Brown Slumps to 3rd as Election Timetable Published (Update2)

By Robert Hutton and Kitty Donaldson

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s ruling Labour Party fell to third place in an opinion poll for the first time since 1982 as activists received a campaign timetable pointing to a May 6 general election in the U.K.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ap8iQufidpV4

In VA, Republicans Still Above 50% in All 3 Statewide November Contests: Virginia Republicans continue to dominate the statewide contests for Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General in elections today, 09/29/09, five weeks until votes are counted, according to SurveyUSA polling for WDBJ-TV Roanoke and WJLA-TV Washington DC.

In the race for Governor, Republican Bob McDonnell today defeats Democrat Creigh Deeds by 14 points, 55% to 41%. Compared to identical SurveyUSA polls released four and nine weeks ago, little has changed. McDonnell receives majorities from both men and women, young and old, rich and poor, college graduates and those who did not attend college. Deeds leads by 3:1 among African Americans, by 7:1 among Democrats and liberals, and by 14 points among moderates. McDonnell and Deeds tie in Northeastern Virginia; McDonnell leads in the rest of the state.

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=9db323a1-0c9c-4a39-887c-c504bc80fb06

In tight times, Congress boosts its budget

By MANU RAJU | 9/30/09 4:57 AM EDT

Congress is on the verge of giving itself a bump in its annual budget — even as local governments, families and businesses across the country are tightening their belts in the worst recession in decades.

Under a House-Senate conference measure, approved by the House last week and poised for passage in the Senate on Wednesday, spending for the legislative branch will increase 5.8 percent this year, boosting Capitol Hill’s annual budget to $4.7 billion.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27732.html

Has the liberal moment come and gone?

By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
09/30/09 7:16 AM EDT

A new Gallup poll shows a sharp increase in the number of people who say they want the government to promote "traditional values."

Gallup's question was simple: "Some people think the government should promote traditional values in our society. Others think the government should not favor any particular set of values. Which comes closer to your own view?" In the new poll, taken in the first days of September, 53 percent of respondents say they want the government to promote traditional values, while 42 percent say they do not want the government to favor any particular set of values. Five percent do not have an opinion.

The results are a significant change from recent years. For most of the last two decades, a majority of people have been in favor of the government promoting traditional values. But that number began to decline in 2005, and the number of people who believe the government should not favor any particular set of values began to rise. Last September, when Gallup asked the same question, the public was split down the middle on the issue, 48 percent to 48 percent. Now, opinion has rather abruptly gone back to the old position, and there's an 11-point gap between the two, in favor of traditional values.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Has-the-liberal-moment-come-and-gone-62842512.html

One Man's Utopia

A first-time novelist imagines an America made wonderful by Warren Buffett, Phil Donahue and Yoko Ono.

By ROB LONG

Here's the bad news: Ralph Nader has written a novel. Here's the good news: There's no sex in it. Wait. That's not strictly true. At the end of its 700 pages, one of the characters hooks up with Yoko Ono.

Maybe I should start at the beginning.

Ralph Nader has written a novel. Well, he doesn't call it a novel—he calls it "a practical utopia." In it, he spins a fictional vision of what might happen if the country's super-rich got together with assorted influential people and worked to transform American culture and politics into something more to Ralph Nader's liking.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574440954001791002.html

The Metamorphosis
In which our liberal author awakens one morning from uneasy dreams . . .

By David Kahane

I have a nightmare.

I have a nightmare that sometime before the 2010 elections, the scales will fall from your eyes and you will see us as we really are.

I have a nightmare that you will read C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters and realize that it is not fiction.

I have a nightmare that you will read Plunkitt of Tammany Hall and get firsthand instruction in how we steal elections.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzYyNGNlNTBkNmFlMjJiNzU1MzA3NzllMGM2NzgzMzU=

Ban handguns? Supreme Court taking a new look

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court says it will take up a challenge to Chicago's ban on handguns, opening the way for a ruling that could set off a vigorous new campaign to roll back state and local gun controls across the nation.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090930/ap_on_go_su_co/us_supreme_court_guns

Boxer-Kerry Unveil Their Energy Tax Bill: Incomplete But Still Very Harmful

Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) introduced the Senate companion to the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation today and while many pieces are missing, the framework in place spells bad news for every American energy consumer, especially low income ones.

A California Quake

A tax commission releases a ground-breaking plan.

No state's economy, with the exception of Michigan, has careened into a deeper ditch than California in this recession. The state now has the fourth-highest unemployment rate (12.2%), the third-highest rate of mortgage foreclosures, and for two years has had the biggest budget deficit in the history of the 50 states. So it is very good news that yesterday Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's bipartisan tax commission recommended a road out of this mess.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574443413742032356.html

Grayson calls health care crisis 'holocaust'

Florida Rep. Alan Grayson, under fire for conservatives for describing the gist of their health care plans as "die quickly," is not exactly backing down from claims he's crossed a line of civility.

Just now on the floor, he called on members of the House to pass health care reform in the most extreme terms possible:

"I apologize to the dead and Fltheir families and that we haven't voted sooner to end this holocaust in America," Grayson said.

 

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0909/Grayson_calls_health_care_crisis_holocaust.html

This is the only way Joy Behar even gets a little bit of attention on her new show. Did anybody know that her show has already began?

Bette Midler Warns Glenn Beck Could Set Off a Rwanda-Like Civil War in U.S.

Update at bottom (2:03 p.m.): Beck fires back

It's just what the primetime cable news lineup needed - another hour-long program tilted toward left-of-center politics with character assassination on conservatives.

CNN Headline News debuted its "The Joy Behar Show" on Sept. 29, which included appearances by lefty comedian Jeanane Garofalo, CNN's Jack Cafferty and actress Bette Midler. Garofalo doubled down on her low regard for conservative 9/12 and tea party protesters, labeling them as racists. Cafferty went after President Barack Obama for his disregard of the carbon footprint his lobbying efforts in Copenhagen for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.

However, actress-turned-Vegas entertainer Bette Midler went straight after former CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck. She was prodded by host Joy Behar, who mentioned Beck as someone who is encouraging a breakdown in so-called "political discourse."

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/2009/09/30/bette-midler-warns-glenn-beck-could-set-rwanda-civil-war-u-s

U.S. and international intelligence officials say that improved recruitment of spies inside the al-Qaeda network, along with increased use of targeted airstrikes and enhanced assistance from cooperative governments, has significantly reduced the terrorist organization's effectiveness.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/29/AR2009092903699.html?hpid=topnews

Head of Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools Expresses Regret for Controversial Incident

September 30, 2009 3:58 PM

A senior official of the Department of Education expressed regret today for an incident that happened when he was a young teacher in the late 1980s, saying he should have handled it differently, but that society could benefit from his error.

Kevin Jennings, director of the Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools and founder of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), has been criticized by social conservatives for a passage in his 1994 book “One Teacher In Ten.” At the time, only a few people knew that Jennings, then a 24-year-old teacher at Concord Academy in Concord, Massachusetts, was gay. In the Spring of 1988, a young woman who knew Jennings was gay, brought to his office a high school sophomore whom Jennings called “Brewster” in the book.