Free Republic

Republican worries of a midterm flop are growing heading into the critical post-Labor Day campaign season, with analysts who had previously predicted massive GOP gains shifting their forecasts toward Democrats. Rick Tyler, a Republican strategist and analyst, said the environment looks “not even close” to a red wave election year. “The enthusiasm is just not there,” Tyler said. “Last time Republicans had a good year, they were six points ahead in the generic poll. Now we’re barely two points ahead. So it’s definitely not going to happen.”

Democrats are growing increasingly concerned that a spike in ObamaCare premiums could hit this fall right before the midterm elections. The party is already facing major headwinds from inflation and President Biden’s lagging approval ratings, and a health care premium spike would add a major blow.

A substantive majority of Americans said they are “somewhat concerned” about inflation and about four out of 10 people believe the government might not be able to rein it in, according to a new poll released Tuesday. Eighty-five percent said they are “somewhat concerned” and of that group, 45 percent said they’re “very concerned” about inflation, The Hill reported on Tuesday, citing a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll. The Labor Department’s consumer price index showed that inflation has risen 5 percent since last May — a 13-year high — as companies struggle to keep up with a surge in demand following the...

The last time Americans were this unhappy about prices of big-ticket purchases was 1982, when the Federal Reserve was fighting a war against double-digit inflation. The University of Michigan’s survey of consumer sentiment showed U.S. consumers more concerned with higher prices of appliances, houses, and cars than anytime in 39 years, according to the survey’s chief economist Richard Curtin.

Mish ShedlockJanuary 15, 2017 Here’s an interesting graph from the World Economic Forum from their article: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens? “Discontent spreads Between October and November 2016, the percentage of people who believe things are on the right track in their country dropped by 2 percentage points to 37% globally. China is bucking the trend with 90% of people expressing confidence in their country’s direction, followed by Saudi Arabia (80%). More than three quarters of Indians and just under six in ten people in Russia and Argentina also believe their country is on...

2016 Survey of things Americans fear the most was released this week: Top 10 Fears of 2016 Below is a list of the 10 fears for which the highest percentage of Americans reported being “Afraid,” or “Very Afraid.” Fear Fear Domain % Afraid or Very Afraid Corrupt government officials Government 60.6 Terrorist Attack Manmade Disasters 41 Not having enough money for the future Economic 39.9 Terrorism Crime 38.5 Government restrictions on firearms and ammunition Government 38.5 People I love dying Illness and Death 38.1 Economic/financial collapse Economic 37.5 Identity theft Crime 37.1 People I love becoming seriously ill Illness and...

Wasserman Schultz on Sequester

California's high-tech firms make the world's most popular smartphones, social networks and search engines, but there's one asset they're struggling to build: trust. The vast majority of Californians surveyed in a statewide poll are worried about the data collected by Internet and smartphone companies, and most said they distrust even firms known for their ardent fans and tens of millions of daily users. Many of those surveyed in the latest USC Dornsife/Times poll also said they were wary of firms collecting personal information without their knowledge and concerned that personal data could become public or be harvested to sell them...

NEW DELHI: US President Barack Obama will not visit Amritsar during his stay in India next month. While there was no official confirmation from the government, sources said the proposal to visit Amritsar had been dropped owing to reservations of US officials over the kind of scarf Obama would have to wear to visit the Golden Temple. The decision was yet to be communicated to the government till late on Tuesday. However, sources said Obama, who will arrive in Mumbai on November 6, will directly come to Delhi now after a day's stay in the country's commercial capital. Earlier, he...

You know the basics. The unemployment rate is 9.9 percent. Jobs are still being lost. Worries about the global economy are causing breathtaking volatility on Wall Street. And millions of Americans who still have jobs are worrying more than ever about the safety of their retirement savings. What you may not know is that, during this moment of terrible economic anxiety, the Obama White House found the time -- and the money -- to turn itself, at least for a night, into a showcase of glitzy extravagance. On May 19, the White House held a state dinner for Mexican President...

