Loser.

(Political Wire) – A new Public Policy Polling survey finds Newt Gingrich “has completely tanked with Republican voters, providing real confirmation that his campaign rollout has been a total disaster.”

Just 38% of Republican voters now have a favorable opinion of him with 45% having an unfavorable one.

Since the news feeds have slowed to a crawl, I’ll use the time to pull a high flyer out of the war porn hall-of-fame vaults.

Note: At 7 second mark.

All of this because a single person complained about a 70-year tradition.

(NBC New York) — Graduates at a New Jersey high school will break with a nearly 70-year tradition when they don’t walk under a 20-foot cross at this year’s commencement.

The change is a compromise between the Neptune Township school board and the American Civil Liberties Union for the graduation to take place at the Ocean Grove Great Auditorium.

The board agreed to cover religious symbols inside and students and guests will enter through side and back doors to avoid the cross over the front of the 19th building in the former religious enclave.

A person complained about religious references and Christian iconography at last year’s ceremony.

ACLU communications director Katie Wang told the Asbury Park Press the group is satisfied all can enjoy the graduation “without feeling like outsiders based on religious differences.”

(Breitbart) – Simon Rosenberg, President of liberal think-tank NDN gets frustrated during a debate over Medicare reform. What does he do? He takes his ball and goes home.

This should end well.

(Reuters) – More than 40 Yemenis were killed in pitched street battles in the capital on Thursday as fighting aimed at ending President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s three-decade-long rule threatened to ignite civil war.

Residents were hurriedly strapping furniture, stoves, baby cots and other possessions to the roofs of cars and trucks and streaming out of Sanaa by the thousands, hoping to escape the violence that has killed more than 80 people since Monday.

The fighting, pitting the security forces of President Ali Abdullah Saleh against members of the country’s most powerful Hashed tribe led by Sadiq al-Ahmar, was the bloodiest Yemen has seen since protests began in January.

The defense ministry said 28 people were killed in an explosion in an arms storage area of Sanaa at dawn on Thursday.

Fighters in civilian clothes roamed some districts and machinegun fire rang out sporadically.

Sporadic explosions could be heard in the capital near the protest site where thousands of people demanding Saleh to leave after nearly 33 years in power are still camped.

Black smoke from mortar fire mixed with a haze of pollution and dust that hangs over Sanaa like a shroud.

And it gets worse because al-Qaeda’s most potent franchise resides in Yemen:

(IPT) — With Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) growing in strength, Washington is preparing to evacuate its ambassador from Yemen, the London Telegraph reported Wednesday. The British Embassy and many other Western missions have drastically reduced their presence in the capital Sana’a because of the danger of attack.

“Yemen is standing on the edge of a precipice,” a Western source said. “The rule of law has almost totally collapsed and AQAP can maneuver with unimpeded and unprecedented freedom. The current risk is as high as it could be.”

More than 40 people have died since Sunday in fighting between troops loyal to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for 32 years, and Sadiq al-Ahmar, one of the president’s most bitter tribal opponents.

Christie +1

(The Record) — Governor Christie said this morning that he will pull New Jersey out of a regional cap-and-trade energy program.

The move drew strong criticism from environmental advocates who argued it was a rollback of clean energy efforts. But it was supported by business groups who said the 10-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative was a burdensome energy tax.

“We will withdraw from RGGI in an orderly fashion by year’s end,” Christie said.

RGGI is a cooperative effort by Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 10 percent by 2018. To do so, power plant operators such as PSE&G must purchase allowances from their host states to cover each ton of carbon dioxide emissions they are likely to produce. The companies can then buy, sell or trade their permits. Companies that reduce their emissions and don’t need all their allowances might sell them to a company whose emissions exceed their allowances.

The proceeds are to be invested by the states in energy-efficiency projects and developing renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power.

“It’s a failure,” Christie said. “RGGI has not changed behavior and it does not reduce emissions.”

Shocker.

(Washington Examiner) — Liz Engel was a health-care policy advisor for the Democratic Policy Committee in the Senate for two years. After Obama’s election, she joined the transition team to serve on the “health care policy working group” headed by Tom Daschle.

Then she was appointed deputy assistant secretary for legislation at the Department of Health and Human Services, where, one can imagine, she played a central role in crafting the health-care reform bill. The bill, you’ll remember, creates all sorts of subsidies and regulations for providers and insurers, and it also gives unprecedented power to HHS, while leaving thousands of implementation details up to HHS officials.

Today, Engel is a managing director at the government affairs practice of lobbying firm Glover Park Group, where she’s a lobbyist in their health practice. Her first two clients: Planned Parenthood, and a non-profit hospital chain called Presbyterian Health Services.

You may remember Democrats fought tooth and nail to make sure the bill’s subsidies would cover abortion. Planned Parenthood aborts 1,000 babies a day. Her lobbying registration says she’s representing the abortion provider on “Matters relating to Health Reform.”

Keep reading…

Chalk one up for the good guys.

