Poll: Americans think standing for principle is more important than bipartisan compromise

Not that this is news. From ThinkProgress:

On Christmas Eve, Washington Post columnist David Broder published a “pox-on-both-their-houses” column, lamenting that the health care reform package that was about to pass the Senate didn’t have any “signs” of “bipartisan support.” But the new Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll out today indicates that the public doesn’t agree with Broder’s concern about bipartisanship. Asked what actions elected officials could undertake to increase trust in them, a majority said that “making a stronger effort to stand up for principle” would help “a lot” while only 35 percent said more focus “on compromising with members of the opposite political party” would help “a lot.”

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Socialist health care system delivers new windpipe

Those lazy, commie-lovin' socialists don't know how to deliver innovation at all. Can't Europe do anything right or are they shackled to their outdated system that stifles new development? One day they will learn but for now you can only feel sorry for them.

For more than a quarter of a century, Linda De Croock lived with constant pain from a car accident that smashed her windpipe.

Today, she has a new one after surgeons implanted the windpipe from a dead man into her arm, where it grew new tissue before being transplanted into her throat. The way doctors trained her body to accept donor tissue could yield new methods of growing or nurturing organs within patients, experts say.

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Amex and Visa waive fees for Haiti charities, Mastercard not so much

Something tells me Mastercard is going to change its mind very quickly. Read More......

New video shows key adviser to GOP Senate candidate Scott Brown manhandling man covering press event

More from Ben Smith. It's a video from a few years back, but highly relevant today. Ben explains.

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Evening document dump

Lots of interesting stories I've been waiting to post all day...

Don Imus thinks Pat Robertson should be put to sleep:



Ezra thinks the "new" deal on the excise tax in the health care reform bill (aka "the cadillac tax") isn't all that different from the old deal.

How Harry Truman handled insubordination from the military.

Credit card firms are making beaucoup bucks off of the disaster in Haiti. Are they providing a valuable service, or is this tacky?

Obama says election in Massachusetts next week for Kennedy's seat could determine outcome of lots of important legislation. Then why didn't Obama go to the state and campaign for Coakley? (Now, with Haiti going on, it's too late - but it wasn't too late on Monday, pre-Haiti, when Gibbs got awfully uncomfortable when asked if Obama was going to campaign.) A former president, however, will be stumping for the Democratic candidate. And GOP candidate Scott Brown is a liar.

Yglesias thinks the new "bank tax" is too small.

Slight movement on gay rights in the House.

When did the NYT get a "global" edition?

Lindsay Robertson tells PR flaks how not to approach bloggers. Read More......

Top FOX News shows basically ignored Haiti earthquake

What would be interesting to figure out is why FOX doesn't want to cover the earthquake. Limbaugh probably gave us a window into their soul when he said that the earthquake would only help Obama. FOX may be concerned that the President is coming off as an effective leader, so they're willing to ignore one of the biggest natural disasters of modern times. Amazing. From Media Matters:

On January 13, Fox News' three top-rated programs for 2009 -- The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, and Glenn Beck -- devoted a combined total of less than 7 minutes of coverage to the earthquake in Haiti, instead choosing to air such things as Beck's hour-long interview with Sarah Palin, Bill O'Reilly's discussion of Comedy Central host Jon Stewart, and Sean Hannity's advocacy for Massachusetts candidate Scott Brown's Senate campaign. By contrast, the content of MSNBC's three top-rated shows underscored the significance of the Haiti disaster; Countdown, The Rachel Maddow Show, and Hardball devoted a total of more than two hours to the earthquake.

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Sarah Palin's favorite founding father? 'All of them.' Then Glenn Beck responds 'bull crap.'

It looks like Glenn Beck is a tad worried about the competition for chief crazy person over at FOX. Calling Sarah Palin on her BS answer, and then saying "bull crap." Wow.

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Retail sales suggest faltering recovery

Let the Republicans laugh all they want about the stimulus, but in the real world we all know it would have been much worse without it. It's probably time to start moving on Stimulus II because there are plenty of indications that trouble is ahead without it.

Retail sales unexpectedly fell in December, leaving 2009 with the biggest yearly drop on record and highlighting the formidable hurdles facing the economy as it struggles to recover from the deepest recession in seven decades.

In another disappointing economic report, the number of newly laid-off workers requesting unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week as jobs remain scarce.

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Did China hack into Google's domestic spying software?

Kind of sounds like it.

This appears to indicate that the state-sponsored Chinese hackers have hacked into the portion of the Google infrastructure that deals with government warrants, intercepts, national security letters and other modalities pertinent to the Terrorist Surveillance Program. That, if true, could be very problematic, one would think....

[I]f Google’s Mountain View HQ search warrant search interface/computer was hacked, we are probably talking about the same computer used by the Google Legal Department to perform queries in response to DOJ warrants, subpoenas, national security letters, and FISA orders.

More background on China's foray into Google's computers. Read More......

Limbaugh dissuades listeners from donating to Haiti. Says US has helped them enough, and that relief effort is all an Obama plot.

Amazing. Ranks up there with Pat Robertson saying that Haiti made a pact with the devil and that's why all these bad things are happening. The Haitian ambassador then responded to Robertson on the Rachel Maddow show last night. (In an earlier clip on the same page as the clip below, Limbaugh opines about light skinned and dark skinned black people. Struck me as a bit odd.)

I pulled the audio. Someone got the cute idea to run ads on their audios. I don't think so. Feel free to click through and check out the audio for yourself. Read More......

