NEW POLL: Christine Quinn Leads By 10% As Anthony Weiner Enters Race

 

 

A new Quinnipiac University Poll shows Christine Quinn holding on to a significant lead despite weeks of relentless attacks by her opponents and the entry of former Congressman Anthony Weiner into the Mayor's race in New York City.

le Quinn has dropped three per cent since the last poll it is within the margin of error and shows she is holding strong against the bitter personal attacks against her.

latest results are:

Christine Quinn: 25%

Anthony Weiner: 15%

Bill Thompson: 10%

Bill de Blasio: 10%

John Liu: 6%

The poll shows that 49% of the people did not want Weiner to enter the race. By a margin of 17% women were against him running.

New National Poll: Four Way Tie For Republican Nomination in 2016; Christie Gives Clinton A Close Race

 

 

 

Public Policy Polling has released it monthly national poll on the 2016 Presidential race. Senator Rand Paul has doubled his support from 7% to 14%. The other interesting factor is that Ted Cruz enters the poll with a solid 7%. Congressman Paul Ryan continues to lag behind in fifth place.

The poll shows basically a four way tie for the Republican nomination. Here are the results:

Marco Rubio: 16%

Chris Christie: 15%

Jeb Bush: 15%

Rand Paul: 14%

Paul Ryan: 9%

Ted Cruz: 7%

Rick Santorum: 5%

Bobby Jindal: 3%

Susana Martinez: 1%

Hillary Clinton continues to dominate the Democratic field with 63% of Democrats wanting her to be the nominee. The Vice-President is way back with just 13%.

If both Hillary and the Vice President don't run then the race is wide open. Interestingly, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has steadily risen in the poll and is now at 5% if the 'big two' don't run. She ties with O'Malley and leads Warner. Cuomo has the lead with 25% in that race.

Finally, which Republican gives Hillary the toughest race? Hands down it is Governor Christie. In a match-up:

Hillary Clinton: 47%

Chris Christie: 44%.

For Rubio and Paul, she leads them by 10%! She defeats both of them by 51% to 41%.

Michele Bachmann Trailing Challenger In Congressional Race! FBI Is Investigating Congresswoman!

 

 

Democrat Jim Graves and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann

Minnesota's Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a long time foe of LGBT equality, is currently trailing in her bid to be re-elected in 2014. Hotel Executive Jim Graves is now leading her in the new Public Policy poll. The results are:

Jim Graves: 47%

Michele Bachmann: 45%

In addition, the Minneapolis Star is reporting that the FBI has joined the investigation into of her presidential campaign in Iowa. The paper reported:

The FBI is investigating complaints of alleged campaign finance violations in Rep. Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign.

The FBI joins the Office of Congressional Ethics, the Federal Elections Commission and an Iowa state Senate ethics committee in probing whether Bachmann's presidential campaign paid an Iowa state senator from her MichelePAC, a fund that should not have been used for campaign expenses, and whether the state senator stole the email list of an Iowa home-school group from another Bachmann staffer, Barbara Hekki, prior to the Iowa caucuses in January, 2012.

Andy Parrish, former Bachmann chief of staff and one of the directors of Bachmann's Iowa GOP presidential campaign, will be interviewed by the FBI, according to his attorney, John Gilmore.

"I can confirm that Andy Parrish has been contacted by the FBI for a scheduled interview next week," Gilmore said. "He will cooperate fully."

Parrish has filed an affidavit with the Iowa ethics committee stating that state Sen. Kent Sorenson was paid for his work on the Bachmann presidential campaign through a fundraising firm that had ties to MichelePAC.

The entry of the FBI into the investigation raises the possibility that there were potential criminal violations. In addition to the alleged theft of the home-school list, the FBI is said to be looking into the campaign's demand that certain former employees, whose pay was withheld at the end of the campaign, sign non-disclosure agreements before receiving their compensation.

YOU CAN DONATE TO DEMOCRAT JIM GRAVES TO DEFEAT MICHELE BACHMANN HERE>>>>>

Robert Shrum: Republican Program For America? Destroy President Obama

 

 

 

For many on the right, racism is the root of an otherwise inexplicable resistance to the first African-American in the White House. A shrinking rump of older, rural, white America simply can't abide the country they assumed they would always rule now being in the hands of the "other."

- Robert Shrum

Writing in his weekly column for The Daily Beast, author and commentator Robert Shrum calls out the Republicans for their destructive behavior. Their relentless effort to destroy President Obama has been taking place since day one of his administration. Forget how harmful it is to the country. They have paralyzed Washington and any hope of constructive bi-partisan cooperation in the economic recovery or any other urgently needed program.

