For a short period of time early last year Donald Trump seemed to be nearly on the brink of tossing his hat into the ring of candidates running to represent the Republican Party against President Barack Obama in the 2012 general election. He appeared to connect with a portion of the population not regularly involved in politics, but fed up enough with the direction of the American economy and President to stand up and call for a change in Washington. One birth certificate unveiling, one debate and several cross Youtube videos later, Donald Trump’s political star seems to be shining only dimly in 2o12. That decline was made more evident in a Facebook/POLITICO pol l released Saturday, asking Nevada Facebook users if Trump’s endorsement of Mitt Romney Thursday was a positive. Survey says: net negative. The poll surveyed 1,150 adult Facebook users, not specifically registered voters or likely GOP caucus voters, in Nevada on Friday. Following Trump’s endorsement Thursday, The Blaze’s Eddie Scarry reminded readers and fans of Romney that the real estate executive’s support may not be a cause for celebration just yet.
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Facebook/POLITICO poll shows that few in Nevada ‘liked’ Trump endorsement of Romney
From Robert Frank, at Wall Street Journal , ” The Myth of ‘Record-High’ Inequality “: We hear more and more about our country experiencing “record levels of inequality.” The gap between the rich and poor, we hear, is higher than ever. A new poll from the Washington Post and ABC News shows that 61% of Americans believe that the gap between “how much money wealthy people have” compared with the rest of the population is larger than it’s been historically. Only 31% believe it’s the same. Fully 61% also believe the gap between the wealthy is “much larger” than it’s been historically. Unfortunately, the survey respondents and much of the media is wrong. Inequality is clearly at high and (to many) disturbing levels. Over a 30-year period it’s undoubtedly gone up. But by the latest measures, inequality is actually lower than it was four years ago, and well below its recent highs. While many people cite inequality as a cause for the recession and joblessness, inequality was actually higher during the boom times of 2007 and 2008, when unemployment was under 5%. Continue reading .
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Record-High Levels of Inequality?
-By Warner Todd Huston When is a national park not a national park? When it is “themed” toward one small segment of the population by a government infected with PCism. That is what U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar did when he advocated recently for “Latino” themed national parks and historical landmarks. One might ask if Salazar is
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Newest PC Goal: More Hispanic Theme Parks
The article below makes some useful observations but I believe that the case for the “No” answer can be put even more simply: There are two large and important nations with high levels of Christian belief where about 40% of the population are regular churchgoers: Russia and the USA. Lying geographically in between them,
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Does religion rot your intelligence?
And not in the 1950s sense. The county’s demographics are more diverse than ever. Traditional family values are thriving as newer groups, with strong cultural and religious traditions, increase in population. At Los Angeles Times , ” Orange County remains a bastion of conservative family values .” Orange County, home to 3 million people, has the lowest percentage of single-parent households of any county in Southern California, according to a Times analysis of U.S. Census Bureau figures, as well as the lowest percentage of households occupied by opposite-sex unmarried couples. It also has one of the lowest percentages of same-sex households and has retained one of the highest percentages in the region of nuclear-family households — those with a married man and woman who are raising children under age 18. Orange County has not sidestepped entirely the modernization of the California family. Its percentage of nuclear-family households, for instance, while relatively high, fell between 2000 and 2010 from 29.1% of households to 26.1%. Overall, however, the county is a bastion of tradition, relatively speaking. “Change is happening, just at a slower pace,” said Edward Flores, the project manager with the population dynamics research group at USC. Ah, change at a slower pace. That’s a conservative principle. Nice. CONTRAST : At The Other McCain, ” Viva, Californication? ”
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Orange County Continues to Hold Conservative Values
Liberals praised her for mocking the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee and Hollywood gave her an Emmy , but Tina Fey speculates in her new book, “Bossypants,” that her impression of Sarah Palin cost NBC’s 30 Rock some viewers: “Some may argue that exploiting Governor Palin and her family helped bring attention to my low-rated TV show,” Fey writes (via an excerpt in USA Today). “I am proud to say you are wrong. My TV show still enjoys very low ratings. In fact, I think the Palin stuff may have hurt the TV show. Let’s face it, between Alec Baldwin and me there is a certain fifty percent of the population who think we are pinko Commie monsters.”
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Did Sarah Palin impression hurt Tina Fey’s career?
My wife and some friends are watching the Oscars so I am exposed to them every time I wander into the kitchen/dining/living room for a refill/top off/ice cubes. On my last trip I overheard a presenter on the TeeVee doing some kind of shtick where she said something to the tune of, “Really? You’re going to do that to me in front of a billion people?” This caught my attention because one billion people are not watching the Oscars . The “one billion” statistic is one of those untruths that has become “true” simply because people keep repeating it. Kind of like one of those insane, groundless, fact-free emails that your dad keeps forwarding you. Anyway, I was reminded of a great piece I’d once read by Daniel Radosh in the New Yorker (2005) wherein he sets the record straight and explores the history of the “one billion” figure: But the worldwide audience for the Oscars isn’t even close to a billion, as a little common sense makes plain. In the United States, 43.5 million people watched the show last year. That’s a lot, but it’s 956.5 million short of a billion. Can the show really pick up that many viewers in countries that most of the films and people being honored are not from, and where the speeches are in a language that most of the population does not speak? via The Pictures: One Billion : The New Yorker .
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The Myth Of The Billion Viewers
