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Is a recession coming? There appears to be an intense media drive to convince us that a recession is coming in the near future. Some of the talking heads on MSNC are not only predicting a recession, but are trying to convince us that a recession will be a good thing! . . . perhaps a good thing for most MSNBC viewers who have a vested interest in anything which is anti-Trump. Of course, President Trump says, “I do not think we are having a recession. We’re doing tremendously well.”

Forget MSNBC and ignore what President Trump thinks for a second. Is a recession coming or not? What do those who are supposed to be more learned about the economy think about the question of upcoming recession or no recession? A survey of economists by the National Association of Business Economists reveals that 74% of U.S. business economists expect a recession by the end of 2021. This number is down from 77% in the same survey that was done six months ago. In the same survey, 38% felt that there would be a recession in 2020 – down from 42% six months ago. Within the past week Charles Paine had two separate articles on Townhall Finance. One was titled “Recession? Wishful Thinking While Ignoring the Facts.” The second, “Bottom Line: No Evidence of a Recession.” Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, recently sounded FDR-esque when he said. “We have nothing to fear about a recession right now, except for fear of recession.” . . .  whatever that means!

So what are we left with? 

What would you say, if I told you that one of the best ways to predict “recession or no recession” is to go to Elkhart, Indiana. That’s right, according to the Wall Street Journal, Elkhart, Indiana! That is because Elkhart, Indiana is the capital of this nation’s recreational-vehicle industry. Waning sales of luxury items is often one of the early signs of an upcoming slowdown, and multiyear drops in recreational-vehicle shipments have preceded the last three recessions. Shipments of recreational-vehicles fell 4.1% last year, and shipments to dealers have fallen about 20% this year! This makes it look like a recession is coming! However, some RV shipment skeptics attribute this year’s slowdown merely to overbuilding after an increase in demand in 2017 which left dealers with more than enough inventory. The RV Industry Association is, in fact, forecasting a 2.5% increase in shipments to dealers in 2020. So maybe there will be no recession after all!

I guess the final answer to the question of “recession or no recession” in our future is still up in the air. From my perspective, if a recession is coming, hopefully it will hold off until after November 3, 2020. 🤞🤞

Let’s assume that Joe Biden will be the Democratic presidential nominee. At this point that is a reasonable assumption as he has a significant lead in the latest CNN telephone poll taken August 15-18. (Biden = 29%; Sanders = 15%; Warren = 14%). Is this good news or bad news for my Democratic friends? Although Joe is not nearly as far left as most of the other horses in the Democratic stable, his does have some problems as far as his electability.
Everyone is  cognizant that Joe is gaffe prone . . . his latest being that both MLK and RFK were assassinated in the late 70s. There is not enough time or enough space in this piece to detail his long litany of one faux pas after another. However, from my perspective his multiple verbal blunders are not his biggest problem. 

Joe also has a history of “stretching the truth,” and during his 1988 aborted run for the Democratic presidential nomination, these “mis-speaks” were his downfall. For example, he did not graduate in the top half of his class (in college he ranked 506 out of 688 and in law school he ranked 76 out of 85.) Also his statements back then about getting three degrees in college, about getting a full scholarship to law school, and about marching in the civil rights movement . . . all false! However these past “creative memories,” from my perspective are not his biggest problem.

His proclivity to plagiarism in the past as well as his recent flip-flopping on certain issues are likewise not his biggest problems. Likewise, Joe’s biggest problem is not that he is a white heterosexual male, as his opponent in the 2020 election would also be the same.

From my perspective, J-o-e’s biggest problem is that he is o-l-d. He was born on November 20, 1942 which means that, if elected, he would be 78 years old at his January 2021 inauguration! Recall that President Reagan was 69 in 1980 when he was first elected and was “only 77 years old” at the end of his second term in 1988. Comparatively speaking our present President is “a relative youngster” when compared to Joe, as President Trump was 70 when he was elected in 2016, and will be 74 at the time of the 2020 election. Indeed Joe is o-l-d, and this is his biggest problem, despite that the far-left Politico recently ran with the headline “Why Fears About Biden’s Age are Overblown.” “Good try! But no kewpie doll!” 

