Specifically, Rasmussen Reports polls found that 63 percent of likely U.S. voters believe a battle is brewing, while only 18 percent deny the divide. Furthermore, when asked about many Western nations’ support of the populist uprisings known as “the Arab Spring,” only 26 percent of voters think the United States should do more to encourage the growth of democracy in the Islamic world, while 58 percent say the United States should leave things alone.

The numbers became even more significant when separating mainstream U.S. voters from a group Rasmussen calls the “political class.”

For example, Rasmussen found that 73 percent of mainstream U.S. voters believe there is a conflict in the world between Western civilization and Islamic nations, and a plurality (49 percent) believe most of the world’s Muslims view America as an enemy.

But only half of Rasmussen’s “political class” acknowledges a global conflict, and 62 percent reject the idea that Muslims view the U.S. as an enemy.

Similarly, 61 percent of mainstream voters suspect a terrorist attack in the U.S. in the next year is likely, while 70 percent of the political class see little or no chance of such an attack.

Rasmussen found that taken as a whole, however, only 11 percent of likely U.S. voters think the war on terror is over, while 79 percent say that war, declared after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America, is still ongoing.

Rasmussen explains it defines “political class” as the subset of Americans whose answers to poll questions reveal they look primarily to governing elite – rather than the American people – to best rule the nation.

The “political class,” therefore, isn’t actually composed of D.C. and Wall Street insiders, but Rasmussen explains, “Experience has shown that political class voters share the views and attitudes of the elites they support. … In many cases, the gap between the mainstream view and the political class is larger than the gap between mainstream Republicans and Democrats.”

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(CNSNews.com) – President Obama’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal would double the interest rate on federally backed student loans from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent–eight months after the November presidential election.

The White House fiscal year 2013 plan calls for maintaining the current 3.4 percent interest rate for federally guaranteed student loans, but only through July 1, 2013, at which point it would automatically increase to 6.8 percent. Neither the president’s plan nor the Democrats’ legislation would extend the low rate beyond another year.

The president’s budget calls for “Suspending an Increase in Student Loan Interest Rates.” (See page 97).

“Under current law, interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans are slated to rise this summer [July 1] from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent,” reads the Obama budget. “At a time when the economy is still recovering and market interest rates remain low, it makes no sense to double rates on student loans. The Budget suspends the scheduled increase for the coming year, so that rates will remain at 3.4 percent.”

The Senate bill favored by Democrats states, “in the matter preceding clause (i), by striking ‘and before July 1, 2012,’ and inserting `and before July 1, 2013.’”

The Republican alternative legislation would also extend the low rate for only another year.

Subsidized Stafford Loans are only available to students who demonstrate financial need. Starting in July, these loans will only be available to undergraduate students. The federal government does not require the borrower to pay the interest that accrues while the borrower is in school.

During the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 academic years, Stafford Loans to undergraduate students were offered with a fixed rate of 6.8 percent. The College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 set lower interest rates for students in the 2008-2009 through 2011-2012 academic years. The interest rate for loans during those years gradually declined to 3.4 percent. An interest rate reduction would benefit about 7.4 million students, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

Prior to those changes, interest rates had been as high as 8.02 percent in the 2007-2008 academic year and as low as 2.36 percent in the 2011-2012 academic year, according to the CRS report.

“The minimum monthly payment according to a standard repayment plan is $50, which may result in a loan being repaid in less than 10 years,” the May 4 CRS report said. “However, most borrowers obtain more than one loan resulting in the combined repayment amount being more than $50 and sufficient to result in a full 10-year amortization. For purposes of comparison, these figures are all based on a full 10-year amortization.”

Obama has focused heavily on keeping student loan interest rates down to 3.4 percent in some of his recent speeches on college campuses. The youth vote helped boost his victory in 2008, where he beat John McCain by 34 percent among voters under 30, according to the Associated Press. However, last month a Harvard poll found that this year Obama is leading his Republican opponent Mitt Romney by 12 points (41%-29%) among voters aged 18 to 24.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the Tar Heel State shows the putative Republican nominee earning 51% of the vote to Obama’s 43%. Two percent (2%) like some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided. That’s a big change from last month when Romney posted a narrow 46% to 44% lead over the president in Rasmussen Reports’ first survey of the race in North Carolina. Democrats have signaled North Carolina’s importance as a key swing state by deciding to hold their national convention in Charlotte this summer.

