Late Night: We Told You So — Hillary in 2012!

Posted: July 26, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Democratic Politics, Hillary Clinton, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, unemployment, voodoo economics, WE TOLD THEM SO | Tags: , , , , , , | 24 Comments

Hillary in 2012! Yes, it’s still a pipe dream, but who else is there? Bernie Sanders came out and said it recently–it’s time to primary Obama or run a third party candidate. Again, I know it’s probably a fantasy, but what other choice do we really have?

For myself, I know I can never vote for Obama. At this point it’s really a moral issue for me. I couldn’t vote for him in 2008, and that was before I realize how truly horrible his presidency would be.

I knew he’d be bad, and I knew he was going to go after Social Security and Medicare. I didn’t know that he would completely ignore unemployment and refuse to use the power of government to create jobs.

I suspected he would carry on Bush’s wars. But I never suspected that he would defend torture and rendition or that he would claim the right to imprison or assassinate American citizens without probable cause or trial.

I don’t know how I can bring myself to vote for Romney either. He’s pretty much indistinguishable from Obama anyway. They are both cynical sellouts; neither has a real ideology or moral core.

Bernie Sanders said it straight out not too long ago:

…while appearing on Thom Hartmann’s radio show, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — who, while being an independent, caucuses with the Democrats — said that one way progressives can make sure Obama does not enact huge cuts to major social programs is to run a primary challenger against him. Sanders told a listener who called in to protest a debt ceiling deal that cuts Social Security that such a challenge would be a “good idea”:

SANDERS: Brian, believe me, I wish I had the answer to your question. Let me just suggest this. I think there are millions of Americans who are deeply disappointed in the president; who believe that, with regard to Social Security and a number of other issues, he said one thing as a candidate and is doing something very much else as a president; who cannot believe how weak he has been, for whatever reason, in negotiating with Republicans and there’s deep disappointment. So my suggestion is, I think one of the reasons the president has been able to move so far to the right is that there is no primary opposition to him and I think it would do this country a good deal of service if people started thinking about candidates out there to begin contrasting what is a progressive agenda as opposed to what Obama is doing. […] So I would say to Ryan [sic] discouragement is not an option. I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition.

Am I crazy? Look at what has been going on in Washington for the past few weeks. This debt ceiling fight is utter nonsense, and this President has shown no leadership whatsoever. For a long time, he completely cut Democrats out of the process and “negotiated” with John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Mitch McConnell! He has put every treasured Democratic program on the table to be cut. Again and again, he has lied about the strength and solvency of Social Security and Medicare. Over at Naked Capitalism, liberal economist Michael Hudson documents Obama’s ugly lies:

You know that the debt kerfuffle is as staged as melodramatically as a World Wrestling Federation exhibition when Mr. Obama makes the blatantly empty threat that if Congress does not “tackle the tough challenges of entitlement and tax reform,” there won’t be money to pay Social Security checks next month. In his debt speech last night (July 25), he threatened that if “we default, we would not have enough money to pay all of our bills – bills that include monthly Social Security checks, veterans’ benefits, and the government contracts we’ve signed with thousands of businesses.”

This is not remotely true. But it has become the scare theme for over a week now, ever since the President used almost the same words in his interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley.

Of course the government will have enough money to pay the monthly Social Security checks. The Social Security administration has its own savings – in Treasury bills. I realize that lawyers (such as Mr. Obama and indeed most American presidents) rarely understand economics. But this is a legal issue. Mr. Obama certainly must know that Social Security is solvent, with liquid securities to pay for many decades to come. Yet Mr. Obama has put Social Security at the very top of his hit list!

The most reasonable explanation for his empty threat is that he is trying to panic the elderly into hoping that somehow the budget deal he seems to have up his sleeve can save them. The reality, of course, is that they are being led to economic slaughter. (And not a word of correction reminding the President of financial reality from Rubinomics Treasury Secretary Geithner, neoliberal Fed Chairman Bernanke or anyone else in the Wall Street Democrat administration, formerly known as the Democratic Leadership Council.)