Realistically speaking the media will have a difficult time arguing that Joe’s advanced a-g-e is a good thing! According to left-leaning Politico, Joe would have only a 79% chance of completing his first term if he were to be elected. Keep in mind that this is the same Politico that said that John McCain’s age of 71 was “a legitimate issue” when he ran against Barack Obama in 2008. But apparently to the left a-g-e is no longer “a legitimate issue” in 2020?

Let the s-p-i-n  begin!

An article in the Wall Street Journal on 8/16/19 stated that President Trump has expressed some interest in purchasing Greenland. As expected his critics have already come out against this, and are describing it as merely a “legacy” item. A legacy Item? Really!

Let’s first look at some past history. Who was the President when the U.S. bought Alaska from Russia? We have heard of this acquisition as “Seward’s Folly,” because William Seward was the Secretary of State at the time. But who was the President? First a little history: In 1859 Russia, who had owned Alaska since 1744, offered to sell the territory because of its debt from the Crimean War, and also supposedly to avoid Great Britain from seizing it in case of war. (The purchase was finalized 4 months before Canada became a country.) Interestingly  the U.S. initially said ,”no,” but finally in 1867 the U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. Apparently the decision to purchase Alaska passed Congress by one vote! (Amazing How just one vote changed the course of history!) But again, does anybody remember who was the President in 1867? Not exactly a legacy item for . . . President Andrew Johnson!

Ultimately Alaska became a state. Does anybody remember which President admitted Alaska into the U.S., as a state? I had no idea, before I looked it up. Not exactly a legacy item for . . . President Dwight D. Eisenhower!

Other than the Louisiana Purchase can anyone recall another historical U.S. purchase? In 1917 the U.S. purchased “Danish West Indies,” and subsequently renamed it the U.S. Virgin Islands. Who was the President of the U.S. in 1917? Not exactly a legacy item for . . .  President Woodrow Wilson!
Let’s forget for a second that perhaps purchasing Greenland is a Trump idea. Is it a good idea? Has purchasing Greenland ever been considered before? In fact, it has been considered before. Way back in 1867, the U.S. State Department thought that Greenland would an “ideal acquisition,” but that idea never got off of the ground. However, many many years later another U.S.President actually made an offer to buy Greenland from Denmark. Who was this U.S.President? Does anybody know? A potential legacy item for . . . President Truman, whose offer to purchase Greenland from Denmark for $100 million was refused.
One might ask, “Why Greenland?” Greenland is rich in minerals. In 2018 China expressed interest in building three airfields there, probably because of the strategic position of Greenland. The U.S. already has an base in northern Greenland, Thule Air Base, which is well north of the Arctic Circle, again for strategic defense purposes.
Could it be that the purchasing of Greenland by the U.S. might be good for all involved? Who might benefit?

Greenland is 90% covered with ice, and has a population of only 56,000, mostly Greenlandic Inuits, who have a high incidence of suicide, alcoholism, and unemployment. With the U.S. on the scene, almost immediately there would be a plethora of new jobs, which would then most probably lead to less alcoholism and less suicide. This sounds like a winner for the Inuit people.

Denmark would be able to escape the $591 million that goes annually into Greenland’s budget. Denmark would probably require some sort of payback on the minerals subsequently discovered in Greenland, and both the U.S. and Denmark would benefit.

With its strategic importance, the U.S would undoubtedly benefit, and would probably expand its defense capabilities there.The more I think about it, the U.S. purchasing Greenland  . . . What a tremendous legacy item for President Trump!

President Trump’s rally in Manchester, New Hampshire on 8/15/19 was covered on page four of our local newspaper in an article written by Hunter Woodall and Kevin Freking, apparently from the A.P. and WaPo. What I found interesting was that there was only one word, “boisterous” as in “a boisterous crowd,” that described the enthusiasm of those at the speech. But “boisterous” does not do justice to what was happening at ground zero in the SNHUArena. What the reporters from the Main Stream Media do not capture in their articles is the “more than boisterous” enthusiasm at this rally, just as it is at every one of these Trump rallies.

The attendance at the Manchester’s SNHUArena broke the previous attendance record that had been held by Elton John. Inside the arena, President Trump emerged to an ear-splitting, raucous welcome that lasted several minutes. It was “more than boisterous!”
Not mentioned in this article is the fact that this most recent rally was very similar to the last rally a few weeks ago in Cincinnati, Ohio at U.S. Bank Arena. In Ohio, where the  line to get in was wrapped around Great America ballpark hours before the event was to begin. The 17,500 capacity arena appeared packed before Trump even took the stage, and there was an overflow crowd outside! The crowd was “more than boisterous”!

