This wasn’t the result the teabaggers or their Republican and corporate sponsors were hoping to have, now, was it?
More than 60 percent of U.S. residents approve of the job President Barack Obama has done in his first six months in office, a Gallup Poll indicates.
Sixty-three percent of respondents approve of Obama’s performance, results released Monday indicate.
Obama’s numbers had reached their low point in late July, which was the height of the ginned-up media hoo-ha over his saying the right thing about a white cop handcuffing and jailing an elderly black academic who walks with a cane. When did they start to recover? About the time the right-wingers started to crank up the volume and the nastiness.
But of course, as is pointed out in this Kos diary, this data is being ignored by the same GOP/Media Complex that was and is still so eager to trumpet two-week-old poll numbers as proof that Obama’s approval ratings are tanking — and taking his ability to push health care reform down with them. Deliberately low-balling Obama’s poll numbers is, in fact, a known habit of the TradMed.
Have I seen this movie before? Oh, yes, I have. It’s called "Media Figures Understate Democratic President’s Approval Ratings", except that Bill Clinton was the star of that film. Here’s Rush Limbaugh lying about Clinton’s approval ratings. And here is the Washington Post doing the same. (Meanwhile, the press loved to inflate Bush’s ratings.)
If anyone still wonders why I call it "The GOP/Media Complex", wonder no more.
Related posts:
- Laura Ingraham on “This Week”: Dick Cheney “Cuts Through” on Afghanistan Because “His Numbers Are Going Up”
- Is It Really Teabaggers All The Way Down?
- Obama’s Numbers Driving Democrats Down
- New WaPo/ABC Poll: Public Option Nearly Three Times More Popular Than GOP
- New NBC/WSJ Poll: 21% Approve of GOP on Health Care Reform
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Hey PW!
Maybe the American people are not as whacky as I once thought. Maybe, being the operative word.
G.O.P.= Guaranteed Online-bloggers-employment Program.
Gallup webiste has a 53% job approval not 60%. Did I miss something?
On the other hand..CBS reporting with Southern Poverty Law Center about growth of militia groups. More well-armed angry guys.
I belong to the SPLC and the numbers are truly scary. They had a map up not long ago showing where the hate groups were and believe me, they are far from all being in the South. They are everywhere.
OT-Question for veterans here of FDL, cause I’m new.
It seems I’m sensing some increased trolling here today, as well as at other sites I frequent. Paid right wingers trying to cause trouble at progressive sites possibly???? LOL, I ask because when I first appeared here I was accused of that myself (LOL, by PW IIRC), but I’m not. But it got me to thinking that maybe that would be a tactic used by the right, because they have so damned much money and so damned little ethics.
Anyways, sorry for OT post, just my first post today as I was wondering but didn’t want to get into any arguments when I’m still new.
And great post, PW. You’re exactly right about the GOP/Media complex. But you’ve gotta give em credit for having balls the size of beach balls for continuing to claim “librul media” and do it with a straight face. Man I hate the right wing, and I never wanted to hate anything in my life.
Whoever took that pic shoulda copyrighted it. He’d be a multimillionaire by now. The iconic Republican of the 21st century.
See that Chuck Assley is pushing the “Death Panel” meme. Kansans must be so proud.
Just think how many Repub blogging types still wonder why all the fuss about that photo…”What’s the big deal? That brave patriot in the War of Ideas (TM) is right.”
Morans.
Iowans too.
Yeah, the course in critical thinking but I doubt if that’s offered for home schoolers.
We have a small cast of regulars who like to come stink up the place. Recently, though, we’re not seeing the attention seekers/thread hijackers so much as the nay-sayers and insulters. Ignore ‘em, they’re not worth your time.
It’s my favorite GOP picture. It really should be made into posters. :)
Chuckie is a proud member of The Family don’t forget. Sort of the epicenter of all the shit right now.
Yeah, the old Confederates continued to breed after the Civil War and passed on there genetic code.
I’ve been meaning to report on a town hall meeting I attended last night, this post is the best spot so far.
I went to Sam Farr’s town hall in Santa Cruz, CA at the Congregational Church on High Street (near UCSC). Parked a couple of blocks away on a side street because attendance was high. I’d estimate about 1000 people in the church, on chairs outside the sanctuary and in a satelite building.
