Saturday at the Pink Flamingo

In last night's defense of freedom of religion, President Obama mentioned that the first Ramadan meal at the White House was held by Thomas Jefferson. While Sarah Palin tweeted," Will the President express our lingering pain over 9/11?", it's clear like almost every conservative she doesn't listen to a word the man says. President Obama went at great length to discuss 9/11 and the pain felt by families who lost loved ones and about the loss by firefighters and first responders. He also mentioned how many innocent Muslims lost their lives in 9/11 and how next week three who died fighting for the U.S. would be buried at Arlington Cemetary. And then for a zinger, he mentioned that there would be a Ramadan dinner at the Pentagon. But it will heat up over the controversy of Muslims praying in a former Burlington Coat Factory located in lower Manhattan.

HAPPY 75th BIRTHDAY TO SOCIAL SECURITY. When FDR signed social security 75 years ago today, the bill also included provisions for unemployment insurance. Some argue that social security might be the most successful social program in the world. Certainly,it has prevented millions of Americans from spending their old age in poverty. Rachel Maddow last night quoted a letter from Dwight David Eisenhower arguing that any party, which advocated its elimination, would soon disappear from the American scene. He went on to say that these people are "marginal and nuts". Well, surprise, a key platform for the Republican Party is now the elimination of social security or its privatization and the same fate for Medicare. We saw how in polls mentioned in yesterday's post Amercan reject such ideas.

This morning President Obama in his Saturday address to the nation blasted the Republicans for making these points central to their platform this year. President Obama gave a fierce defense of Social Security and how the healthreform bill extended the life of Medicare for more years than at any time before. President Obama's speech had been preceded by a strong ad by Democrats attacking Republicans on Social Security.

For years, I've followed how this issue gets played out in our political arena. For decades, Democrats were the ones fear-mongering about social security when the threat by Republicans didn't really exist. President Reagan even saved social security to fund the Baby-Boomers. Although it has to be admitted, his successors used the funds for unpaid wars. But now,the ideological purity of today's Republican Party demands the dismantling of the entire social welfare net in an hour of great need. Democrats this time are quite right in making this a centerpiece of the Fall campaign. The doubling down on free-market positions that have now a proven track record of failure still astonishes me.

Hats off to Rachel Maddow for continuing to expose how the whole immigration debate really is about the financial interests of Republicans in the private prison industry. She ought to shift her sights to the state of Virginia and the creation of immigration detention centers here. Since immigration is an issue to 7% of our population, according to Gallup, maybe it's best we just follow the money. Everytime fear is used to sell an issue, there are a set of people ready to profit from it. Look at our military/terrorist complex. Over $500 billion goes to private contractors. So why can't we do that with all our prisons and internment camps for immigrants? We're already doing that with our public school system. That's a large issue for another day.

For maniacs for polls--like me--there is a Clarus Poll of Republican voters to test the 2012 nomination strength of potential presidential candidates. They surveyed the popularity of 12 nominees. Mitt Romney, Glenn Beck's co-religionist, dropped 4 points since last August but still leads the pack at 26%. Some argue that the new ad campaign by the Church of Latter day Saints to sell us on how normal Mormons are is linked to the Romney campaign. Observers note that the campaign is being shown in primary states he needs to win. Mike Huckabee is a close second at 21% but Huckabee himself has complained about his inability to raise funds because the corporate wing of the party do not think he is economically conservative enough. In third place is Newt Gingrich at 14%, about the same he has been for a year. Newt's history of marital problems has become the renewed focus of journalists as his ex-wife finally has spoken out. Dramatically lower is the Grifter-in-Chief Sarah Palin, who has fallen 6 points in six months to 12%. Tim Pawlenty appears for the first time at 3% but people note that he can commute to Iowa from Minnesota for that caucus. Believe it or not, old neoconservative favorite Lamar Alexander has emerged at 3 percent. Haley Barbour at 2%. And both Mitch Daniels and John Thune are at 1 %.

Not included in this month's poll were Bobby Jindal, who once pulled down 4%, and Jeb Bush, who had finished fifth in March at 8%. Jeb has said he would not run for President.

The poll concludes that Newt now has edged Palin, even though she receives the lionshare of the media's attenton. Newt has recently upped the ante by attacking President Obama on everything from not going to war against North Korea and Iran to the Muslim Center at Ground Zero. Also in the past year Newt has been travelling the religious Right circuit with David Barton, Christian revisionist pseudo-historian, indicating Newt is serious this time. I still believe that if the Republicans fail to win the House, Newt will not run.

As for the pollster, they conclude that the race is wide open. See anyone you like?