And speaking of polls….

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that a mere  32% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President.

Meanwhile, 40% Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -8.

The complete polling results can be seen here.

Next he’ll come for your firstborn

Each Obama power grab seems more outrageous than the one preceding it.

Now we read that aides to Democrat Sen. Jay Rockefeller, (WV), have been hard at work drafting a bill that allows the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cyber security emergency — in effect handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

Read this jaw-dropping report from CNET News. This is an excerpt of the 55-page draft of S.773.

Will she or won’t she? Advisor sounds indifferent

Although she says, “I love being governor and I love campaigning,” Gov. Jan Brewer has been somewhat cagey regarding her future plans. Much of her reticence on the on the subject is understandable.  She has had other things that have occupied her time and sapped her energies since stepping onto the Ninth Floor after the departure of her predecessor, Democrat Janet Napolitano — who hightailed it off to the D.C. environs to assume the position of Homeland Security Secretary in the Obama administration.  Napolitano left a gapping hole in the budget, which Republican Brewer has tried to repair by hitching her career to a 1-cent sales tax hike.

She now says she is “leaning” toward running for a full term. But it would be a help if her advisor Chuck Coughlin sounded a bit more enthusiastic than he did in this report in the daily.

“My belief is that (Brewer’s campaign decision) hinges on whether or not she has the tools to govern,” Coughlin said, referencing the estimated $2.5 billion that would be generated over three years by the tax increase. “If Democrats are unwilling to help her, than maybe she’ll give this job back to them.”

That sounds like a stunning lack of commitment from Coughlin. The highest office in the state is a political prize that is not given over like a fumble.

Real straight talk on health care

U.S. Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI)  speaks the truth on government imposed health care. Yes, this opening statement was made last month, but the facts and eloquence are not time-stamped.

Here he is telling about his own atypical bout with bladder cancer at age 19 and how the outcome would have been different under the Obama plan.

The big Q on the queue

The daily has a front-page article detailing the 500 groups they claim signed onto a letter to President Obama, demanding an end to the federal 287(g) program allowing local authorities to enforce the country’s immigration laws. The program gives local police and jail officials the authority to question people they arrest, or who have been booked into jails, about their immigration status.

Among the usual left-wing suspects are the National Immigration Law Center, ACLU, the Anti-Defamation League, Pax Christi, the NAACP and La Raza. They charge the program does nothing to solve the massive problems associated with illegal immigration and has led to civil-rights abuses by local police — most notably Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, with whom they have had an ongoing battle — aided and abetted by the Arizona Republic newspaper, which is on an open-borders crusade.

Even though the administration has so weakened 287(g) as to make it nearly ineffectual, the groups are angry that the program has been expanded by Obama signing agreements with 11 law-enforcement agencies.

“Local police should not be in the business of enforcing immigration laws because it terrorizes immigrant communities and causes racial profiling,” said Salvador Reza, a radical illegal alien advocate who has staged demonstrations and runs the Macehualli Work Center in Phoenix. The center is part of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, one of the groups calling for an end to the program.

But the program is indisputably effective, resulting in the identification of over 100,000 illegals nationally, including nearly 30,000 in Maricopa County.

In North Carolina, former sheriff Jim Pendergraph said jail officials there identified more than 4,000 illegal immigrants who were booked. “If it’s used right, it is a very beneficial tool, and if there is a problem with it, then fix that and don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” he said.  Pendergraph also ran the ICE office that coordinated the program with local and state agencies.

It has been so popular that Homeland Security had to reject dozens of applications due to funding shortfalls, said Rep. Lamar Smith, (R-TX), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee and co-author of the law that created the program. “Local law-enforcement agencies deserve our thanks for helping to remove illegal immigrants from our communities before they threaten American lives and property,” he said.

So the big Question remains: Why would these groups queue up to undermine the sovereignty of the United States? And why is the orderly and legal immigration process, among the most accessible in the industrialized world, so abhorrent to them?

State Sen. John Huppenthal acquitted in political sign fracas

Calling Sen. John Huppenthal’s actions “brash and impetuous,” Pro Tem Judge Daniel Washburn nonetheless ruled in the state senator’s favor, saying the removal of a political sign near a polling place and the resulting scuffle with Ruth Levin, a 78-year old Democrat activist, was neither theft nor tampering.

