Week in Review Part IV: Random Musings

Poll Data:

USA TODAY/Gallup Poll

71% rate economic conditions as poor, but 58% predict they will be good a year from now.

By a 56-36 margin, those surveyed predict Obama will defeat Romney, even though the latest Gallup tracking poll had it 46-45 Obama; the reason seemingly being that Americans recognize the powers of the incumbent.

But Romney’s favorable-unfavorable rating has jumped to 50%-41%, his best ever. And 55% say the economy would get better over the next four years if Romney was elected, compared with 46% who say it would improve if Obama was re-elected. This is huge, in the mind of your editor.

For the first time during this campaign cycle, the GOP also has an advantage in congressional elections. By 50%-44%, those surveyed say they’re likely to vote for the Republican congressional candidate.
New York Times/CBS News poll

In the first poll conducted since President Obama came out in favor of gay marriage, 46% of registered voters now say they would vote for Romney, while 43% prefer Obama. Three months ago, Obama had a 48-42 lead.

67% thought the president made the gay marriage announcement “mostly for political reasons.”

And while more than half of voters said Obama’s views on same-sex marriage would not affect their voting, 25% said they were less likely to vote for him because of it, while only 16% were more likely to back him.

Overall on the topic, 38% of Americans support same-sex marriage, 24% favor civil unions short of formal marriage, and 33% oppose any form of legal recognition.
Washington Post/ABC News survey

46% of Americans say they had a favorable impression of the president’s announcement on legalizing same-sex marriages, while 47% say they had an unfavorable response.

In what is bound to be a main theme for the campaign, Mitt Romney went after the president on the issue of the debt.

“A prairie fire of debt is sweeping across Iowa (he said in Des Moines) and our nation and every day we fail to act we feed that fire with our own lack of resolve….

“As president, I will approach debt and spending differently. My time spent building businesses and leading state government taught me that we need to hold every department and agency to a simple test: If something can be done better and more efficiently outside the federal government, then that’s where it belongs.”
Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“One of President Obama’s campaign themes is that government spending – he calls it ‘investment’ – is the source of most American economic progress. So eager is he to make this point that, well, let’s just say he sometimes wanders beyond his area of expertise, as he did last Thursday in Seattle.

“ ‘When I hear people talk about the free enterprise system and entrepreneurship, I try to remind them, you know, all of us made that investment in Darpa [the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] that helped to get the Internet started,’ said Mr. Obama. ‘So there’s no Facebook, there’s no Microsoft, there’s no Google if we hadn’t made this common investment in our future.’

“Microsoft – a product of the Internet? That may surprise Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who founded the software company in 1975. The company didn’t introduce its first Internet browser for another 20 years, and in the meantime it became the dominant computer software company long before the Internet became economically important. The irony of Mr. Obama’s error is that for much of Microsoft’s history the Internet was seen as a threat to its desktop dominance….

“The problem here is less Mr. Obama’s historical errors than his emphasis. He really does believe that prosperity flows from government, which is why all of his policies promote more government.”

Who would your editor like to see Mitt Romney select to be his running mate? Gotta tell ya, the little I’ve seen of New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, I really like her. But realistically, I hope Romney goes with Ohio Sen. Rob Portman. If Romney was way behind, then you’d want him rolling the dice with Chris Christie. [I’d also rather see Paul Ryan stay in Congress for the budget battles to come.]

Since I’m doing a running history of our times, I guess I have to note that Ron Paul said he would stop spending money in the states with upcoming primaries, but he wasn’t ending his campaign. Huh? Guess he’s hitchhiking as he continues trawling for delegates. Let’s face it. He did far worse than most expected, not winning one primary or state caucus.

But he also didn’t hurt his son, Sen. Rand Paul, who has major potential in my mind, having seen him earlier in the year in New Hampshire.

And the group led by former New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman, Americans Elect, said it would not file a candidate for president because its candidates failed to meet the threshold to enter its online convention in June. I saw her speak on this a few months ago and was unimpressed, writing on 2/11/12 in this space that I “didn’t see how they’ll attract a top-shelf ticket.” The group had intended to get on the ballot of all 50 states but it made it to only 29 before calling it quits.

For about a week in these parts, there has been this story circulating that, amazingly, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly had not been informed of the details of the foiled Yemeni underwear bomb plot. I mean this was stunning. The FBI was blowing him off.

So I was going to comment on this, though assumed that by week’s end the FBI had gotten together with Kelly, only on Wednesday, FBI chief Robert Mueller, in the words of the Daily News, showed an incredible lack of intelligence “when he blithely told a Senate panel that he still hasn’t bothered calling NYPD’s top cop about the latest terror threat.

“Never mind that New York lost thousands of people on 9/11 and the city remains the nation’s No. 1 terror threat.”

Mueller then proceeds to say that if Kelly wanted more details he could have picked up the phone and called!

Excuse my French, but what a d-! It turns out the FBI did brief NYPD brass, but Mueller made zero effort to contact Kelly himself.

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer then had this exchange with Mueller at a Senate hearing.

Schumer: “Just a suggestion for the continued good operation, give him a call on this. He didn’t ask me to ask you to, I am. Do that. Thanks.”
Mueller said he’d be happy to take Kelly’s call.
Schumer: “I know. Let’s not get into who calls whom. I am asking you to call.”