As I was walking in people were talking about the disruptions they’d seen or heard about. I responded that we’re in America and we value civil discourse here. One man said something about it being hard to find ammunition, I responded truthfully that I didn’t see any shortages the last time I’d been to a gun shop a couple of weeks back which seemed to surprise the fellow.
When I got to the top of the stairs there were a couple of people from the Larouche organization with Obama posters with Hitler mustaches. I asked them what they meant by their artwork. They said that we were being distracted from wall street by health care, and what has been happening on wall street is akin to fascism. I mingled with the crowd for a while, people were listening and asking questions in the church without any disruptions. At one point a somewhat elderly lady saw the Larouche posters and went to tell them they were offensive. I accompanied her, engaged her and the Larouchite in some conversation, saying that the posters were offensive and serving the purpose of getting people to speak with the larouchites. I said there’s probably one thing all of us would agree on – that the federal reserve should have its books examined by congress/GAO, and we did all agree – larouchites knew that Sam Farr had signed on to the audit the Fed bill and that so far 286 representatives were cosponsors. I said Barney Frank seemed to be keeping that bill from getting a hearing.
More mingling, some conversation with teabaggers that were decrying how different the country is from what the constitution calls for, how socialist we’re getting, etc. i asked them why we have government fire departments, roads, etc – can government do anything for the common good or to promote the general welfare as described in the preamble. The had pretty strong opinions that government doesn’t help them and they didn’t want it (Reagan’s scary words?). They were mostly anti military spending, saying it helps the elites stay in control… then they started getting kooky, saying that all US government policy is based in eugenics. I asked them why the fed doesn’t just disappear/shoot people if they’re goal is to eliminate some of us. The response to this was that the government has airplanes dumping chemicals on us to control our minds and sterilize us. I couldn’t help but laugh at this, and felt it was time to leave before I antagonized them by pointing out their clinical mental health challenges.
I’d say the crowd was 80% pro reform, 60% pro single payer from the responses I heard to Q&A.
Next week I’ll be dropping into Anna Eshoo’s office in Palo Alto (40 miles away). Sam isn’t my congressman, but he held the only local town hall meeting (10 miles)
We know for a fact that many of Wingnut Welfare outfits are paying people to disrupt various blogs. I just saw a report about that the other day where there was banner ad at some wingnut site looking for “employees” to do this.
It’s all out in the open:
http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=1277
by the way, did anyone go to Susan Davis’s town hall (CA-53)? If so, what happened?
Nice rundown. Keep this up and you’ll have your own show. Good work, far better than what they do at the “networks.”
Man, they’re gonna earn their pay if they come here. We’ll hafta let Norske know the trolls are being paid. *G*
“I pity the fool!”
Nothing the media does, no matter how low they go, will ever amaze me again.
But I am surprised Obama’s numbers remain positive.
Damn.
Re-elect Obama in 2012.
He is working for you.
Your interests come first.
I love the guy. A constitutional scholar.
Jesus. He is sticking it to Wall Street.
Just support him. He has your interests at heart.
A little OT – I just had The History channel on while I folded some laundry and saw the ad by 60 Plus the repeats all the most egregious lies.
I sent an e-mail to the parent company complaining. They need to have an avalanche of outrage over these ads promoting claims that have PROVEN to be complete bunk.
Here’s what I sent to feedback@aetv.com:
I would encourage others to complain whenever you see these kinds of ads.
I was struck by the common disdain for wall street. Their opinions on this may not have been informed by Simon Johnson’s Atlantic article, they were more Birch/Trilateral Commission conspiracy types, but they did see a problem with oligarchic concentration of power.
They seemed to think that health care could be done on the basis of barter – take 50 pounds of potatoes a year and 2 chickens a week to your surgeon for his emergency appendectomy services. Someone literally said why can’t we do health care on this basis to me. I get the feeling they don’t live in the same world as me, they’ve built an idealized version of small town frontier America circa 1820 and think that the modern world works like this.
I’m not surprised. Most people want him to succeed and know that we need for him to succeed – wingnuts aside.
Thanks for the responses guys. Again, sorry for OT, it’s just I noticed two especially today in a couple of other threads, and I didn’t recognize either name, and I also noticed increased wingnut talking points over the last couple of days on a baseball forum I frequent (yeah, baseball forum LOL).
I really wonder, and I mean this sincerely because I think the outcry would be so loud and oppressive it would be drowning, what the Gop/Media Complex would be spouting if all the Republican Congresscritters TH’s were shut down with shouts of “SINGLE PAYER NOW” “WE DON’T WANT INSURANCE BUREAUCRATS DECIDING OUT HEALTHCARE” and “DON’T LET THOSE INSURANCE CEO’S KILL MY GRANNY”.
Along with maybe a fight or two, and I’d bet the tone and volume from the media would be 180 degrees different from what it is now. Only way to get an accurate read now is to watch Rachel Maddow, methinks.
I know it’s been in the news for days now, but the advent of the Palin/GOP ‘death panel’ notion is a plain tragedy.
It’s a perversion of the truly great importance of helping people with establishing advance medical directives so that they get the care they want.
The fact that Palin coined this and now the GOP is picking it up and advancing it makes me feel nauseated. It is beyond irresponsible – it’s harmful – for GOP politicians to flat out lie about the fundamental meaning and significance of advance directives. If people who are lapping this up come to comprehend the damage caused by this lie, the politicians perpetrating this would face lower public regard than horseshit under a hoofprint.
There is a vileness to this particular dishonesty in the face of the public that leaves me deeply troubled.
We also have grumpy vets who get in trouble cuz they don’t always walk the straight and narrow here *g*
Try “Chevy Talk”! Wingnuts galore but great help with my truck.
On Hardball you can listen to the woman who was at the Town Hall in Pennsylvania explain what “the Founders” intended. Lawrence O’Donnell did a gracious job of gutting her while being nice.
Succeed? I guess so, if one likes Rahms scorecard.
I would have said the 1790’s but no real difference. They really are throwbacks that would seem to be psychologically incapable of living in a modern world. I would add that the media is doing it’s best to keep these people at an infantile level. The days of Edward R. Murrow and “Harvest of Shame” are long gone.
Yo, grump. Wazzup? You been fishin’ lately?
What you smokin?
Obama should’ve used the bully pulpit to demand all of Congress go along with demands right away. He should’ve done this before he was even inaugurated to set the tone that he’s boss now. When you’re President, you can just snap your fingers and correct 200 years of built-up corruption in DeeCee. What a naive rube and scaredy-cat he is.
See, I know about these things…
As his whole life suggests, he’s just another Corporate stooge waiting for the next orders from his masters.
(blergh)
I have another favorite – No Chubbies *g*
Nah, not since the outer banks. Pretty landlocked here and the students are back making Athens into East Atlanta! You should have read the comments on the Broun story in the local rag, split down the middle but plenty of these goobers love him.
Bet he’s got a pit bull to ramp up his machoness. I’m sorry for the poor dog.
One thing I’m confused about. How can the “teabaggers” manage to shout down anyone at these “town hall meetings” while they’re…ya know…teabagging. Ventriloquism or something? Baffling.
That’s great ! I never watch Fox so I miss a lot of “funny” stuff. Thanks. :)
He may well be a stooge but he’s the only stooge we’ve got until someone better comes along. Bernie Sanders? That’s for you Raven.
whoop tee dooo
I still think Bush’s approval ratings never got over 20%. Ever.
Oh, yeah, school’s about to start again. I’d be down on campus hangin’ out on a bench until I got rousted for bein’ homeless lookin’ an’ all.
I know, that’s what you said the last time, lol.
They were a bit taken aback when I told them the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were very different documents for different purposes. In particular the Constitution was instituted because the Articles of Confederation had failed, that the first confederation after the British defeat was recognized by the Treaty of Paris didn’t hold because of too much power in the states. it was like they had 4th grade level of historical knowledge.. they did know about the Federalist papers, hadn’t heard of the anti-federalist papers. They also tried to claim that the 14th amendment had never been properly ratified (I would guess they were conflating the 16th amendment and the 14th, as the 16th not being properly ratified is a common wingnut myth).
You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Beck’s show. (I haven’t been able to sit through 15 straight minutes, so I tend to flip in, hang until I can’t stand it any longer, and then flip away – which gives me time to claw the shrapnel out of my eyes before returning…)
LOL, I still can’t believe we re-elected the sack’o’shit.
STILL can’t believe that.
