Very interesting poll from Rasmussen:

Sixty-six percent (66%) of U.S. voters describe themselves as at least somewhat angry at the media, including 33% who are Very Angry.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 31% say they are not angry at the media, but that includes just nine percent (9%) who say they are not at all angry.

As Rasmussen goes on to note, there’s no way to differentiate between the way some might feel about CNN and others about Fox, but it is still amazing that we’ve got this result.

The result dovetails with my view that in 2010 is all about people being at war with the status quo. I’ve been calling it the “Second American Revolution” because of this – the way we’ve been doing things are being rejected by the people. A complete overturn of the power elite is what is desired – including in media.

We’re on the verge of a gigantic change in our political system.

I would normally ask, “what do you think the President will say?”, but as his people have pretty much released the entire speech, that is a pointless exercise. As is having the speech, at this point – why on earth make a big, Oval Office deal out of something you’re going to start massively leaking to the press 48 hours in advance? The Obamatons are getting worse by the day – now they can’t even come up with a good script!

At any rate, discuss the speech, the spill and all the rest right here.

UPDATE: Liberal Ed Schultz is pining for Obama to act like the fascist dictator all liberals secretly long for.

UPDATE II: House Minority Leader Boehner’s statement:

“While President Obama is speaking tonight, oil will continue to leak from the well and extend its stranglehold on the lives and livelihoods of the people in the affected areas. Even now, nearly two months after disaster first struck, the federal response remains inadequate and disorganized. Americans are rightly angry about this failure of government, and they want to know that their president is focused squarely on stopping this leak, cleaning up this mess, and finding out what went wrong.

“President Obama should not exploit this crisis to impose a job-killing national energy tax on struggling families and small businesses. Both parties should be working together to craft responsible solutions in response to this disaster. There’s nothing responsible or reasonable about a job-killing national energy tax that will raise energy costs and destroy more American jobs.

“President Obama will also reportedly address some of the financial issues surrounding the crisis, including the establishment of an escrow fund. These resources should be used to help the victims of this disaster, and not as a slush fund for trial lawyers or Administration officials seeking to paper over their own misguided decisions. BP should be held accountable for the full cost of this disaster – the taxpayers shouldn’t pay one dime – but that money must be directed to where it can be most effective in stopping this leak and aiding the recovery effort.

“I sincerely hope that the Obama Administration will not try to use a crisis made worse by its own failings to score political points on the backs of Americans living and working on the Gulf Coast. This moment demands a call to action based on our shared interest in stopping this leak, cleaning up this mess, and finding out what went wrong.”

A timely reminder of the stark reality – from Gordon C. Chang over at Pajamas Media:

…Senior Chinese officers, on the other hand, have no trouble telling us how they really feel.

In February, Colonel Meng Xianging promised a “hand-to-hand fight with the U.S.” sometime within the next 10 years “when we’re strong enough.” “We must make them hurt,” said Major-General Yang Yi this year, referring to the United States…

Do read the whole thing as it is a great look at our mindless China policy. Once upon a time, having China on side was a good idea – but that time ended when the Berlin Wall came down. Since that time, China has become the most potent threat to America’s long-term strategic interests in the world.

The analogy I use for US/Chinese relations are those between the UK and Germany early in the 20th century. Deeply intertwined in economics, talking right past each other in politics – and with Germany’s (China’s) military feverishly preparing for armed conflict. I fully expect eventual war with China – because they will attack us, likely right out of the blue, probably starting with a cat’s paw attack by North Korea or some other distracting event.

For all of China’s alleged success, China remains a corrupt, unstable tyranny incapable of delivering, long term, the desires of the Chinese people. Coupled with this fundamental flaw is a growing Chinese nationalism which wishes to flex muscle – both as a means of distracting the Chinese people from their plight as well as righting what some Chinese consider to be historic wrongs (namely, that we’re in charge, and they’re not – Middle Kingdom arrogance has never left China).

American policy should be guided by the threat – and thus we should be working diligently to build and re-build alliances with nations under direct Chinese threat: India, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan – and some sort of working relationship with Vietnam regarding area defense (be best if Russia could be brought in, but Putin’s Russia is even stupider than we are over China). Our Navy should be greatly increased, as should our long range bomber force – and building a couple more active Army divisions would probably be wise.

Only time will tell what will come of China – but I envision eventual economic collapse (and I mean in the next year or two as all the Chinese bubbles burst) which will leave China in acute stress. Some time after that, I figure they’ll attack in some manner. Better for us to be prepared for it.

Not at all surprising – from the Washington Post:

In both houses of Congress, a host of other committee chairmen and ranking members have reported that they have millions invested in business sectors that their panels oversee, according to a Post analysis of financial disclosure records through 2008, committee assignments and lawmaker investments by industry…

…Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), for instance, served as chairman of a subcommittee responsible for overseeing technology-oriented efforts to improve homeland security, intelligence, information sharing and risk assessment in 2008. At the time, she disclosed more than $1 million in holdings in companies involved in intelligence and homeland security contracting, including Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems…

Now, we Republicans can’t act all high and mighty on this issue – some of ours are doing this, as well. Though, naturally, Democrats lead the field in such shennanigans.

There are two things wrong with this picture:

1. lawmakers should never be financially beholden to the businesses they regulate.

2. Business is so highly regulated that its hard for Congressmen not to be beholden to the people they regulate.

The solution is quite simple – knock it off on the over-regulation, and prohibit sitting federal, State and local officeholders from owning stocks or corporate bonds during their tenure of office – and make sure we include spouses and children in this ban.

