Clockwise from left: Liz Lauten, Malia and Sasha Obama at White House Thanksgiving event, former Rep. Joe Walsh, Rep. Stephen Fincher
Decent people everywhere are still absorbing the shock from the scandal that erupted when a Republican Capitol Hill staffer, Elizabeth Lauten, a former Republican National Committee apparatchik who has served in communications positions under two tea party congressmen, took to Facebook over the Thanksgiving holiday to smear Pres. Obama’s daughters, Sasha, 16, and Malia, 13, as having no class and dressing like sluts:
Of likely voters — a majority for the first time — want Congress to fix the new national health care law rather than repeal it, a new Rasmussen survey finds. While 30% still think Congress should repeal it entirely and start over again, just 13% want to leave the law as is.
Kind of cool. I always say, cooler than most politicians, not as cool as actual cool people. He’s not cool like Jay Z’s cool. He’s not Eddie Murphy. But in a world of politicians … ”
— Comedian Chris Rock, in an interview with Frank Rich, on his impressions of President Obama.
Of Americans “believe Republican control of both chambers of Congress will be bad for the country, and a majority say it will in fact cause more gridlock in Washington,” a new CNN/ORC poll finds. Also interesting: 68% of Americans polled say the GOP isn’t cooperating enough with President Obama, while 57% say it’s Obama who’s not cooperating enough with the GOP.
— President Obama, quoted by the New York Post, picking up a copy of Chuck Todd’s new book, “The Stranger: Barack Obama in the White House,” in a Washington, D.C., bookstore.
President Obama’s job approval rating among white non-college graduates so far in 2014, 14 percentage points lower than among white college graduates. This is the largest yearly gap between these two groups since Obama took office, a new Gallup poll finds. “These data underscore the magnitude of the Democratic Party’s problem with working-class whites, among whom Obama lost in the 2012 presidential election, and among whom Democratic House candidates lost in the 2014 U.S. House voting by 30 points.”
We pose no threat to anyone and do not intend to get involved in any geopolitical games or intrigues, let alone conflicts, no matter who tries to draw us into them or how they do so.
— Russian President Vladimir Putin, quoted by Reuters.
The recent news out of Kentucky was just awful,
They found the senator unconscious and horizontal.
And since his hospitalization,
There’s been little news about his condition,
But now everybody’s having a 20-minute conversation with Mitch McConnell.
“We are done, Americans are done with endless conflict in the Middle East, spending trillions of dollars, American lives… this is insane and we have to call it for what it is.”
An Associated Press-NORC survey found that 44% of American Jews hold a favorable opinion of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, compared with 39% who view him unfavorably. By contrast, just 32% of respondents said they have a favorable opinion of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while 59% said they have a negative view.
“Their New Deal is socialism for the super-rich (and their own enrichment) even if it means increasing poverty, inequality, and illness at home and around the world. They also want to rewrite history to ignore and outright deny our past flaws while banning books that say otherwise from our libraries. And they select even our military leaders based on their version of political correctness over ability.”
— Former President Bill Clinton, quoted by Deadline, in his July 4th message.
President Donald Trump is asking for $1,500,000 million for the military for next year. That’s close to $600 billion (adjusted for inflation) more than we were spending on the military in fiscal year 2025, before Trump took office, Alternet reports. This increase is huge by any measure. It comes to around $4,600 per household. It is around 8% of the total budget.
A new Emerson College survey of likely 2026 voters finds the Democrats with an 11-point advantage over the Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, leading 53% to 42%. President Trump holds a 39% job approval rating, consistent with the past two months, whereas his disapproval increased another point, to 57%.
A new American Research Group poll finds just 30% of Americans say they approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president and 67% say they disapprove.
Wall Street Journal: “Around 40% of voters in the 2024 election said the economy was their top issue, far outstripping any other matter. And those voters favored Donald Trump by 60% to 38%. Many say they were moved by his pledges to tame inflation, rebuild U.S. infrastructure, cut red tape and trim government waste. … About a year and a half later, more voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy than approve, 61% to 35%, an average of polls by the Cook Political Report found this month.”
A Reuters analysis of Trump’s public comments from June 23 through July 6 (13 days) — when a string of left-wing Democratic candidates won their party’s primaries in New York — found he invoked communism 81 times.
