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Elections

joe miller

2010 Republican nominee for Alaska Senate and 2014 Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller.

I rarely, if ever, revisit my Senate predictions on PeoplesPunditDaily.com for purposes of clarification rather than rating changes. However, after several discussions with campaign operatives in various camps, conservative Super PAC spokesmen, as well as further analysis of the Republican establishment’s strength in terms of support among Alaska Republican voters, this article is clearly warranted.

In my last look at the race, entitled “Alaska Senate Race Rating And Analysis Bodes Bad For Begich,” which is currently rated “Leans Republican” on the 2014 Senate Map, I gave a general assessment of the race and the political landscape. And to make a long story short, despite the bias fantasies held by other so-called objective pundits, I confidently concluded that it is more likely than not that election night is going to be a miserable night for Senator Mark Begich.

At this point, the only variable keeping the Alaska Senate race from moving farther to the right on the rating spectrum is the Republican primary, which we will now examine in more detail. With Gov. Sean Parnell deciding to stay out of the race, Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell made his bid known almost immediately. Treadwell has already attacked the 2010 Republican Senate nominee Joe Miller, saying “I believe I don’t scare people. Joe does sometimes.”

Treadwell, no doubt, is the establishment candidate and was their first pick, but he will have to share the GOP country club with another establishment candidate. Former Natural Resources Commissioner and Attorney General Dan Sullivan is the second-tier establishment candidate, but ironically seems to have the money advantage. Alaska’s Energy, America’s Values, which is headed up by political consultant Art Hackney and backs Dan Sullivan, already spent about $12,000 to air ads in Anchorage and Matanuska Valley.

There is a real potential for a reverse vote splitting phenomena to play out that inevitably will benefit Joe Miller. That is, typically establishment Republican candidates win primaries because the conservative vote is split between 2 or more anti-establishment candidates. In the Alaska Senate race the opposite is true, and it is conceivable to see how under the right conditions Joe Miller could upset the GOP establishment on primary night, again.

The Republican establishment has a history of soft support in Alaska that has worsened in recent years, i.e. beginning with Sarah Palin and reinforced by Joe Miller in 2010. Now, one might wonder how credible that claim is under scrutiny considering Joe Miller lost in 2010 to incumbent Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski. But let’s take a look at some recent Alaska voting trends.

Never mind the fact that Joe Miller actually defeated Murkowski in the 2010 primary, which was a two-way race whereas 2014 will be a three-way at least, Murkowski’s general election victory was suspect. Putting aside the allegations of voter fraud, which almost certainly have some degree of truth to them, I find other data points from 2004 to 2010 that should be of concern to the establishment.

In 2004, an election cycle very favorable to Republicans, tax increases passed by Governor Frank Murkowski, Lisa Murkowski’s father, moved popular opinion in the conservative state against the Murkowski family and led to her eking out a small 3-point victory with 149,773 votes (48.6 percent). The Democratic candidate, Tony Knowles, had strong crossover and independent appeal, garnering 140,424 votes (45.6 percent). Murkowski ticked off her base and it almost cost the senator her career.

By 2010, she repaired much of her image, and at the time Joe Miller announced his challenge she had the approval of nearly 3/4 of Alaskans. Polling in the state, as I have previously demonstrated, is notoriously inaccurate. Even some native pollsters, such as the liberal Ivan Moore Research company, isn’t worth a glance from any serious pundit. One survey conducted by Ivan Moore research had Murkowki beating Joe Miller by a margin of 62- 30 percent.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the conservative activists in the state, such as the voters who supported Sarah Palin and gave Joe Miller the 2010 nomination, are a force to be reckoned with and under-represented in polling.

In 2010, Murkowski won with 102,252 (39 percent) votes to the 90,740 (35.5percent) for Joe Miller, while the Democratic Mayor of Sitka Scott McAdams received 60,007 (23.5 percent) votes. And this is why I called her win “suspect.”