As the Daily News put it, “Finally, a light bulb went on. ‘I’m happy to do it,’ Mueller replied.”
Good god. Someone tell Robert Mueller to pack his bags and get the hell out.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on the issue of truancy:

“We have a lot of kids who unfortunately don’t have parents at home when they leave in the morning or get home in the afternoon and it’s harder to supervise kids. And then maybe, you know, some people don’t care. Some people don’t understand the value of education.”

So some parents’ leaders got all bent out of shape, calling the mayor insensitive.

Of course Bloomberg is right in thinking many parents are less than caring when it comes to ensuring their kids actually go to school.

Separately in the Big Apple, in the first quarter, police officers stopped folks on the city’s streets more than 200,000 times, putting the Bloomberg administration on a course that would shatter last year’s record for street stops. The 203,500 stops compare with 183,000 in the same quarter in 2011.

So guess what? Homicides are way down, again. In fact they are on track for the lowest tally since the record in 2009 of just 471 since records started being kept in the early 1960s. “Stop, Question, Frisk” removes both criminals and guns.

But you’ve got your a-holes from the New York Civil Liberties Union and the likes of Al Sharpton arguing that too many innocents suffer from the policy; as in 41.6 percent of stops in 2011 were young blacks and Hispanics (age 14-24) that made up just 4.7 percent of the population.

Overall, 54 percent of the people stopped were black, 33 percent were Hispanic, 9 percent were white and 3 percent were Asian.

96 percent of all shooting victims in the city were black or Hispanic last year.

Police Commissioner Kelly said critics of the policy “never have an answer” about how to tackle the disproportionate levels of crime in certain city neighborhoods. “I would submit that our strategies are saving lives,” he said. [Al Baker / New York Times]

On Thursday, however, Kelly backed off a little and said his force would undergo new training, promising a “more civilized experience.”

In a classic case of my “wait 24 hours” rule, newly-released photographs of George Zimmerman show that he was clearly injured in his altercation with Trayvon Martin, while a toxicology report revealed there were traces of marijuana in Martin’s system. A new witness account revealed that he saw “a black male, wearing a dark colored hoodie,” on top of a white or Hispanic male who was yelling for help. Zimmerman will get off, eventually.

For the first time in our nation’s history, the number of babies born to white parents has dropped below 50% of the total, with African-American, Hispanic, Asian and mixed-race births accounting for 50.4% of all American babies in the year ending July 2011, according to the latest census figures. In Hawaii, California, New Mexico, Texas and Washington, D.C., non-whites are already in the majority. The Census Bureau projects that the Hispanic population will overtake the white population in 2045.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s official summer weather forecast was released and three-fourths of the country – from the Southwest to the Mid-Atlantic – faces above-average temperatures. The unusually dry winter, combined with the forecast, is sparking wildfire fears.

Earlier, AccuWeather said the worst of the heat will be in the Rockies and over the western and central Plains.

Want a cool vacation destination to check out? Go to Scottsbluff, Nebraska…home of the Oregon Trail. Your editor has been there twice.

According to the 2012 World Wildlife Fund’s “Living Planet Report,” humans are depleting natural resources like forests, air and water 50% faster than the planet can renew, as reported by the New York Daily News.

“If we just do business as usual…we’re just going to continue moving in this direction. At some point, the earth’s going to just give out. We don’t know when. But that’s a pretty scary thing to think about,” said Colby Loucks, director of conservation science at WWF. “The question is, we don’t know what the tipping point is.”

In terms of using up resources, the report named Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Denmark, USA, Belgium, Australia, Canada, Netherlands and Ireland as the top ten offending nations.

In defense of Canada, they have the best beer and good beer trumps using up resources. Everyone knows that.

And, if it was about pollution, China would be the biggest offender, hands down.

The May 21 issue of Newsweek had a depressing piece titled “The Sorrow Beneath the Sea,” detailing how “the oceans have changed more in the last 30 years than in all of human history before. In most places, the seas have lost upwards of 75 percent of their megafauna – large animals such as whales, dolphins, sharks, rays, and turtles – as fishing and hunting spread in waves across the face of the planet. For some species, like whitetip sharks, American sawfish, or the once ‘common’ skate, numbers are down as much as 99 percent. By the end of the 20th century, almost nowhere shallower than 3,000 feet remained untouched by commercial fishing. Some places are now fished down to 10,000 feet.”

Speaking of skate, for the best “skate wing” in the world, go to “Fish” restaurant in Philadelphia. Mark R. and I drooled over it in February there, served with truffled spaetzle, melted leeks, parmesan broth, and winter truffle. Mmmmm. But I digress.

Get this…the Newsweek piece details the average catch in Key West over the years.

1950s…the average catch, dominated by huge grouper and sharks, was 44 lbs.
1980s…overfishing eliminates larger fish…20 lbs. is average haul.
2007… the average size of Key West’s fish had decreased by 88 percent. Avg. catch, 5 lbs.
-

Pray for the men and women of our armed forces…and all the fallen.
God bless America.
-

Gold closed at $1591…after earlier going negative for the year
Oil, $91.48…lowest weekly close since 10/21/11

Returns for the week 5/14-5/18

Dow Jones -3.5% [12369]
S&P 500 -4.3% [1295]
S&P MidCap -6.1%
Russell 2000 -5.4%
Nasdaq -5.3% [2778]

Returns for the period 1/1/12-5/18/12

Dow Jones +1.2%
S&P 500 +3.0%
S&P MidCap +3.0%
Russell 2000 +0.9%
Nasdaq   +6.7%

Bulls 39.4
Bears 22.3 [Source: Investors Intelligence]

Have a great week. I appreciate your support.