now, Jimmy Carter found time to leave whatever new house he was working on to try and seem relevant again by injecting himself into the current political debate...or in this case create one...by suggesting, twice now, that the "overwhelming majority" of the opposition to Obama is based on the fact that he's black.

Well, it doesn't seem that the public is buying it.

The latest Rasmussen poll finds that only 12% of Americans "believe that most opponents of President Obama's health care reform plan are racist".

As the WSJ observes...

That's 29% less than voted for Carter's re-election in 1980, a time when people were actually living through his disastrous presidency. The latter point leads us to think that Carter may have a conflict of interest in attacking Americans on Obama's behalf. Perhaps he secretly hopes Obama fails so miserably as to supplant Carter as the worst president of the past century.

The latest in the continuing sorry saga that is ACORN...

It takes a video

Newt Gingrich makes the following observation in his column today:

"Before yesterday's historic vote, no fewer than seven amendments that would have prohibited or conditioned the receipt of federal funds by ACORN were defeated by the majority Democrats in the House in the past year. In one case, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said that "the powers that be" in the Democratic-controlled House had put a stop to an investigation of the group."

What a difference a few videos can make...

More House vote analysis from Michael Barone:

"The House’s 345-75 vote to defund ACORN is indeed, as my Examiner colleague Byron York put it, extraordinary. Democrats voted 172-75 to defund ACORN; Republicans voted 173-0 to do so. This would not have occurred but for http://biggovernment.com/ the Big Government videos of ACORN employees encouraging tax evasion and prostitution. "Mainstream media" studiously ignored this big, big story, because it put Obama's political allies in ACORN in a bad light--such an egregious bit of biased coverage that it aroused derision and contempt from Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. But "mainstream media" couldn't cover up this scandal, as much as it wanted to..."  read more »

It looks like video footage from FIVE different ACORN offices of employees offering advise on how to get a loan to set up a brothel, or ship underage girls into the country to be prostitutes was too much.  (I suppose four examples was one thing, but five...)

Via the AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) – The House has voted to deny all federal funding for ACORN, the community organizing group that has been caught up in several scandals.The House action came several days after the Senate took a similar vote to block the Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN.

Odds that the ban is total by the time it reaches Obama's desk?

Another day, another video of corrupt ACORN employees willingly offering advise and assistance in setting up a local brothel.

In this case, it gets even better.  The friendly ACORN worker offers advise on how best to import underage illegal aliens as prostitutes.  (He knows someone that can help...)

In light of the daily drum-beat, (with more on the way) some folks in the mainstream media are finally starting to pay attention.

From the NY Times: Conservatives Draw Blood From Acorn

From the Washington Post (via their blog The Fix): ACORN -- How Much Danger For Democrats?

From CBS News: ACORN May Lose Gov't Funds after Scandal

From ABC News: Jake Tapper on ACORN probe (about a week late notices a "video tape")

From Newsday: Brooklyn DA to take lead on ACORN investigation  read more »

Given all of the incredibly helpful advise the good folks at ACORN were so happy to provide a budding young pimp and prostitute, (see videos here) it makes sense to take this useful information and condense it down into a simple, easy to follow set of tips and guidelines that might benefit others looking to start a career in the flesh trade.

With that in mind, we give you "The ACORN Guide to Do-it-Yourself Pimpin", (or "How to Start a Brothel in Ten Easy Steps"):

Step 1: Visit your friendly neighborhood ACORN office

Step: 2: Explain that you're a wannabe pimp, your girlfriend is a hooker and you want to start a brothel.

Step 3: Fraudulently fill out loan applications declaring fake profession, such as "performance artist" or "consultant".  (Remember, "Honesty isn't going to get you a house")

Step 4: Buy a house (preferably with a good sized backyard)

Step 5: Identify a sufficient number of underage El Salvadoran girls to staff your brothel, (somewhere in the 12 to 15 year range is about right).  Take steps to make sure they know to "keep quiet".

Step 6: Find out how many of the girls you can list as dependents on your tax forms.  And make sure you get that child tax credit.

Step 7: Declare a percentage of your cash revenue as income for tax purposes to keep it looking legit.  read more »

Democrat Senate Finance Chairm Max Baucus released his committee's version of health care "reform" a few days ago, but in the end it pleases pretty much no one.

Liberals don't care for it because it doesn't openly ram a government run system through in the light of day.   I suppose they don't like the idea of having to try and hide what they're really up to?

As for conservatives, the reasons to oppose it are a good bit more obvious...

TheWSJ does a good job of suming it up:

To sum up, the Baucus-Obama plan would increase the cost of insurance and then force people to buy it, requiring subsidies. Those subsidies would be paid for by taxes that make health care and thus insurance even more expensive, requiring even more subsidies and still higher taxes. It's a recipe to ruin health care and bankrupt the country, and that's even before liberal Democrats see Mr. Baucus and raise him, and then attempt to ram it all through the Senate.

And therein lies the primary problem of any Republicans getting on board at this point with a "bi-partisan" proposal.  Before it's over, a committee proposal has to get through the full Senate...and then it will inevitably be made even worse in a conference committee with the liberals from the House of Representatives.  Which means that the final product would look a whole lot closer to the current House version than anything most Americans would prefer to see become law.  read more »

Doing his best impersonation of Sergeant Schultz, Charlie Gibson did a radio interview for WLS AM in Chicago and just blew everyone away with the fountain of knowledge that you would expect a network news anchor to have about one of the biggest stories in the country.

From the interview via Fox:

Don: Ok here’s my question, Senate bill yesterday passes cutting off funds to this group called ACORN. Now we got the…we got that bill passing, we got the embarrassing video of ACORN staff giving tax advice on how to set up a brothel with 13 year old hookers. It has everything you could want corruption and sleazy action at tax funded organizations that’s got government ties. But nobody’s covering that story why?

Charlie Gibson: (laugh) I don’t even know about it. Uh, so you got me at a loss, I don’t know. Uh, uh, but, but My goodness if it’s got everything including sleaziness in it we should talk about it this morning.

Roma: This is the American way…

Charlie Gibson: Well maybe, maybe that’s one you just leave to the cables.

Roma: Well I think that this is a huge issue because there’s so much funding that goes into this organization and it’s a multi…

Charlie Gibson: Well, I know we’ve done some stories about ACORN before but uh, uh this one I don’t know about.

Illegal Immigration watchdog-in-Congress Tom Tancredo has an op-ed piece out today about the hubbub over Joe Wilson, and he makes an important point about all of the loopholes that were (and still are) in the various health care bills, specifically when it comes to illegal aliens.

Conservatives tried to bring these facts to the forefront of the healthcare debate, but the media and the Democrats simply ignored them or repeated their lie that illegal aliens would not receive government funded healthcare.

But Joe Wilson forced them to face the facts.  On Friday night, Obama announced that he wanted to use the SAVE program and bar illegals from the Health Insurance Exchange.   

This does not mean Obama was telling the truth when Joe called him a liar.  On the contrary, it is an admission that before Joe called out Obama illegals were eligible. ...

In other words, if Obama wasn't "lying", then why the hurry to make that change in the bill?

Exactly.