While incumbent Governor Sean Parnell, who as lieutenant governor succeeded Palin following her resignation, received over 59.06 percent of the vote, or the highest percentage for any Alaska gubernatorial candidate in history, Democrat Ethan Berkowitz received 96,519 (37.67 percent) votes. That’s 36,512 more votes than Scott McAdams received in the three-way Senate race and almost identical to the 36,080 who voted in the Democratic primary, which is dominated by hardline activist.

Bottom line: Those 36,512 Democratic voters who supported Ethan Berkowitz for governor did not also support Scott McAdams, but instead many or most of them must have supported Lisa Murkowski to stop Joe Miller. In my experience, crossover voting on such a grand scale is rare to nonexistent, and there is no such thing as coincidences. But I will let you decide.

Meanwhile, out of the 109,750 who voted in the 2010 Republican primary, 55,878 (50.91 percent) voted for the winner, Joe Miller, and 53,872 (49.09 percent) voted for the spoiler and now-Senator Lisa Murkowski. Worth noting, as a demonstration of conservative voter turnout, Miller’s 2010 primary vote total represented approximately 10,000 more votes than the 45,710 Murkowski won in her 2004 landslide primary victory. Population increases, per the latest U.S. Census numbers released this month, cannot account for the disparity. It was voter intensity, plain and simple.

Out of the 134,959 registered Republicans in the state of Alaska, which are the most recent Jan. 3 numbers, it would appear that the Republican establishment can only count on half being in their corner, at best. The rest of the Republican-leaning supporters who are responsible for the party’s general election victories come from the large amount of nonpartisan (83,157) and undeclared (181,361) voters in the state registration records, which the establishment will not be able to tap in the primary (they have no history of significant primary engagement).

In other words, while the media may not be giving Joe Miller a decent chance by citing fictions and notoriously inaccurate pollsters, the actual numbers suggest he does have a decent shot at an upset. Any fissure between Treadwell and Sullivan, even a small fissure, would be catastrophic for the establishment. They simply do not have enough establishment Republican votes to split in a three-way primary.

That being said, Joe Miller has some serious challenges. Even the campaign doesn’t deny that the legal challenges against Murkowski following the 2010 election hurt their candidate’s favorability ratings, and he will most assuredly be outspent by both Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell and Dan Sullivan.

However, I know for a fact that both the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund are watching the Alaska Senate race very closely, and any one of them could decide the relatively inexpensive Alaskan market is a worthwhile investment. Just one of these conservative Super PAC titans to add to the already-announced Combat Veterans For Congress PAC, could prove to be too much for the soft-supported establishment to handle.

View Polling Below Or Return To Our 2014 Senate Map Predictions

Poll Date Sample Begich (D) Treadwell (R) Spread
Hays Research (D) 8/14 – 8/14 388 LV 50 39 Begich +11
PPP (D) 7/25 – 7/28 890 RV 44 40 Begich +4
PPP (D) 2/4 – 2/5 1129 RV 47 39 Begich +8
Harper (R) 1/29 – 1/30 1157 LV 44 34 Begich +10

While the media may not be reporting

News, World

Iran nuclear program halted

In this Sept. 2007 file picture an anti-aircraft gun position is seen at Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran. (AP/FILE)

Inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), confirmed Monday that the program to enrich uranium to 20 percent had been halted by disconnecting the centrifuges at Natanz.

According to the Islamic Republic’s state-run news agency, Iran has begun to convert its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium to nuclear fuel, but that has not been verified. That can be verified regarding the Iranian state TV report is that workers had cut the link feeding cascades enriching uranium at its facilities at Natanz and also Fordo, located near the city of Qum.

The state TV report also claimed that inspectors from the IAEA were present to observe the procedure.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf confirmed that the IAEA report had been received by U.S. officials and the other parties involved in last year’s P5+1 talks in Geneva, Switzerland.

“[We] are now studying this report [and] will have further public comment after all parties have had the opportunity to review the report,” Harf said in a statement.

The news of the Iran nuclear program halted in Natanz and Fordo clears the way for the easing of sanctions. United States officials have projected the total sanctions relief to be about $7 billion, out of roughly $100 billion in Iranian assets held in foreign banks. Iran is set to receive the first installment of $550 million on Feb. 1.