In New Hampshire, on 8/15/19 15,000 people applied for tickets at the 11,700 capacity arena of SNHU in Manchester. There were few if any no-shows and so about 4,000 had to watch the speech on outside screens in the overflow area. Tickets do not guarantee a seat, and seating is always on a first-come first-served basis. Some people were outside waiting in line for two days to guarantee that they would get in, and have good seats. 

Lisa Belanger, the first in line, talked to a local radio station about why she got there so early. “This may be the only opportunity I’ll ever have to go to a Trump rally and I was not going to miss it,” she said. An hour before the rally began there appeared to be some empty seats, but at that time the line outside still stretched for blocks, and by a half an hour before it started, the venue looked packed, and the crowd was “more than boisterous”!

“I’ve never experienced anything like this, but I knew I wanted to be right where he was. I’m probably going to faint,” Darlene Weeks of Waltham, Mass. said, wearing a Trump 2020 hat.

“More than boisterous” is going to continue in future rallies and this is going to translate into a 2020 Trump victory.

Last week ICE conducted raids in Mississippi searching for illegals working at factories. Of course, CNN played the sympathy card, emphasizing the trauma that these arrests had on the children of those that were arrested. I do not know of any other situation where the child gets to accompany the parent when the parent is taken into custody . . . but CNN played this to the hilt, even emphasizing that this all occurred on the first day of school!

“I need my dad . . . he’s not a criminal,” one little girl cried as she spoke on camera with CNN.

The headline on CNN: “680 undocumented workers arrested in record setting immigration sweep on the first day of school.” CNN continued, “Children sobbed as they waited for word on what had happened to their parents, as shown by video footage.” BTW: Way down in the article, “In Forest, Mississippi hours later, all the kids had been reunited with family members. “
A few days before, there was an article on Townhall concerning S.B. who was separated from his children, because of something that should never have happened. (BTW: This was not reported on CNN!) Mr. S.B. woke up that particular morning, and was just minding his own business when he was tragically separated from from his five children . . . not temporarily, but permanently! “He was amazing,” said his grieving wife Kathy, struggling to cope with an unimaginable loss. “It’s trying to figure out what the new normal looks like when the old normal was so good.”
No, this did not happen in Mississippi, but rather in Colorado. No, it wasn’t ICE who separated him from his family, but rather it was it was an illegal immigrant, Miguel Ramirez Valiente, who killed Sean Buchanan. Mr. Buchanan was struck while he was riding his motorcycle on Highway 83. Colorado State Patrol troopers said Ramirez Valiente was driving recklessly, swerved into Buchanan’s lane and killed him. Again from Townhall:Valiente had previously pled guilty to reckless endangerment of a child & DUI, but escaped deportation claiming sanctuary at a church while media gave him sympathetic coverage. 

But those who know Ramirez said his arrest history tells a different story, and they want the Buchanan family to know it. “This family deserves to know who they’re dealing with,” said a close acquaintance of Ramirez Valiente. “He’s an alcoholic and an abuser.” His arrest record shows charges for reckless endangerment in 2011 in Douglas County and domestic violence in 2016 in El Paso County. In 2018, he plead guilty to a 2017 charge of driving under the influence and his license was revoked, according to court records and Colorado State Patrol. On Aug. 1, one day before the deadly crash, his probation for that DUI was extended because he had not completed alcohol therapy and community service. He was driving without a license when troopers said he over-corrected and swerved into Buchanan’s lane on Aug. 2.

In Mississippi ICE temporarily separated a bunch of probable illegals from their children . . . CNN was close to apoplectic. In Colorado, an illegal without a valid driver’s license,  permanently separated a father from his five children . . . CNN was strangely quiet.

What is wrong with this picture?

What is the deal with bottled water? I can basically only think of a few reasons for buying bottled water. Obviously if your local water tastes really awful, bottled water may be your only option, but in most places in the U.S. bottled water and tap water taste pretty much the same. I can understand that a lot of people want some bottled water on hand in case of an emergency, like an earthquake or an approaching hurricane. This makes a lot of sense, and when we lived in Florida bottled water became a scarce commodity in stores when a hurricane was heading our way. The only other truly justifiable reason to have bottled water is if you were traveling to a country whose water is questionable in terms of its purity. Better to drink bottled water instead of getting Montezuma‘s revenge.

