David Corn

"And I'm thinking of a question, just in case....."

Um, several questions?

Good ones just the same.

"Will you fight for a public health option by mobilizing your millions of supporters? "

Do you get the emails from Obama? I've been getting requests for $25 to fight for healthcare.

All Nonwhite Converging on Hypernegative View of GOP

A new poll from DailyKos/Research 2000 shows Latino support for the Republican Party dropping like a stone, perhaps due to the racist attacks on Sonia Sotomayor from many prominent conservative commentators:

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/06/all-nonwhite-converging-on-hypernegative-view-of-gop.php

*****

Well they want party purity - there you have it.

Master manipulator Michael Savage strikes again

Who was it who said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics?"

Our favorite Right-wing radio blowhard knows the latter all too well. He's made a career out of cherry picking and slanting stats to support his, um, facts.

And he did it again during the first hour of his program tonight. Savage loves to throw out poll results to show that President Obama's approval ratings are dropping, whether they are or not. Remember, telling the truth is not a requirement for entry into the Savage Nation.

Savage mentioned a Rasmussen Report poll which purportedly shows Obama's rantings tanking, "In the negatives," Savage blithely said.

And, as usual, he was lying.

http://www.pollingreport.com/obama_job.htm#ObamaJob

http://tinyurl.com/lf2saq

World Net Daily, GOP Profit From Birthers and Racists at Their (and Our) Own Peril

[...]

Birthers get around the inconvenient fact that Obama's birth certificate exists and has already been released by demanding a so-called "long-form" certificate. Thing is, Hawaii no longer issues "long form" certificates of live birth. The birth certificate Obama has released is as official as it gets.

Even still, birthers are gearing up for a denial of a long-form certificate, should it be released. There's a conspiracy brewing already about how the administration has printed a fake long-form certificate and is now "seasoning" it to make it appear old.

http://blog.buzzflash.com/analysis/834

******

I hope the birthers stay on message and very vocal!

Tapes Reveal Nixon’s View of Abortion

WASHINGTON — On Jan. 23, 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down state criminal abortion laws in Roe v. Wade, President Richard M. Nixon made no public statement. But privately, newly released tapes reveal, he expressed ambivalence.

Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases, such as interracial pregnancies.

“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding: “Or a rape.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/us/politics/24nixon.html?em

Busted! Obama's Question From HuffingtonPost Blogger Was Set Up Earlier In The Day

Tuesday, June 23, 2009 2:37:24 PM

This propaganda is not a surprise when we've seen time after time Obama's Town Hall meetings are filled with Democratic supporters asking questions. This from today, HuffPo gets second question on purpose...

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey DC, no wonder Obama hasn't called on you. You need to get on the liberal propaganda machine brother!

Independents' Warning for Obama

The Wall Street Journal ^ | June 23, 2009 | Gerald F. Seib

Independent voters are the canaries in the coal mine of American politics, telling a leader whether the air is safe or starting to fill up with some toxic gases.

Bearing that in mind, President Barack Obama and his team ought to start worrying about the health of those canaries.

While the president remains broadly popular, his standing has eroded noticeably among political independents in recent weeks. That slide, among a set of citizens central to Mr. Obama's sizable victory in last year's election, means he has reached a politically hazardous juncture at the midpoint of his first, exceptionally hectic year.

The shifting attitude among independent voters, in fact, is the most significant change to emerge from a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, completed just last week. In that survey, Mr. Obama's job-approval rating among Americans overall slipped a notch, to 56% from 61% in April. That's not much of a drop, and is in keeping with the pattern for a new president at this point in his term.

But the slide was much more pronounced among self-identified purely independent voters -- that is, Americans who express no loyalty to either party.

Among these people, who tend to reside in the middle of the ideological spectrum, the president's job-approval rating fell to 45% from 60% in April.

The drop is the result of a "much more critical evaluation by these voters of President Obama" than in the administration's earlier months, Democrat Peter Hart and Republican Bill McInturff, directors of the Journal/NBC News poll, write in their analysis of the findings.

In particular, the survey suggests, independents are developing gnawing fears about government spending.

The Zombie Party

[...]

We know what happens when movements or parties continue to stagger forward after running out of ideas: They become zombies. Zombie parties are a recurrent feature of electoral democracies. Unable to articulate any coherent or workable governing philosophy, they mindlessly jab at cultural hot buttons, mechanically repeat hardwired tropes ("cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes"), nurse tribal resentments, ostracize independent thinkers. Above all, they feel positively proud of their doggedness. You can’t talk them out of it. Think of the Republicans in the FDR years, the Democrats in the Reagan years, the British Labour Party in the Thatcher period, and the British Conservative Party in the Blair period. Think of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party for most of the past half-century, or France’s Socialists today. To get a new brain, zombie parties usually need to spend years out of power or wait until a new generation rises to leadership.

"The refusal of so many of my fellow conservatives in the United States to adapt their thinking to facts and realities does not demonstrate their adherence to principle," David Frum recently wrote in Canada’s National Post. "It demonstrates a frivolous indifference to the responsibilities of political leadership." But Frum will tell you that his admonitions fall on deaf ears. "These days," he writes, "the question I hear most from political comrades is: ‘What the hell happened to you?’ " There are smart, modern people in the Republican Party and the conservative movement. But the movement is in no mood to listen to them.

http://www.jonathanrauch.com/jrauch_articles/2009/06/the-zombie-party.html