Video summary from Rasmussen.

Scorecard:

Congressman Steve King (R), who worries Iowa could “become the Mecca for same-sex marriage,” won’t rule out a bid for governor in 2010.

But Iowa Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal says, “King is too chicken to run for governor because he knows he’d get his butt beat.”

The Scorecard:

According to the latest unofficial combined machine and paper results released this afternoon, Democrat Scott Murphy has a 35-vote lead over Republican Jim Tedisco in New York’s 20th District.

The following counties have finished counting their domestic absentee ballots: Delaware, Essex, Greene, Otsego, and Rensselaer counties. No numbers have been reported to the state from Saratoga and Washington counties.

Planet Gore:

California supports environmental regulation, just not the kind that affect them personally. Like taking shorter showers or watering your lawn:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Despite dire warnings of water shortages due to prolonged drought, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday rejected a plan to ration water in the nation’s second-largest city for the first time in 18 years.

The unanimous 15-0 vote against the plan marked a surprise setback for Los Angeles water managers, who like their peers in cities throughout California were directed to cut water use 20 percent this year under a drought emergency proclaimed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But David Nahai, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the nation’s biggest municipal utility, insisted that the proposal was not dead.

“The city must cut back its water use. There are no two ways about that,” Nahai told Reuters after the vote.

But, honestly, if the Los Angeles City Council can’t even implement this water plan, is there really a chance that President Obama’s cap-and-trade program, with its attendant skyrocketing energy bills, will ever pass muster?

Bagyants:

If you’ve never heard of SB 218 you’re probably not alone. That’s because it passed the legislature on April 3rd, the very last day of the regular session.

This bill, among other things, requires women to be told within 24 hours of an abortion that “the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.” The bill is now waiting for the Governor’s signature or veto. But it’s complicated.

Reuters:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Despite dire warnings of water shortages due to prolonged drought, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday rejected a plan to ration water in the nation’s second-largest city for the first time in 18 years.

The unanimous 15-0 vote against the plan marked a surprise setback for Los Angeles water managers, who like their peers in cities throughout California were directed to cut water use 20 percent this year under a drought emergency proclaimed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But David Nahai, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the nation’s biggest municipal utility, insisted that the proposal was not dead.

“The city must cut back its water use. There are no two ways about that,” Nahai told Reuters after the vote.

HT Drudge.

The AP:

_May 2005: Congress approved an $82 billion bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and international anti-terrorism efforts. Obama voted yes.

_June 2006: Congress cleared a $94.5 billion bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as provide aid to hurricane victims. Obama voted yes.

_September 2006: Congress cleared a $448 billion Pentagon funding bill that included $70 billion for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama voted yes.

_April 2007: Congress cleared a $124 billion spending bill that provided $90 billion for war costs but mandated the withdrawal of U.S. troops within six months. Obama voted yes, but President George W. Bush vetoed the legislation.

_May 2007: Congress approved a roughly $100 billion spending measure to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and domestic projects, including hurricane relief. Obama voted no.

_December 2007: Congress cleared a $555 billion catchall spending bill that included $70 billion for U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama did not vote.

_June 2008: Congress approved a measure to spend $162 billion for war costs as well as provide a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits and emergency relief for the flood-ravaged Midwest. Obama voted yes.

The Daily Mail:

The Pope, who turns 82 later this month, prayed that Christians would respond to the problem by growing in faith.

‘May we never question or mock serious things in life like a cynic,’ he said.

‘Allow us not to drift into the desert of godlessness. Enable us to  perceive you in the gentle breeze, see you in street corners, love you in the  unborn child.’

On the station that marks the passage in the Gospel where Jesus met the  women of Jerusalemon the way to be crucified, the Pope also condemned the oppression of women, saying there were ‘many societies in the world where women fail to receive a fair deal’.

Rasmussen:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 34% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Twenty-nine percent (29%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +5 (see trends).

RCP blog:

On the eve of Easter weekend, Gallup heavyweight Lydia Saad reported Thursday that the rate of regular church attendance by Catholics and Protestants is now equal. That marks a drastic decline in American Catholic religiosity.

One of the vestiges of American political commentary is the discussion of Catholics as a separate and unified voting bloc. That was once true, especially in the days of Joe McCarthy and John F. Kennedy. Religious Catholics today though vote more similar to religious Protestants than fellow Catholics who rarely attend mass.

For scholars of religion, the modern faith fault line is not denomination but church attendance. Weekly attendance is the best, though still imperfect, indicator of whether religion is a driving force behind a voters’ politics rather than a peripheral aspect of their lives.

Gallup data shows that 45 percent of Catholics and Protestants say they attended church in the past week. That marks a Catholic attendance decline of 30 percentage points since 1955, while the Protestant rate has slightly risen. In other words, Catholics are no longer the more orthodox body in American life.