It is a con. Mr. Obama has come to bury Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, not to save them.

Obama has destroyed the Democratic Party and he is in the process of destroying the U.S. economy and sending us into a prolonged depression. He has to go. Frankly, if we can’t replace him with a liberal Democrat, a Mitt Romney might actually be preferable for the same reason many of us reluctantly preferred McCain in 2008: it’s possible Democrats in Congress would put up a fight against a Republican who did the things Obama has done.

Recent polls show that Obama’s blatantly conservative policies are finally having and effect–his liberal base is falling apart. The latest Washington Post-ABC poll found that the President’s approval numbers on the economy are dropping fast.

More than a third of Americans now believe that President Obama’s policies are hurting the economy, and confidence in his ability to create jobs is sharply eroding among his base, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The dissatisfaction is fueled by the fact that many Americans continue to see little relief from the pain of a recession that technically ended two years ago. Ninety percent of those surveyed said the economy is not doing well, and four out of five report that jobs are difficult to find. In interviews, several people said that they feel abandoned by both parties, particularly as debates over the debt ceiling gridlock Washington.

To me the most striking finding in this poll is that African American voters are losing faith in Obama’s handling of the economy and jobs.

the number of liberal Democrats who strongly support Obama’s record on jobs plunged 22 points from 53 percent last year to 31 percent. The number of African Americans who believe the president’s actions have helped the economy has dropped from 77 percent in October to just over half of those surveyed.

If African Americans are starting to see through Obama, he’s in trouble. How can he possibly win enough Independents to make up for the loss of African American votes? Sure, plenty of AA’s will still vote for him, but how many will end up staying home?

At the Top of the Ticket blog, Andrew Malcolm argues that Obama is trying to reach out to the “center,” and that his ridiculous speech last night was filled with code words to appeal to “independents.”

Using political forensics, notice any clues, perhaps telltale code words that reveal to whom he was really addressing his Monday message? Clearly, it wasn’t congressional Republicans — or Democrats, for that matter.

The nation’s top talker uttered 2,264* words in those remarks. He said “balanced approach” seven times, three times in a single paragraph.

That’s the giveaway. Obviously, David Plouffe and the incumbent’s strategists have been polling phrases for use in this ongoing debt duel, which is more about 2012 now than 2011. “Balanced approach” is no sweet talk for old Bernie or tea sippers on the other side.

Obama is running for the center already, aiming for the independents who played such a crucial role in his victorious coalition in 2008. They were the first to start abandoning the good ship Obama back in 2009 when all the ex-state senator could do was talk about healthcare, when jobs and the economy were the peoples’ priority.

Maybe, except Obama isn’t running to the center, he’s running to the right. In the debt limit “negotiations,” he is the one who put Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid on the table. He has consistently pushed for even bigger cuts than the Republicans have. And Obama has done exactly nothing about jobs. He seems to have no interest in the issue at all. So how is he going to win “centrist” votes? Surely these centrists still care about Social Security and Medicare and surely they care about jobs. I just don’t buy that running further to the right is going to help Obama be reelected.

I’m probably going on too long in this post, so I’ll wrap it up. I’ll end with a bit of Glenn Greenwald’s piece in reaction to the recent polls:

approval ratings is only one of many barometers of a President’s standing with his base — and, at least in Obama’s case, almost certainly not the most important one. It’s completely unsurprising that the vast majority of Democrats and even “liberals” — when presented with the dichotomous approve/disapprove choice by a pollster regarding their own party’s President — will choose “approve”; that, in essence, is little more than a proxy for declaring one’s tribal identity (which of the two sides are you on?). But what propelled the Obama campaign in 2008 was not merely the number of people willing to vote for him but, rather, the intensity of his support.