Washington (CNN) — The Supreme Court has backed an Arizona law that punishes businesses hiring illegal immigrants, a law that opponents, including the Obama administration, say steps on traditional federal oversight over immigration matters.

The 5-3 ruling Thursday is a victory for supporters of immigration reform on the state level.

It was the first high court challenge to a variety of recent state laws cracking down on illegal immigrants, an issue that has become a political lightning rod.

The outcome could serve as a judicial warm-up for a separate high-profile challenge to a more controversial Arizona immigration reform law working its way through lower courts. That statute would, among other things, give local police a greater role in arresting suspected illegal immigrants.

The hiring case turned on whether state law tramples on federal authority.

There’s certainly no shortage of Jew-haters in Egypt.

(JPost) — A group of Egyptian political activists have announced plans to set up a local version “of the Nazi party,” an Egyptian newspaper reported on Thursday.

Citing a leftist Egyptian news portal, the Al-Masry Al-Youm daily said that “the party’s founding deputy is a former military official,” and that the party would be aimed at bringing “together prominent figures from the Egyptian society.”

The report cited founding member Emad Abdel Sattar as saying that party “believes in vesting all powers in the president after selecting him or her carefully,” and that “preparations are underway to choose the most competent person to represent the party.”

Al-Masry Al-Youm added that an Egyptian Nazi party “operated secretly under former President Hosni Mubarak, whose regime prevented party leaders from carrying out their activities freely.”

S-H-A-D-Y.

(Boston Herald) — U.S. Rep. Barney Frank admitted he helped his ex-lover land a lucrative post with Fannie Mae in the early 1990s while the Newton Democrat was on a committee that regulated the lending giant — but he called questions of a potential ethical conflict “nonsense.”

“If it is (a conflict of interest), then much of Washington is involved (in conflicts),” Frank told the Herald last night. “It is a common thing in Washington for members of Congress to have spouses work for the federal government. There is no rule against it at all.”

Frank said he helped his former longtime companion, Herb Moses, land a job at Fannie Mae in 1991 after Moses graduated with a master’s degree in business administration from Dartmouth College. Frank said he was approached by a Fannie Mae executive and vouched for Moses, who formerly worked as an economist in the Department of Agriculture.

Stand strong, Mr. Harper. We support you!

(Globe and Mail) — It was meant to be, as Barack Obama described it in London with his British counterpart beside him, another unified mission to storm the beaches of Normandy in the name of peace and democracy.

And the Western world’s leaders do plan to use the Deauville, France, G8 summit to present a united front on the conflicts and revolutions of the Middle East. But one of the rare sources of friction has turned out to be the renegade Middle East views of Stephen Harper.

Alone among G8 leaders, the Canadian Prime Minister refuses to embrace the U.S. President’s plan to begin peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis on the basis of a return to Israel’s de facto borders as they existed before its 1967 war with neighbouring Arab countries – a precondition, accepted by Arabs and by many previous Israeli leaders and Canadian governments, that would be necessary to get Palestinians back to the table.

Mr. Harper made his opposition to that position clear through a spokesperson shortly after Mr. Obama’s Middle East speech last week in a pre-G8 briefing, making him the lone leader in the G8 not to back the U.S. preconditions.

A unified statement on a negotiated path to a Palestinian state had been a key goal of the Deauville summit, in large part because such a statement might have pre-empted an attempt to pass a United Nations resolution that would declare a Palestinian state against Israel’s will.

There was some sense that Canada is putting an obstacle in the way of this goal. “Mr. Harper clearly is the odd man out on this one, and it won’t do him any favours,” a British official involved with the G8 conference said.

Indeed, the summit opened Wednesday after a day of meetings between Mr. Obama and Britain’s Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron in which the two leaders made a bold show of having brought together their positions on Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab revolutions.

Mr. Cameron has generally been much tougher in his criticisms of Israel and more hawkish in his support of Arab revolutions than his U.S. counterpart, but Mr. Obama said they had “turned a corner” and built a common front. Mr. Cameron, standing beside the U.S. President, called his speech “bold” and “visionary.”

Keep reading…

Judicial activism at its worst, on the bright side the case is headed to the state Supreme Court on June 6th.

MADISON, Wis. (CBS/AP) — Wisconsin’s law taking away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most public workers was struck down Thursday by a circuit court judge but the ruling will not be the final say in the union fight that brought tens of thousands of protesters to the Capitol earlier this year.

The state Supreme Court has scheduled arguments for June 6 to decide whether it will take the case. Republicans who control the Legislature also could pass the law a second time to avoid the open meeting violations that led to the judge’s voiding the law Thursday.

Gov. Scott Walker pushed for the law as a way to help balance the state budget that was projected to be $3.6 billion short when he introduced the proposal in February. His spokesman, Cullen Werwie, said the governor would have no comment on the ruling.

Walker and Republican leaders have said they would pass the law again as part of the state budget next month if necessary.

