The Morning Plum
* New CNN poll: For the first time, the number who think President Obama is doing enough to cooperate with Republicans has dropped below 50%. It’s now at 49% — the same number who think he’s not doing enough.
* Flip side: Less than a third think Republicans are doing enough to cooperate with Obama. More than two thirds think they aren’t doing enough.
* The Fort Hood shooter had become “very disgruntled with the mission in Iraq and Afghanistan, voiced that to one of his colleagues,” GOP Rep. Michael McCaul told ABC News this morning, per The Note.
* He was “mortified” by the idea of having to deploy.
* Sean Hannity claims 20,000 Tea Partiers showed up, sourcing unclear.
* Politico claims 10,000 Tea Partiers showed up, sourcing unclear.
* In the wake of the Fort Hood shooting, Obama has postponed his scheduled trip today to the Hill to rally Dems and will instead hit the Capitol on Saturday.
* Some 25 House Dems are hard No votes on the health care bill right now. Nancy Pelosi can afford to lose no more than 40, so Dem leaders, though optimistic, are working furiously.
* Moderate House Dems Dan Boren, Jim Marshall, Ike Skelton and Bobby Bright are all among the No votes. More No votes here.
* Also from CNN: concerns about the economy are up to 47%; concerns about health care are down to 17%. Clue to the meaning of Tuesday’s results?
* Aravosis hits the DNC again over Maine gay marriage loss.
* And here’s the Shocker of the Day: The AARP endorsement of the House health care bill “did nothing to ease the concerns of House Republicans or conservative protesters who descended on the Capitol.”
What else is happening?
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And of course all the morning shows that briefed the astroturf downtown yesterday all fail to mention how the Koch family who’s Fred Koch, father of David Koch, was a co-founder of the John Birch Society also funded yesterday’s astroturf and all the rest of the astroturfing that has been going on since February.
I guess the link between the right wing machine of today and the right wing machine that was shunned during Kennedy’s time because of its extremism is of no interest to anyone.
Greenwald details the leftie slant coming out of Hyatt’s tenure… http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/11/06/washington_post/index.html
I am listening to CNBC trying to explain the 10.2% unemployment rate announced this morning. There reaction is pretty funny given that for weeks if not months they have been predicting unemployment would go over 10%.
Jon Stewart channels Glenn Beck. Epic. EPIC. EEEEEPIC WIN.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-5-2009/the-11-3-project
I wonder if Romer’s bad projections have anything to do with not seeing her on talk shows any more.
I love the phrase “worse then expected number”. Funny how that can be if you’ve been expecting that number. CNBC now has on a guy who is saying what a lot of experts have been saying… unemployment is a lagging indicator.
I have yet to hear anyone, except teabaggers, say the economy isn’t doing better now then six or even twelve months ago.
I wonder if CNN’s poll numbers above reflect how much miss information there is about the economy.
I agree the WH “projections” were way off but I am not sure I would blame Romer. When the WH made their “projections” at the beginning of the year it was based on a number of projections by a lot of experts. Even those experts did not know how bad the economy was at the time and did not get the full data later in the year. At that point the damage was done.
“I have yet to hear anyone, except teabaggers, say the economy isn’t doing better now then six or even twelve months ago.”
You better hope your “the economy is better” arguments are more persuasive than that, because with unemployment over 10%, it ain’t gonna matter how many people call it a lagging indicator. Dems could pass the health care bill through the House and Senate and have it signed by tomorrow, and you still wouldn’t get the 10.2% number out of the headline.
The Dem majority is gone.
“The Dem majority is gone.”
Pity these boards don’t have a widget for betting.
Some very good data on the Virginia and NJ races from Dem strategist… http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/ (several posts)
Dems never had a majority in the Senate. HCR will get passed as well as cap and trade. I just hope the President doesn’t get sucked into doing a 2nd stimulus because we don’t need it. AND the deficit will be lower by the end of 44’s first term.
Mike… FYI looks like Romer is going to be on CNBC later this morning. I am sure she is going to get a grilling.
Andy
I agree we don’t need a second stimulus per se, but I think they really need to figure out a way to put people back to work, not necessarily as a political strategy, but for the sake of all the unemployed and the mood of the country.
We’re over 12% in CA and over 14% in my county and it’s really getting tough for people to hang on. If it takes a little more money, not 700b I hope, to accomplish this so be it. Not that there’s any political will left for it though.
BBQ
Thanks for the Jon Stewart link, that’s one of his funniest shows ever, cracked me up.
Reality Check, with regard to the claim, by SBJ, that Republicans have not driven out a sitting Senator:
Arlen Specter was a sitting Republican Senator. He says that he was driven out of the party, because of his vote on the stimulus vote. Now fellow Republicans,like Jim DeMinted, are threatening Senator Snowe, for the same reason.
Mr. Sargent:
“* The Fort Hood shooter,[a devout Muslim Army Major named Nidal Malik Hasan, who served as a psychiatrist], had become “very disgruntled with the mission in Iraq and Afghanistan, voiced that to one of his colleagues,” GOP Rep. Michael McCaul told ABC News this morning, per The Note.
