Signs and Wonders 04.27

Approved. President Obama's approval ratings are trending upward again. Soon after his election, they were nearly 70 percent. Even his advocates knew those honeymoon ratings wouldn't last, and they didn't. Over the next two years they fell steadily to the low 40s. Then they got a boost following the death of Osama bin Laden before falling again. Last October they were at the lowest point in his presidency, about 42 percent. But today they're back up. Real Clear Politics puts the average of recent polls at around 48 percent, and the most recent Gallup poll has him at 50 percent. If the economy keeps improving, "No Drama Obama," who is unlikely to make any major miscalculations between now and Election Day, could end up with approval ratings in the low 50s, which would make him tough to beat.

Crossed up. The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAFF) is threatening to file a lawsuit if crosses are not removed from the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base in California. A group of Marines erected the crosses on top of an on-base hill as a memorial to fallen service members. The group asserts that the presence of the crosses on federal land is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. Proponents of the crosses say they are widely recognized as a symbol honoring fallen soldiers. Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., who has become a vocal advocate of the crosses, said, "If they're successful in getting these crosses taken down at Camp Pendleton, there's absolutely no reason that the crosses in Arlington Cemetery would be allowed to stay."

Fundamentally flawed. The Heritage Foundation has recently released a report that concludes the proposed Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization is "a gross distortion of the original law and is gravely flawed." The think-tank report, "Violence Against Women Act: Reauthorization Fundamentally Flawed," highlights how the bill now being debated in the U.S. Senate, S. 1925, would fund abuse-reduction programs that are unproven, duplicative, and wasteful. At the heart of the proposed bill, the report argues, lies an ideologically rooted attempt at social engineering. Heritage argues that the original 1994 bill, which this one re-authorizes, has not been evaluated for effectiveness. They also argue that it duplicates other programs already in place. Heritage may be right, but conservative opposition to VAWA has made Republicans an easy target for Democrats who say the GOP is waging a "war against women." The decision by the Democrat-controlled Senate to bring up the bill at this time is almost surely a political calculation designed to exploit the so-called "gender gap" between the two parties.

Earnings bonanza, but debt worries. The Standard & Poor's 500 had its best first quarter in 14 years, and the NASDAQ its best in nearly 20 years. But will the trends continue? We're in the middle of earnings season on Wall Street, and so far most reports have exceeded expectations, but the markets have leveled off because of troubling news from Europe. Spain's finance ministry said on April 3 that Spain's 2012 debt would jump to its highest level since 1990. Rumors are flying that Moody's will review France's credit rating. This week Britain announced that it had officially fallen back into recession, the dreaded "double-dip" recession that it and other Western countries had hoped to avoid. Christine Legarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said the United States probably doesn't need to worry about falling back into recession, but she also said we shouldn't get cocky and "should not delude ourselves into a false sense of security. The recovery is still very fragile."