Iran is already scheduled to receive the first of 6 payments out of unfrozen overseas funds on or around Feb. 1. In total, the payments will amount to $4.2 billion, with the last of the funds scheduled to be transferred to Iran in July.

Iran will continue to enrich uranium up to 5 percent, and UN inspectors will be given daily access to the Fordo enrichment site, and monthly inspections would be allowed at the Arak heavy water reactor.

Further, according to Olli Heinonen, former deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran is only 2 to 3 weeks away from producing enough highly enriched uranium to assemble a nuclear weapon. Sunday on Aaron Klein’s WABC Radio show, Heinonen offered disturbing commentary that suggests the Obama administration has been asleep at the wheel, or backed the U.S. and the West in a corner.

[ooyala code=”o3aG02azp27FqB9PAyQJB_l2sKiJczaq” player_id=”undefined”]

Inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog the

News, Politics

stop-this-overreaching-presidency

The resolution dubbed Stop This Overreaching Presidency, or S.T.O.P. was crafted in response to Obama’s many unconstitutional acts of executive enactment and enforcement of laws.

South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice is leading a legislative counter-attack on the blatant executive lawlessness exhibited during the Obama presidency, dubbed the Stop This Overreaching Presidency, or the S.T.O.P. resolution.

The resolution would authorize the House to legally challenge several presidential workarounds, most recently the unilateral delays to key provisions in the health care law motivated by political concerns.

“Our forefathers fought a revolution to get out from under a monarchy,” Rice said in an interview on Fox News.

The Supreme Court destroyed congressional standing in Raines v. Byrd (1997), a lawsuit filed by 6 congressmen who challenged the constitutionality of the presidential line-item veto. The high court ruled that the congressmen lacked standing, reasoning that the loss of congressional power they lamented was a “wholly abstract and widely dispersed” injury.

Many critics argue that the power of the House members is an extension of the sovereign power under the Constitution, We the People. The Constitution solely grants the House, which is the closest and most-responsive body of government to the people, the power of the purse to reign in presidential overreach. Congress, alone, has the power to enact laws and changes laws, while the president must enforce those laws faithfully.

However, from unilateral enactment of the Dream Act, which failed to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, to the unilateral amendments to ObamaCare, the president has arrogantly ignored our Madisonian system of checks and balances on power.

“He may have a pen and a phone, but we got the Constitution,” Rice quipped, referring to comments made by Obama and recently reported by PeoplesPunditDaily.com. The statements made by Obama at the open of his cabinet meeting drew sharp criticism and shocked many on the right and left, who viewed them for what they were, a declaration of intention by Obama to ignore his own power restrictions outlined in the Constitution.

“Our freedom is under attack here, and we cannot stand by and watch this president trample our Constitution. This is a concrete action. I don’t think there is anything more important happening in the House right now,” Rep. Rice said.

The Stop This Overreaching Presidency resolution, at last count, had 66 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, which Rep. Rice and others hope will pass with majority support, forcing Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) and Senate Democrats into making a difficult decision.

“Our president is clearly saying that he is not going to be bound by the Constitution. One man who can enact the law and enforce the law, he is a king, not a president,” Rice passionately stated.

The Stop This Overreaching Presidency resolution is the result of a long laundry list of grievances, which have now begun to turn into serious House action. Throughout his presidency, Obama has violated and overreached on his constitutional executive authority, including the refusal to enforce mandatory minimum sentences, DOMA, federal immigration law and most recently, ObamaCare.

Rice is asking citizens nationwide to visit http://rice.house.gov to “get behind this” resolution, because the precedent being set by this presidency will have dire consequences for freedom in the future, which our children and grandchildren will have to live with or deal with when we are long gone.

Jonathan Turley, a liberal professor at George Washington University, joined by other concerned constitutional scholars, testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee in June of 2013. After 5 minutes and 28 seconds of  questioning by Rep. Steve King of Iowa, Turley states:

I have great trepidation of where we are headed, because we are creating a new system here – something that is not what was designed. We have a rising fourth branch in a system that was tripartite. The center of gravity is shifting and that makes it unstable. And within that system, you have the rise of an Uber-Presidency. There could be no greater danger for individual liberty. I really think that the Framers would be horrified by that shift, because everything they dedicated themselves to was creating political balance – and we’ve lost it.

