Obama popularity drops precipitously among Jews

We were told, as recent as about a week ago, by folks who seemed to be channeling the Obama campaign, that it's only the "elites" in Washington who are growing disaffected with the President. Real Americans, however, love the guy.

It seems that some real American Jews don't agree.

Still, American Jews are clearly less enchanted with Mr. Obama than they were in 2008, when nearly 8 out of 10 voted for him (in a Gallup poll last July, the most recent month for which data was available, his approval rating was 60 percent). Jewish lawmakers have been warning the White House that this disaffection could hurt the president in turnout, fund-raising and enthusiasm.

“For a while now, I’ve been hearing from my constituents a lot of dissatisfaction with the statements on Israel that have been coming from the president and the administration,” said Representative Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New York. “He’ll still get a majority of Jewish votes, but I would not be surprised to see that drop 10 to 20 points.”

Ten to 20 points could be enough to swing a close election in, oh, Florida.

He's in trouble with Latinos too.  From The Hill:

President Obama's job approval rating from Hispanics has slipped below 50 percent for the first time, according to Gallup's latest poll, an ominous sign for the president as he heads into campaign season.

Just 48 percent of Hispanics approve of the job Obama has done, while 37 percent disapprove. This is down from a 60 percent approval rating as recently as January, an erosion that came later than his slipping numbers with Anglo voters. This trend should worry Obama: Hispanics are the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the country, and there are high numbers of Hispanic voters in swing states including New Mexico, Florida, Colorado, Nevada and even Virginia.

67% of Hispanics voted for Obama. His approval with them is now down to 48%. It's not a direct correlation, as some who disapprove still might vote for him, but still, it's a troubling decline.  (Though a precipitous drop from 60 to 48 is a direct correlation.)

Which means that we were all being spun a line when we were told that only the "elites" - i.e., people who don't matter (you know, the folks who actually took the lead in getting the President elected in the first place). And sure, politicians lie, that's part of the business. But what worries me isn't that the campaign, through its secret surrogates, tried to spin a tall tale. What worries me is that folks ignored a lot of us when we warned two years ago that the President needed to change course. And I'm worried that Team Obama may still actually believe their own spin - that the President's only problem is that the elites, who "don't matter," don't like him.

We now know that the elites were the canary in the coal mine. Read the rest of this post...

Compilation of the top 100 "shut ups" from the movies

Not entirely safe for work (foul language)
Read the rest of this post...

THIS JUST IN: Supreme Court halts execution of Texas man whose lawyers say race was factor in sentence

AP reports, there's no story yet, just a one liner.

UPDATE: CNN has more on the story now. Read the rest of this post...

John Boehner is just another pretty face

The man is dumb as rocks.  Which is rather scary, since he wields a lot of power in the current jobs debate.  From Jed Lewison at DailyKos:

As anyone with a pulse could have predicted, Boehner blamed weak job growth on President Obama, saying:

“Job creators in America are essentially on strike,” Mr. Boehner said, according to excerpts released by the Speaker’s office. “The problem is not confusion about the policies. The problem is the policies.”
That's got to be the stupidest thing John Boehner has ever said. He's basically saying that business owners would rather protest the nation's fiscal and regulatory policy than make sense. But businesses don't go "on strike" when there's demand for their services and profit to be made. And even if they did, other businesses step in and meet the demand.

No, the problem is not that "job creators" have gone "on strike." The problem is that there isn't enough demand for their products and services. Boehner's fundamental misunderstanding of this basic fact is reflected in his belief that the deficit reduction super committee is actually a jobs committee:

“The joint committee is a jobs committee. Its mission is to reduce the deficit that is threatening job creation in our country.”
If there were any truth to what Boehner said, if "job creators" really were "on strike" and if they really did believe that "the joint committee is a jobs committee," then job growth would have soared after the conclusion of the debt deal in early August.

Jed has lots of pretty graphs to show that it didn't.

What's particularly disturbing is that most economists disagree with what Boehner is saying. The same people who brought you the earth being only 6000 years old, and dinosaurs living alongside the ancient Greeks, are the ones who came up with John Boehner's incredible plan to cut the deficit and create jobs at the same impossible time!

