Gallup: More Americans say income taxes are okay

In the first of many expected “tea party” buzz kills today, a new Gallup Poll finds that 48 percent of Americans say the amount of income tax they pay is “about right” edging out those that complain the rate is too high.

The pollster’s annual Tax Day survey notes a radical departure in this year’s report — taxpayers have the most rosy view of paying their fair share of government revenue since 1956.

Pew: Latino incarceration rates increase, legal confidence wanes

The tenuous political relationship between African Americans and Latinos may have found a new rallying point — criminal justice reform.

Concerns by both groups about growing incarceration rates and flagging confidence in the legal system are highlighted in a new national study released Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

Silver: Colorado could be willing to reverse gay marriage ban in 2010

Colorado voters will be ready to repeal the state’s constitutional ban on gay marriage next year, according to an analysis by voting statistics geek Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com.

Following the Iowa Supreme Court’s establishment of same-sex marriage on Friday, Silver examined the trends in the 30 states that have voted on gay marriage bans and found that “while you might (not) know it from Proposition 8′s victory last year, voter initiatives to ban gay marriage are becoming harder and harder to pass every year.”

Religion-and-politics poll reaches ‘Seinfeld’ proportions on nothingness

Focus on the Family Action exposes a shocking revelation from a new poll on religious beliefs and politics — liberals and conservatives are different.

The evangelical pollster The Barna Group reveals this and other rather obvious conclusions at CitizenLink.com, the lobbying arm of the Colorado Springs-based ministry and publishing empire. Grab the smelling salts and read on.

Statistics freak Nate Silver names Zogby ‘worst pollster in the world’

Baseball statistician-turned political fortune teller Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com posts a devastating critique of public opinion pollster Zogby International — replete with enough charts and margin of error figures to make a math geek weep.

TCI Street Poll: Should we kill the death penalty?

House Majority Leader Paul Weissmann and Sen. Morgan Carroll are angling to repeal the state death penalty and direct the estimated $370,000 cost savings to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s Cold Case Homicide Team.

Will Colorado follow New Mexico’s lead? Gov. Bill Richardson abolished the death penalty Wednesday and replaced it with life without parole for the most heinous crimes.

Add your thoughts below the fold

Forget the noise, spend our tax dollars already!

Awash in the sound and fury of today’s anti-tax crusaders — the refusenik governors, the tea party attendees, the screamers of “socialism,” the Ayn Rand-loving libertarians “going Galt,” the op-ed writing de facto leaders of the Republican party, the just plain fools — you would think there was significant disagreement among the U.S. population on the big tax-spending stimulus package.

There’s not.

Losing their religion: Ranks of nonbelievers on the increase

The percentage of Americans who call themselves Christians has fallen over the last two decades — although a sizable majority still consider themselves to be Christian. At the same time, those professing “no” religion has nearly doubled since 1990, according to a Trinity College survey released Monday, The Washington Post reports.

GOP, Christian legal group misleads on N.M. domestic partner poll

A poll commissioned by the New Mexico Republican Party with an ideological assist from the Christian legal team at the Alliance Defense Fund is fueling voter confusion over a domestic partnership bill before the state legislature in Santa Fe.

Rasmussen, the only poll that matters to Republicans

Last week, as they’ve done every week for nearly two years, New Jersey-based Rasmussen Reports cycled a question about Congress into its nightly political tracking poll. Over two nights, around 1000 voters (they must be voters, or say they are, to be included in the poll) were asked by an automated, voice-activated pollster whether they they would support a Democratic candidate or a Republican candidate for Congress, were the election held today.