It’s one thing to be willing to go vote for a candidate on Election Day (or, more accurately, against the other candidate); it’s another entirely to be willing to donate scarce money, canvass and evangelize, and infuse the campaign with passion and energy. That many liberals will still be willing to do the former notwithstanding their dissatisfaction does not mean they will do the latter. That level of progressive commitment to Obama’s candidacy was vital to his victory in 2008, and its absence could be crippling in 2012 (a dependency on Wall Street cash even greater than 2008 can only take one so far). Wasn’t that one obvious lesson of 2010: the central role base enthusiasm plays in election outcomes?

So what is to be done? I don’t know, but I do know that there isn’t another potential candidate with the stature of Hillary Clinton. Is it just a pipe dream? What do you think? Is there any chance at all that Hillary might step in as Ted Kennedy did (admittedly unsuccessfully) against Carter in 1980? Are there any other possible candidates that could pull it off?

Try Boehner and Cantor for Treason? What about Obama?

Posted: July 25, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, Democratic Politics, Medicaid, Medicare, Republican politics, Social Security, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, voodoo economics | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 40 Comments

Are Sky Dancers cutting edge or what? Nearly two weeks ago, Dakinikat asked whether our government leaders could be charged with treason over the debt ceiling debacle.

Now David Seaman, a blogger at Business Insider argues that Boehner and Cantor are committing treason by catering to a small number of Tea Partiers’ demands while making the U.S. look weak and unreliable to the rest of the world.

I don’t know of a single American business owner or executive who thinks default — economic armageddon — should be on the table, and yet Republicans are acting as if Americans consider this a viable option.

Sadly, it’s already too late: although we still have time to get a deal before the August 2nd hard deadline, this is the equivalent of shoving a check under your landlord’s door at 11:59 p.m. You’ve lost his trust, even if you are technically not in default.

Enough disgusting dramatics to please your small Tea Party base — we are a nation of more than 300 million; the Tea Party is a handful of folks with racist signs, radical agenda, and the favor of a few influential bookers at Fox News.

On Boehner and Cantor:

John Boehner — a full-grown man who cries in public for rhetorical affect (or maybe he’s that imbalanced, I don’t know)… Eric Cantor — a disgusting attention-seeker who doesn’t realize he is one of the country’s actual leaders, and not merely a commentator on a political morning show.

At this point, Americans should be calling for both of their heads. We need to keep an eye on such “leaders” and ensure that they and their kind are not re-elected to Congress. They don’t represent any of us. And their childish Tea Party views — which have no basis in sound economic theory — are making us look like fools to our international partners.

Seaman also points to this column by John Avlon at CNN, “Our stupid self-inflicted debt crisis.”

…if America defaults on its debt, not only will we find ourselves in a far deeper fiscal hole, but the full faith and credit of the United States will be compromised. In our globalized era, that means America will be considered an unpredictable partner and a second-class power.

Worst of all, this will be a self-inflicted wound. It is a direct result of the hyper-partisanship that has been hijacking America’s political debates. Now it is compromising our ability to govern ourselves effectively.

The markets are viewing Washington’s debt dysfunction as badly as Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s, which have raised the possibility of downgrading their ratings of U.S. bonds.

The British government’s business secretary, Vince Cable, summed up the situation as he saw it on the BBC this weekend: “The irony of the situation at the moment, with markets opening tomorrow morning, is that the biggest threat to the world financial system comes from a few right-wing nutters in the American Congress.”

Avlon blames the mess on “hyper-partisanship,” but the problem as I see it is that the Democratic side–especially our Reagan-adoring President–is showing no partisanship at all, just rushing to cave in to every Republican demand. After all, Obama could quickly resolve this situation, as Daknikat pointed out yesterday, by “invoking the 14th Amendment.”

At FDL, David Dayen points out, rather sarcastically, that Obama “has options to raise the debt limit.” He could tell Congress to vote on the debt limit and hold the arguments about cuts and taxes till later, as Elizabeth Drew suggested at Politico. Alternatively, Dayen says he could turn to the 14th amendment. Obama has so far dismissed this possibility.

Finally, Dayen points to an article in Friday’s NYT by two conservatives.

PRESIDENT OBAMA should announce that he will raise the debt ceiling unilaterally if he cannot reach a deal with Congress. Constitutionally, he would be on solid ground. Politically, he can’t lose. The public wants a deal. The threat to act unilaterally will only strengthen his bargaining power if Republicans don’t want to be frozen out; if they defy him, the public will throw their support to the president. Either way, Republicans look like the obstructionists and will pay a price….

Our argument is not based on some obscure provision of the 14th amendment, but on the necessities of state, and on the president’s role as the ultimate guardian of the constitutional order, charged with taking care that the laws be faithfully executed.

When Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, he said that it was necessary to violate one law, lest all the laws but one fall into ruin. So too here: the president may need to violate the debt ceiling to prevent a catastrophe — whether a default on the debt or an enormous reduction in federal spending, which would throw the country back into recession.

A deadlocked Congress has become incapable of acting consistently; it commits to entitlements it will not reduce, appropriates funds it does not have, borrows money it cannot repay and then imposes a debt ceiling it will not raise. One of those things must give; in reality, that means that the conflicting laws will have to be reconciled by the only actor who combines the power to act with a willingness to shoulder responsibility — the president.

Abe Lincoln did it, but Obama claims he can’t? Seaman, Avlon, and Vince Cable so far are holding their fire on Obama’s role in this embarrassing mess. But he is the one who is ultimately responsible for maintaining the full faith and credit of the U.S. Treasury. That credit has already been harmed by Obama’s failure to act decisively.

I’d say it’s high time to begin impeachment proceedings against this President, or failing that, Democrats should find someone to run against him in the 2012 primaries. This nonsense has gone on long enough. Yes, I understand that Obama wants to gut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, but the Republicans aren’t going to accept a deal when it’s blatantly obvious that they still can get more from this President–he’ll cave on anything. Either Obama needs to get a grip and do the right thing for once, or he needs to find a job he can handle and let someone else lead the United States of America.

Yet another Economic WTF! Post

Posted: July 22, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Black Agenda Report, Economy | Tags: | 19 Comments

For more than the past two years, I’ve been arguing that Obama has been continuing the Bush/Cheney policies in nearly every possible policy area. However, in the economics realm, he’s following the Republican Myth of Reagan.  Ronald Reagan raised taxes 5 times. Ronald Reagan exploded the federal deficit and upped the debt ceiling 17 times in his two terms in office.  Ronald Reagan was probably the last of the presidents that openly used policies that were lopsided, wrongly transcribed Keynesian economics.  Keynesian theory shows the necessity of running surpluses in boom times, balanced budgets in times of full-employment equilibrium, and deficits in recessions and out of necessity in times of war.

Obama fits the mythic image of Republican’s version of Reagan more than the real Ronald Reagan himself.  It is only by the rule of soft bigotry–one that says all black people are some kind of monolith fitting a Sharpton/Jackson stereotype–that drives polls that say that Obama is too liberal, a communist, or a typical Democrat.  Obama continues to refit himself into the stereotype of Ronald Reagan. Period. My favorite place to reference this argument is the Black Agenda Report .  It one of the very few authentic left wing site representing a left wing agenda for America’s poor and black population.  The authors of BAR have had his number for a very long time.  A huge portion of the population just does not want to cast Obama and his policies in the light of a conservative black no matter what the evidence. This is our quintessential problem right now.

I’ve been watching the evolution of Paul Krugman who writes today about “The Lesser Depression” at the NYT.  Despite his mounting, published, and well discussed evidence, he still can’t just come out and say that Obama would be better placed in the Republican party. Obama is taking the same steps that the Herbert Hoover Administration took right before the Great Depression.  We are backtracking the way the Roosevelt administration did around 1936.  None of these policies led to economic confidence or growth. They led to job, financial, and economic loss. They made our country significantly worse off then and this senseless repeat is doing the same thing now.