Noot was for it before he was against it.
More well-armed angry white guys.
When you think about it it’s really tragic and an indictment of a failed educational system but perhaps their families never saw the value of education. They confuse indoctrination with education.
Why doesn’t the GOP just place Glenn Beck in charge.
Here is Glenn Beck’s broadcast from last night condensed into 10 minutes. I have never seen so many scare tactics, and such much talk of eugenics in such a short period of time.
You have to watch this.
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2505
It’s hazardous, sorority rush always makes me sooooo glad I didn’t have kids, especially a girl!
I am so glad I didn’t buy the box for my rabbit ears. I don’t miss that thing for a second. Good for DVDs and tapes, though.
Glenn Beck exists to make the real GOP leader, Limpy Limbaugh, appear to be a man of reason and intellect.
It’s hard for people who have never benefited from education to believe in it but amazingly some do.
“Why doesn’t the GOP just place Glenn Beck in charge.”
Probably afraid it would piss off Rush, and they’re really scared of that steamin’ pile o’ crap.
Brutal.
But Funny!
Eugenics was actually a theory that was first promoted in the U.S. and later adopted by the Nazi’s. Many prominent Americans in the late 19th early 20th Century were proponents, most of them being conservatives.
Noot changing his mind????
Nah, I don’t believe it. I mean they passed all of the whole “Contract On America” after they campaigned on it, didn’t they?? /s
Moran. *g*
Shit eatin dog fucker is more like it.
We didn’t re-elect him. The right wing fringe did…you know….the people who are calling themselves ‘conservatives’ and who are yelling & shouting at anyone who wants to speak the truth. See? They’re mad because daddy got replaced by a black guy. LOL
Even though I know how the Right treated the Clintons, and Kerry I am still shocked at what is going on. And scared. My 90 year old father sits in front of the TV all day watching Fox news until he is full of rage and hatred. The Obama Administration needs to find a distraction immediately. Even if they have to make some goofy news event. Maybe if the topic changes these people will calm down and it will take some air out of these Republicans who are getting so much attention for their lies. What’s it going to take to get them to STFU.
Are you talking ’bout Obama or does Cindy McCain have a new Lover ? *g*
The Obama Administration needs to find a distraction immediately. Even if “they have to make some goofy news event.”
This would presuppose that Fox might deign to cover it. Fox tends to cover only that which fuels the fire they are trying to stoke. Anything else is ignored. That’s the game…and it’s working quite nicely for them. It is for this reason that sane people all over the country need to put intense pressure on the companies that advertise on that network. Hitting at their cash is the only thing that will get their attention.
limbaugh has them all snookered, he is now a secret democrat, deliberately saying things that will drive everyone in the republican party into becoming a democrat
shrewd that man, it’s working.
here’s the very funnt thing;
the republicans see this, they see rush driving everyone from their party but they can’t get off him
It can be really difficult to be patient with them sometimes. I have my doubts that any short term educating would stick. The pedagogist in me says I should make the attempt regardless, even if it only results in boosting my ego and doesn’t help them to understand history.
I’ve had much better luck teaching older people high school algebra. This makes sense to me – math isn’t something most people use to define their relationship to reality, so gaining understanding doesn’t threaten their self conception.
Understanding that Glenn Beck’s view of America isn’t right means that they really aren’t the free patriotic man they conceive them self as, and that’s very threatening. I’ve been struggling with how to tear down their misconceptions without tearing down their egos in process.
I saw the “Moran” guy down at the Tampa forum, and got this picture of him!
The stupid never stops!
LMAO! Cindy McCain obviously. :-)
I think I saw that guy attending the symphony. Or was it that tractor pull? I can’t remember which.
when given the choice of:
a) a bottle in front of me, or
b) a frontal lobotomy
9 out of 10 teabaggers chose the later – (b).
I’ve been tempted lately to get more personal with an educated conservative I socialize with – he’s an engineer at Lockheed, directly paid by tax payer money. I’ve called him a welfare queen a few times in fun, was genuinely concerned for his continued employment due to a DoD program cancellation (he’s moved over to a NASA project).