Romney has held a slight lead over the president nationally for over a week now in the daily Presidential Tracking Poll following the release of a disappointing jobs report for April.

Voters nationally regard the economy as far and away the most important issue in the upcoming election, and just 11% of North Carolina voters now describe the U.S. economy as good or excellent. Forty-seven percent (47%) rate it as poor. Thirty-one percent (31%) say the economy is getting better, but 41% think it is getting worse.

The president leads overwhelmingly among those who give the economy positive marks, while Romney is far ahead among the much larger group that views the economy as poor.

Eighty-eight percent (88%) of North Carolina Republicans now support Romney, compared to 76% of Democrats in the state who back Obama. Nearly one-in-five North Carolina Democrats (18%) now favor the Republican. The GOP challenger holds a modest 49% to 45% lead among voters not affiliated with either party, but the two men were tied with 38% support each among this group a month ago.

Excerpted from Thomas Sowell’s New Piece In Townhall: When two white newspaper reporters for the Virginian-Pilot were driving through Norfolk, and were set upon and beaten by a mob of young blacks — beaten so badly that they had to take a week off from work — that might seem to have been news that should have been reported, at least by their own newspaper. But it wasn’t.

“The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News Channel was the first major television program to report this incident. Yet this story is not just a Norfolk story, either in what happened or in how the media and the authorities have tried to sweep it under the rug.

Similar episodes of unprovoked violence by young black gangs against white people chosen at random on beaches, in shopping malls or in other public places have occurred in Philadelphia, New York, Denver, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, Los Angeles and other places across the country. Both the authorities and the media tend to try to sweep these episodes under the rug as well.

In Milwaukee, for example, an attack on whites at a public park a few years ago left many of the victims battered to the ground and bloody. But, when the police arrived on the scene, it became clear that the authorities wanted to keep this quiet.

One 22-year-old woman, who had been robbed of her cell phone and debit card, and had blood streaming down her face said: “About 20 of us stayed to give statements and make sure everyone was accounted for. The police wouldn’t listen to us, they wouldn’t take our names or statements. They told us to leave. It was completely infuriating.”

The police chief seemed determined to head off any suggestion that this was a racially motivated attack by saying that crime is colorblind. Other officials elsewhere have said similar things.

A wave of such attacks in Chicago were reported, but not the race of the attackers or victims. Media outlets that do not report the race of people committing crimes nevertheless report racial disparities in imprisonment and write heated editorials blaming the criminal justice system.

What the authorities and the media seem determined to suppress is that the hoodlum elements in many ghettoes launch coordinated attacks on whites in public places. If there is anything worse than a one-sided race war, it is a two-sided race war, especially when one of the races outnumbers the other several times over.

It may be understandable that some people want to head off such a catastrophe, either by not reporting the attacks in this race war, or not identifying the race of those attacking, or by insisting that the attacks were not racially motivated — even when the attackers themselves voice anti-white invective as they laugh at their bleeding victims.

Trying to keep the lid on is understandable. But a lot of pressure can build up under that lid. If and when that pressure leads to an explosion of white backlash, things could be a lot worse than if the truth had come out earlier, and steps taken by both black and white leaders to deal with the hoodlums and with those who inflame the hoodlums.

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Peter is warned by the show’s voice of reason, Brian the dog, that the Tea Party is merely a ruse run by rich businessmen who want to use populist anger to rid the country of regulations. Sure enough, when Peter gets there, his rich father-in-law is running the entire thing by wearing a mullet wig and pretending to be a guy named “Joe Workingman.” The Tea Party ends up demolishing the government, anarchy rules in the streets, and Peter learns the valuable lesson that rich people aren’t actually looking out for any of us.

Watch a couple clips from Fox below: