On the Relative Wisdom of Insulting People You Want to Vote for You

Towey's Hypocritical Hooey: Bush 'Faith Czar' Complains About Politicization Of White House Faith-Based Office
Under James Towey, the White House faith-based office was used to promote Republican Candidates in tight House and Senate races. James Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under President George W. Bush, had an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal recently carping because President Barack Obama has used his administrations faith-based offices to let Americans know about the New Health-care law. Towey says if he had politicized his...

Will TARP Turn to Gold?
The Thread is an in-depth look at how major news and controversies are being debated across the online spectrum. Tags: banks , president Obama , TARP , Wall Street “It wasn’t fair, but it was necessary.” That comment about the Troubled Asset Relief Program, from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in April, seemed about the best that anyone would ever say of it. But with the program officially coming to an end on Sunday, some folks are pushing a different description:...

New Poll Finds Only 39% Would Vote to Re-Elect Obama, 67% of Dems Want Hillary to Replace Biden as VP...
Poll after poll shows these two are less popular than a vagina at Bawney Fwank’s house, the only thing that worries me is they will bottom out too soon before 2012 (as unlikely as it is)… (Fox News) - The 2012 Presidential race begins in earnest on Nov. 3 — the day after the upcoming Midterm Elections — and President Obama looks to be in trouble at the starting gate. A Fox News poll released Friday shows that 54 percent of Voters say they would vote for someone else...

The Empty Suit in the White House
This “interview with an insider” is going all around the web, and thanks to the friend who sent it to me. It may not be real, but it sure is interesting: A longtime Washington D.C. insider, and former advisor to the Obama Election Campaign and transition team, speaks out on an administration in crisis, and a president increasingly withdrawn from the job of President. 2008 gave America an incredibly charismatic Candidate for President of the United States. Speech after Speech showed...

At least they're gone
Democrats have lefttown without passing a Budget or any appropriations bills, nor have they answered the questionAmericansin every Tax bracket are asking: What will my taxrate be comeJanuary 2011? The focus for Democrats now is not on legislating, nor on touting their unpopular accomplishments, but rather on Attack Ads calling into question the personal records of their Republican opponents taxes, business dealings, Divorce proceedings. It isn't likely to be so effective,...

Thing One and Thing Two, to Movement Progressives: "Grow Up!"
Obamelot is boring, Seussville is better: Thing One and Thing Two I wrote much of this a day or so ago but didn’t have time to Post it until now. On the completely off chance that someone reading this Post hasn’t already heard about the sloppily choreographed one-two punch from President Obnoxious and Vice President Noxious by now, here is a brief replay of their antics. Let’s start with Thing One’s “Buck Up” lecture from the end of his latest interview...

Polls Show Race Tightening, But Democrats Still Have Uphill Battle
If you were to follow the conventional wisdom coming from the news media pundits you might believe that the Democrats are facing certain doom and Barack Obama is highly unpopular. There is still over a month before the Election and there are signs that the Election is tightening. While both houses of Congress are now in play, it is too early to predict the results. One problem with the conventional wisdom saying that the Democrats will do poorly is that this could influence behavior and harm...

Conservatives Just Killed 240,000 Jobs
Conservatives in Congress just fired 240,000 American workers. Conservatives in Congress just killed 240,000 Jobs. Conservatives in Congress just essentially added 240,000 more Americans to the ranks of the unemployed . However you frame it, people who want to work and have been Working are soon to be out of work, thanks to GOP Senators members who refused to reauthorize — even for three months — a Stimulus program so successful it won praise from Republicans like...

Tin Ears and pride going before the fall
At least, let’s hope : Hours after adjourning a week early and punting on Tax Cuts and appropriations bills, House Democratic Leaders offered a broad defense of their agenda, framing their accomplishments as historic while casting Republicans as obstructionists not worthy of the public trust. Speaking in a studio in the Capitol Visitors Center, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Democratic Congressional...

Obama hails departing Rahm Emanuel, the #$&@)* tough guy who chokes up anyway (SFW)
Rahm Emanuel, the savyy, rough-talking top aide to President Obama , left his White House job today to return to what every Windy City pol regards as the Big Leagues, the nation's No. 3 city where he'll seek to become head of the long-dominant Democratic machine that he once served as a go-fer. He must register his candidacy by Nov. 22. Obama gave his longtime political friend a send-off full of bounteous praise (see full text and video below), and what sounded like a mayoral...

Now It's Rouse's Show
Rahm is now officially gone. In his place, is Pete Rouse . Intensely private, Mr. Rouse is unmarried and lives alone in northwest Washington with his two cats. (He is a big cat person, friends say.) He is not given to socializing; when Mr. Daschle hosted a huge staff reunion just before he left the Senate, Mr. Rouse did not show. He is also a huge music buff; in 2008, he persuaded the surviving members of The Grateful Dead to reunite and campaign for Mr. Obama. I saw the Dead play at Penn...

Obama promotes clean-energy technology
W ASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is promoting his administration’s investments in Clean Energy technologies like wind and solar, arguing they produce Jobs and are essential for the country’s environment and economic security. In his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday, a month out from crucial Midterm Elections, the president also accused Republicans of wanting to scrap incentives for such projects. "That’s what’s at stake in this debate," the president...

Euro-zone debt crisis is over, Spain's leader says
By SANTIAGO PéREZ NEW YORK—Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero declared that the European Debt crisis is over but said that the governments have to work better together and with Markets to stave off such events. Joe Fornabaio for The Wall Street Journal Zapatero Tuesday in New York. Journal Community Europe's Debt Crisis View Interactive "I believe that the Debt crisis affecting Spain, and the euro zone in general, has passed," Mr. Zapatero said in an...