He doesn’t want taxes to pay for health care. He has this idea that his son shouldn’t have health insurance, he should buy it only when he needs it (he actually suggested his son buy insurance right before breaking his arm). He totally refused to understand that insurance is about pooling risk. Where I’d get personal is by pointing out he would sentence a mutual friend to death because she couldn’t get her cancer meds without Medicaid. I really am tempted to call him out on why he wants Karen to die – so his bosses can have a 4th home? it isn’t like he’s making over $250k a year, he wouldn’t see a tax increase, yet he still doesn’t want to see any tax increases.
Sad. And I’m very tempted.
… that’s what I thought … *g*
How come they’re not afraid to tell us what they think but we hold back telling them what we think? I gave up on that about 8 years ago. That’s why I have no Republican friends now.
You jest, but I’d bet dollars to donuts that if Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh had spent two weeks claiming the bottle in front of them had been poisoned by libruls and a frontal lobotomy was the evangelical equivalent of circumcision for the jews, the answer very well likely would be 9 out of 10 choosing the lobotomy.
Possibly even 10 out of 10.
For the record, I sometimes do use mathematics to define my relation to reality. It’s an occupational hazard, having done graduate work in mathematical psychology as well as earning advanced degrees in math and computer science. I can’t help but devise models at times.
My favorite: a moron who doesn’t know how to spell it. There are so many
We can’t give up on our friends. Sometimes we learn things from them that change our views… being liberal means knowing we might be wrong.
I think asking him why he wants Karen to die might be too insulting to him personally. His conception of himself would fight integrating that his view on public health insurance logically leads to his friend dying. I don’t want his head to explode.
It’s hard for me to reconcile someone with the intelligence to work on missile defense and NASA science packages not getting that “You’re on your own” and “I’ve got mine” aren’t decent ways to run a country. If I felt it would penetrate this bubble I’d call him out on Karen’s need for public health insurance (thank the flying spaghetti monster she gets medicaid). I have a feeling that he’d just take offense at my gall in pointing out where his philosophy leads.
they,ve already had their lobotomies.
Me neither. Life is short enough. They seemed amazed to encounter opposition 7-8 years ago. The thugs still left seem alot more quiet to me, except of course for the faux courage injected by Armey’s Antagonists temporarily.
rofl
you Soros whores will tell any lie for money
isn’t Soros kind of old and wrinkly to felch though?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..r_embedded
beat it asshole
Yeah, I guess so.
Something sure is the cause for a total and complete inability to recognize reality.
Sometimes I feel badly for them, it must be hell being that friggin stupid, but then they take teh stupid and add violence or threats of violence, and then I can no longer feel badly.
Morans.
How many Republicans does it take to change a lightbulb?
Yeah, same one I was speaking about earlier.
Like your response though.
Short, and to the point.
GO RAVEN!
Learned it at Ft Campbell, Nov 66.
Nice.
Fort Benning, Ga., here brother.
I’m right up the road in Athens!
Remember the good ole days, when we’d have Troll Roasts every night ?
Hot???
I’m in NoVa now, not far from DC.
Was at Benning from May-August in the 1970’s, hotter than mofo. When I got to Europe (Germany) I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
Did I just see a Gun Shop ad on MSNBC???
LOL
PW on BT’s thread I had small dispute with the trolls about poll numbers its handled but this post would have made it allot easier.:)
You are still going to hell! Faithless Money Changer.
I left AIT in March 67, whole bat went to Germany but this genius 17 year old volunteered for the Nam so they sent me to Korea. Froze my ass off. 6 months stateside in 68 and off to the Nam. Came home 40 years ago 9/3.
There they go again. Repubs and their absolute obsession with the anus. Wonder why that is…
Glad to see the public rallying around a President who actually knows how to lead.
Yes , you did. Why dont you read the article instead of just clicking around on the “internets” (hint: the first SIX months)
I just saw a couple of photos on Crooks and Liars of 2 wingnuts standing outside the townhall held by Claire McCaskil yesterday. Both of their signs said the same thing “Youth In Asia Will Kill Your Grandma” These ignorant inbreds can’t spell Euthanasia? Hilarious!
Way late, but I loved that!! Have a good Thursday Raven.. :)
Remember the “Bush Bounce” that the Media was breathlessly saying was imminent for his entire second term?
Obviously you don’t read the news for yourselves. Obama’s numbers are dropping steadily and are now below 50%. This time next year they will be at zer0 – which exactly describes him.