Generic Ballot Points Toward Possible 50+ Seat Loss for Democrats

Be still my beating heart....From fivethirtyeight

Not Just AGs Suing Over Healthcare

According to One News, a group of nearly 5,000 American physicians, The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), is also suing to overturn the newly enacted healthcare bill. 


Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of AAPS, says several issues are of concern.
"It's an issue of freedom, it's an issue of saving the country from bankruptcy, it's an issue of access to medical care -- all of these things," she says. "This bill is a monstrous threat to Americans; and the more they find out about it, the more they dislike it [and] the more they fear it." (more)

Watch 'Em Spin

I still have the book that was required reading in my journalism class so long ago, "How To Lie With Statistics", still it is interesting to note a couple of surveys out today:

Tea Party 48% Obama 44%
On major issues, 48% of voters say that the average Tea Party member is closer to their views than President Barack Obama. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 44% hold the opposite view and believe the president’s views are closer to their own. (Rasmussen)

Tea Partiers Are Fairly Mainstream in Their Demographics

 Tea Party supporters skew right politically; but demographically, they are generally representative of the public at large. That's the finding of a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted March 26-28, in which 28% of U.S. adults call themselves supporters of the Tea Party movement. (Gallup)

According to Moderate Voice:

A new poll suggest what I have thought was true about the Maryland’s brew of tea party activists – a good segment of them are Democratic voters who are blue collar people that tend to lean conservative in the way they want government to work. Some of these Democratic voters voted for Ronald Reagan, Bush in 2000, and Ehrlich in 2002. However, the political landscape has changed and Ehrlich has got be careful how he aligns himself with this brand of Maryland Tea.(more)

Taken together I think it points to what many have been predicting for some time i.e. a dark November for members of Congress, especially but not exclusively, democrats

Newsbusters points to the some other salient points from the poll:

Survey: Four in 10 Tea Party members are Democrats or independents

The group also vehemently dislikes President Barack Obama – even more so than those who called themselves Republicans in the survey. Over 80 percent of Tea Party members disapprove of the job he’s doing as president, whereas 77 percent of Republican respondents said they disapprove of Obama. The Tea Party members are also strongly opposed to the Democrats’ healthcare plan, with 82 percent saying they oppose it --  only 48 percent of respondents overall were opposed. [...]

Almost half the members of the group reported getting their news about national issues from Fox News, 10 percent of respondents said that talk radio is one of their top two sources, which is seven-points higher than average voter. 


And then asks: How will the press report it? 

Usually, the press is willing to take things at face value without an intelligent question to spare (e.g. the "gay" gene, global warming, etc.)  but I bet this will be different...

see....

 NOT EXACTLY A 'MAINSTREAM' FORCE.. at the Washington Monthly for an example of things to come.

MereComments has this to say on this Holy Day:

...The world is old, and stupid. It wears the sniggering leer of the demagogue, the avid glance of the privateer of finance, the smug half-smile of the professor in the know. It does not want to understand the Cross, and Jesus who suffered upon it, because it is afraid of the new life that springs from Him; because that new life can take you where you do not know you want to go. But Jesus, who died for us, conquers by dying, conquers by giving of himself utterly. If we would be conquerors, if we would be as God himself, we must make ourselves one with Jesus, and give utterly. That cross, we feel, is too heavy for us to bear. It is too heavy; we cannot carry it. Then we must confess our nothingness, our weakness, and, as Therese of Lisieux says, let the cross carry us. We would be soldiers alongside our captain; first let us be as nothing, acknowledging that without Him who emptied Himself for us, we too are empty, like wooden idols, or like the waste and void before God said, "Let there be light."... (more)

There is more and you really should read it but the quote:

"The world is old, and stupid. It wears the sniggering leer of the demagogue, the avid glance of the privateer of finance, the smug half-smile of the professor in the know..."

made me think of another posting and for evidence of the line above you need look no further than the WaPo and its anti-Catholic vitriole published TODAY no less, and courtesy of everyone's favorite (especially his own) atheist, Richard Dawkins.

Pundit and Pundette, who wrote about it, rightfully asks, Did anyone at the Post think twice before they published this attack? Imagine them printing something like that about any other religion....(more)
H/T CMR

Sigh.

He Is Risen!

H/T STR blog:

But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.
For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive....

Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written,
"DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory.
"O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?"
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

1 Corinthians 15

additional readings and commentary from Insight Scoop:

Readings for Sunday, March 21, 2010:
• Acts 10:34a, 37-43
• Psa. 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23
• Col. 3:1-4 or I Cor 5:6b-8
• Jn. 20:1-9

It is known by many names: Easter, the Feast of the Resurrection, Resurrection Day, Pascha (from the Greek for “Passover”), the Great Feast, and the Feast of Feasts. Fr. James Schall, S.J., has described it as “the defiant feast,” for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead defies human logic and understanding. It also defies and defeats death, as the great Byzantine hymn proclaims: “By death He conquered death, and to those in the graves, He granted life!”  (more)