So we have depressed economies. What are policy makers proposing to do about it? Less than nothing.

The disappearance of unemployment from elite policy discourse and its replacement by deficit panic has been truly remarkable. It’s not a response to public opinion. In a recent CBS News/New York Times poll, 53 percent of the public named the economy and jobs as the most important problem we face, while only 7 percent named the deficit. Nor is it a response to market pressure. Interest rates on U.S. debt remain near historic lows.

Bruce Bartlett–an economic adviser to Ronald Reagan–says that Obama is Richard Nixon.  I think this is generous.  Nixon had a more liberal approach to the nation’s health care challenges, the environment, and to spending.  Nixon accepted the Great Society Policies.  Reagan supported the Great Society Policies and reinvigorated two of them.  Obama obviously doesn’t even support the basics.  He is negotiating behind the back of Senate and Congressional Democrats so that the clock will run out before they can object. They will most likely kowtow to the right’s agenda YET again. Bartlett argues that Obama belongs in the ranks of Republicans.  I agree with this.  I just don’t think he’s as liberal as Nixon or that he is even “moderately conservative”.  Like Reagan, Obama has said one thing and done completely another.  Obama wants to be the Ronald Reagan that never was.

Liberals hoped that Obama would overturn conservative policies and launch a new era of government activism. Although Republicans routinely accuse him of being a socialist, an honest examination of his presidency must conclude that he has in fact been moderately conservative to exactly the same degree that Nixon was moderately liberal.

Here are a few examples of Obama’s effective conservatism:

  • His stimulus bill was half the size that his advisers thought necessary;
  • He continued Bush’s war and national security policies without change and even retained Bush’s defense secretary;
  • He put forward a health plan almost identical to those that had been supported by Republicans such as Mitt Romney in the recent past, pointedly rejecting the single-payer option favored by liberals;
  • He caved to conservative demands that the Bush tax cuts be extended without getting any quid pro quo whatsoever;
  • And in the past few weeks he has supported deficit reductions that go far beyond those offered by Republicans.

Perhaps this is why these CNN Poll results show that the country is fed up with the Republican Congress as well as Obama’s approach to the economy.  People are reluctant to overcome their stereotypes of black politicians, but know something is essentially wrong.  Recent hopes to change the direction that Bush/Cheney took our country have brought us more than just more of the same. Liberals approval of Obama is dropping while independent approval of newly elected Republicans is dropping all over the country.  (See BostonBoomer’s Thursday Morning Post.)  I suggest this shows support for my hypothesis.

President Obama’s approval rating falls to 45%, driven in part by dissatisfaction from the left with Obama’s track record, a new CNN/ORC International poll released today suggests.

The new poll shows that 38% disapprove of Obama because he has been too liberal, but 13% percent say he has not been liberal enough, nearly double those who felt that way in May. His approval rating among liberals is at 71%, an all-time low for his presidency. Overall, those who disapprove of Obama is at 54%, tying an all-time low hit just before November’s midterm elections.

Poll respondents’ negative opinions weren’t reserved just for the president, though — 55% of all Americans have an unfavorable view of the Republican Party, a 7-point increase since March. And only 37% feel the GOP’s policies would move the country in the right direction, a 9-point drop since the start of the year.

We’ve seen the Democratic Congress pulled along by an at best center-right policy on Health Care Reform. They were also party to the abomination of reinstating the Dubya Tax Cuts for Billionaire’s plan.  Now, they are screaming about their irrelevancy in this Debt Ceiling Debate.  The right question now is only this.  How far to the right will this deficit plan be? The necessary answer can be found in these questions. How thoroughly will Obama and congressional Republicans decimate the country’s social safety nets and its successful social insurance programs?  How detached will this plan be from using revenues from the beneficiaries of 30 years of bad policy to halt subsidizing the globalization of US Treasure?  How much longer will we continue to subsidize economic colonization with our wealth to places that only drag our wages down, decimate the global ecosystem, tolerate wars that make the world safer for US corporations, and import our jobs and investments? If Bartlett wants a realistic vision of a Republican President that fits Obama, I suggest Warren G. Harding.