In this day and age with the taking away our use of plastic bags in order to save the planet, why are plastic bottles not close to extinction? These days beer comes mostly in cans or glass bottles. Most soda comes in cans or less frequently in the larger liter plastic bottles, although I do not recall the last time I bought a liter bottle of soda.

What’s left? Which plastic bottles are the culprits? Plastic water bottles! Ah yes, you say, but each of these plastic bottles has a deposit of a nickel or a dime, and so are most likely recycled. You might think so, but actually this is not the case. Less than a third of six billion pounds of plastic most commonly used for drink bottles and food containers is recovered by U.S recycling programs! So what happens to the over two-thirds of this plastic that  is not recycled? Obviously most of this recycleable  plastic ends up as litter, or ends up in our landfills or in the oceans. 

Since it appears to me that non-recycled plastic bottles, especially plastic water bottles, are a much bigger problem than plastic bags, why have we banned the useful plastic bag and not the plastic bottle? (In general, if there seems to be an unanswerable question, always follow the money!) Lo-and-behold if you follow the money here, the answer becomes obvious. What do you think happens to those billions of nickels and dimes that were paid on those billions of plastic water bottles that never make it to recycling? The government gets to keep this money. It is really a tax that is not referred to as such. Perhaps if the state or the local government called it by its real name, “a tax,” maybe the people, especially the thirsty ones, would raise a ruckus. Oops, I forgot that in California, most of the voters are too dense and cannot understand anything that is basic economics even when they are the ones being screwed!

Last week I read two different pieces in two different newspapers that emphasized the difference between what is happening in the liberal world of California and what is happening in the real world.

The first article was by Tricia Gallagher-Guertsen (TGG), who is the co-chair of the Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee of San Diego Unified School District. (In the guise of being fair and equal, I must again admit my visceral distrust of anything written by someone with a hyphenated last name!) TGG was extolling the praises of Assembly Bill 331, which would require a semester course in ethnic studies for high school graduation. As TGG states, “These ethnic studies courses instead of focusing on the contributions, history and perspective of European Americans, would present content of understudied populations, like women, blacks, and Pacific Islanders, for example.” AB 331 . . . that is insane!

TGG feels that this bill will increase “cumbia” amongst the many, many ethnic groups in this state. Those of us who happen to live in California realize that this type of liberal drivel is just the sort of thing that will sail through the California Legislature in Sacramento, and will be signed by our uber liberal governor.

The second article was about how “the American middle class is falling deeper into debt to maintain a middle-class lifestyle.” There was a lot of numbers and figures comparing consumer debt adjusted for inflation over the last two decades. “Consumer debt, not counting mortgages has climbed to $4 trillion – higher than it has ever been adjusting for inflation. Student debt totaled about $1.5 trillion. Auto debt is up nearly 40% adjusting for inflation in the last decade to $1.3 trillion. The average loan for new cars is up 11% in a decade to $32,187.” That is insane! $32,000+ for the average car loan! I have never paid close to this for a car. Some 85% of new cars were financed in the first quarter of this year. 32% of new car loans are for six or seven years. A decade ago only 12% were for that long. And so a third of new car buyers roll debt from their old loans into the new one. The average amount that is rolled over is $5000. That is insane!
In the body of the article were stories about three different families who were having difficulty making it, despite earning good salaries, because of all that they owed. One of the husbands, aged 33, had to cash out $8000 from his pension to pay off credit card debt. Credit card debt of $8000! That is insane!

But not as insane as a second couple who in addition to their $51,000 in student loan debt, have $18000 in auto loans, and $50,000 spread across eight credit cards. This is insane, and to make matters worse both the husband and the wife are college graduates, and have about double the median income. Still they cannot come close to making ends meet. Did they ever learn about budgeting? Do they think that using eight credit cards is like using free money?

Another couple vowed to stop using their credit cards, but broke that promise when they were invited to an out of town wedding. Airfare, hotel accommodations, and a rental car meant that they started that uphill trek of trying to pay off their maxed out credit card all over again! (What about, “Sorry, we cannot come to your wedding as we cannot afford it. Good luck to you.”) That is insane!