The judge found Huppenthal (R-Dist.20) not guilty of the theft charge because the state was unable to prove who owned or placed the sign. Huppenthal has maintained he had permission of the property owner to remove the sign.

Huppenthal, 55, a 16-year legislative veteran previously served as a Chandler City Councilman.

Washburn said there was no theft because the apartment complex where the sign was posted had the authority to remove the sign and gave Huppenthal permission to do so. And there was no theft when Huppenthal took it from Levin’s hands in the 2008 incident because she couldn’t claim ownership of it either.

The East Valley Tribune reports the statute for tampering with a political sign says a person can remove a political sign if the owner of the property on which it is placed gives permission. The statute also says a person can’t remove a sign “of any candidate for public office.” Washburn said the language is clear and does not include signs of political action committees.

Seeing Red AZ previously covered the incident here, here and here.

Where are the Joe Arpaio style headlines for George Gascon?

So, let’s get this straight. 

Newly installed San Francisco Police Chief George Gascon is once again using officers from his former department to set himself up in his new digs.  He employed this same unjustifiable technique when coming to Mesa from Los Angeles in 2006.  Gascon calls the Mesa officers his “transition team.” The indefensible action was given cover by Mesa’s Interim Chief Vicki Myers, who passed the buck to the city manager, saying he approved the trips for the officers.

The daily reports that City Manager Chris Brady said he was skeptical when Myers first asked him to approve the arrangement, but “she convinced me this was in the best interest” of Mesa. “She looked at this as really a training opportunity,” Brady said.

The officers are being paid their usual salaries while setting up Gascon’s San Francisco media relations office and Compstat program.

If you can read the article while shaking your head in disbelief, here it is.

Then, try to envision the Page One headlines, oversized, full-color photos and  castigating editorials that would accompany such a report if Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was the object of discussion.

Obama uses your children to sway elections to the left

USAToday reports that the Obama administration has launched Census in Schools, an all-out campaign targeting superintendents, principals, teachers, students and, indirectly, parents, as schools open across the nation. The message: The Census is coming and here’s why everyone should care. The program is even reaching down to preschoolers through ostensibly innocuous “Sesame Street” programming.

The goal is to send posters, teaching guides, maps and lesson plans to every school in the nation, Puerto Rico and U.S. island territories, to encourage full participation in the national count. The materials will arrive in over 118,000 schools and reach 56 million students.

“It’s great to reach the children because children are such strong voices in their homes,” says Renee Jefferson-Copeland, chief of the Census schools program. “In households that are linguistically isolated, they can express the information to their parents.”

“Linguistically isolated?”

Especially if they are illegal aliens — who are also scheduled to be included in the national headcount — which does far more than merely count people. The outcome of the tally will be reflected in an increased number of congressional districts. The Democrat controlled Congress and the Obama White House are mindful of the opportunity to swell their ranks.

Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin writes: Open borders have profound consequences. And they don’t end with congressional apportionment. The redistribution of power extends to presidential elections because the Electoral College is pegged to the size of congressional delegations.

Malkin’s post on her blog today could not be more clear on the takeover agenda, as school children are being used to manipulate the 2010 U.S. Census.

The continuing saga: Americans for Tax Reform weighs in on Pullen

Citing Seeing Red AZ’s earlier post, Pullen pulls a fast one: AZ GOP Chairman rips legislators in their own district, Americans for Tax Reform leave no doubt as to their view of Randy Pullen.

Read Patrick Gleason’s take on Pullen’s recent shenanigans in Randy Pullen: state Republican Party Chairman not worthy of the title.

The demise of the Arizona Club: More hard evidence that the economy is tanking

After 115 years as the place where Arizona’s deals were made and movers and shakers conferred, dined and partied, the Arizona Club has fallen on hard times.

For many Valley business elite and politicos, major deals were hammered out in the private club. Some, such as Harry Rosenzweig — the Arizona entrepreneur, boyhood friend of Barry Goldwater, and political kingmaker — even had their own reserved table.

This is the report in the daily’s Business section.