(And I also posted here.)
1) Bob oh boy, former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm can barely contain himself over the following (here)…
Turns out the Democratic Congress' passage of the Democratic healthcare legislation signed last week by Democratic President Obama is so wildly popular that a new Gallup Poll finds for the first time this survey cycle registered American voters now prefer that a Republican represent their district.
The new survey of the generic congressional ballot, taken after the massive healthcare bill's partisan votes last month and just released overnight, finds 47% say they'd like a Republican representative and 44% prefer a Democrat.
Wow, looks like Repugs are favored by a whopping three percent here, boys and girls (basically, we’re within the statistical margin for error – and by the way, the main reason I’m even bothering to link to Malcolm at all on this is so everyone can see the utterly tasteless cartoon that accompanies his post).
I’ll tell you what – here is more on the poll Malcolm is referring to. The trend lines show a narrow crossover and only a slight variation of what has been in place already for the past few months (slight Dem edge here, slight Repug edge there…).
So what have we learned, exactly? That the fall elections will turn on whichever base is more energized? That independent voters may be trending back and forth between the two parties for a little while? That the teabaggers will return in force this summer (just like the mosquitoes) for more town hall nonsense? That, as David Corn of The Nation said weeks ago, nobody controls “the narrative”?
In other words, a bunch of stuff we already know.
Meanwhile, here is another Gallup Poll (with USA Today) showing that “By 49%-40% those surveyed say it was ‘a good thing’ rather than a bad one that Congress passed the (health care reform) bill.”
Good thing for Malcolm that, under the law, no one can be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition any more. If pundit wankery qualified and HCR never became law, Malcolm might never get coverage again.
2) Over at the Murdoch Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O’Grady opines as follows (here)…
Last year, the U.S. tried to force the reinstatement of deposed president Manuel Zelaya (in Honduras). When that failed and Team Obama was looking like the Keystone Cops, it sent a delegation to Tegucigalpa to negotiate a compromise.
Participants in those talks say Dan Restrepo, senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council, let slip that the U.S. interest had to do with American politics. The Republicans, he said, were using the administration's support for Mr. Zelaya, an ally of Venezuelan Hugo Chávez, against the Democrats. It's not going to work, Mr. Restrepo is said to have informed the other negotiators, because "we have the power" and would be keeping it for a long time.
It can't have been comforting for Hondurans to learn that while their country was living a monumental crisis, fueled by U.S. policy, Mr. Restrepo's concern was his party's power. For the record, an NSC spokesman says "Mr. Restrepo didn't say that." But my sources are more plausible considering what has transpired since.
O’Grady then goes on to cite any effort to allow Zelaya to return to Honduras as some of “bullying” by Number 44 in the region, or something, made manifest according to O’Grady by references to U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens as “the proconsul”- funny, but I don’t recall O’Grady or any other neocon being upset when this guy held that title in Iraq soon after the invasion.
I’m not an expert on Honduran affairs, but I have to wonder why Zelaya would do such a thing when, according to that country’s minister of security, he could be arrested. But when it comes to U.S. political influence in that region, the following should be noted (here)…
Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., will defy President Obama by meeting with de facto Honduran president Roberto Micheletti.
"No U.S. Senator has yet been to Honduras to assess facts of crisis. @JohnKerry & Obama admin using bullying tactics to hide truth," DeMint wrote on his Twitter.
The meeting goes against the administration's policy of isolating Micheletti's government, which seized control from elected president Manuel Zelaya on June 28th.
No word from O’Grady on whether or not DeMint’s boneheaded (and possibly treasonous) decision to ignore a presidential directive is “good for U.S. national security interests.”
3) And finally, today is the 60th birthday of Supreme Court Justice “Strip-Search Sammy” Alito. With that in mind, Wikipedia tells us here that it doesn’t consider Alito quite as conservative as Antonin Scalia based on some of his rulings and opinions since he was confirmed, which to me is like saying Bill O’Reilly isn’t quite as much of a frothing nut job as Glenn Beck.
Also, Glenn Greenwald contrasts Alito with Sonia Sotomayor over the “empathy” question, which of course was big during the Sotomayor hearings, and harks back to some of Alito’s lower court rulings that were overturned by The Supremes (here).
And how can we forget Alito’s mouthing of “not true” when Obama criticized The Supremes over the Citizens United ruling (here)? I have to admit that I really didn’t have that big of a problem with it; I mean, I definitely believe Alito and the conservative majority were in the wrong, but I can’t blame Alito for an instinctive reaction (at least he didn’t stand up and yell, “You Lie!”).
This post, though, provides a cautionary reminder of what Alito could yet do from his perch atop “the show.” As a member of the conservative block of the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR, we can rest assured that no civil liberty will be beyond the reach of this bunch for the next 20 years or so while they endeavor to create case law at every opportunity that comports with their forever-twisted worldview.
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