Watch the video below:

South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice is leading

News, Politics

nsa reformsDemocratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the Senate will craft their own NSA reforms via legislation to limit NSA spying, echoing many on the left as well as the right who believe President Obama proposed nothing last week to protect Americans’ privacy.

“There’s a concern that we have gone too much into Americans’ privacy,” the Vermont Senator told “Fox News Sunday,” adding “there’s still going to be legislation on this.”

Leahy repeatedly said both Democrats and Republicans are concerned and suggested the direction of the legislation will be impacted by what Attorney General Eric Holder says when he testifies on Capitol Hill on Jan. 29, which is the day after the president’s fifth State of the Union address.

Obama announced minor proposals Friday in a major speech at the Justice Department, which avoided providing any answer for the biggest, most controversial questions surrounding the bulk data collection program.

The president appointed Attorney General Eric H. Holder and the National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper, both of whom lied under oath in Congress, to develop a plan to move phone meta-data from the NSA only to a consortium of independent entities.

Senator Leahy said he wouldn’t oppose the White House on the president’s proposed NSA reforms, but he stressed the inadequacy of the proposal and assured the Senate will act independently.

“I think we have a way we can do this,” he said. “I believe in going after the bad guys. But I also believe in some checks and balances, so you don’t have a government run amok.”

“Reformers may not get all of what we want,” said Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who commented separate from the Sunday Show. “But I think there’s a very real prospect of doing better than the president has proposed, and he’s acknowledged himself that there may be a need for taking additional steps.”

However, Senator Rand Paul, who is suing the Obama administration over the massive meta-data collection, isn’t buying what Democrats are selling.

“This happens all the time in Washington,” said the Republican Senator from Kentucky. “Everybody gets in an uproar — ‘Congress must act! Congress must act!’ But when they do act, they do something devious and don’t really address the problem.”

Paul appears to have reason to be pessimistic, and it comes in the form of the man who joined Leahy on the Sunday show, retired Gen. Michael Hayden, a former Bush administration NSA and CIA director. Though Obama vastly expanded the NSA spying programs, a large amount were actually started in 2006 under the Bush administration.

“There was an awful lot I liked about the [Obama] speech,” Hayden said.

He expresses some concern, the ever-present Washington “but” that follows an answer to an uncomfortable question, particularly regarding the NSA reforms that allow the NSA to only follow the second call from an original call, or “hop” as they are called, and not the third call.

“If the third hop hadn’t been useful, we wouldn’t have been using it,” Hayden said.

Attorney General Eric Holder, who lied to Congress surrounding the Justice Department seeking wire-tapping warrants targeting journalists, will again testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Holder last appeared before the committee in March of 2013.

Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of

News, Policy

obamacare-delay

According to a new report, the latest ObamaCare delay is coming down the pipe, only this one doesn’t fit with the president’s inequality message, which prohibits employers from providing better health benefits to top executives than those being offered to regular employees.

According to The New York Times, tax officials said they would not enforce the provision prohibiting employers from providing better health benefits to top executives than regular employers in 2014, because they claim they haven’t issued the regulations yet.

The latest ObamaCare delay pushes off the requirement that says employer-sponsored health plans must not discriminate “in favor of highly compensated individuals” on either eligibility or benefits, offers a tax break for employer-sponsored insurance, and prohibits employers from providing better coverage to higher-paid employees.

However, much to the contrary of the “fairness” doctrine, Bruce I. Friedland, a spokesman for the IRS, told the New York Times that employers would not have to comply until 2015, after the midterm elections.

Without the ObamaCare delay an employer that offers full health plans that discriminate against regular employees and favor high-paid executives, would be subject to a tax of $100 per day per each individual discriminated against.

The IRS claims the regulations are being held up, because they haven’t decided how to qualify the value of employee health benefits, how to define “highly compensated” and discrimination against regular employees.