Boehner and Obama are Going to Need Nancy Pelosi’s Help

Posted: July 21, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, Medicare, Republican politics, Social Security, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , | 8 Comments

A woman scorned?

I wonder if it ever dawned on the men who cut Nancy Pelosi out of their early Debt meetings that they would be needing her help to pass a bill down the road? The LA Times has a major article about the situation today.

As the clock ticks down toward a possible government default, it appears to be less and less likely that a package can be crafted that will appease the large bloc of House conservatives who either oppose raising the debt ceiling on principle or won’t vote to hike it without massive cuts in federal spending.

That means that Pelosi, the former speaker who presides over a shrunken Democratic minority in the House, likely will come into play. Any plan that passes the Senate, be it the fallback option by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell or a more ambitious proposal like the one being crafted by the so-called Gang of Six, will only be able to pass the House if Democratic votes push it over the finish line.

At least 80 Republicans have said they oppose the McConnell plan; therefore, at least 60 Democrats would have to vote yes for the bill to pass the House. Many Republicans have also rejected the “Gang of Six” plan. That puts Nancy Pelosi back in the catbird seat.

The Californian hasn’t been in this position very often this year. The Republican rout last November crippled Democrats in the House. She surprised many by deciding to stay on as minority leader, choosing to remain a lonely progressive voice in a chamber swept by “tea party” fever. The large GOP majority means that Democrats are rarely a legislative factor — and Pelosi has lost her status as conservatives’ Public Enemy No. 1.

That also has meant that the White House hasn’t had much use for her either. Earlier this month, she appeared blindsided by reports that President Obama was considering tinkering with Medicare and Social Security as a means of reaching a deficit-reduction deal with Speaker John Boehner. But she quickly became a ringing voice on the left pushing back on the proposal.

Revenge is sweet, and I hope Pelosi remembers that when the President and the Speaker come calling. Don’t believe a word they say, Nancy! We need you to stand strong on Social Security, Medicare, and taxing the rich at least a little bit.

Thursday Reads

Posted: July 21, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, Democratic Politics, Federal Budget and Budget deficit, morning reads, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics, Social Security, the internet, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, unemployment, voodoo economics, We are so F'd | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 41 Comments

Good Morning!! I’m going to start out with some interesting poll results that came out yesterday.

According to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, a lot of ordinary Republicans are unhappy with their GOP representatives in Washington, DC. From the WaPo:

While Republicans in Congress have remained united in their opposition to any tax increases, the poll finds GOP majorities favoring some of the specific changes advocated by the president, including higher income tax rates for the wealthiest Americans.

There is also broad dissatisfaction with Obama’s unwillingness to reach across the aisle: Nearly six in 10 of those polled say the president has not been open enough to compromise. Among independents, 79 percent say Republicans aren’t willing enough to make a deal, while 62 percent say the same of Obama.

Republicans may also be losing the war of perception about who stands with whom in the debates over the deficit and the economy. A majority view the president as more committed to protecting the interests of the middle class and small businesses, while large majorities see Republicans as defending the economic interests of big corporations and Wall Street financial institutions.

ABC’s The Note reports that based on the same poll,

Against a backdrop of broad concern about the impact of default, 80 percent of Americans in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll say they’re dissatisfied or even angry with the way the federal government is working, up 11 points in a single month. It last was this high in 1992, during the economic downturn that cost the first President Bush a second term.

The times today are nearly as tough: The ABC News Frustration Index has risen to 72 on its scale of 0 to 100, its highest since just before the 2010 midterm elections and well into the political danger zone. The index combines dissatisfaction with the government, anti-incumbent sentiment and ratings of the president and the economy alike.