* He was “mortified” by the idea of having to deploy.[and according to the FBI,made internet postings on Islamist websites glorifying suicide bombers] ”
FTFY…you nauseating hack.
Greg… you’re such a hack for reporting what’s been reported.
Does CNN ever report anything besides concern levels. Why are their concern level reports reports newsworthy here? Can I assume that you buy into the “most trusted name” nonsense, not that it’s a high bar these days?
What’s your point Bilgeman? I’d like for you to spell it out for all of us.
You’re right Liam, didn’t think of that one. Aren’t there quite a few others who left or decided to retire because of the Conservatism of the Party? I’ll have to do a little research on that one unless someone here can remind me of who they are.
Scarecrow over at FDL agrees with me on unemployment and I can tell the WH realizes this is where their problem lies, let’s see what they do about it.
“We simply have to do much more to put Americans back to work. Getting unemployement well below it’s projected 10 percent (15 percent is more realistic) as rapidly as we can is a moral imperative. It’s simply unacceptable to leave things at that level, but that’s what we’re probably looking at for the next year without a major effort to change it. And, is there any debate that it’s a political imperative for Democrats in 2010?”
“Aravosis hits the DNC again over Maine gay marriage loss.”
What does Aravosis think the DNC could have done about the gay marriage vote in Maine? How is that a job for the DNC? Isn’t that really up to the activists who got the initiative on the ballot?
Marriage is a state issue.
To me it seems clear that they are going to have to rethink their approach to this problem since the ballot initiatives aren’t working for gay rights.
“The Dem majority is gone.”
Whatever gets you through the day, but unfortunately for you this isn’t true.
“The Dem majority is gone.”
OMFG! Are the midterm elections tomorrow? Why didn’t somebody tell me?
Stewart is a genius.
BBQ – That Jon Stewart link is gold! Thank you so much.
JS was hilarious. Nailed glenda perfectly. Thx BBQ.
” Sean Hannity claims 20,000 Tea Partiers showed up, sourcing unclear.”
Hannity also thinks farmers are out there farming all alone with no help from the government.
That’s how smart Hannity is. He can’t count to 20,000. He can’t get past 11.
Middle of the night thought: must be about time for Obama to invite Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Liz Cheney over to the White House for a pickup game of hoops.
The two major factors which will make it almost impossible to lower the jobless rate significantly, for years to come:
Almost all the good paying manufacturing jobs have been outsourced for ever. Those are the type of jobs that allowed the middle class to emerge, and those jobs are gone.
The second major factor is:
Consumer Credit has been maxed out, and is no longer available to a very large segment of the population. Credit Cards used to fuel a lot of the Retail figures, and that is over with, for at least the next few years. Combine that with the glut of housing on the market, with fewer mortgages being made available, and far fewer people in the market for to purchase homes, and you end up with far fewer home manufacturing jobs being created.
When you outsource the source of a nation’s vitality, then you are doomed to finish up where we are now.
‘The two major factors which will make it almost impossible to lower the jobless rate significantly, for years to come:”
Liam, that can be cured by creating new jobs and if we can pass a climate change bill that calls for the restructuring of our power grid, jobs will appear by the tens of thousands.
Tena,
“Tens of thousands” is a drop in the bucket. People are losing their jobs at the rate of more that half a million each month. Besides; the jobs you are predicting, will not become available for at least two years from now.
I’m with Liam. If anyone, dem or repub, thinks that the economy will be on the mend soon, they’re living in a fool’s paradise. It’ll take years to reach Clinton era (at least the 2nd phase) levels.
The Republicans screwed up the economy much worse than many realize.
Right wing policies put US on the edge of another Great Depression (which was also caused by right wing policies).
The 2007 Republican Great Recession was only minimized through MASSIVE government intervention.
If the right wing’s economic policies had been put in full effect we’d be in a Second Great Depression right now.
In order to truly get US out of this recession there would have to be both much more massive government expenditures then are currently taking place and there would have to be a re-regulation of financial industry.
But the right wing have been fighting both fixes as if they want America to fail.
The government stimulus was only enough to keep US out of another Great Depression, but it wasn’t enough to actually stimulate the creation of new jobs (during the first Great Depression that took the massive government expenditures of World War II).
And the financial industry who’s right wing deregulation got US into this mess is still unregulated which means we’re still at risk of the financial industry gambling US into another financial collapse.
Part of the problem is that Obama keeps working with the right wing and keeps rejecting the left wing’s pleas.
Obama ignored Paul Krugman’s call in January ‘09 that the stimulus was to small. And Obama has still not addressed the re-regulation of the gambling den that just wiped out trillions of dollars in wealth.
And of course the right wing, whose policies put US into the 2007 Great Recession, still take no responsibility for the mess and are actively working at cleaning it up.
corrected:
And of course the right wing, whose policies put US into the 2007 Great Recession, still take no responsibility for the mess and are actively working at preventing it from being cleaned up.