Day: November 11, 2008

Bush’s Dismal Approval Sets New Record

Jon Ponder

Don’t let the screen door hit ya on the way out:
No other president’s disapproval rating has gone higher than 70 percent

As President-elect Obama visits the White House, a new national poll suggests that the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the most unpopular president in the six decades since presidential approval ratings were first measured.

Seventy-six percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday disapprove of how George W. Bush is handling his job as President. That’s an all-time high in CNN polling, or in Gallup polling dating back to World War II.

“No other president’s disapproval rating has gone higher than 70 percent. Bush has managed to do that three times so far this year,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “That means that Bush is now more unpopular than Richard Nixon was when he resigned from office during Watergate with a 66 percent disapproval rating.”

Prior to President Bush, the record holder for presidential disapproval was Harry Truman, with a 67 percent disapproval rating in January of 1952, his last full year in office.

Meanwhile, in opposite world:

Nearly seven in 10 adults, or 68 percent, said they have a favorable opinion of President-elect Barack Obama. Almost that many — 65 percent — said they think the country will be better off four years from now.

“The reception he’s getting is unlike anything we’ve seen in decades,” says Andrew Kohut, director of the non-partisan Pew Research Center. “It’s a very high set of expectations to live up to. On the upside, it means people are going to be pulling for him.”

Manager of Famed LA Restaurant Regrets Prop 8 Donation

Jon Ponder

El Coyote is an unintentionally kitschy Mexican restaurant on Beverly Blvd. that is famous for its margaritas. It has not been in the news much since August 1969, when Sharon Tate imbibed her last margaritas there before heading up to her home on Cielo Drive, where the Manson family laid in wait.

The restaurant is back in the news now because its manager’s name turned up on a list of donors to Proposition 8, the anti-gay measure that passed last Tuesday. Unlike most Mormons who supported the hateful bill, however, Marjorie Chrisoffersen seems to have had a change of heart:

I have been sick at heart that anyone has been offended by me. I have family, friends, employees from the gay community who are treasured people in my life.

I have been a member of the Mormon church all my life. I responded to their request with my personal donation.

For years the El Coyote has financially and generously supported the gay community and its charities.

Please be my guest for an early lunch Wed., Nov. 12th, @ 11:00 am and allow me to personally speak with you.

Please call and make a reservation as seating is limited. (323) 939-2255.

Margie

RELATED
Mormon Church owns mainstream radio stations in eight markets, including Los Angeles, Chicago, D.C. and Seattle.
The contrary view: “I think she saw how it affected her pocketbook and freaked,” said SFist Editor Brock Keeling. Can you spell “boycott?”

What’s interesting here is that El Coyote is not a “gay” restaurant, per se. On the other hand, the restaurant’s demographics is generally liberal denizens of Hollywood, all of whom voted against the initiative.

Fed Secretive Over Where Our $2 Trillion Is Going

Buck Banks

shitsandwich.jpg
Remember the economic bailout that was supposed to head off the next Great Depression through an injection of $2 trillion in cash and loan guarantees? Do you know where your money is going? Neither do I, and apparently, that’s the way the Federal Reserve want to keep it.

According to Bloomberg:

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn’t require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

“The collateral is not being adequately disclosed, and that’s a big problem,” said Dan Fuss, vice chairman of Boston- based Loomis Sayles & Co., where he co-manages $17 billion in bonds. “In a liquid market, this wouldn’t matter, but we’re not. The market is very nervous and very thin.”

Apparently, the $700 billion bailout approved by Congress — with certain safeguards — is only a drop in the bucket of what the Fed really has access to. And most of the dough the Fed is doling out is being distributed through programs that are not approved or overseen by Congress.

But really, what kind of money are we talking about here?

The Fed’s lending is significant because the central bank has stepped into a rescue role that was also the purpose of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, bailout plan — without safeguards put into the TARP legislation by Congress.

Total Fed lending topped $2 trillion for the first time last week and has risen by 140 percent, or $1.172 trillion, in the seven weeks since Fed governors relaxed the collateral standards on Sept. 14. The difference includes a $788 billion increase in loans to banks through the Fed and $474 billion in other lending, mostly through the central bank’s purchase of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds.

In scenes reminiscent of how the Bush administration justified spying on U.S. citizens for our protection, both Paulson and Bernanke seem to be invoking the word transparency way more often than they are practicing it:

At a Sept. 23 Senate Banking Committee hearing in Washington, Paulson called for transparency in the purchase of distressed assets under the TARP program.

“We need oversight,” Paulson told lawmakers. “We need protection. We need transparency. I want it. We all want it.”

At a joint House-Senate hearing the next day, Bernanke also stressed the importance of openness in the program. “Transparency is a big issue,” he said.

Right. Well Bloomberg has filed a federal lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act to force the Fed to reveal the deals. And I bet we’re not going to like what we see when they lift that curtain ….

Palin Skulking for an Opening to Run Again

Trish

Everybody! Stop what you’re doing and go check your doors! Now! Make sure they are closed and locked. And some nails would be good too.

“I’m like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I’m like, don’t let me miss the open door,” [Gov. Sarah] Palin said in an interview with Fox News on Monday. “And if there is an open door in ’12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I’ll plow through that door.”

On second thought, just brick over the opening. We can’t take any chances.

Bonus QdJ from the ‘Another Bad Decision’ File

Buck Banks

I’d never seen anything like that ad. Putting pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to the picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield — it’s worse than disgraceful, it’s reprehensible.

— Sen. John McCain, quoted by CNN, on the campaign ads used by Saxby Chambliss (R) against Sen. Max Cleland (D-GA) in the 2002 U.S. Senate race. McCain is now scheduled to campaign for Chambliss in his Georgia run-off against Jim Martin (D).

Joe the Plumber Was On Welfare At Least Twice

Jon Ponder

Here’s another dim bulb the McCain campaign did not vet before trotting him out. But like Sarah Palin, Joe Wurzelbacher — who, let’s recall, is not a plumber, and who lied to Obama when he said he was going to buy a plumbing business — will remain a Dittohead icon for the foreseeable future.

In this video, he says that his family living on welfare was not socialism because they had paid into the system. Sorry, Joe, or whatever your name is, welfare is socialism.