How many times do the Republicans have to screw up the economy before they actually get held responsible for it? Of course, it takes Democrats actually blaming the Republicans for the economy, repeatedly, for years, for it to sink in. And they don't. Read the rest of this post...

THIS JUST IN: Senate passes disaster relief package; votes down Rand Paul’s proposal to cut foreign aid to pay for it

Teabagger central is not going to be pleased. Read the rest of this post...

Rick Perry attacks Obama in Israeli paper

Going for that foreign vote are we, Ricky?  Actually, Perry is trying to tick off American Jews and turn them against Obama.  Of course, Republican religious zealots like Perry are only bff with Israel because they need Israel (to burn, actually) in order for the Second Coming of Christ to happen.  Yeah, the far right running the Republican party don't often mention that fact - that Israel needs to exist so 2/3 of all Jews worldwide can die a horrible death in order to welcome Jesus back - when they're touting their support for Israel's right to exist.

If Perry is such a supporter of Israel, ask him if Jews are going to hell.  Then we'll talk.

Read the rest of this post...

Another poll in which public blames Rs more than Ds

But, they're still not terribly happy with the Ds.  These polls have to dig deeper.  I'm not happy with the Ds, but only because they're not standing up to the Rs.  it would be a mistake to classify me as simply "unhappy" with both.  There's no lesson to be drawn if you don't have more details. From Bloomberg:

Most unhappy Americans blame Republicans for the problems in Washington. The survey shows that 39 percent of poll respondents blame either Obama or congressional Democrats while 45 percent pinned responsibility on congressional Republicans

Also, that spread isn't huge. Read the rest of this post...

Health care CEO's want Medicare age raised to 67

Of course they do. How divorced from reality are these selfish bastards? It's an industry that has been extremely profitable even during one of the toughest recessions in decades. The Big Pharma businesses have received massive gifts from both Bush and Obama when both decided that it was somehow a violation of capitalism to negotiate prices. As for the insurance company, what else can you say about an industry where one CEO received a payout of $100 million last year and this year is charging into it's third year or record profits? Wouldn't it be nice is someone - anyone, from either party - actually gave a damn about voters who don't have deep pockets?

How much more can the middle class take of this bashing by the ruling class? The more important question is how much more of this nonsense will voters accept before they reject both parties? Bloomberg:

A congressional panel negotiating U.S. spending cuts should raise the age when people become eligible for Medicare to 67 from 65, a group representing health-care chief executives said today.

The Washington-based Healthcare Leadership Council included the recommendation in four proposals it said would save $410 billion in a decade, along with having private health plans to cover additional Medicare recipients and make people earning more than $150,000 pay for the full cost of the program’s premiums. Pfizer Inc. (PFE) and Merck & Co., the two largest U.S. drugmakers by revenue, are members of the council.

“This supercommittee process is a unique opportunity to do more than simply chop away at budgets,” Mary Grealy, the group’s president, said in a statement, referring to the 12- member congressional debt panel. The council called for overhauling the legal liability system for medical providers.

Read the rest of this post...

When in doubt, beat up a girl

The cult newspaper Washington Times, and conservative bloggers, are claiming - based on their super lip-reading skills - that the First Lady supposedly disparaged the "damn" US flag during a military ceremony commemorating the 9/11 attacks, in public no less.

Yeah right.

But why stop there.  The President clearly nods in agreement right after the First Lady's lips move.  So if she's upset at that "damn" American flag, then the Commander in Chief is agreeing, in public, on camera.

Again, yeah right.  Obama isn't exactly my favorite politician of late, and I don't think his political skills are very well honed, but even a total idiot would not nod in agreement to their spouse saying, on camera, in public, on 9/11, that the flag sucked.  If anything, your brow would furrow and you'd look at her like she was nuts.  That didn't happen, because the entire thing never happened.

I've looked at the video.  And good luck discerning what she's saying.  It's impossible.  There's no audio.  And her mouth is obscured at one point by an object.  All you can tell is that maybe the last word is "flag" - and they are watching a flag ceremony, so it's a good bet.  But that's it. But that didn't stop the Washington Times, a paper founded by a cult, from claiming in print that it knew exactly what she said - and she disparaged that "damn" flag.