Ironically, officials have made the decision to review the existing nondiscrimination rules for self-insured companies, which may not even be changed.

“Under the Affordable Care Act, for the first time all group health plans will be prohibited from offering coverage only to their highest paid employees. The Departments of HHS, Labor and the Treasury are working on rules that will implement this requirement of the ACA, taking into account public comments that were previously requested,” Erin Donar, a spokesperson for the Treasury said in a statement Saturday evening.

“As we continue this work, employers still have the same incentives they always have had to offer coverage to their employees as part of a competitive compensation package, and will have additional incentives under the Affordable Care Act starting this year and next.”

The latest ObamaCare delay is the last in a long list of deadline extensions, exemptions and delays to the deeply unpopular health care law by the Obama administration, which is suspiciously timed to avoid negative coverage in this year’s midterm election cycle.

According to a new report, the latest

Opinion

voting rights amendment

To the Honorable members of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives,

This written petition was authored to articulate and represent the position of the mighty American majority, who are firmly united in our opposition to the Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014, in its current form.

In response to the Supreme Court decision regarding the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was decided on June 25, 2013, proposed legislation was recently sponsored in the House by Democratic Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, joined by the author of the unconstitutional Patriot Act James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, and in the Democratic-controlled Senate by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois, and known collectivist, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware.

This bill, in its current form, is fundamentality flawed and will further destroy the integrity of the electoral system in the United States, not protect it. The Supreme Court decision correctly noted that the decades-old formula outlined in the 1965 Voting Rights Act no longer applied upon examination of contemporary data.

As Chief Justice Roberts identified in the majority opinion, “voter turnout and registration rates now approach parity. Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels.”

While it is self-evident that unanimity exists over the need to protect all of our citizens’ fundamental right to vote in free and fair elections, sadly it is equally self-evident that clear intentions exist to perpetuate fraud and racial resentment, and that these are the perverted principles at the center of this proposal, not the admirable protection of minority voting rights.

There are several key provisions that are of dire concern to the mighty majority regarding the Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014, which like an impostor is presently carrying the mantle of bipartisanship. The list is as follows:

A provision of the amendment renders states subject to federal pre-approval and supervision for election changes if those states have 5 or more voting rights violations over the past 15 years.

The objection of the majority is rational, because surely only the unwise and unreasonable would fail to see the ramifications of this arbitrary, and most-hollow standard. Left-wing activist and professional race-monger, Al Sharpton, is already prepared to line-up more than enough complaints to meet that arbitrary threshold, all of which no doubt will carry as much truth as the accusations levied in the Tawana Brawley case, which destroyed countless innocent American lives.

With respect to the rule of law, the end-all means of preserving our Madisonian system that justly elevates the separation of powers above political preference, for which Attorney General Eric Holder has shown complete disregard by dismissing the Black Panthers voter intimidation case, its observation and reverence cannot be guaranteed by means of this proposal.

The Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014 allows courts to require federal oversight for states even in cases the Justice Department or private litigants cannot prove intentional discrimination at the ballot box, a blatant violation of the Tenth Amendment without legal or justifiable cause.

Citizens of North Carolina and others in their respected state governments have unnecessarily been burdened with the task of defending lawful legislation against Attorney General Eric Holder, despite the vast majority of the American people supporting voter ID laws in their current form, as proposed by the Republican Party.

Further, the amount of power granted to the lower federal courts and the Justice Department, both of which have shown a propensity to disregard precedent and the rule of law, is unacceptable.

The Civil Rights Division within the Justice Department is populated by far-left, social retributionists who under this administration have become so emboldened they outright protect and allow the “spigot” city voter fraud operations to continue, because the ends justify the means.

Nevertheless, as we can predict from the legislative language, neither the Justice Department nor private litigants will be required to prove their likely false charges valid, and as such, will rely solely upon federal justices who are unquestionably guilty of a long train of abuses and lawless judicial activism surrounding the people’s right to require voter ID to protect the integrity of their elections.