This is one of Shrum's best columns:

I've written that in the end, congressional Republicans won't agree to move forward on the budget, tax reform, immigration, job creation, or any other issues that matter to mainstream America before the presidential elections. But the fall of 2016 is a long time away, and they have to do something in the meantime. Now we know what it is.

It's not much different from what they've done, or haven't done, all along: obstruct Obama. Traduce him, delegitimize him—and slow economic recovery in hopes that voters will cast a protest vote for the GOP. It worked in 2010, and failed miserably in 2012.

Conservatives are back at it again because the GOP lacks any coherent program other than cutting taxes for the wealthy. Republicans are deeply divided—between the government-hating Tea Party Torquemadas and an establishment that dreads primary defeat, or in John Boehner's case, defenestration as speaker; between the isolationists like Rand Paul and the neo-cons and John McCain.

The animating principle of today's GOP is relentless animus toward the president.

The hard-core base simply rejects his reelection; 49 percent in a Public Policy Poll claim the White House was stolen for Obama last November by groups such as Acorn, Republican-demonized grassroots organization that had disbanded two years earlier. For many on the right, racism is the root of an otherwise inexplicable resistance to the first African-American in the White House. A shrinking rump of older, rural, white America simply can't abide the country they assumed they would always rule now being in the hands of the "other."

GOP members of Congress are—mostly—not that crude or overt. There is Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, a climate-denying fabulist and scowling denizen of the modern-day, flat-earth society, who has suggested impeaching the president for "the most egregious cover-up in American history." He means Benghazi, of course—a concocted conspiracy incomprehensible to most Americans.

Republican leaders in the Senate and House distance themselves from Inhofe, because of the inevitable backlash from voters beyond the fevered precincts of the far right. But fanning the fires of anti-Obama resentment enables Boehner to hold together his restive, fractured caucus—and lets Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell constantly revalidate his ideological credentials. They—and Republicans in general—are taking advantage of three events to bash the president.

The tactic—you can't dignify it by calling it strategy—may finally backfire. First, though, the GOP will prosecute month after month of a multifront war on the White House.

CONTINUE READING THE ENTIRE COLUMN HERE.....>>>>>>

Wall Street Journal: Powerful Profile On Houston's Out Mayor Annise Parker

 

 

 

Mayor Annise Parker by Terry Shaffner

In an article by journalist Matthew Kaminski, the Wall Street Journal wrote a love letter to open lesbian Houston Mayor Annise Parker. The long article focuses on her extraordinary leadership in leading Houston to being an "American Boomtown".

Here is an excerpt:

'Redneck white city down in Texas."

That's how Houston Mayor Annise Parker sums up the caricature of her town, and she wants everyone to know it's bunkum. Houston is "a really cool city," she says. "Open and entrepreneurial and welcoming." It's also booming.

The mayor herself is a walking testament to the cosmopolitan contrarian reality of modern Houston. Annise Parker is a Democrat in a deep-red state, the first openly gay mayor of a major American city. She's a social liberal who's also a former oil-industry executive with a pro-business attitude running what may be the nation's least-regulated metropolis.

Houston's recent track record is startling. For the calendar year ending in February, it saw the fastest pace of job growth (4.5%) among the country's 20 largest metropolitan areas. (With a population of 2.1 million, it's the fourth-largest U.S. city.) In 2011, the last year such data are available, Houston had the fastest-growing large metropolitan economy, at 3.7%.

Add to that a cost of living that is 7.8% below the U.S. average—New York is 53.4% above the average—and you can see the attraction for waves of new arrivals. Housing costs run a third less than the average in the 29 largest metro areas. Adjusting for these lower costs, Houston has the highest per-capita income of any city in the nation.

The mayor, who is 56, and I are discussing the city's makeover at one of its hottest new restaurants. Underbelly, Ms. Parker's choice for lunch, is in the Montrose neighborhood where she lives. "This was a huge lesbian bar," she says, before the neighborhood turned "trendy" and places like Underbelly moved in. As diners fill the capacious restaurant, Ms. Parker notes that Houstonians eat out more often than anyone else in America.

Like Texas as a whole, Houston sells itself as "business friendly," and Ms. Parker ticks off the attractions—ease of permitting, unobtrusive regulations and low taxes. She also supports Houston's limited restrictions on land use, which some here call its real secret sauce. Without zoning, Houston can adjust to shifting market demands—whether for townhouse complexes or retail outfits—faster than most any other city. It looks unwieldy to anyone of the urban-planning persuasion, but it also keeps prices down.

Tory Gattis, who writes the Houston Strategies blog, says: "I'd argue we may be the most libertarian city in America. Live and let live; strong property rights; not much corruption; small business culture."

