Republicans Surge in Midterm Polls

Republicans lead by 51% to 41% among registered voters in Gallup weekly tracking of 2010 congressional voting preferences. The 10-percentage-point lead is the GOP's largest so far this year and is its largest in Gallup's history of tracking the midterm generic ballot for Congress.

These results are based on aggregated data from registered voters surveyed Aug. 23-29as part of Gallup Daily tracking. This marks the fifth week in a row in which Republicans have held an advantage over Democrats -- one that has ranged between 3 and 10 points.

The Republican leads of 6, 7, and 10 points this month are all higher than any previous midterm Republican advantage in Gallup's history of tracking the generic ballot, which dates to 1942. Prior to this year, the highest such gap was five points, measured in June 2002 and July 1994. Elections in both of these years resulted in significant Republican gains in House seats.

Large leads on the generic ballot are not unprecedented for Democrats. The widest generic ballot lead in Gallup's history was 32 points in the Democrats' favor, measured in July 1974, just prior to Republican President Richard Nixon's resignation over the Watergate scandal. This large margin illustrates Democrats' historic dominance over Republicans in registered voters' party identification in the decades since World War II. Democrats controlled the House of Representatives continually between 1955 and 1995, and routinely held generic ballot leads in the double digits during that period.

Republicans Have 25-Point Lead on Enthusiasm

Republicans are now twice as likely as Democrats to be "very" enthusiastic about voting, and now hold -- by one point -- the largest such advantage of the year.

Republicans usually turn out in higher numbers in midterm elections than do Democrats, and Gallup's likely voter modeling in the final weeks of an election typically reflects a larger GOP advantage than is evident among registered voters. The wide enthusiasm gaps in the GOP's favor so far this year certainly suggest that this scenario may well play itself out again this November.

Bottom Line

The last Gallup weekly generic ballot average before Labor Day underscores the fast-evolving conventional wisdom that the GOP is poised to make significant gains in this fall's midterm congressional elections. Gallup's generic ballot has historically proven an excellent predictor of the national vote for Congress, and the national vote in turn is an excellent predictor of House seats won and lost. Republicans' presumed turnout advantage, combined with their current 10-point registered-voter lead, suggests the potential for a major "wave" election in which the Republicans gain a large number of seats from the Democrats and in the process take back control of the House. One cautionary note: Democrats moved ahead in Gallup's generic ballot for several weeks earlier this summer, showing that change is possible between now and Election Day.

California Students Get Tracking Devices

California officials are outfitting preschoolers in Contra Costa County with tracking devices they say will save staff time and money.

The system was introduced Tuesday. When at the school, students will wear a jersey that has a small radio frequency tag. The tag will send signals to sensors that help track children's whereabouts, attendance and even whether they've eaten or not.

School officials say it will free up teachers and administrators who previously had to note on paper files when a child was absent or had eaten.

Sung Kim of the county's employment and human services department said the system could save thousands of hours of staff time and pay for itself within a year.

It cost $50,000 and was paid by a federal grant.

Welcome to the 3rd Floor!

Welcome to the 3rd Floor! Now that you are here...a bit of bureaucracy.


We covered most of this in class but here are the steps you need to take to comment on a blog.


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5) When you comment, it will not show up until I approve it.


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Have fun and welcome!

President to Punish BP with $.1 tax

If you haven't seen this video of the oil leak...it may make you sick!

Oil companies face an immediate tax rise of 1 cent per barrel to help to pay for the clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico under proposed legislation rushed out by the White House yesterday.

The measure, unveiled as BP began a new attempt to contain the ruptured well that has leaked millions of gallons of crude oil into America’s southern coastal waters, would put an extra $500 million (£340 million) over ten years into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which covers damage caused by such disasters.

Under a $118 million spending plan outlined in the package, people affected by the spill — such as fishermen who have lost their livelihoods because of the contamination — will be granted financial assistance, and federal agencies will get additional funds to monitor the slick and assess its impact.

President Obama, said by a spokesman to be “deeply frustrated” that the leak has still not been plugged three weeks after it erupted, intends that BP will pick up most of the cost of his new plan.

Hearings into the incident aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20 continued yesterday in Louisiana and in the US Congress, where Democrat Henry Waxman blamed a “calamitous series of equipment and operational failures” for the disaster. “If the largest oil and oil services companies in the world had been more careful, 11 lives might have been saved and our coastlines protected,” he said.

The way BP and its partners responded to the disaster, which began with an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon on April 20, will also be a matter for investigation.