Will that be hard on people thinking of going in to public life. Yes. And that’s a good thing – public service is supposed to entail great sacrifice; in fact, the more onerous it is, the more likely we are to get good men and women rather than the corrupt hacks we overflow with now. They can hold all the land, family-owned businesses and government bonds they like – but they can’t hold a stake in profit making enterprises they can give a leg up to (can’t they benefit their family-owned business? Sure – but that is a lot easier to see, expose and drive cretins out of office over).

We need a government which works for the whole people, not just for the special interests. To get this, we’re going to have to be increasingly harsh towards those who seek public office. Essentially, we want to make it so that only people of the sternest republican virtues will even seek office – then we can rely on government once again.

Veronique de Rugy notes over at NRO’s The Corner that Obama is hauling out the tried and true Washington Monument Strategy in order to secure public acceptance of a State bail out. This sort of tactic is used whenever a government is in a really tight financial spot and wants to justify spending or tax increases – “if you don’t give us what we demand, then X popular thing will be closed”. You know – propose a cut to Interior, they threaten to close the Washington Monument.

The stated purpose of Obama’s bail out is to save the jobs of teachers, cops and firefighters. Of course, if we put those jobs on the Federal taxpayer dime then it will free up State taxpayer money to save the job of the Deputy Assistant Director of Transgendered Affairs – but that won’t be mentioned. It’ll all be “save the teachers!”, and if you don’t agree then you hate teachers and children.

I suspect Obama will get it through – wouldn’t matter if polls showed 60% opposed. You see, those government employees to be bailed out are substantially Democrat in voting pattern but, even more important, their union dues are vital to Democrat campaign activities. And the really wonderful thing, for Democrats, is that they even get to use the union dues of Republican employees (yes, I know; that is illegal – but when has that ever troubled a Democrat?). Democrats in Congress will simply not allow such a lush source of funds to be killed – nor will they want unemployment spiking to 12% or more by November as government employees are let go.

But I also think this will be the very last time we’ll see this tactic used. You see, I think that the people see through the scam. More and more people are coming to realize that as valuable as cops, firefighters and teachers are, they aren’t entirely indispensable and, furthermore, at a time when all of us are hurting, it stands to reason that the government employees have to hurt, too. The old tax and spend song and dance just doesn’t play as well.

So, Democrats will do it, but it will fall on deaf ears – the pleas to save the teachers will be seen for a justification of waste. And, in the end, I think that this tactic will be piled on all the other corrupt shennanigans and will be instrumental in a quite stunning result in November.

One of yours, liberals:

UPDATE: He has an opponent – the lovely, talented and wise Renee Ellmers. Perhaps you can help out a bit?

Hey, liberals – so you don’t believe me when I say the economy is doomed? Well, then perhaps you’ll believe your hero, George Soros? Pinko he is – but he’s also a financial shark…

Plunging tax revenues in Los Angeles. Good news for Angelenos who have kept their jobs and their houses – bad news for Big Government, already on the verge of complete bankruptcy. Aside from that, yet another bit of proof that the economy has not recovered – if it had, Los Angeles wouldn’t have this big a problem.

When faculty pinheads are put in charge of the real world.

Hmmm, maybe that college degree really isn’t worth the $40,000 in student loans?

Axelrod says Obama will be campaigning this fall. I’m sure every Republican in the nation wants Obama to come campaign for his opponent, but I think it’ll be more selective than that…I figure Obama will make repeat appearances in Brentwood, San Francisco, Manhattan and other areas were regular Americans live.

For me that would be just for starters – Mona Charen in the Washington Examiner:

…It is not kooky to favor the elimination of the Department of Education. That this proposal is routinely labeled “extremist” is a reminder of the one-way ratchet that operates in government. Enshrine something in a federal agency and it becomes sacrosanct. Democrats cheerlead for federal programs because they are the party of government, and Republicans quietly go along because they’re afraid.

But if Republicans know how to argue for smaller government — as Gov. Chris Christie is demonstrating in New Jersey — they need not be intimidated. There are hundreds of federal programs that could be eliminated tomorrow with only the happiest consequences for the nation. And yes, the whole Department of Education could be scrapped. It vacuums up money and produces … what exactly?

What, indeed. Pretty much nothing – and if you could sift through the whole thing and find a few worthwhile things, they could better be handled as block grants to States or as part of some other department of government. We don’t need the Department, itself. At any event, the whole thing was just a Carter Administration boondoggle – a payoff to teachers union bosses.

It is high time we started getting a government which is of, by and for the people – getting rid of the Department of Education would be a good first step.

This is a whole, new level of stupidity:

Gov. David A. Paterson and legislative leaders have tentatively agreed to allow the state and municipalities to borrow nearly $6 billion to help them make their required annual payments to the state pension fund.

And, in classic budgetary sleight-of-hand, they will borrow the money to make the payments to the pension fund — from the same pension fund…

For you liberals out there, I’ll explain: money has to be paid by government to the pension fund for the vastly over-compensated, Democrat-controlled, unionized government employees. The government doesn’t have the money to pay because its all been spent on lavish government salaries and wasteful government programs. Government solution: the government will borrow money from the pension in order to pay the pension.

This would be like you or I borrowing money from our mortgage holder to pay our mortgage. It is really that stupid – but, don’t sweat it! The Democrats’ plan is that the stock market will rise so high by 2013 that they’ll be able to make up the difference! Cool plan, huh?

These morons are destroying our nation – we simply must get them out of office.

We’re bound to win, in the end:

He’s locked in a run-off primary fight with another fine Republican – the son of the late Senator Strom Thurmond – but I’m just impressed as all get out by Mr. Scott.

No matter what happens in November, the future is ours and tired, worn out liberalism is doomed.