Link:

Six Flags Over Texas reopened Sunday, one day after the theme park shut down because of a power outage that left thrill seekers helplessly stranded on rides.

The Star:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The man who built insurance giant American International Group Inc. from a startup to a global behemoth said he didn’t mismanage the company - but the government did.

Following weeks of public and congressional outrage over largest corporate failure in U.S. history, Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, AIG’s chief executive until March 2005, said taxpayers got a raw deal in the largest bailout of the financial crisis.

Testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, Greenberg said his team had “nothing to do” with failures that so far have cost more than $182 billion.

Rasmussen:

Only 11% of Americans think a financial institution will run better if it’s run by the federal government, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Sixty-seven percent (67%) say the institution will not run better, and 22% aren’t sure.

Republicans are the most skeptical. While 18% of Democrats say the government can run the financial entity better, just five percent (5%) of Republicans - and seven percent (7%) of adult s not affiliated with either party - agree.

Eighty percent (80%) of Republicans, 67% of unaffiliateds and 56% of Democrats do not believe the government will run it better.

Investors are dubious of government control as well: 73% say the government will not run the institution better, as do 62% of non-investors.

Politico:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told “Fox News Sunday” that he would have disabled the long-range missile before North Korea launched it, saying too many people “do not appreciate the scale of the threat that is evolving on the planet.”

“One morning, just like 9/11, there’s going to be a disaster,” Gingrich said. “I have yet to see the United Nations do anything effective with either Iran or North Korea.”

Reacting to President Barack Obama’s speech in Prague, Gingrich called the plan for a Global Summit on Nuclear Security a “wonderful fantasy idea,” saying Russia and other nations can’t be trusted.

CQ Politics:

Republicans are more likely than not to make gains in next year’s elections, if only because the past says it will be so.

Since the Civil War, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934 and George W. Bush in 2002 are the only elected presidents who saw their own parties pick up additional House seats in the first election after their moving into the White House. In every other such midterm, when the energy and enthusiasm has been with the motivated outsiders, the party locked out of the White House has gained more strength in the House.

Looking ahead to 2010, strategists of both parties are already trying to figure out how to bend history in their favor: Democrats want to chart a course toward a 2002-like exception, while Republicans want to make the most of their natural advantage in this electoral cycle. That means finding a way to win over the voters who found the GOP message compelling enough to vote Republican for president last November on the same day they voted to send a Democrat to Congress.

Mark Perry:

Energy Information Administration — It was anticipated that nuclear generation would decline in 2008. Preliminary data for much of the year seemed to confirm a decline, although the decline was not as great as initially projected. Cumulative monthly data released in the Electric Power Monthly shows nuclear generation for 2008 was actually a fraction of a percent higher than in the record year of 2007 (see chart above).

Graph:

RCP:

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) appears on “Morning Joe” to discuss the GOP’s alternative budget. He says the budget is an approach former President Bush would make.

HT Drudge for this photo of PM Gordon Brown:

gordon brown

Globe media:

Paige Gilmore used to be so large she couldn’t buckle up a seat belt in a car, or go on a roller-coaster ride with her son. No chair was big enough to hold her 420-pound, 5-foot-7-inch frame.

Dieting had never helped Ms. Gilmore, who has been overweight since the age of 9. “Once you get past 350 pounds, you can’t even be weighed on a regular scale,” she said. “I was desperate. I was hiding food and eating it for comfort. It was like a tic.”

Then her doctor made an astonishing discovery - one that is revolutionizing the way morbidly obese people are treated, and viewed by society.

He diagnosed her with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, a neuro-developmental irregularity that causes people to behave impulsively and seek constant stimulation. They nibble to counter feelings of restlessness, explains her physician, Lance Levy, a Toronto specialist in nutritional medicine.

The Fix:

2. Kansas (D): Until Gov. Kathleen Sebelius(D) is confirmed (or not confirmed) as Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Democratic field is effectively frozen. If Sebelius becomes head of HHS, then Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson, who has said he will not seek statewide office in 2010, becomes governor. The big announcement then would be who Parkinson picks as his second-in-command as that person would almost certainly have a leg up on being the Democrats’ gubernatorial nominee in 2010. Regardless, Sen. Sam Brownback (R), who is coming back to the state to run for governor, is the clear favorite. (Previous ranking: 3)

1. Nevada (R): Fix friend — and king of Nevada journalism — Jon Ralston has taken to referring to Gov. Jim Gibbons (R) with a symbol: 0. That says all you need to know about Gibbons’ standing as he weighs whether to seek a second term. If he runs and makes it through the primary, this is a near-certain pickup for Democrats. The frontrunner for the Democratic nod is Rory Reid, chairman of the Clark County Commission, but state Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley is also considering the race. (Previous ranking: 1)

Reuters:

(Reuters) - Verizon Wireless will start selling a netbook — a cheaper, more basic version of a notebook — as early as next quarter, Bloomberg said, citing a person close to the project.