On the issue of voter ID requirements, as outlined in this proposal, states can only continue to pass photo-specific voter ID laws that are “reasonable.” However, Democratic lawmakers and liberal legal activists have already argued in several federal courts of law that they believe it to be “unreasonable” to require voter ID laws, let alone photo-specific voter ID laws.

The ACLU, for example, unabashedly voiced their full intent to lobby Democratic lawmakers to make improvements to the “problematic” provision in the bill, which they claim treats voter ID laws “somewhat less seriously from other voting rights violations.”

Put simply, they plan to gut any and all legislative voter ID language to ensure that the inner-city Democratic voter fraud machine will continue undeterred, and once more without fail, the Republican Party has not the courage to stand up to this machine that oppresses our fellow-citizens, depriving them of their most basic God-given freedoms of choice and information.

The mighty majority would urge lawmakers not only to stand with and for the will of We the People and decline to support this legislation, but to speak out against such an effort to continuously divide our nation and perpetuate the greatest fraud of all, which is that the only injustice in our current electoral process stems from the countless instances of voter fraud that continuously undermines our system of representative government and our very freedom.

The American people tolerate a great deal of abuse and belittlement daily. However, to legitimize the already-dozens of illegitimate lawmakers now serving in both houses of Congress, as well as those who will serve in the future, because we did nothing to prevent the codifying of legislation that insults and causes injury to the simple principles of republicanism, would be an abomination to our beloved nation, to all those who have paid the ultimate price to defend her and the liberties once enjoyed with her existence.

This written petition was authored to articulate

Elections

oklahoma-senate-race

The Oklahoma Senate race is the thirteenth article in a succession of articles offering expanded analysis on the ratings for the PeoplesPunditDaily.com 2014 Senate Map. The unexpected early retirement of “Wastebook” champion Senator Tom Colburn will exemplify what a GOP primary feeding frenzy looks like. A more appropriate comparison may be “a cattle call,” as Kirk Humphreys put it, the man who ran against and lost to Colburn in 2004.

Unlike other incumbent Republican senators, Senator James Inhofe has nothing to worry about in a Republican primary and highly favored to win reelection. However, Gov. Mary Falin has announced a special election to fill the open seat now held by Sen. Tom Colburn, and out of the deep red state’s 5 congressional seats, House members from 3 of the them will likely jump into the race, including Reps. Tom Cole, the already-declared James Lankford and the not-yet declared Jim Bridenstine.

Reps. Tom Cole and James Lankford, both of whom expressed interest in higher office, are seen as the more establishment candidates to potentially make a run for Colburn’s open seat, while Bridestein the Tea Party insurgent. If it plays out this way, we will be presented with a situation resembling the one we have in Alaska.

Typically, the more establishment candidate slips in for the nomination with roughly a third of the Republican vote, while unorganized conservatives fight for and split the base conservative vote. Bridestein, even more so than Joe Miller in Alaska, has a real potential to exploit this fissure. The prominent Senate Conservatives Fund supported Bridenstine in his House reelection bid last spring, and has already sent out emails to supporters declaring their support and hopefulness of a Bridestein Senate bid.

Bridestein voted against John Boehner for Speaker of the House, which earned his wings with conservative activists (that’s a joke, Bridestein was a pilot).

T.W. Shannon, the black conservative Speaker of the House in Oklahoma , would make a formidable candidate in the primary, as no one can argue Shannon isn’t articulate and effective in conveying the conservative message. And the list goes on, including Attorney General Scott Pruitt, Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb and Corporation Commissioner Patrice Douglas.

“There’s any number of people that are probably going to think about running for this,” said Dave Weston, chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party. “It’ll be a highly competitive primary.”

In 2004, when Colburn ran and won, he was considered an outsider and an underdog in the Republican primary, which should give candidates like Bridestein and Shannon a reason to be optimistic. But in the world of politics, reality must be a factor in the potential candidates’ decision-making process, because those who hold and are up for reelection will have to take a chance, a chance that could cause them their post.

Because the special election will be held alongside the state’s regularly scheduled elections, potential candidates who currently hold positions up for reelection this year will have to weigh whether to give up their seat in order to run for Senate. If they lose, it’s all over for them. It will certainly whittle the potential field of candidates down to the very serious.