But unlike 1992 – or 2010 – the opposition party’s taking even more heat than the president. While President Obama for the first time has fallen under 40 percent approval for handling the economy, the Republicans in Congress do even worse, 28 percent approval. On handling the deficit, it’s a weak 38 percent approval for Obama, but a weaker 27 percent for the GOP. And on handling taxes, Obama has 45 percent approval, the GOP, 31 percent.

It’s good to know that some Americans are getting angry. I wish they’d get out the pitchforks and make some noise about it in the streets.

A couple of GOP governors are dropping in the polls too. Media star Chris Christie is turning off his NJ constituents.

Gov. Chris Christie’s popularity has declined significantly over the first half of 2011 and he would have a very difficult time winning reelection if voters in New Jersey went to the polls today, according to a survey by Public Policy Polling.

While Republican activists outside New Jersey want Christie to seek the party’s 2012 presidential nomination, only 43 percent of Garden State voters approve of the job the governor is doing to 53 percent who disapprove.

The figures represent a 13 point decline from when Public Policy Polling last surveyed voters in January, when Christie’s standing was 48 percent approval and 45 percent disapproval.

Christie’s numbers are steady with Republicans but independents have really turned on him, going from approving by a 55 percent to 39 percent margin to disapproving by a 54 percent to 40 percent margin. And his crossover popularity with Democrats is on the decline as well. Where 23 percent approved of him in January, now only 16 percent do.

Christie has been making huge cuts in government services. I guess austerity isn’t as popular with the grass roots as it is with the power elites.

Gov. John Kasich of Ohio is even more unpopular than Christie.

The latest poll released Wednesday by Connecticut’s Quinnipiac University showed that only 35 percent of registered voters approve of the job the Republican governor has done in his first six months. Exactly half say they disapprove, up 1 percentage point since May, with the remainder undecided.

“Even after the state budget has been approved as he promised without raising taxes, and even though the Quinnipiac University poll finds that 63 percent say they favor such an approach, Gov. Kasich’s name remains mud in the eyes of the Ohio electorate,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

The same poll shows that even some of those who approve of the governor’s performance are prepared to reject his signature law restricting the collective bargaining power of government employees at the ballot on Nov. 8. Fifty-six percent of voters say it should be repealed, up 2 percentage points since May.

Republicans always overreach, don’t they? It looks like the 2010 win may have been just a flash in the pan.

Michele Bachmann is surging in the polls against Mitt Romney.

The Minnesota congresswoman returned to Iowa early Wednesday morning as polls show her gaining ground nationally as a top alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the early front-runner for the GOP nomination. Since formally entering the race last month, she has eclipsed other Republicans in the field, including fellow Minnesotan Tim Pawlenty, who has been actively campaigning all year.

The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll offered a statistical glimpse at their diverging fortunes. In the poll, 16% of the registered Republicans picked Ms. Bachmann as their top choice, putting her second behind Mr. Romney, who remains the first choice of 30% of the Republicans polled. In the same survey, 2% of registered Republicans chose the former Minnesota governor as their top pick, down from 6% in April.

Meanwhile, Bachmann is still being hassled about her migraine headaches. Karl Rove is calling for her to release her medical records. Boy those Republican power brokers are really scared of Bachmann, aren’t they?

A doctor who has examined Bachmann says the headaches aren’t a big deal.

A letter dated Wednesday from a congressional doctor whose office has examined Republican Michele Bachmann described the presidential candidate’s migraines as occurring “infrequently” and controlled by prescription medication.

Bachmann’s campaign distributed the letter from Dr. Brian Monahan, the attending physician in Congress. Bachmann has been evaluated by that office during her three terms in Washington.

Former NH Senator Judd Gregg thinks the Republicans in the House will push the debt limit battle to the brink. In fact, he thinks it will take Social Security checks not going out to get them to agree to raising the debt ceiling.

“My gut tells me that we’ll need a weekend of drama — maybe a weekend of the government not paying its bills — politicians need drama to make something happen. As soon as social security checks don’t go out, the politics will change. I suspect it’ll take artificial drama to get closure past the House.”