Misogyny, racism?  It's hard to tell.  Republicans do enjoy beating up on the wives of politicians, and there's no special love in the GOP heart for minorities.  What amazes me, however, is the level of hate that exists, at an institutional level, in the Republican party.  It's part and parcel with the fundamentalist takeover of the GOP.  You simply can't run for public office as a Republican in this country unless you publicly profess your hate for a large segment of society (extra credit if you add in your hate of science and facts).  It's seriously messed up.

Watch the video for yourself, and be sure to check out all the racist comments from the Republicans.

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UPDATE: Now that I think about it, the First Lady does need to speak out about this.  After all, what if she's not saying "that damn flag" but is instead saying "that damn fag," in reference to Rick Perry, or Lindsey Graham, or Michelle Bachmann's husband, or Eric Cantor?  And while we're at it, let's hear from Rick Perry, Graham, Bachmann and Cantor as well. (Perry can just send us a written statement - you know the ones, with the little hearts he draws about the "i"s.) Read the rest of this post...

Carville: Prosecute Wall Street crooks

John already posted on this, but I want to highlight Democratic uber-strategist James Carville's point that President Obama should start prosecuting Wall Street crooks. In my book, this is the most important part of the Carville op-ed. Carville writes:

Indict people. There are certain people in American finance who haven't been held responsible for utterly ruining the economic fabric of our country. Demand from the attorney general a clear status of the state of investigation concerning these extraordinary injustices imposed upon the American people. I know Attorney General Eric Holder is a close friend of yours, but if his explanations aren't good, fire him too. Demand answers to why no one has been indicted.

Mr. President, people are livid. Tell people that you, too, are angry and sickened by the irresponsible actions on Wall Street that caused so much suffering. Do not accept excuses. Demand action now.

I think this is exactly right. Holding Wall Street accountable would be a dramatic sign to the public that the President is on their side and, importantly from an electoral standpoint, on their side in a way the Republicans are not. Of course the continued choice to not prosecute banksters is very clear in its meaning as well. Read the rest of this post...

President won’t include Social Security changes in recommendations he makes to Super Committee

From Sam Stein at Huffington Post:

Jilted by Republican leadership during the deficit-reduction talks that accompanied the debt ceiling debate, the Obama administration is now pulling back an offer to put Social Security reform on the negotiating table.

The president will not include changes to that program in the series of deficit reduction measures that he will offer to the congressional super committee next Monday, administration officials confirm.

That's good. Though this Super Committee is still a fool's errand that risks gutting important programs, and risks sending the economy further south. The major won't begin until 2013, ostensibly to protect the fragile economy. But no one thinks the economy will be in any better shape by 2013 than it is now. And now we have Dems on the Hill, and the President himself, urging the Super Committee to make even larger cuts than its own mandate.

The entire adventure is fraught with peril.  And it's not clearly that anyone even recognizes the danger we're in.  So while I appreciate that the President is taking Social Security off the table, at least in so far as the Super Committee is concerned, the Super Committee itself seems awfully ill-conceived from an economics perspective. Read the rest of this post...

Carville says it’s time for Obama to panic, and fire a lot of people

When James Carville, one of the key players in Bill Clinton's 92 election, was asked if he had any advice for President Obama, he said "panic."

After observing that Democratic Senators are not happy, presumably with the President, Carville recommends four things.
1. Fire somebody.
2. Indict people, namely Wall Street that caused that current crisis.
3. "Make a case like a Democrat." Ouch.
4. "Hold fast to an explanation." I think this means, more generally, stop being all over the map all the time. Say something and stick to it.

Read the entire piece, it's not long and is quite good.

It might help if some of those Democratic Senators, and Democratic House members, went on the record for once. The President and his team think they've done a fine job, that the public simply doesn't get how good they are. That means the fish is rotting, as the old (incorrect) saying goes, from the top down. Firing staff isn't going to help when the boss is part of the problem. Democrats need to realize that privately urging the President to change course isn't working. The man needs, the country needs, an intervention before we get a GOP president, Senate and House.