Kathleen Parker: I'm 'Slightly to the Right of Center;' Fan of Obama
On Thursday's Larry King Live, future anchor Kathleen Parker verified her tenuous conservative credentials, as she identified herself as a " conservative ," but added, " a pox on everybody's house, as far as I'm concerned ." She later confessed that she " would put myself ... slightly to the right of center ," and that she was " a big fan of Barack Obama as he came into office ... I didn't want him to fail ." Anchor Larry King brought on Parker and future...

With Hillary, Obama avoided an LBJ mistake
Scoff all you like at Gallup's new Barack Obama vs. Hillary Clinton head-to-head Poll, in which the president leads his Secretary of State among Democrats, 52 to 37 percent. Big Deal. The numbers aren't bad for Hillary, but her political army is completely demobilized, if not folded into the Obama corps. Of course, it's easy to think this now. But imagine if she had stayed in the Senate? One doesn't have to wonder too hard: there's a close enough comparison in Lyndon Johnson and Robert...

Immigration Advocates Target GOP In DREAM Act Ads
To mobilize Hispanic Voters in November, big Labor and advocates of liberal efforts at overhauling Immigration laws have announced a $300,000 ad campaign attacking Republican Senators for blocking passage of the so-called Dream Act. The ad will air on Spanish-language radio stations in Arizona, Florida, Nevada and other States with large Latino populations. The effort was conceived and funded by the Service Employees International Union, Mi Familia Vota and America's Voice, which say the...

Immigration Advocates Target GOP In DREAM Act Ads
To mobilize Hispanic Voters in November, big Labor and advocates of liberal efforts at overhauling Immigration laws have announced a $300,000 ad campaign attacking Republican Senators for blocking passage of the so-called Dream Act. The ad will air on Spanish-language radio stations in Arizona, Florida, Nevada and other States with large Latino populations. The effort was conceived and funded by the Service Employees International Union, Mi Familia Vota and America's Voice, which say the...

Swing Women Voters & The Midterms
As we hurtle toward the Midterms, campaign-watchers are beginning to speculate whether women hold the key to the next House majority. Recent press stories, current Public polling, and our own recent work, suggest swing women voters engage with politics differently than we might think. The political language we speak in Washington is simply not spoken by the voters who ultimately tip the scale in close races. My firm, Momentum Analysis, along with Neil Newhouse and Alex Bratty of the...

Choked-up Emanuel leaves White House
An emotional Rahm Emanuel said goodbye Friday to the White House in what President Obama described as the least suspenseful announcement in history. Emanuels departure was rumored from the moment Chicago Mayor Richard Daley announced his Retirement, and the news of a White House announcement that he would leave immediately to run for Daleys old job leaked out early this week. But that didnt prevent the White House from giving Emanuel a grand send-off from the East Room, where most of...

Arianna Huffington: Replacing Summers: Will Obama Please Wall Street or Struggling Americans?
Help wanted: one of the leading political Administrations in the world seeks to fill senior economic position. Duties include putting an implausible spin on dismal economic conditions. Being skilled at improving actual economic conditions not a requirement. Experience as a corporate CEO preferred. Sadly, if reports are correct, that seems to be the gist of how the Obama Administration is going about filling Larry Summers' soon-to-be vacated seat as the director of the National Economic...

Well deserved kudos for the Recovery Act
WELL DESERVED KUDOS FOR THE Recovery Act.... There's a certain awkwardness that comes with defending last year's Stimulus, and not just because polls tend to find it unpopular. On the one hand, we see entirely legitimate criticisms from the left about the need for the Recovery Act to have been much bigger. On the right, we see complaints that the Stimulus was a bad idea because ... well, whatever it is Conservatives are unhappy about now. But the White House's defense of the Economic...

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, 10/1/2010
12:45 P.M. EDT MR. Gibbs:  So let’s -- I don’t know, we’re missing a few folks, but they’ll be on their way.  Let me just do a quick week ahead and then I can answer your questions.  On Monday, the President will attend a meeting of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board here at the White House. On Tuesday, the President will join Dr. Jill Biden at the First ever White House Summit on Community Colleges.  This event will highlight the...

U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments
About one third of those who were infected never got adequate treatment. On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius offered extensive apologies for actions taken by the U.S. Public Health Service. "The Sexually transmitted Disease inoculation study conducted from 1946-1948 in Guatemala was clearly unethical," according to the joint statement from Clinton and Sebelius. "Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are...

October 1
October 1 Friday, 10/1/2010 - 8:56 am by Tim Price | Post a Comment --> Friday, 10/1/2010 - 8:56 am by Tim Price | Post a Comment What you need to know to navigate today’s most critical Debates. Congress Sets Stage for Major Spending Showdown in December ( TPM ) Democrats have saved some tough fights for the Post-midterm Lame-duck session, because everyone knows how well they hold up under adversity. Emanuel’s replacement is ‘fixer’ ( WaPo ) With Rahm Emanuel...

Who Were Those Clinton-McCain Crossover Voters?
CBS News' Election and Survey Unit's survey analyst extraordinaire Jennifer De Pinto goes inside the Exit Polls from last week's Election and finds some interesting nuggets about those Hillary Clinton supporters who voted for John McCain: As voters left the Polls on Election Day, many were asked how they would have voted if the Election match-up were between Hillary Clinton and John McCain rather than Barack Obama and McCain. 52 percent said they would have backed the former Democratic...