Who taught them about the wisdom of not getting into debt? Nobody did!! It would seem to me that “common sense personal financial management” should be a semester high school class, a class required for graduation. Learning some basic financial planning strategy will be much more useful than ten classes in ethnic studies! If individuals wish to learn more about how important their ancestors were, I think that is very commendable . . . but do it after school or as an elective. That, my friends, would be the sane way to re-write and then pass A.B. 331!

In view of the recent shootings in El Paso and in Dayton, imagine the horror next week if CNN or MSNBC reported: “120 Killed in the Last Hour Across the U.S.A.!” The liberals, assuming that this was referring to assault gun violence would be apoplectic, and of course Trump would be blamed. Actually as many of you are perhaps aware this is a U.S. abortion statistic . . . 120 abortions every hour; 2899 abortions each day; 1.058 million each year in the U.S. Those on the right are probably shocked at these numbers, while those on the left are applauding a “woman’s right to choose.From my perspective, a woman does have “the right to choose,” until the embryo, at some point, deserves “the right to live.” Although I do not agree with abortion in general, I can appreciate the argument on the other side . . . up to a point, and that point is when the embryo becomes a “living thing,” and by this, I mean, when there is a heartbeat. If the fetus has its own heartbeat, it is now a living thing and deserves its own right to life.

There is no segue here!

Let’s now consider the recent mass shootings in Gilroy, in El Paso, and in Dayton. These involved semi-automatic weapons and high capacity magazines. Ohio and Texas allow these  guns and the magazines to be sold. California bans the sale of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, but the Gilroy shooter legally bought his gun in Nevada. In Dayton, Ohio, police said Sunday afternoon the shooter legally purchased his .223-caliber weapon online and then had it transferred to a local arms dealer. Police said he affixed the rifle with a 100-round drum magazine and was carrying 250 rounds with him. Now let’s think rationally for a second. Is there any situation that a hunter would require a 100-round magazine? Likewise would someone who owns a gun for personal protection ever need a semi-automatic weapon with even a 30-round magazine? The reasonable answer to each of these questions is “no!”
My suggestion to both the liberals and the conservatives, both the left and the right, especially those in Congress is a version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” “Compromise” is a term that used to be actually practiced in Washington. Now is the time to resurrect “compromise.”                                

Follow me with this:No abortions once a fetal heartbeat is heard. Outlaw all semi-automatic guns and high capacity gun magazines.Both of these are non-negotiable, and together both will make both the left and the right extremely unhappy! . . . and this, my friends, is essential to the art of compromise!

The headline, “Two Mass Shootings Leave 29 Dead,” is horrifying, and the responses from those on the left mainly involve banning “assault weapons.” The responses from those on the right mainly have something to do with “guns don’t kill, people do,” or violent video games and the abolition of God in our society are responsible. While I agree with the responses of those on the right, these responses do not get us anywhere. Likewise, I am not a gun owner, and I assume that most, if not close to all, of us non-gun owners are confused by some of the terms that are flippantly tossed about. Only after there is an understanding of the basic terminology can we, as a country, have some reconciliation, and make some progress on this issue. The first step in reconciliation would be to have the Democratic presidential candidates keep their mouths shut, at least until the dead are buried!

What is an “assault weapon?”

There’s no technical definition of an “assault weapon.” There are fully automatic weapons, which fire continuously when the trigger is held down. These “machine guns” have been strictly regulated since 1934. Then there are semiautomatic weapons that reload automatically but fire only once each time the trigger is depressed. Semiautomatic pistols and rifles come in all shapes and sizes and are extremely common in the United States. [FYI: The AR in AR-15 refers to ArmaLite Rifle . . .not Assault Rifle. (Due to financial problems, and limitations in terms of manpower and production capacity, ArmaLite sold the ArmaLite Rifle-15, abbreviated AR-15 design and the AR-15 trademark to Colt’s Manufacturing Company in 1959. Colt started selling the semi-automatic version of the M16 rifle as the Colt AR-15 in 1964.)]
The New York Timesadmitted in 2014 that Democrats manufactured the term “assault weapons” in order to ban a “politically defined category of guns — a selection of rifles, shotguns and handguns with ‘military-style’ features’” and added that those weapons “only figured in about 2 percent of gun crimes nationwide before the ban in 1994.”In 1994 Congress passed and President Clinton signed the “Assault Weapons Ban,” which expired in 2004, and was not renewed by Congress. Although not agreed upon by all, it seems that this 10 year ban did not do much in terms of preventing killings.