Oklahoma’s political leanings are so deep red, it wouldn’t much matter who wins the primary election, because this race is “Safe Republican” in the general election. If Rep. Jim Bridestein does decide on a bid for the Oklahoma Senate race, PeoplesPunditDaily.com would consider him the early favorite, albeit a slight one. For now, Lankford appears to lead the establishment field, and if the field stays establishment, he is heavily favored to win.

Poll Date Sample Lankford Shannon Weger Spread
Harper (R) 1/30 – 2/1 627 LV 54 18 1 Lankford +36

The Oklahoma Senate race is the thirteenth

Culture, News, Science

Depiction of HD 142527, discovered by Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array team in Chile.

A gigantic ring of dust and gas whirling around a distant star may just be forming planets at this very moment, according to a Japanese team who recently observed the stellar object with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile.

The ring is spinning around the star HD 142527 (depicted in the video below), which is over 456 light-years from Earth, and is located in the southern constellation Lupus. The ring of dust “is asymmetric in that it has a portion that is noticeably denser than the rest,” the report from Discovery.com stated.

It’s the northern region, which is particularly significant for the team to study.

“We are very surprised at the brightness of the northern side,” said Misato Fukagawa, who is the leader of the team and an assistant professor at Osaka University. “The brightest part in submillimeter wave is located far from the central star, and the distance is comparable to five times the distance between the Sun and the Neptune. I have never seen such a bright knot in such a distant position.”

the “bright knot” referenced by Fukagawa suggests the area that is the densest clustering of material in that portion of the ring and just the right condition to start the formation of protoplanets.

“When a sufficient amount of material is accumulated, planets or comets can be formed here,” Fukagawa added.

The discovered ring of dust is the perfect observation for ALMA, which is the perfect instrument to study it. It will give the team a never-before seen chance to gather more information surrounding the birth and formation of stars.

“HD 142527 is a peculiar object, as far as our limited knowledge goes,” said Fukagawa. “However, other asymmetrical protoplanetary disks have been discovered since the early ALMA science operation started. Our final goal is to reveal the major physical process which controls the formation of planets.”

A gigantic ring of dust and gas

Opinion

There was a lot of flapping of the gums in the media in the days immediately following the week the health care bill was signed into law, mostly about the perceived threat of violence from the right.

It should be understood that violence, even the most mild, such as the throwing of rocks, or even the threats of violence in phone calls and email, is abhorrent to those who seek real change in government. The actions of violence do nothing to further the course of change, and in fact, do more harm than good to any cause they support or say they support.

Most reasonable adults believe that as well.

During the American Revolution, John Adams, himself an eventual revolutionary, spoke against the acts of tarring and feathering Tories, and other heinous acts. However, he spoke eloquently and loudly about the acts of an unjust king, and denounced it. Yet, it wasn’t until the king acted illegally, and then with the support of the newborn US Congress did he support armed action — and then, it was the act of a uniformed army, not domestic terrorism. If you read some of his early works, before the Revolution, his words were far harsher, and angrier, than any media host or politician from the right today.

Nevertheless, there are those on the left that are attempting to cast the acts of a few extremists as the acts of the whole. They also are trying to paint those who speak in defiance of the government as criminals and the words they say as seditious.

This is not the act of those that seek peaceful discourse, it is the attempt of the left to silence its detractors, and quiet down the legitimate argument of the right to stop the enactment of the new health care law.

They have that right, but let’s call it what it is. This is not about stopping violence. It’s an attempt to keep the debate to a minimum and drive their detractors away. The White House saw what happened the first time around when the American people got angry and confronted those in Congress at their town hall meetings. It nearly derailed the entire process, and forced Congress to make changes to the original bill that they never wanted.

They want to make sure that doesn’t happen now that it has become law, to prevent its repeal or change, to ensure that they keep enough seats in Congress in the November elections to prevent a congressional shift from unfolding and repealing the new mandate.