The devices are being developed with more than one PC maker, the news agency cited the person as saying. Price and plan details aren’t complete, the person told the news agency.

Computerworld:

March 26, 2009 (Computerworld) Two days after members of the White House press corps asked President Barack Obama questions about the state of the union, more than 90,000 citizens from across the country had the chance to do the same thing today.

In an online town hall meeting that started late this morning and wrapped up just before 1 p.m. Eastern, Obama took questions from an audience in the White House and from online participants who had posed questions on the WhiteHouse.gov Web site.

White House officials said the Web site’s Open for Questions portal, launched earlier this week, attracted some 92,928 users who submitted 104,111 questions and cast 3,606,658 votes for queries they wanted answered.

“Given the size of the electorate, that’s not a huge number, but since it’s the first time they’ve done this, you have to judge it in that context,” said Dan Olds, principal analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group Inc. “It’s a step in the right direction to getting more people engaged in the process.”

Club for Growth:

Washington - It only took two and a half months of the Obama presidency for Club for Growth members to award President Obama the Club for Growth’s Comrade of the Month Award for the month of March. Out of a list of four nominees that included Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Rep. Charlie Rangel, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Club members chose President Obama overwhelmingly for this award. (more…)

Wichita Liberty:

Yesterday Burton W. Folsom, professor of history at Hillsdale College spoke to a capacity crowd at a luncheon sponsored by Americans for Prosperity-Kansas and the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy.

His topic was three myths of the New Deal, based on his recent book
New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America.

The first myth is that the New Deal got us out of the Great Depression, or at least made good headway. Massive spending and a doubling of the public debt, however, didn’t do much to cure unemployment, as admitted by Roosevelt’s treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr.

Weekly Standard:

You can read about the mayor in 12 languages, including Haitian Creole, Hindi, Arabic, and Yiddish. The site also features a blog by Howard Wolfson. Wolfson’s first entry is about the political diversity of the staffers hired for the Bloomberg reelect:

On most campaigns this exercise is similiar — while someone will occasionally throw out a candidate you have never heard of, most of the names are familiar. And so when we began to go around the room at the first Bloomberg 09 staff meeting I was immediately struck by how many different campaigns our staff had worked on. In the room were people who had worked on Democratic and Republican campaigns, for the WFP, the Independence Party, and for a Democratic Socialist (Go Bernie!).

Bloomberg has put together a team of all-stars — in an even numbered year most of these folks would be working on national campaigns — despite the fact that he faces no real opposition in his campaign for a third term.

It’s nice to have money.

From NRO:

Yesterday President Obama announced two additional appellate judicial nominations: Maryland district court judge Andre Davis for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and New York district court judge Gerald Lynch to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.  The Baltimore Sun has more on the Davis appointment here.

Redstate:

That’s the word that the Washington Post used, so don’t blame me (H/T: Glenn Reynolds):

Obama’s Machine Sputters in Effort to Push Budget
Grass-Roots Campaign Has Little Effect

When his post-campaign organization was unveiled in January, Barack Obama vowed that the 13 million-strong grass-roots network built during his presidential campaign would play a “crucial role” in enacting his agenda from the White House.

But in its first big test, the group dubbed Organizing for America (OFA) had little obvious impact on the debate over President Obama’s budget, which passed Congress on Thursday with no Republican support and a splintering of votes among conservative Democrats. The capstone of the campaign was the delivery of 214,000 signatures to Capitol Hill, which swayed few, if any, members of Congress, according to legislative aides from both parties.

There’s a problem here, though. It’s not the first big test; it’s the second. The first big test was the attempt to use house parties to generate interest in Obama’s misnamed ’stimulus’ bill. It, of course, failed miserably, as most of the citizens of the United States apparently have better things to do with their time than to go sit in a room and tell each other how great it is that Democrats are now able to fund any silly notion that comes into their heads.

Tampa Bay Online:

Florida Republican Party circles are hearing increasing talk of conservative dissatisfaction with Gov. Charlie Crist, and a possible primary challenge if he runs for the U.S. Senate next year.

Crist’s high poll ratings, which muted such criticism early in his term, remain high, pollsters say, but are no longer preventing the talk.

Some conservatives, never happy with Crist’s emphasis on racial diversity, environmental regulation and populist willingness to take on big business, are now saying it openly.

“It’s the kind of disappointment that’s going to have people looking in other directions for leaders,” said former state Rep. Dennis Baxley of Ocala, now executive director of the Florida Christian Coalition. “The conservative movement needs a strong leader.”

Whether that will translate into tangible political opposition remains to be seen.

Washington Wire:

In an April 2 letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions expresses concern that as a result of President Barack Obama’s order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison within the next year, some of the prisoners held there may have to be released in the U.S.

