Month: June 2010

Poll: Bad News for GOP, Rep. Barton – 82% Approve of BP’s $20 Bil Victims’ Fund

Jon Ponder

If it struck you as odd that House Speaker-to-Be John Boehner and other top Republicans went into a full-bore panic over Rep. Joe Barton’s apology to BP on Thursday — normally they’d be high-fivin’ over Barton’s smearing the $20 billion victims’ fund the president brokered with BP as a “shakedown” — the answer may lie in a poll that came out the same day:

The poll’s Thursday release comes as top BP executives testify in front of Congress. At the hearing, Rep. Joe Barton, ranking Republican on the House Energy Committee, defended BP and slammed the White House for insisting that BP place $20 billion in an escrow fund to help compensate those affected by the oil disaster.

“I am ashamed of what happened at the White House yesterday,” said Barton at the hearing. “I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation would be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown. In this case a $20 billion dollar shakedown.”

But according to the poll, Americans disagree with Barton. Eighty-two percent approve of the creating of a fund of billions of dollars to compensate workers and businesses affected by the spill.

The CNN article on the poll offers another example of how the Beltway media outlets are in the bag for Republicans this year. CNN buried the lead, ignoring the fact that Republicans are on the wrong side of this issue by a huge margin — just 18 percent of Americans agree with Rep. Barton and and 115 of his 178 House colleagues who believe the victims’ fund is a bad thing — choosing instead to focus on the finding that approval of Pres. Obama’s performance relative to the crisis had dropped 5 points: “Rise in disapproval of Obama handling of oil spill.” This despite the fact that president’s overall approval remained constant at 50 percent.

“Liberal” media — riiight.

Poll: Plurality Now Supports Health-Care Law

Jon Ponder

AP-Gfk poll:

The nation remains divided, with 45 percent in favor and 42 percent opposed to the president’s signature domestic accomplishment.

Still, the shift in public sentiment was significant. Opposition to the overhaul increased after Congress passed it in March. And last month, supporters were outnumbered 39 percent to 46 percent. But the latest survey found the strongest backing for the health care plan since the AP-GfK poll began asking in September…

The poll found support increased since May among men (from 36 percent to 46 percent), people in their prime working years (from 35 percent to 49 percent among 30-49 year-olds) and Republicans (from 8 percent to 17 percent.) The uptick among Republicans comes even as party leaders are calling for the law’s repeal.

The changes coincide with a concerted effort by the Obama administration, congressional Democrats and their allies to sell the immediate benefits of the law.

Tea Baggers Call for Sponsor Boycott of ‘Hardball’ – Please Support These MSNBC Sponsors

Jon Ponder

First, speaking on behalf of Chris Matthews — which I do not — thanks to the tea baggers calling for a sponsor boycott for all the free publicity for his documentary. I’m pretty sure the film, “Rise of the New Right,” would have been relegated to the remainder bin had they not raised its profile this way.

If they actually watched the piece then, good golly, are these authoritarian wing nuts ever thin-skinned. There is nothing inflammatory in it. In fact, there’s hardly anything new there that regular watchers of legitimate cable news haven’t seen.

My guess is that the people who are so incensed about it relegate their information consumption to Republican propaganda on Fox News, where tea baggery is treated with respect the anti-establishment mob phenomenon has not earned and does not deserve.

I’m no fan of Matthews, who, like Dick Morris and Ann Coulter, owes his broadcast career to his spittle-spewing Clinton hatred in the 1990s. My only quibble with his documentary is with the title. There’s nothing “new” about these tired old Bush lovers. They’ve been around years.

Please Be Sure to Support These ‘Hardball’ Sponsors

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Republican Pundits Come Out Strongly in Favor of Apologizing to BP

Jon Ponder

Now there can be no doubt whose side they are on:

PAT BUCHANAN: “Barton made a very courageous statement in my judgment. … To have anyone stand up and even indirectly defend [BP] and say that they were a victim of a shakedown shows some political courage.”

INGRAHAM: “I think Joe Barton, before he apologized, had a legitimate point.”

NAPOLITANO: “That is a classic shakedown. The threat to do something that you don’t have the authority to do. ”

KILMEADE: “One Congressman calling the BP compensation fund a ’shakedown,’ but does he have a point?”

GINGRICH: “The president is directly engaged in extorting money from a company.”

VARNEY: “It is Hugo Chavez-like, is it not? To seize a private company’s assets.”

Tea Party Nation Head Ups Barton’s ‘Shakedown,’ Calls BP’s $20 Bil Gulf Victims’ Fund ‘Extortion’

Jon Ponder

Barton, left, and Judson
Barton, left, and Judson
Judson Phillips, head of Tea Party Nation, hosts of the convention where Palin wrote her crib notes on her hand, showed whose side he’s really on yesterday when he endorsed Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-Texas) apology to BP’s CEO Tony Hayward over the company’s agreement with Pres. Obama to set up a $20 billion escrow account to cover damages from its oil spill disaster in the Gulf.

Barton, who will be chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee if Republicans win control of the House in November, called the escrow account a “shakedown.” But that was too mild for Phillips, who upped the ante.

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The Top 10 Candidate Gaffes of 2010 (so far)

Buck Banks

Chicken Lady
Chicken Lady
NBC News’ daily First Read column offers its top 10 candidate gaffes of the year so far. Here’s how First Read defines “gaffe”: “the unscripted moments that turn into giant headaches for the candidate, sometimes even end up costing them the election.”

1. Gordon Brown’s “bigoted woman”: This gaffe took place across the Atlantic Ocean, but it impacted Britain’s election this year and ensured that Gordon Brown and the Labour Party would be voted out of power.

2. Martha Coakley’s Schilling is a Yankee fan: This statement in a radio interview showed that she was out of touch with Massachusetts voters. No Boston Red Sox fan would mistakenly say that Curt Schilling is a Yankee fan. This gaffe turned out to be the final nail in Coakley’s coffin.

3. Sue Lowden and Barter-gate/Chicken-gate: This gaffe by Lowden — touting that bartering for health care, like paying doctors with chickens, could benefit the health system — contributed to her June 8 defeat in the Nevada Senate GOP primary, a contest in which she was once the front-runner.

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