Year: 2007

Poll: Bush Approval at 24% – Still Incredibly High for Worst President Ever

Jon Ponder

Reuters/Zogby poll:

Bush’s job approval rating fell to 24 percent from last month’s record low for a Zogby poll of 29 percent.

By contrast, Pres. Nixon was around 25 percent in the polls on the day he resigned. Both his numbers and Bush’s reflect the fact that about a quarter of Americans are dangerously delusional.

Approval of Congress remains low:

A paltry 11 percent gave Congress a positive grade, tying last month’s record low.

Ironically, the low approval of Congress is probably due to the fact they haven’t impeached Bush or stopped his war.

GOP Senate Leader Caught Lying about Smear of Young Graeme Frost

Jon Ponder

Think Progress:

On Thursday, ThinkProgress reported that Don Stewart, the communications director for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), had sent an e-mail encouraging reporters to cover the right-wing smear campaign of 12-year old Graeme Frost. But on Friday, McConnell claimed his office was not involved:

Q: Was there an indication that your office was trying to push reporters to dig into this 12-year old’s background?

McCONNELL: No

Q: Then what was the deal with the e-mail from your staffer?

McCONNELL:There was no involvement whatsoever.

Q: From your staff.

McCONNELL: None.

And yet:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s spokesman acknowledged [on Oct. 15] that he alerted reporters last week to questions bloggers raised about the financial circumstances of a 12-year-old boy Democrats had used to urge passage of an expanded children’s health insurance program.

Imagine the howling on the right and in the MSM if a Democratic leader had been caught telling a bald-faced lie.

Was Cruella de Malkin Fired by Fox over Smear of 12 Year Old?

Jon Ponder

Is it possible there is a bottom to the depths of rightwing hackery? Probably not, but there is a rumor going around that Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit most likely to skin puppies to make a fur coat, has been fired as the occasional guest host for the Bill O’Reilly comedy hour on Fox News because of her vicious attack on 12-year-old Graeme Frost and his family.

Graeme and his sister were seriously injured in a car accident in 2004, after which SCHIP, the children’s health insurance program Pres. Bush has vetoed, covered the costs of their extensive hospital stays and rehab. On Sept. 29, Graeme gave the Democrats’ rebuttal to Pres. Bush’s radio speech in which he sought to justify vetoing SCHIP, and Malkin, along with Rush Limbaugh and their running dogs at sites like Free Republic and Redstate — and even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office and the Bush White House, no less — have been trying to silence and discredit the kid ever since.

Conservative bloggers even went so far as to publish the Frost family’s address online and, to no one’s surprise, the Frosts have been receiving death threats ever since.

The Malkin controversy arose just as the dust was settling after Bill O’Reilly’s racist comments about African-American restaurant-goers, and may have been too much for Fox executives and, more to the point, FNC advertisers.

If the rumor is true, Malkin’s cover story for her departure has it that she is leaving in a fit of pique because an apology she received from Fox correspondent Geraldo Rivera on an unrelated matter was not sincere enough:

[…]

Schwarzenegger Ran Against ‘Car Tax’ in 2003, Now Raises Driver Fees

Jon Ponder

One of the central issues in Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2003 campaign to recall Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, was a phony claim that Davis wanted to raise the California “car tax.” In reality:

Raising fees on driving is a dead certain way to tick off Californians of every political stripe.

[The Vehicle License Fee had been] passed and signed into law under Davis’s predecessor, Republican Pete Wilson, and took effect only under emergency cash fall contingencies so that certain vital state governmental programs could continue.

(The fact that the revenue shortfalls were a result of Enron’s pillaging of California’s energy market — a plunder that many believe was conceived by Ken Lay and Vice Pres. Dick Cheney — is another story.)

Four years later, look who’s raising fees on California drivers now:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sunday signed into law a controversial increase in motorists’ fees that is intended to raise millions to develop alternative fuel and clean-air technology.

Consumer advocates condemned the bill for putting the costs on the backs of motorists rather than oil companies…

AB 118 … increases the fees charged to car owners in order to raise $210 million for new energy subsidies and clean-air programs.

The governor denied through a representative that he was being inconsistent in approving increases in the smog abatement and vehicle registration fees after initially winning election on a vow to kill an increase in the vehicle license fee.

Since his reelection last year, Schwarzenegger has done an excellent job of appearing in the news only when necessary and avoiding using cutsey catch-phrases (“girly men,” “I’ll be back,” etc.) when speaking in public, and has thus managed to be less annoying to independents and moderate Democrats. Conversely, however, while he has coddled California’s liberal majorities, he has become persona non grata within his own party.

It’s hard to discern a political advantage with this move. Raising fees on driving is a dead certain way to tick off Californians of every political stripe.

Stop Tossing Out Catalogs

Trish

We like to bring you ideas on how to tread a little more lightly upon the earth. The web site, catalogchoice.org, can help by keeping catalogs you don’t want out of your mailbox, recycle bin, or — yikes! — trash.

You register your name and primary mailing address (which are only used to match up your catalog solicitations), then identify which catalogs you don’t want from a searchable list.

After about 10 weeks, viola: no more catalogs. If any do come through after that, catalogchoice will follow up with the merchant for you.

The service is free — and quite reputable.

Catalog Choice is a sponsored project of the Ecology Center. It is endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and funded by the Overbrook Foundation, the Merck Family Fund, and the Kendeda Fund.

And in case you’re feeling sorry for the nice folks who keep thoughtfully sending you these gifts in the mail, rest assured that they would prefer their catalogs go to people who actually want them. You’re doing them a favor by getting off their mailing list.

Florida Lite: Now With 50% Less Bush

Trish

That Florida is a different — and better — place with 50 percent less Bush was made plain in an editorial in the Palm Beach Post.

I doubt such sentiments would have appeared while Jeb was still brutishly steering the ship of state in Tallahassee. But a new story by reporter, author, and Jeb critic S.V. Date (pronounced dah-TAY), whose wife Mary Beth was recently hired into Gov. Crist’s Office of Policy and Budget, has people talking. Freely.

It seems that consultant Donna Arduin, Jeb fan and beneficiary of Florida tax dollars, is still ripping into the public till like a grizzly bear that found a bag of marshmallows in your backpack.

House Speaker Marco Rubio, R-West Miami, The Post reported this week, still spends $10,000 of the public’s money each month for the services of Donna Arduin’s consulting firm. Originally, that contract was supposed to end June 1. Ms. Arduin served as the former governor’s budget director, and is a keeper of the Jeb-is-wonderful flame.

If Donna Arduin’s job is to keep pushing Jeb Bush’s ideas, there’s no market for them

As he began his last year in office, Mr. Bush was denying that he cared about his legacy. In fact, he was installing loyalists who would continue his policies after he left.

When he became speaker, Rep. Rubio found jobs for 18 of Mr. Bush’s former aides. Putting Ms. Arduin on the payroll naturally followed. The question now is what she actually does to earn the money… Her only known contribution this year was the idea that Florida abolish the property tax and replace it with a sales tax that could have been as high as 13 percent…

Maybe the fact that she doesn’t do anything is a good thing. But, then, why pay her? Asked for specifics about what Ms. Arduin does these days, Rep. Rubio responded with platitudes. If her job is to keep pushing Jeb Bush’s ideas, there’s no market for them.

Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing. After eight years of Jeb, I’d almost forgotten that.