The freedom of speech is one of the most basic, and most powerful, protections that an American citizen has. The act of “rowdy discourse” is central to both the American way of life, and fundamental to the school of political thought that is uniquely American.

I, for one, am glad that people are yelling. That people are angry. That people will be motivated to get to the ballot box and vote. That people who never have been political a day in their lives before, are going out and attending rallies, writing letters to their representatives and asking for repeal. All of these things are core to the beliefs of Americans. More of us need to express ourselves in this manner.

Are people angry? You bet they are. The majority of Americans wanted health care changes and reform, but this bill put government in the wallets of every American and in the cash register of every business on Main Street. It is a government takeover of our very lives, our very person. The fact that people are angry and vocal about it should not be a surprise to anyone up on the Hill.

The left under Obama has continually tried to paint the people that speak loudly against them as crackpots and violent. They have tried to convince people that speaking out and attending rallies is an act of sedition. Such an argument should be hateful to anyone who thinks freely. To discourage discourse, to try and tell people how and in what manner they should speak out, is a low moment in U.S. politics.

It’s not like the left is innocent, either. During Bush’s presidency, how many people carried signs that said “Kill Bush,” how many people called and threatened the White House then? Many did. Yet we heard nothing but small print stories then about the issue. Now suddenly, the reasonable act of angry words at rallies is anathema. Some have even called Sarah Palin’s Searchlight speech seditious.

Outrageous.

The only act of sedition and lawlessness that is being fomented is that of the left, trying to squelch the right to freedom of speech in this country. Those that break the law will be dealt with, as they should be, and no legitimate authority of the conservative movement, or radio host, or media outlet has ever suggested acting violently against others, either in the name, or by de facto support.

To say otherwise is disingenuous, and is the act of political posturing.

To those who seek to silence the legitimate anger and speech of Americans, I simply say this. November is coming, and then the change that everyone thought they were voting for, is certainly going to come this time to the Hill.

Thomas Purcell is the host of the popular radio show Liberty Never Sleeps, and author of “Shotgun Republic.”

The only act of sedition and lawlessness

Polls

Shockingly, public polling conducted during debate over the Senate immigration reform bill found majority support, but now the particulars of immigration reform are not particularly popular.

Although most voters —  64 percent — still view legal immigration as good for America, a new survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports found 51 percent of Americans oppose the Senate immigration reform plan that would triple immigration over the next 10 years. In fact, when actually told the particulars of the plan, one-in-three favor cutting the number of legal immigrants to this country, even if the border is totally secured to prevent illegal immigration.

The number of Americans who view immigration within the boundaries of the law favorably is down a tick from 68 percent measured in March of last year, with 23 percent viewing legal immigration as bad for the United States. Also, a new Quinnipiac University poll found both independent and Republican voters have swung strongly against an immigration reform amnesty since last May, despite falsely posing to respondents a choice that referenced “a path to citizenship.”

A recent column from Ann Coulter noted the questionable methodology used by liberal public pollsters on the issue of immigration, which we have hammered here at PPD. As with the survey conducted by the liberal Brookings Institute, for instance, the wording of the survey was misleading, at best. The pollster asked the respondents to choose which proposal they viewed to be the most favorable to deal with the issue of immigration, with the options being:

  • “The best way to solve the country’s illegal immigration problem is to secure our borders and arrest and deport all those who are here illegally”

or,

  • “The best way to solve the country’s illegal immigration problem is to both secure our borders and provide an earned path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the U.S.”

Of course, those who are opposed to the Senate immigration reform bill are not proposing to round-up illegal immigrants and deport them, even though a whopping 60 percent of the American say we are not aggressive enough with deportation. But the idea that the Democrats are proposing “to both secure our borders and provide an earned path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the U.S.” in the Senate immigration reform bill, is equally preposterous.

Those of us who remember 1986, which include all but 5 percent of Americans who foolishly believe Democratic promises would be kept, are hearing “if you like your border secure, you can keep your border secure. If you like your path to citizenship, you can keep your path to citizenship, period. No one is talking about taking that away from you.”

Shockingly, public polling conducted during debate over

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