Survivors have alleged that, after being rescued, they were held at sea while the rig’s owner, Transocean, assembled its lawyers. After being brought ashore, traumatised and exhausted by two nights without sleep, they claim that they were taken to a hotel and “coerced” by Transocean representatives into signing liability waivers before being allowed to see their families.

According to Steven Gordon, of the Houston legal firm Gordon, Elias and Seely, the waivers are now being used against the workers as they attempt to seek compensation for emerging psychological problems that have left some too afraid to work at sea again.

“These people went through holy hell. They have probably just gone through the most traumatic period of their entire lives. They needed counselling — not ‘Please sign here that you’re not hurt’ ,” said Mr Gordon, who is representing Christopher Choy, a rig worker. “When they asked him to sign this, he hadn’t been allowed to sleep and have his first nightmare.”

Mr Choy, 23, teamed up with a firefighter on the rig to try to rescue a crane operator who was trapped by the fire. “They couldn’t get to him because he was in flames. These guys watched their friends burning,” Mr Gordon told The Times.

Alwin Landry, the captain of a cargo ship that was moored alongside the rig, told a hearing in New Orleans that mud began pouring down on him “like a black rain”, followed by a thunderous hiss. “I saw the green flash on the main deck. Time kind of slowed down. I heard the explosion,” he said, adding that minutes later came a radio call: “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! The rig’s on fire. Abandon ship.”

Workers leapt eight storeys into the sea to escape the flames, but even the water was on fire. The last to climb from the rig on to Mr Landry’s boat was the rig’s captain, Curt Kuchta, who tried to hit the “kill” switch to shut the oil well. “He acknowledged he pressed it and didn’t know if it worked or not,” Mr Landry said.

19th Straight Month of Budget Deficit

It was more than twice the $40-billion deficit that Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast and was striking since April marks the filing deadline for individual income taxes that are the main source of government revenue.

Department officials said that in prior years, there was a surplus during April in 43 out of the past 56 years.

The government has now posted 19 consecutive monthly budget deficits, the longest string of shortfalls on record.

For the first seven months of fiscal 2010, which ends September 30, the cumulative budget deficit totals $799.68 billion, down slightly from $802.3 billion in the comparable period of fiscal 2009.

Outlays during April rose to $327.96 billion from $218.75 billion in March and were up from $287.11 billion in April 2009. It was a record level of outlays for an April.

Department officials noted there were five Fridays in April this year, which helped account for higher outlays since most tax refunds are issued on that day.

But for the first seven months of the fiscal year, outlays fell to $1.99 trillion from $2.06 trillion in the comparable period of fiscal 2009, partly because of repayments by banks of bailout funds they received during the financial crisis.

Receipts in April -- mostly from income taxes -- were $245.27 billion, up from $153.36 billion in March but lower than the $266.21 billion taken in during April 2009.

Receipts from individuals, who faced an April 15 filing deadline for paying 2009 taxes, fell to $107.31 billion from $137.67 billion in April 2009.

The U.S. full-year deficit this year is projected at $1.5 trillion on top of a $1.4 trillion shortfall last year.

White House budget director Peter Orszag told Reuters Insider in an interview on Wednesday that the United States must tackle its deficits quickly to avoid the kind of debt crisis that hit Greece.

NKorea Claims Fusion

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea claimed Wednesday that its scientists succeeded in creating a nuclear fusion reaction, but experts doubted the isolated communist country actually had made the breakthrough in the elusive clean-energy technology.

Fusion nuclear reactions produce little radioactive waste — unlike fission, which powers conventional nuclear power reactors — and some hope it could one day provide a virtually limitless supply of clean energy. U.S. and other scientists have been experimenting with fusion for decades, but it has yet to be developed into a viable energy alternative.

North Korea's main newspaper, however, reported that its own scientists achieved the feat on the occasion of the "Day of the Sun" — a North Korean holiday marking the birthday of the country's late dynastic founder, Kim Il Sung, in April.

Often, North Korea's vast propaganda apparatus uses the occasions of holidays honoring Kim or his son, current leader Kim Jong Il, to make claims of great achievements that are rarely substantiated.

North Korean scientists "solved a great many scientific and technological problems entirely by their own efforts ... thus succeeding in nuclear fusion reaction at last," the Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a report carried Wednesday by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

Experts, however, doubted the North's claim.

"Nuclear fusion reaction is not something that can be done so simple. It's very difficult," said Hyeon Park, a physics professor at Postech, a top science and technology university in South Korea.

Park, who conducts fusion research in South Korea, said the North may have succeeded in making a plasma device and produced plasma, a hot cloud of supercharged particles — only one preliminary step toward achieving fusion.