The economic dynamism has demographic consequences. A couple of years ago, Ms. Parker says, she argued with New York filmmaker Spike Lee over whose hometown was "the most international city in the U.S." The debate isn't as lopsided as it might seem to a non-Houstonian.

The city has surpassed New York as the country's most racially and ethnically diverse, according to a study last year by Rice University. One in five residents was born outside the U.S. The city attracted the second-highest number of new, foreign-born residents in the first decade of this century, after the more populous New York. A Manhattan Institute report last year named Houston and Dallas the country's least segregated cities.

Hispanics are hardly the only newcomers. The Korean, South Asian and Chinese communities are a backbone of the small-business community. European expatriates work in energy and at the Texas Medical Center—which, this being Texas, touts itself as the world's largest.

No ethnic group makes up a majority, and Hispanics, whites, Asians and African-Americans are evenly represented. Houston's "melting pot" makes it "impossible for any one group to dominate another," says Fred Hofheinz, who was mayor in the 1970s. Leave the politics of ethnic and racial division to other places.

Stephen Klineberg, who led the Rice study, argues that in some 30 years all of America will look like Houston today. Conservatives and liberals can both find something to like in Houston's post-racial, post-ethnic present.

The Mayor also speaks about marriage equality:

Situated on a bayou and close to Louisiana, Houston mixes the South's hospitality and the West's independent streak and tolerance of differences. Ms. Parker cites these qualities to explain her political career. "The vast majority of Houstonians are pragmatic and they judge me for what I do, not what I am."

She is a former president of the Houston GBLT Caucus and militated for gay rights in the 1990s. In her various stints as an elected city official, she emphasized financial matters and played down social issues. At least her mayoral victory, she says, got Houston a bit of attention for defying typecasting by outsiders.

"I'm not a spokesperson for the gay community," she adds. Gay marriage is personal. "I've been with my life partner for 22 years." They have three children. "I want to marry her."

Ms. Parker is holding out for Texas to legalize gay marriage. "I may be old and creaky, but it's gonna happen," she says. "This is a war we've already won. There are still battles left to fight. . . . mopping up operations."

Anything, they keep telling you, is possible here.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE>>>>>>

New Poll: How Do Americans View The Supreme Court?

 

 

Public Policy Polling has completed a national poll on how Americans view the Supreme Court of the United States. Interestingly, 36% of Americans believe it is too liberal despite the fact that conservatives control five of the nine seats.

Who is the most popular Justice? That honor belongs to Justice Anthony Kennedy who is closely followed by Justice Sonia Sotomayor who is also the best known Justice!

Here is the polling firms report:

-Americans overall have a negative opinion of the Supreme Court- 42% see it unfavorably, with just 33% holding a positive opinion. Democrats have a narrowly positive opinion of it (39/37) while both Republicans (29/44) and independents (31/46) have pretty unfavorable views.

-Only 29% of Americans think the Supreme Court is ideologically 'about right' with 36% believing it's too liberal and 30% that it's too conservative. Voters in both parties think the Court is stacked to the other side- 59% of Republicans think the Court is too liberal to 26% who think it's about right, and 49% of Democrats think it's too conservative to 33% who think it's about right.

-There's a wide range in how well known the various members of the Supreme Court are to the public. Sonia Sotomayor is the best known with 74% name recognition, followed by Clarence Thomas at 68%, Ruth Bader Ginsburg at 64%, Antonin Scalia at 58%, Elena Kagan at 55%, John Roberts at 48%, Samuel Alito at 47%, Anthony Kennedy at 41%, and Stephen Breyer at 35%.

-Even though he's one of the least well known justices, Kennedy has the best net favorability of them all at +9 (25/16). That's because he's the only one who's seen positively by both Democrats (29/16) and Republicans (21/14).

The next most popular after Kennedy is Sotomayor at +8 (41/33). Others in positive territory are Ginsburg at +6 (35/29), Breyer at +3 (19/16), and Kagan at +1 (28/27).

-The more conservative members of the Court tend to also be the ones less popular with the public. Chief Justice John Roberts has the worst net favorability rating at -8 (20/28) largely because Republicans only narrowly like him following the Obamacare decision (22/21) while Democrats still have a pretty negative opinion of him (16/36). Samuel Alito (23/24), Antonin Scalia (27/31), and Clarence Thomas (31/37) all have negative marks as well, in each case because Democrats dislike them to a greater extent than Republicans see them in a positive light.

-Sotomayor's favorability with Hispanics is 62/19, while Thomas' with African Americans is 22/52.

