Gallup has an interesting tool that allows comparing presidential approval ratings. The graph above (click to embiggen) is Obama vs Clinton, Carter and the average among Democrats. As you can see, for all the talk about Obama’s unpopularity among members of his party, he’s generally doing better than the Big Dog, and he’s doing much better than Carter and the historical average. He’s doing a bit worse than average among Republicans, and about the same as the others among Independents.
Archives for September 2011
Early Morning Open Thread: Welcome to the World
From commentor Leinie:
I mentioned in the threads before they were born that the stray we took in was having kittens, and you said to send you a picture once their eyes were open. So here they are. The first picture is right after their eyes opened, with their mama, Emma Grace.
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In the picture with just the kittens they are, from back to front, Hannah, Jules, and Butthead, who got his name because he always wanted to be by his mom’s bum until he was about 2 weeks old. I call him Buttsey.
Emma Grace is such a gorgeous cat, I’m sure all three of her babies will grow up to be beautiful dignified felines as well. Still, if the hind-ender doesn’t mature into a Buttram, he can always go by Buttsey Wooster.
What’s on the agenda for yet another Monday morning?
Early Morning Open Thread: Welcome to the WorldPost + Comments (38)
Tech Question
AT&T runs my cell service. Is there any way to log in online and use a computer to text friends?
Texting on a cell phone is near impossible for me. I have two thumbs like sausage links, and I’ve broken every finger 2-4 times playing soccer, lacrosse, various Army incidents, and the occasional Cole stupidity (broke three in a car door on my left hand somehow, fell down the stairs a decade ago and broke two bracing myself, etc.). My fingers are gnarled stumps that throb all day, when they aren’t numb.
So is there anyway I can use a computer keyboard to send texts that way?
Also, in relation to AL’s post below, if you are commenting and find yourself in the spam filter, please email me. I need to know.
Open Thread: Rogue FYWP Alert
I just looked at the top layer of the spam filter, and half a dozen regular commentors had been “sin binned” for perfectly unobjectionable comments about gardening, pet nutrition, Star Trek nostalgia, and which team deserved to win.
Apparently FYWP is in one of its random mucker phases. I’ll keep checking for How-the-Hell-could-that-get-called-Spam, but if you’re worried about your comments disappearing, my email address is AnneLaurie at verizon dot net (or click on my name near the top of the right-hand column).
P.S. Please don’t email Cole, I don’t think he can fix FYWP’s tantrum either.
Emmy’s Open Thread
For those of you who are so inclined. I’ll be watching the Eagles and the Falcons.
Disarray in Cleveland
I went to the state party Women’s Caucus meeting in Cleveland yesterday. Jennifer Brunner was there, and I finally broke down and purchased an actual camera last week, so I took her picture:
She was very excited for me, that I had a new camera. I think you can see that in her face.
The women in the county where I live were really taken with Brunner in 2006, and she came out to the boonies several times to meet with us. She was elected Secretary of State in Ohio in 2006 and almost immediately became the favored target of the media personalities at Fox News:examples here, here and here. As you may know, GRETA VAN SUSTEREN is the Fox employee who is tasked with misrepresenting US election law and process to Fox viewers, so she was the lead on the coordinated Brunner smear.
Brunner said yesterday that she had intended to take a hiatus from political battles for a while, but then Ohio Republicans passed a voter suppression law so she’s back out explaining actual U.S. election process, or, the unglamorous and dull mechanics of voter registration and voting.
Brunner was a Common Pleas judge in Ohio before she was Secretary of State, and to me she still sounds like a judge. Her speech was very lawyerly and restrained. She simply outlined the changes in voting process that Ohio Republicans have instituted, and listed the problems for voters that she anticipates as a result of those changes. The crazed ACORN warrior that Fox News anchors invented has absolutely no connection to the reality of Jennifer Brunner, so there’s a shocker for you, out of Cleveland.
Cecile Richards was there (obviously, I didn’t take this photo) h/t Jezebel
Cecile Richards is the daughter of Ann Richards, the former Governor of Texas.
A 2004 Texas Monthly profile described her as ” a striking six-footer and longtime labor organizer with a bright, explosive laugh who can stop a room when she walks into it just as her mother can.”
I agree with that description completely.
I had never heard Richards speak before, and she was very good. She described the Republican and media assault on Planned Parenthood in great detail; how and why it “spontaneously” arose and was everywhere, all at once. She said the GOP assault on Planned Parenthood at both the state and federal level was “like dropping a match on dry tinder”, and that she believes the crazed rush to destroy Planned Parenthood led directly to half a million new members for Planned Parenthood since the midterm elections. I don’t know how many new members Planned Parenthood ordinarily gets in any year, but a half million new members certainly sounds like a lot, so thanks for that, conservatives.
Good turn-out, and the women didn’t seem to me to be any more fractious, combative or disarrayed than any other large (or small) group of Democratic Party activists I’ve encountered. The biggest applause line of the day was the call to re-elect Obama and Sherrod Brown.
Probably Not the Next BJ Book Chat Selection
Whatever the eventual verdict on Ron “Reality-Based Community” Suskind’s new book, surely all reasonable people can agree with NYMag that Larry Summers is a toxic pest:
Adam [Moss]: Hi, Frank. So there’s a little commotion about this new book Confidence Men, by Ron Suskind, which is being published on Tuesday… To give readers a super-fast overview, it’s a book, essentially, about Obama’s economic team during his first two years in office. The news of the book, according to some reports, is that Tim Geithner was insubordinate to the president, pursuing his own pro-banker agenda. Or, according to other reports, that Larry Summers was insubordinate to the president, pursuing his own — well, monomaniacal agenda. I’d add that it’s also about Rahm Emanuel being insubordinate to the president, just because. Basically, it’s about the presidency being hijacked by these three guys. And the guys thing is important because they’re pretty awful to women. Anyway, they’re the villains. Paul Volcker, Christina Romer, and Elizabeth Warren are the heroes. Bankers win, America loses. Did I get that right?
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Frank [Rich]: Hi, Adam, and yes, you did! I would point out that among the other heroes are more women (Sheila Bair, Brooksley Born, Maria Cantwell) and at least one man, the Princeton economist Alan Krueger, who also seems to be a serious Suskind source and who has now returned to the White House to succeed Austan Goolsbee and Romer as head of the Council of Economic Advisers. Not that that will do any good…
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AM: … Summers is portrayed as an egotistical nut job, single-mindedly determined to get Bernanke’s job; when he doesn’t get it, he goes bananas. He is supposed to be a conduit for the collective advice of the team, but undermines his colleagues, only passing along advice and information that supports his positions. I was kind of stunned how many officials were willing to go on the record against him.
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Peter Orszag relays this eviscerating quote that Summers said to him about Obama during the worst of the economic distress. According to Orszag, Summers says, “You know, Peter we’re really home alone. There’s no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes.” Later, Orszag says to Suskind, “Larry just didn’t think the president knew what he was deciding. Was this [obstruction of the president’s wishes] outright and willful?” In other words, asks Orszag, was Summers saying, “I know more than the president flat-out? That strikes me as … likely.” In an amazing memo, Pete Rouse, who would replace Emanuel temporarily as chief of staff, recommends firing Summers for “Larry’s imperious and heavy-handed direction of the economic policy process.” Romer says Summers made her feel “like a piece of meat.”
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In the end, nobody’s talking to Summers — not even his crony Geithner… At least according to Suskind, the only person who could stand Summers was Obama, which — in Suskind’s telling — was a misjudgment that had a rather profound effect on the first chunk of Obama’s presidency…
Probably Not the Next BJ Book Chat SelectionPost + Comments (218)