Concern over the impact on Israel's economy may soon die down, as for the first time in several days, several hundred flights took off for and from Europe Tuesday. On April 14, Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted, leaving a cloud of ash high above Europe. Authorities cancelled all flights, for fear that the ash would enter plane engines and cause them to fail in mid-air. The dearth of flights also brought Israel's international air commerce to a grinding halt. On Sunday, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz mulled calling a special meeting of the Finance Ministry to discuss the impact of the phenomenon...

Not long ago, after a string of especially bad days for the Obama administration, a veteran Democratic pol approached me with a pained look on his face and asked, "Do you think they know what they're doing?" The question caught me off guard because the man is a well-known Obama supporter. As we talked, I quickly realized his asking suggested his own considerable doubts. Yes, it's early, but an eerily familiar feeling is spreading across party lines and seeping into the national conversation. It's a nagging doubt about the competency of the White House. It was during George W. Bush's...

Not long ago, after a string of especially bad days for the Obama administration, a veteran Democratic pol approached me with a pained look on his face and asked, "Do you think they know what they're doing?"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran is making allies in Latin America to counter Washington's traditional influence in the region and could use them to threaten U.S. security, a top U.S. diplomat said on Wednesday. "We are worried that in the event of a conflict with Iran, that it would attempt to use its presence in the region to conduct such activities against us," Thomas Shannon, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, told Reuters. Left-wing governments in Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia have all become allies of Iran in recent years, and other countries in Latin America have...

BALI, Indonesia - In an opening gambit, Japan has proposed that the Bali climate conference pursue a broad "least common denominator" approach to negotiating new controls on global-warming gases. Environmentalists couldn't think less of it. The proposal says nothing about making future targets for emission reductions legally binding — the principle underlying the current Kyoto Protocol. "Is Japan scrapping the Kyoto Protocol on its 10th birthday?" asked Japanese environmentalist Kyoko Kawasaka. A Canadian colleague spoke of a "plot" by Japan and the United States to block a new Kyoto-style global agreement. Japanese officials protest that they are simply trying to...

WASHINGTON - Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, said Monday he's "extremely doubtful" that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will be able to secure the country and allow American forces to leave any time soon. President Bush, however, reaffirmed his strong support for al-Maliki. And in what has become a drumbeat from the region, yet another military commander said Monday it would be a mistake to draw down U.S. troops just as the buildup is making its best progress. "There is no chance that the Iraqi forces could take over at any time, or certainly by the...

DAVOS, Switzerland (AFP) - World business and political leaders have tempered optimism over global economic growth with concern over climate change as they kicked off their elite annual retreat in Davos. The four-day gathering of movers and shakers in the Swiss ski resort boasted the usual impressive guest list, with delegates able to flit from a breakfast with Microsoft founder Bill Gates to an evening audience with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The theme of this year's World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting -- "The Shifting Power Equation" -- sought to take in everything from the growing geopolitical clout of Asia to...

Aided by a governor who has promised to preserve the coast, California is expanding its network of areas where fishing and other marine harvesting are banned or restricted. The idea is to better safeguard the diversity and abundance of marine life by limiting those activities in key habitats such as lagoons, bays, kelp forests, rocky reefs and the edges of marine canyons. California already has 80 “marine protected areas” covering about 4 percent of state waters, but scientists agree that most of those sites are too small to help depleted species rebound. “No other state in the Union has done...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record), R-Ky., said Sunday that Congress must address the Supreme Court's "very disturbing" finding that international law applies to the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terror. Thursday's Supreme Court ruling embracing Article 3 of the Geneva Accords in the military commission case of Osama bin Laden's former driver strikes at the heart of the White House's legal position in the war on al-Qaida. McConnell, the second-ranking GOP leader in the Senate, said the 5-3 court decision "means that American servicemen potentially could be accused of war crimes. "I think Congress...

When Mexican President Vicente Fox stars at an official state dinner in Sacramento on Thursday night -- during a trip that includes a visit with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a speech to the Legislature -- his famous "enchilada completa" still won't be on the menu. That was the recipe for immigration reform that the Mexican president promised to lobby hard to achieve in his six-year administration: a guest worker program; a path to legalization for millions of Mexican immigrants, legal or illegal, in the United States; and agreements from both sides of the border to protect Mexican workers from human...