Democrat Markey Increases Lead Over Republican Gomez In Massachusetts Senate Race

 

 

While not out of the woods yet, Democrats are breathing a little easier in Massachusetts. In the special election to fill Secretary of State John Kerry's United States Senate seat, Democratic Congressman Ed Markey has increased his lead over charismatic Republican Gabriel Gomez.

In a survey conducted by Public Policy Polling for the League of Conservation Voters, Markey pulled into a seven point lead. Here are the results:

Congressman Ed Markey: 48%
Garbriel Gomez: 41%

Markey holds a 12% lead among women and ties with male voters. The good news is that Democrats are coming home to Markey after a difficult primary.

In a separate Public Policy Poll, after having marriage equality for over the last eight years the poll asked voters what the impact has been in Massachusetts.

Has had a negative impact: 15%
Has had a positive impact: 25%
No effect either way: 60%

Massachusetts voters still approve of marriage equality after eight years;

For marriage equality: 58%
Against marriage equality: 32%

The IRS

 

 

Unless there is missing information, there is little doubt that President Obama knew nothing about the outrageous behavior in the Internal Revenue Service. Never should that branch of government be used to intimate or burden any free expression of speech.

The IRS has the ability and powers to create fear and an enormous amount of personal information about each of us to make that fear real.

The systematic effort by the IRS to go after 'Tea Party" type groups is inexcusable. If those groups were progressive we would be wildly off the charts with rage.

This has occurred on the President's watch and he must match his angry words with quick and decisive action to show there is absolute no room in American democracy for this kind of violation of human rights. Heads must roll.

The IRS is long pass due for a major overhaul and reform. The President should work with conservatives to create legislation that not only will deal with this problem but overhaul the entire agency.

Who is being targeted doesn't matter. What matters is that the IRS is out of control and needs to be reformed with the appropriate checks and balances.

New Poll: Marriage Equality Support Now A Solid Majority In America

 

 

 

With the passage of marriage equality in Minnesota this week, the momentum towards marriage equality continues across America. The Gopher State is the first middle America state to pass marriage equality since Iowa was court mandated. Let's hope that Illinois joins the list of the honored states soon.

Gallup has released it latest nationwide poll and it shows that marriage equality has now solidified its position nationally as being supported by a clear majority of Americans. In 1996, when Gallup first tested the issue only 27% of the American people supported marriage equality. This means a change of 26% in just over fifteen years. (see table below for comparison!)

The latest poll shows:

For Marriage Equality: 53%

Against Marriage Equality: 45%

Gallup reports on the poll:

Gallup's May 2-7 poll suggests Americans' support for gay marriage is solidifying above the majority level. Recently, Rhode Island and Delaware legalized same-sex marriage, and Minnesota is likely to follow suit. That would bring the total number of states legally recognizing same-sex marriage to 12.

Just three years ago, support for gay marriage was 44%. The current 53% level of support is essentially double the 27% in Gallup's initial measurement on gay marriage, in 1996.

Nearly all U.S. subgroups are more likely to favor gay marriage now than in the past. Politically, Democrats, independents, and liberals all show increasing support for gay marriage over time, with each well above the majority level now. Republicans, conservatives, and moderates are more likely to favor gay marriage now than in 1996, but the increase in support among these groups may have stalled. Thus, most of the increase in the percentage favoring legal gay marriage in the last three years has come among left-leaning groups politically

Check out the comparisons between 1996 and 2013 below! 

New Poll Shows Majority Support For Jason Collins, Gay Scouts and Marriage!

 

 

The historic shift on LGBT rights continues to grow toward justice. The new Washington Post/ABC Poll shows that almost from every angle of the issue support is now at majority status.

Even with the hot topic of allowing LGBT adults to be scout leaders, well over 50% of the American people support them being allowing to serve.

Here are some of the results.

Jason Collins Announcement:

Support Jason Collins: 68%

Not support him: 23%

Marriage Equality:

Support Marriage Equality: 55%

Oppose it: 40%

Allowing Gay Scouts:

Support Gay Scouts: 63%

Not Allowing Them: 32%

Banning Gay Scott Leaders:

Support banning them: 39%

Support allowing them: 56%

The LGBT civil rights movement is slowly making progress with people who are Republicans. Now 1 out of 3 Republicans support marriage equality. The poll also reports:

There are other differences among groups. Gender differences are especially wide on one issue: While men divide about evenly on the question of gay scout leaders, women oppose their exclusion by nearly 2-1. There’s a customary age gap on each item, with support for gay rights higher among younger adults; most strikingly, 76 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds favor gay marriage, while just 39 percent of seniors agree. And on all issues except scout leaders there’s a gap among education groups, with more-educated adults more supportive of gay rights.

See All The Results of the Poll Here>>>>>