Holder last month noted that possibility as part of the review of the detainee cases and discussions with foreign allies who the U.S. hopes will help resettle those detainees who are considered eligible for release.

The most dangerous detainees are expected to be tried, perhaps in U.S. civilian courts, or a retooled military judicial system or in other jurisdictions.

Among those whose release is being reviewed are 17 ethnic Uighurs who are wanted by Chinese authorities who consider them to be members of a separatist group.

“I would oppose any release of trained militants or terrorists into the United States,” Sessions writes. “Such an action would be contrary to national security interests, as well as federal law.”

From Ben Cunningham.

Heritage:

President Obama famously said during the campaign that he thinks the economy works best when “we spread the wealth around.” He is wasting no time pursuing this redistributionist agenda, and he is using the tax code to do it.

The Wrong Medicine

The so-called “stimulus” bill (H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) created the refundable Making Work Pay Credit, increased and made refundable the Hope Scholarship Credit (now renamed the American Opportunity Education Credit), and increased the two largest existing refundable credits, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit. To the extent these credits are refundable, they are really spending run through the tax code and as such will do nothing to boost the ailing economy.

These Credits Will Not Stimulate the Economy

These credits are accurately described as spending programs, because they are all refundable. Refundable credits send checks to low-income taxpayers when their value is more than the taxpayer’s income tax liability. For example, if a taxpayer with an $800 income tax liability claims a refundable credit worth $1,000, he will pay no income taxes and receive a check for $200 from the IRS.

Times Online:

Barack Obama made an impassioned plea to America’s allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, warning that failure to do so would leave Europe vulnerable to more terrorist atrocities.

But though he continued to dazzle Europeans on his debut international tour, the Continent’s leaders turned their backs on the US President.

Gordon Brown was the only one to offer substantial help. He offered to send several hundred extra British soldiers to provide security during the August election, but even that fell short of the thousands of combat troops that the US was hoping to prise from the Prime Minister.

NY Post:

Keller was speaking at Stanford University to dedicate a new building for the campus newspaper — an event he likened to a “ribbon-cutting” for “a new Pontiac dealership.”

The bombastic broadsheet editor went on to equate the keep-the-Times-alive movement to the cause of starving African refugees, saying, “Saving the New York Times now ranks with saving Darfur as a high-minded cause.”

Keller said he had little use for Web sites like Google and Drudge Report: “If you’re inclined to trust Google as your source for news — Google yourself.”

Keller’s comments, which were first reported on Web site Politico.com, come as the Times sat down with the Newspaper Guild Wednesday in their first serious bargaining session to figure out how to extract $4.5 million in savings from the newspaper company’s unionized workforce.

There are believed to be around 1,200 to 1,300 members of the Newspaper Guild working at The New York Times, and they are apparently not ready to accept the same pay cuts that their bosses did on April 1.

Rasmussen:

Forty-four percent (44%) of U.S. voters like the idea of a federal government guarantee of automobile warranties issued by companies that go out of business, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

However, nearly as many (42%) are opposed, while 14% aren’t sure what they think of the proposal.

Democrats are far more enthusiastic than others about the government warranty plan announced by President Obama on Monday. The plan is intended to ease the worries of those who own vehicles manufactured by General Motors and Chrysler, both of which are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, or who intend to buy one of their cars.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats favor the plan, while 61% of Republicans are opposed to it. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 48% support it, but 39% don’t.

Computerworld:

When it comes to hackers we tend to think they’re just creating their exploits for the thrill of it. When we think about Internet scams though, we immediately think (know) profit is the main motive. We read about credit card numbers getting pilfered, identities stolen and bank accounts getting hijacked, but do we ever think about how much the miscreants are actually pulling in for their efforts?

I didn’t have to read far into John E. Dunn’s PCWorld piece, “Web Scam Nets Criminals $10,800 a Day,” to learn that profits from a web scam can easily turn scammer groups into multi-millionaires within a year’s time.

Pollster:

USA Today / Gallup
3/27-29/09; 1,007 adults, 3% margin of error
Mode: Live Telephone Interviews

National

Favorable / Unfavorable
Bush: 35 / 63 (Jan 09: 40 / 59)
Cheney: 30 / 63 (July 07: 30 / 62)

“Bush and Cheney have only begun to emerge publicly after departing Washington, D.C., in January. Thus far, Bush has promised to stay out of the political fray while Cheney has stepped squarely back into it. If this distinction holds over time, it could conceivably contribute to a divergence in how Americans perceive the two — with Bush’s personal image among Democrats softening while views toward Cheney become even more polarized. Of course, other factors will come into play as Bush and Cheney establish their post-presidential roles in public affairs, and as the Bush presidency continues to be assessed. At this early juncture, however, public attitudes about the two former leaders have not yet changed.”