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The Morning Grumpy – 3/30/12

All the news and views fit to consume during your morning grumpy.

Sad juggler gives up his dream

1. A new CNN poll released yesterday gives an outstanding view not only of how the Presidential race shapes up, but also lays bare how each party is perceived by Americans. So far, it seems the effort by national republicans and Fox News to lay the blame of high gas prices at the feet of the President hasn’t really worked. His approval ratings remain steady. President Obama beats Mitt Romney 54% to 43% among registered voters, and 56% to 40% among all adults. That’s the headline you’ll hear, but the really interesting information is buried in the details.

The data show the Republican Party is very quickly becoming the party of christian white males, to the exclusion of everyone else. President Obama’s approval rating, while at 51% among the total population, is 78% among non-whites, and only 40% among white voters.

The Democratic Party, enjoys a 48-35 favorability advantage over the GOP, has a 67-22 advantage among non-whites. Whites are evenly split on party approval.

As mentioned before, Obama beats Romney by a 54-43 margin among the total population, but he wins by a huge 61-point margin among racial minorities.

Now you know why the republicans have stepped up their state-by-state efforts for more stringent voter identification laws. As the number of minorities eligible to vote increases, the larger the margin becomes that republicans need to overcome to win a national election. Long term population and education trends forecast a desperate future for the Republican Party, which is fast becoming a regional and religious political movement with little appeal to minorities or women.

Other interesting data points in the poll:

Women approve of Obama by a 54-45 margin
Only 34% of women have a favorable view of the Republican Party
56% of Americans haven’t forgotten that it was the republicans and President Bush who were primarily responsible for creating our current economic mess

So, unless America soon becomes whiter and more masculine, the republicans are in a lot of trouble.

2. Another piece of excellent national coverage for Wegmans, the corporate treasure of Western New York. Wegmans, the Anti-Walmart.

The dirty little secret? Staying private and avoiding pressure from institutional shareholders to maximize profits.

Executives say the company is also able to invest in its employees and focus on steady, strategic growth because it is not publicly traded. They said cutting jobs or shipping them overseas was, in part, the product of having to relentlessly please the stock market.

A true success story.

3. Remember during the healthcare fight, when right wing pundits scolded democrats for being unwilling or unable to read the legislation they were voting on? Conservative members of the Supreme Court, you know, the people tasked with interpreting the law, don’t feel the need to read it.

Justice Antonin Scalia seemed surprised that someone would have expected the justices to read the text of the health care reform law before the hearings:

JUSTICE SCALIA: Mr. Kneedler, what happened to the Eighth Amendment? You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages? (Laughter.) And do you really expect the Court to do that? Or do you expect us to — to give this function to our law clerks? Is this not totally unrealistic? That we are going to go through this enormous bill item by item and decide each one?

I wonder if this will become a Fox News talking point and internet meme as it did when Congress was tasked with reading it. Fair and balanced!

4. Buffalo and the larger Cash Mob movement that was born here were again featured in a national media outlet. This time, it was on NPR’s Morning Edition.

“The best way to let something grow is to not worry about it,” he says. “Let people take ownership of it and do it the way that works for them. And as long as you stay true to the original concept, I think you’re always going to be successful.”

Over 80 cities, 35 states, 7 countries. After our last cash mob at Ulrich’s, we’ve now spent $15,000 at 8 businesses in Buffalo.

5. What would you do with $1,450,000,000,000? Well, the U.S. government plans to spend that much on the F-35 strike fighter.

The total cost to develop, buy and operate the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be $1.45 trillion over the next 50-plus years. The Pentagon still plans to buy 2,443 of the new radar-evading, supersonic warplanes, plus 14 development aircraft, in the coming decades.

The new baseline forecasts the average cost of the F-35 fighter, including research and development (R&D) and inflation, at $135 million per plane, plus an additional $26 million for the F135 engine built by Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp.

Wow. Funny, I heard that President Obama was gutting our military capability and destroying America. Huh. Truth of the matter is, the military-industrial complex is bankrupting our country.

Fact Of The Day: In 1830, the average American was guzzling the equivalent of 1.7 bottles of hard liquor per week — three times the amount consumed today.

Quote Of The Day: “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture – Just get people to stop reading them.” – Ray Bradbury

Video Of The Day (Movie Monologues Week): Al Pacino overdoing it (as usual), but a great monologue from “Any Given Sunday”.