He said outside experts need to know the scale of the experiment and method of generating plasma to assess the details of the North's claim.

South Korea is one of a seven-nation nuclear fusion consortium to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER in Cadarache in southern France by 2015. Other members include China, the European Union, Japan, Russia, India and the U.S.

The aim of ITER is to demonstrate by 2030 that atoms can be fused together inside a reactor to efficiently produce electricity. Current forms of nuclear power do the opposite, harnessing the energy released from splitting atoms apart.

A South Korean official handling nuclear fusion at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said the North appeared to have conducted only a basic experiment.

The official said the fusion has nothing to do with making nuclear bombs and said he could not make any further comment. He asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to media.

All of North Korea's nuclear projects are of intense concern because of worries the country is building its arsenal of atomic weapons. Pyongyang conducted two nuclear weapons tests in 2006 and 2009, drawing international condemnation and U.N. sanctions.

Energy-starved North Korea has said it would build a light water nuclear power plant. Ostensibly for civilian electricity, a nuclear power plant gives North Korea a premise to enrich uranium, which at low levels can be used in power reactors but can also be used in nuclear bombs.

Texas Entertains Legalizing Gambling to Make Up Budget Woes

An expansion of gambling has been suggested as Texas faces a projected shortfall that some lawmakers say could hit $18 billion.

Republican Speaker Joe Straus told House budget writers Tuesday that they'll have to handle a state shortfall of at least $11 billion without new taxes, but he raised the possibility of unpaid furloughs and four-day workweeks for state workers.

"Increasing taxes would restrain economic growth and hinder our ability to create jobs," Straus said at a meeting of the House Appropriations Committee. "Come next session, I'm confident that we can make thoughtful, responsible decisions to balance our budget, but this will require tough choices, significant cuts in some areas and perhaps totally new thinking in others."

Texas' current budget is more than $182 billion in state and federal dollars. The biggest chunks of spending are on education and health care.

The budget shortfall, which officials said Tuesday could be as high as $18 billion, is largely a result of the national recession. It's the projected difference between available revenue, mostly from lower-than-expected sales taxes, and the cost of maintaining services at their current levels. The state's Rainy Day Fund is expected to have a balance of about $8.2 billion.

"Because so much of our general revenue budget goes to personnel, I hope that you will find creative ways to contain personnel costs and limit payroll growth," Straus told the committee. "You might consider the impact of freezing higher-level salaries or limiting new hires to only those essential to the public safety and welfare of our citizens."

He said Texas must look at what other states are doing to handle budget shortfalls, including unpaid furloughs and four-day workweeks.

Straus also mentioned imposing a moratorium on all new programs and services that require state money and a prohibition on issuing state bonds because of the ongoing cost associated with debt.

"I'm not advocating for any one of these choices, in particular, but I do know that every cost savings idea must be on the table."

Later during the meeting, committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, said legalized gambling would be a possible option.

"I just tell it like it is," he said. "It will be helping us in the future and with what we've heard today we will continually be needing revenue in the state of Texas."

Lt. Gov. Dewhurst and Gov. Rick Perry both say they oppose any expansion of gambling in Texas.

Dewhurst, who presides over the Senate, spent his first session in the office facing a $10 billion budget shortfall in 2003.

"This is not my first rodeo," Dewhurst told The Associated Press Tuesday. "I went through it in 2003 and it was a lot tougher in 2003 than it's going to be in 2011. Our challenge in 2011 is to cover the dollars that went into the 2009 budget from the federal stimulus and the previous balances that we used, plus any shortfalls that we have in our revenue estimate.

"I think we're in pretty good shape," he said.

Dewhurst said with more money in the Rainy Day Fund, axing one-time items that were funded in 2009, payments from the state's Available School Fund that were not available last year and improvement in the economy would help ease the pain.

Dewhurst did agree with Straus' assessment that the federal health care overhaul will only exacerbate the state's budgetary woes.

"Over the next few years, Texans will face higher federal income taxes and other increases in federal levies, including for Social Security and Medicare as result of the federal health care reforms," Straus said. "Our work on the budget will begin in an environment of uncertainty as the federal government grapples with spending and tax measures to reduce the federal debt. This makes it even more imperative that the state of Texas cover its budget shortfall without a tax increase."

State agencies have submitted proposals to cut current-year budgets by 5 percent at the behest of Perry, Dewhurst and Straus. But those savings will only amount to about $1.7 billion, officials have said.

"The 5 percent that we requested was just the beginning," Straus said. "It was absolutely necessary but not nearly sufficient."