Sunday, April 15, 2012

My Obama Civil Liberties Poll at The Mat-Su Democrats Caucus and Wasilla Tea Party Rally

Mat-Su Democrats Chair Gwen Heynen taking the vote for Obama
Saturday morning at 9:00 am, the Mat-Su Democrats caucused at the old Mat-Su Cinema.  I attended and participated in the general caucus on the presidential race, and in my District caucus on motions to be brought before the state convention in Fairbanks.

In the general caucus, which was hooked into a video feed from the Talkeetna caucus, I abstained on the motion of support for the president in his run for re-election.  In the District 13 caucus, I voted in favor of our resolutions and signed on as a delegate to the convention.

I polled 19 of the 78 people there, asking four questions a out the Obama administration's position or actions on four topics.

After the caucus concluded, at about 12:40, I drove over to Newcomb Park on Wasilla Lake, and polled 20 people out of the 275 attending the Tea Party tax day event there.
Tea Party Event at Wasilla Lake - April 14, 2012


Here are the results (some people did not answer every question):
1.  President Obama’s administration’s Solicitor General recently sided with plaintiffs in the Supreme Court Decision granting police authority to strip search any prisoner held, even for the smallest charge.  Do you agree?

Agree:  Democrats - 2 --- Tea Party- 0
Disagree:  Democrats - 15 --- Tea Party - 20

2.  President Obama asserts the right to be able to assassinate any American overseas for any reason his advisors see fit, without recourse to even attempt due process.  He also asserts that all information on how these decisions are made needs to be kept secret.  Do you agree?

Agree:  Democrats - 1 --- Tea Party - 0
Disagree:  Democrats - 17 --- Tea Party - 20
  
3.  President Obama has markedly expanded the use of of armed drone strikes in countries around the world.  Do you agree?

Agree:  Democrats - 4 --- Tea Party - 6
Disagree:  Democrats - 12 --- Tea Party - 12

4.  President Obama has used the Espionage Act for prosecution of more people than all previous administrations combined.  Do you approve?  

Approve:  Democrats - 0 --- Tea Party -5
Disapprove:  Democrats - 17 --- Tea Party - 13
Sid Hill - running against Rep. Don Young as an Independent


I'll post some videos I made at both events on Sunday.
Tea Party Limo

6 comments:

George said...

surprising results from the TP. I am making a wild guess that most TP members don't like anything PO has done hence all the no votes on your survey. If Dems and TPs don't support these policies, who does?

Anonymous said...

Now George thats a fuckin good question. Let's look at how the election just went in Anchorage and in AK in general and across the country for the past 12 years. AKjah.

Anonymous said...

Hi George:

I'll tell you who approves. Obama does. And that's all that matters.

george said...

just read Mudflats article about Diabold machine fiasco and reading the posts above it appears that We the People have a problem.

Matthew said...

I still disagree with the strip-search ruling on principle, but it is a little inaccurate to phrase the question that way.

The issue wasn't "police" strip-searching people incident to arrest, the issue was and is jail personnel strip-searching prior to putting an arrestee into the jail's general population.

The strip search was found Constitutional on those grounds, that the need to prevent prohibited items like weapons, drugs, cell phones, etc. from being smuggled in where actual serious offenders could get them rendered the minor nature of the arrestee's offense irrelevent.

The only other options in practice would be to stop arresting for minor non-violent or victimless offenses (which I would whole-heartedly support) and/or creating different grades of jail housing, which would cost an obscene amount of money and would still result in the potential for an arrestee to bring in weapons, putting other inmates and jailers at risk.

It wasn't a simple or clear-cut question and the onus for a fix really should be put on the public who keep backing ill-thought out "tough on crime" legislators and legislation, not this or any other administration.

Anonymous said...

Is that tea party limo parking in a no parking zone?