What is a gun magazine?

The magazine holds additional bullets for the weapon, and can be changed out in approximately five seconds by an experienced shooter. AR-15 rifles usually come with 30 or fewer rounds in a magazine. But increasingly gun manufacturers have catered to shooters looking to have 40, 60 or 100-round magazines that traditionally were shunned because they were heavy and cumbersome. High-capacity magazines have been used in mass shootings, including in Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Texas, and Parkland, Florida as well as in the recent mass shootings.

What are “bump stocks?”

“Bump stocks,” for practical purposes, convert a semi-automatic weapon to an automatic weapon. They are now apparently mostly a thing of the past, as a ban on them went into effect on March 26, 2019. The ban dictated that owners of bump stocks were required to destroy them or surrender them to ATF, punishable by 10 years imprisonment and $250,000 fine.
Now that we all have a basic understanding of the terms, what do we do now? 

At this point, I recommend the following in order to slow down the slander and chaos on both sides, and hopefully move toward some reasonable compromises:

1. Totally eliminate the term “assault weapon” from the discourse, as it is confusing and and only serves to muddy the waters when used by those who do not know what the term means. Just the other day Joe Biden said that, if elected president, he would institute a national buyback program for “assault weapons.”
2. Encourage Congress to immediately reinstitute the 1994  “Assault Weapons Ban.” Since it is already written it could be passed and signed quickly. Magazine size bans need legislation, like the federal ban that ran from 1994 to 2004. I know that I said the “Assault Weapons Ban” was of only questionable effectiveness, but it could perhaps get the bickering off of the front page and restore some sanity to the process. I would suggest that this remake of the 1994 law be in effect for only for six months, so that Congress would have a reasonable length of time to come up with some sort of bipartisan, more effective resolution.
3. Immediately implement “Red Flag” laws. As President Trump said, “We must make sure that those judged to pose a risk to public safety do not have access to firearms—and that if they do, those firearms can be taken through rapid due process. That is why I have called for “Red Flag” laws, also known as Extreme Risk Protection Orders.”
4. As I noted above, politicians should keep their mouths shut, at least until the dead are buried! Beto, are you listening? Again here I agree with President Trump who tweeted, “Beto . . . respect the victims & law enforcement – & be quiet!”  At this point I am seeing many anti-Trump comments by Dems about the El Paso shooter’s manifesto, but I have not seen any comments by Republicans concerning the very liberal pro-Warren philosophy of the Dayton shooter.

I usually do not invest too much time paying attention to polls, especially after the “spot-on” polls that told us who was going to win the 2016 presidential election! However, I came across some interesting poll results earlier this week, and it made me think that the Democrats are spot-on with their message to the voters. 
This survey of 1,346 adults was conducted July 15th through July 17th, 2019 by The Marist Poll sponsored in partnership with NPR and PBS NewsHour. Adults 18 years of age and older residing in the contiguous United States were contacted on landline or mobile numbers and interviewed in English by telephone using live interviewers. Mobile telephone numbers were randomly selected based upon a list of telephone exchanges from throughout the nation from Survey Sampling International. The exchanges were selected to ensure that each region was represented in proportion to its population.
So this particular poll sounds like a reasonable sampling of the population. What was interesting to me was not what the Democrats or the Republicans thought, but what the Independents thought. As most of us are aware it is often the Independents that determine the outcome of elections.In general this poll was encouraging to me, because it should be discouraging to the Democrats!

Look at the following answers from Independents. Independents were asked if they support Medicare for All as a replacement for private health insurance (good idea/bad idea): 39/55. Again in response to the question, Is free healthcare for illegal immigrants a good idea/bad idea? Independents: 27/67. Is decriminalizing border crossings a good idea/bad idea? Independents: 24/68. Is reparations for slavery is a good idea/bad idea? Independents: 23/65. Do you think the ideas being offered by Democrats will move this country in the right direct/wrong direction. Independents: 40/48. Wow!

Remember that this poll was done in conjunction with NPR, who does not exactly have a rightward bent.  My message to the Dems at this point, “Keep on keeping on; you are spot-on!”