A spokesman for Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, whose office defended the state, did not return a call. Ismael Ozanne, the Dane County district attorney who argued for striking down the law, also did not immediately return a message.

Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi ruled that Republican legislators violated Wisconsin’s open meetings law during the run-up to the bill’s passage in March. She said that renders the law void. She had previously put the law on hold temporarily while she considered the case.

Update: Judge Sumi’s son is an AFL-CIO activist.

Anyone know if O’Donnell was dropped on his head when he was a baby?

“Israel’s Prime Minister pretended to be outraged even though he knew that the Obama position was identical to his own position.”

It’s common knowledge the left detests the notion of American exceptionalism with a burning passion.

(Briefing Room) — Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz attacked the GOP presidential contenders on their own terms Thursday.

The Florida representative questioned just how dedicated they were to “American exceptionalism.”

“Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman … I’m concerned about their commitment to American exceptionalism,” Wasserman Schultz said at a breakfast for reporters sponsored by theChristian Science Monitor.

As party chief, Wasserman Schultz will be one of the leaders of the Democratic message machine in the 2012 race.

Apparently people still take LSD, who knew?

Note: Listen to the hag off camera ask if they can get a dog to bite it.

HT: Story Balloon

“I’ll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!” – Charlton Heston

(Greeley Gazette) — On March 30, the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, Jim Brady, who sustained a debilitating head wound in the attack, and his wife, Sarah, came to Capitol Hill to push for a ban on the controversial “large magazines.” Brady, for whom the law requiring background checks on handgun purchasers is named, then met with White House press secretary Jay Carney. During the meeting, President Obama dropped in and, according to Sarah Brady, brought up the issue of gun control, “to fill us in that it was very much on his agenda,” she said.

“I just want you to know that we are working on it,” Brady recalled the president telling them. “We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”

The statement reinforces an article in the Huffington Post describing how the administration is exploring ways to bypass Congress and enact gun control through executive action.

The Department of Justice reportedly is holding meetings discussing the White House’s options for enacting regulations on its own or through adjoining agencies and departments. “Administration officials said talk of executive orders or agency action are among a host of options that President Barack Obama and his advisers are considering.

HT: Ed M.

Surging.

(The Hill) — Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin lead a winnowed-down Republican presidential primary field, according to a poll released Thursday.

Seventeen percent of Republicans said in a new Gallup poll they would like to see Romney win the GOP nomination; 15 percent would back Palin.

The poll is the first major national poll since several would-be candidates — Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and real estate mogul Donald Trump — announced they wouldn’t seek the nomination.

The poll keeps with most others in suggesting that Romney is the front-runner. But he owns no commanding lead, reflecting a degree of fluidity in Republicans’ view of the candidates in the narrowed field.

Ten percent of Republicans said they support Rep. Ron Paul’s (Texas) bid for the White House, eclipsing former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.), who drew the support of 9 percent.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was the support enjoyed by Herman Cain, the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO who is waging a longshot bid for the presidency. Eight percent of Republicans said they back Cain, who has wowed some GOP voters in debates and on the campaign trail.

Rounding out the field are former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty at 6 percent, Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) at 5 percent, and former Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.), all at 2 percent.

Egypt continues to circle the drain.

(Al-Masry) — The Administrative Judicial Court on Sunday ordered the withdrawal of Egyptian nationality from Morris Sadek, a Coptic Christian lawyer living in the United States, and banned him from entering the country.

The action was taken against Sadek for a number of alleged crimes, including calls for war against Egypt.

A lawyer leading the case against Sadek said he had insulted Islam, showed allegiance to Judaism, called for the killing of Arabs and requested the United States and Israel to interfere in Egypt’s domestic affairs.

“I will not appeal the verdict,” Sadek said. “I will use it to show the world how the Islamists control the Egyptian judiciary.”

Oh yeah, he’s totally gangsta.

(Telegraph) — Barack Obama has snubbed Britain’s most eminent scientists by refusing to attend a Royal Society banquet in his honour at which he was to be awarded with a prestigious medal.

The US President rejected the invitation from the world-leading group of scientists and instead chose to visit a south London state school.

Sources close to the state visit said members of the Royal Society were “deeply offended” by the snub and had accused Mr Obama of being obsessed with his “street cred”.

The US President was offered the chance to receive the King Charles II medal, which is awarded in “exceptional circumstances” to heads of state who have “made an outstanding contribution to furthering scientific research in their country”.

But Mr Obama’s aides responded to the invitation with a “very short” note in which they said the president would rather spend time at a south London state school.

Mr Obama visited The Globe Academy in Southwark with David Cameron, the Prime Minister, on Tuesday.

The two leaders swapped a number of high-fives with pupils before rolling up their sleeves for a game of table tennis against two schoolboys.

A British government source close to the Obama visit said: “The Royal Society was really keen to do something with Obama and they expected him to be very honoured by the medal.

“Instead they received a very short response from his people saying that it would be better for him to visit a state school.

“The inference they took from that was that he was more interested in cultivating his street cred than in building links with British scientists.”