“Boehner understands that a shutdown is bad for his caucus and that there’s something viable short of a shutdown but right now… it’s a 50-50 chance that we go into a few days of disruption.”

Gregg said lawmakers don’t really care about the nation’s credit rating:

“Policy-makers only worry about a ratings downgrade at the margins. They don’t really care. The ratings agencies put themselves in a corner that’s foolish. I’ve always found them to be incredibly naive about the political process. To be so definitive is foolish.”

“For the ratings agencies to make this drop-dead date, it’s stupid and naive because we’ll straighten it out, but our process doesn’t allow it to do it overnight.”

Gregg says all this will means the Republicans get most of the blame for the mess. They didn’t learn anything from what happened to Gingrich, did they?

Gregg is probably right about the gang of six plan, since that is basically what the Republicans already rejected. And Brian Beutler reports that they are rejecting it again.

As time goes on, and conservative interest groups and members of Congress rip into it, support among Republicans for the Gang of Six plan to reduce deficits will begin to wane. In fact, that’s already happening.

In a publicly released memo meant to undermine support for the Gang of Six plan in its current form, House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) laments, “it increases revenues while failing to seriously address exploding federal spending on health care, which is the primary driver of our debt. There are also serious concerns that the proposal’s substance on spending falls far short of what is needed to achieve the savings it claims.”

And check this out from Politico:

A few wealthy donors have called Cantor to tell him they wouldn’t mind if their taxes are raised. During two closed meetings this week — one with vote-counting lawmakers, and another with the entire conference — Cantor told colleagues that some well-heeled givers have told them they’re willing to pay more taxes. Cantor, according to an aide, has responded that House Republicans aren’t standing up for the wealthy, but rather for the middle class, who want to see their taxes stay low.

Yeah sure, Eric. You’re standing up for the middle class. ROFLOL!

With unemployment so high, all we need is more impediments to getting hired. According to the NYT, even obscure blog comments could come into play as companies evaluate job candidates.

A year-old start-up, Social Intelligence, scrapes the Internet for everything prospective employees may have said or done online in the past seven years.

Then it assembles a dossier with examples of professional honors and charitable work, along with negative information that meets specific criteria: online evidence of racist remarks; references to drugs; sexually explicit photos, text messages or videos; flagrant displays of weapons or bombs and clearly identifiable violent activity.

[….]

Less than a third of the data surfaced by Mr. Drucker’s firm comes from such major social platforms as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. He said much of the negative information about job candidates comes from deep Web searches that find comments on blogs and posts on smaller social sites, like Tumblr, the blogging site, as well as Yahoo user groups, e-commerce sites, bulletin boards and even Craigslist.

….it is photos and videos that seem to get most people in trouble. “Sexually explicit photos and videos are beyond comprehension,” Mr. Drucker said. “We also see flagrant displays of weapons. And we see a lot of illegal activity. Lots and lots of pictures of drug use.”

I’ll end with this nightmarish story from the LA Times: Witness tells of horror as 3 swept over Vernal Fall in Yosemite

Bibee, a 28-year-old carpenter who grew up in Angels Camp, northwest of the park, had brought Amanda Lee, a visitor from Missouri, to the top of Vernal Fall on Tuesday — her first visit to Yosemite, but the latest of many for him.

They were standing behind a metal barricade, peering at the cascade….Bibee saw a man cross over the barricade. He was leaning over the 317-foot waterfall, holding a young girl, who was screaming in terror. People begged them to get back. “I’m yelling at him, ‘You SOB, get over here!'” Bibee said. Eventually, the two returned to safety.

But then Bibee noticed that three other people had also crossed over, and were “taking pictures and being stupid.”

The three people, members of a church group, fell into the water and went over the falls. All are presumed dead. Why would people go past a barricade and warning signs to stand on the edge of a raging waterfall? But it’s not the first time. The article says twelve people have gone over the falls previously–all were killed.

That’s it for me. What are you reading and blogging about today?

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