“Blumenthal’s implosion should focus GOP attentions again on this seat as a possible pickup, as two candidates square off for the GOP nomination, former Congressman and real Vietnam veteran Rob Simmons, and wrestling tycoon Linda MacMahon. That sound you heard is another seat going back on the board.”

Link to The New York Times’ article on Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

THE RIGHT-WING populist Tea Party movement has politicians of both parties spooked. Democrats fear it will bring so many Republicans to the boil, and then to the voting booth, that they will lose control of Congress. Republicans fear the movement will frighten away moderates and leave their party an unelectable, ideologically extreme rump. The press, both alarmed and delighted by this political force that sprang from nowhere, is eager to prove its lack of elitism and left-wing bias by treating the Tea Party activists with respect.

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Of course, the idea of Robin Hood as an early socialist has had a lot of currency as well. Ayn Rand declared the fabled outlaw a symbol of evil — taking from the productive and giving to the parasites — in her novel “Atlas Shrugged”; on the other side of the political spectrum, a coalition of international aid groups in England recently made him their mascot when they proposed a “Robin Hood tax” on high-profit industries to help the poor in developing nations. But the original Robin Hood, while he has many different faces, is above all a fighter for freedom from tyranny — and that’s what made him a legend.

What Americans resolutely avoid is a realistic debate about the desirable role of government. How big should it be? Should it favor the old or the young? Will social spending crowd out defense spending? Will larger government dampen economic growth through higher deficits or taxes? No one engages this debate, because if rigorously conducted, it would disappoint both liberals and conservatives.

It is galling for private sector workers to see so many public sector workers thriving because of the power their unions exercise. Take California. Investigative journalist Steve Malanga point out in the City Journal that California’s schoolteachers are the nation’s highest paid; its prison guards can make six-figure salaries; many state workers retire at 55 with pensions that are higher than the base pay they got most of their working lives. All this when California endures an unemployment rate steeper than the nation’s. It will get worse. There’s an exodus of firms that want to escape California’s high taxes, stifling regulations, and recurring budget crises. When Cisco’s CEO, John Chambers, says he will not build any more facilities in California, you know the state is in trouble.

With bigotry and racism running rampant, it was inevitable that homophobia would raise its ugly head. Dale McAlpine, a practising (wait for it) Christian, was handing out leaflets in the town of Workington and chit-chatting with shoppers when he was arrested on a “public order” charge by police officer Sam Adams (no relation), a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community outreach officer. Mr. McAlpine said homosexuality is a sin. “I’m gay,” said Officer Adams. Well, it’s still a sin, said Mr. McAlpine. So Officer Adams arrested him for causing distress to Officer Adams.

In fairness, I should add that Mr. McAlpine was also arrested for causing distress to members of the public more generally, rather than just the aggrieved gay constable. No member of the public actually complained, but, as Officer Adams pointed out, Mr. McAlpine was talking “in a loud voice” that might be “overheard by others.” And we can’t have that, can we? So he was fingerprinted, DNA-sampled and tossed in the cells for seven hours.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in Florida finds Republican Marco Rubio with 39% support, while Crist earns 31% of the vote and Democrat Kendrick Meek trails at 18%. Twelve percent (12%) are undecided.

Two weeks ago, just after Crist announced that he was running as an independent, he held a 38% to 34% advantage over Rubio.

The latest numbers parallel the findings in April two weeks before Crist announced he was quitting the Republican Primary race.

Crist, whose numbers had been in freefall in his primary match-up with Rubio, has been actively courting Democrats. But Meek now edges Crist among Democratic voters after trailing him two weeks ago.
Among Republicans, Crist’s support has dropped from 30% two weeks ago to 23% now. Rubio, the Cuban-American former speaker of the state House, earns 68% of Republicans, up 10 points from the previous survey.
Crist’s lead over Rubio among voters not affiliated with either party has narrowed as well, from 12 points early in the month to three points now.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 43% of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate, while 38% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Support for Democrats held steady from last week, while support for Republicans dipped slightly.

In the third week of April, Republicans posted a 10-point lead over Democrats, a high reached only one time since January and the party’s biggest lead in the history of Rasmussen Reports polling. Since then, however, the gap between the two parties has been closing.
While solid majorities of Democrats and Republicans support their own party, the plurality (42%) of voters not affiliated with either major party now prefer the Republican candidate, while 24% like the Democrat. These findings have remained fairly consistent for months now.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Adults shows 69% of those who use Facebook are concerned about the security of their personal information on the site, including 31% who are Very Concerned. Only 30% of users are not concerned about their privacy on the site, with just two percent (2%) who are Not at All Concerned.

Adults younger than 30 are much less concerned than their elders about the security of their personal information. Investors are more concerned than non-investors about security issues on the site.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% favor repeal of the law, while 39% are opposed. Support for repeal is unchanged from a week ago. That support is also proving to be just as consistent as opposition to the health care plan before it was passed into law.
In polls conducted every week since the law was passed in March, support for repeal has stayed in a very narrow range from a low of 54% to a high of 58%.
The current results include 45% who Strongly Favor repeals and 33% who are Strongly Opposed. Among senior citizens, the generation most likely to use the health care system, 63% favor repeal.

During two days of talks about human rights with China last week, the US raised examples of problems on its own soil and cited Arizona’s controversial new immigration law as an example of “racial discrimination.”

Physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are reporting that they have discovered a new clue that could help unravel one of the biggest mysteries of cosmology: why the universe is composed of matter and not its evil-twin opposite, antimatter.

(CNN) — An attorney representing the family of a 7-year-old girl shot to death Sunday in a police raid is accusing the Detroit Police Department of misrepresenting the incident.

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That purge eliminated several staffers who had not become trusted members of McCain’s inner circle and brought on some of his longtime political advisers to begin anew. This time, McCain won’t have to go far. While Verdone and Hellon had been managing the campaign day to day, McCain is still being advised by the core group that helped him claim the GOP presidential nomination in ’08: Charlie Black, Rick Davis and Mark Salter.

HERZLIYA, Israel, May 17 (Reuters) – A nuclear-armed Iran would blunt Israel’s military autonomy, a wargame involving former Israeli generals and diplomats has concluded, though some players predicted Tehran would also exercise restraint.