Very early 2012 poll shows 39% would vote to reelect Obama

We are ten months away from the 2010 elections, but the 2012 polling has officially begun. A new poll takes a look at Obama's standing with the electorate. This one doesn't ask about job performance, it focused on reelection. Obama doesn't fare too well, which isn't a surprise given the current state of the economy and increasing dissatisfaction among the base:

A year into his tenure, a majority of Americans would already vote against Pres. Obama if the '12 elections were held today, according to a new survey.

The Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll shows 50% say they would probably or definitely vote for someone else. Fully 37% say they would definitely cast a ballot against Obama. Meanwhile, just 39% would vote to re-elect the pres. to a 2nd term, and only 23% say they definitely would do so.

The good news is that it's January of 2010. The bad news is that this poll is still a snapshot of what people currently think of the President, and it's not great. Read More......

Chmn of Jt Chiefs' office leaks memo to undercut Prez on Don't Ask, Don't Tell: 'Now is not the time'

The Chairman of the Joint Chief's office thinks the middle of the presidential election would be a better time for the President to take up the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Seriously. I love the smell of insubordination in the morning. Read More......

Obama to collect $90 billion from banks thru 'financial crisis responsibility fee'

At 11:50 a.m., the President is going to announce a new fee on banks, designed to recoup losses from the TARP program. Here's what the “financial crisis responsibility fee" is and does:

President Obama plans to call on Thursday for taxing about 50 big banks and major financial institutions for at least the next decade to recoup all taxpayer losses from the bailout of Wall Street.

The tax on banks, insurance companies and brokerages with more than $50 billion in assets would start after June 30 and seek to collect $90 billion over 10 years, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters late Wednesday.

But the levy but would remain in force longer if all losses to the bailout fund, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, are not recovered after a decade.

Not sure what safeguards exist to insure that the fee is paid by the banks and not the rest of us. But, this is a political move, too. There's great anger in the country towards Wall Street and the big banks. It's easy to understand why.

For example, yesterday, a number of top bankers testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC). ABC's Jon Karl reports that while the bankers appeared contrite during the hearing, that wasn't the case after they left the hearing room:

When they came before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, the leaders of the nation's top banks were contrite about their role in the financial meltdown. But when ABC News caught up with them after the hearing, they expressed no regret whatsoever for the big bonuses now going to bank executives.

Karl has video to prove it. Read More......

Newt thinks Newt is worthy of being the next President

It's not really a surprise, but this is the closest Newt Gingrich has come to saying he intends to run for President:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday he considers himself among the top Republican prospects for the 2012 presidential election, adding that he believes there will be plenty of GOP options for voters to consider.

"I think I'm probably on a list of seven or eight possible candidates at this stage," Gingrich said. "We have a lot of people around the country who would like to have somebody who represents a commitment to replace the current failed programs and to develop a set of solutions that are practical and workable."

Gingrich listed several current and former goverors who he thinks might enter the race. They include former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. He said he will discuss his possible candidacy with his wife early next year before making a decision about whether to run.

He's just so 90s.

Newt is a real smarty-pants. Can you even imagine him trying to debate Palin with her non-sensical, inept and completely uninformed style? Yet, I think she'd tie him up in knots.

And, that wife he's checking with? She's wife number three. Read More......

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The horror in Haiti continues to unfold. The magnitude of the death and destruction is just hard to fathom. The U.S. and other countries are stepping up as are people around the globe. The social networking sites are filled with easy ways to contribute, including this tweet that is everywhere: "You can text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts in #haiti." I chose to donate to Doctors without Borders.

Yesterday, the President and Democratic leaders held an eight hour long meeting at the White House as they tried to hammer out a deal on health care. Eight hours -- and they're not done. Late this afternoon, the President will head over to the Capitol to meet with the members House Democratic Caucus at their "Issues Conference." As we've seen this week, House Democrats aren't just rolling over and accepting the Senate bill.

It'll be another busy news day...let's get it started... Read More......

China holds firm in favor of censorship

Did anyone really think the repressive government would back down to Google or any other foreign company? China would much rather have a local search engine company such as Baidu who they can control. Google, Yahoo! and other US based internet companies should have known this all along and held firm to their ideals instead of selling out earlier. Were they really so naive?

Minister of the State Council Information Office, Wang Chen, said that online pornography, fraud and "rumors" were a menace. He said Internet media must help "guide public opinion" in China, which has the world's biggest number of Internet users at 360 million. He did not mention Google.

Wang's comments suggested little room for compromise in the Internet dispute that could stoke tensions between China and the United States, already at odds over the yuan currency, trade, climate change, and Taiwan.

On a more amusing note, China's top internet search engine was the victim of attacks by Iranian hackers. Very strange. Read More......

Sarkozy promotes softer position on burka, niqab in France

Whether the hard right in Parliament will go along with the softer approach is hard to say but at least Sarkozy is trying to make a point without going too far. That said, while it's good to see Sarkozy support equality for women, the facts on the ground say otherwise. Women in France are underpaid compared to men and are far less represented in senior management than other developed countries. Now may be a good time to start getting serious with turning that around.

Last night Sarkozy, who has been accused of unleashing a storm of hostile sentiment towards France's six million Muslims through a "great debate" on national identity, endeavoured to reassure his critics that his dislike of the burka was motivated by love of his nation's principles rather than racism.

"The full veil is not welcome in France because it runs contrary to our values and contrary to the idea we have of a woman's dignity," he said, while cautioning against an extreme move that would further alienate a section of society.

"Let us undertake not to give opponents of democracy, dignity and sexual equality the chance for a victory which would put our society in a very difficult situation," he said, adding it was "essential that no one felt stigmatised".

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