NB As someone just pointed out to me, yes, the President seems to have switched gears in the past week since the jobs speech - i.e., switched into fighting mode.  I hope that's true.  We learned during previous battles that sometimes a speech was nearly all we got.  So, yes, I remain skeptical - in part because a big part of the problem is simply the man the President is.  It's hard to change who you are.  To let yourself fight back.  To let your staff fight back.  To stop pulling punches because it would be "mean" or might be taken as "partisan."  I guess a part of me feels awfully burned at this point.  This blog came to Barack Obama's defense (during the primaries) long before it was cool.  It's one thing to disappoint people who didn't expect much from you anyway.  It's another to disappoint the true believers.  The latter are a lot harder to win back.

But I'm winnable.  I just need to see a real change in the President and the White House.  Perhaps the jobs speech was a sign of that change.  We'll soon know. Read the rest of this post...

Pat Robertson: Divorcing spouse with Alzheimer's is fine because they’re "kind of" dead already

Personally I've always been impressed with the compassion of the Christian conservatives.

During the portion of the show where the one-time Republican presidential candidate takes questions from viewers, Robertson was asked what advice a man should give to a friend who began seeing another woman after his wife started suffering from the incurable neurological disorder.

"I know it sounds cruel, but if he's going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her," Robertson said.

The chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network, which airs the "700 Club," said he wouldn't "put a guilt trip" on anyone who divorces a spouse who suffers from the illness, but added, "Get some ethicist besides me to give you the answer."

Robertson goes on to say that they're "kind of" dead already.

But he was a big defender of Terri Schiavo. Read the rest of this post...

Rick Perry thinks our government should be guided by Christianity, but not those other pesky heathen religions

From HuffPost via HufPost Hill:

The execution-happy Texas governor today briefly took off his "Vengeance is mine" hat and put on his Spanish Inquisition Conquistador metal hat today when he stressed the primacy of Christian values during a speech at Liberty University. "America is going to be guided by some set of values. The question is gonna be, whose values?" he said. "It's those Christian values that this country was based upon." He added that these Christian values should inform how the government acts more than the principles of other religions. On a totally unrelated note, Texas will execute Duane Edward Buck tomorrow in the most Christian manner possible. Maybe they'll inject him with an HPV vaccine before the potassium solution?

The Republican party has been taken over by religious extremists who don't believe in American democracy.  Daily Dish has more:

That's how I explain the current GOP. It can only think in doctrines, because the alternative is living in a complicated, global, modern world they both do not understand and also despise. Taxes are therefore always bad. Government is never good. Foreign enemies must be pre-emptively attacked. Islam is not a religion. Climate change is an elite conspiracy to impoverish America. Terror suspects are terrorists. When Americans torture, it is not torture. When Christians murder, they are not Christians. And if you change your mind on any of these issues, you are a liberal, an apostate, and will be attacked.

If your view of conservatism is one rooted in an instinctual, but agile, defense of tradition, in a belief in practical wisdom that alters constantly with circumstance, in moderation and the defense of the middle class as the stabilizing ballast of democracy, in limited but strong government ... then the GOP is no longer your party (or mine).

I left the GOP in 1992 when I voted for Bill Clinton for president. I left them because they were already getting a little crazy. Well, now they'd like to impose their crazy on the rest of America. And at the rate they're going, since we only have two political parties, and one is now nuts, it's only a matter of time before they get their chance to do real damage to our democracy (they already are). Read the rest of this post...

Gumby tries to rob 7-11, fails (and there’s video)

Seriously.  Great write up from SanDiego.com:

Gumby walked up to the cashier and said to the clerk, “This is a robbery,” San Diego police Detective Gary Hassen said. The clerk thought it was a joke and told Gumby that he had to go back to cleaning. Gumby insisted that the robbery was real and proceeded to reach into his Gumby-like pockets as if he were looking for a weapon, of which was never produced. The Gumby costume impeded his efforts to reach into his pockets and after fumbling around for several minutes, Gumby gave up his efforts and walked out of the store after dropping 26 cents out of his pocket. Gumby’s accomplice had already left the convenience store and was waiting in the parking lot, inside a silver/white mini van, honking the horn at him.

And there's video:
Read the rest of this post...