The Respectfully Republican Conversation

vivre

The world is waking up to the reality of having a president in training pants in the White House:

Feb 12, 6:59 AM (ET)

By PAN PYLAS

LONDON (AP) - World stock markets fell Thursday amid pessimism about the Obama administration's plans to fix the U.S. banking system and restore the overall health of the world's largest economy. European stocks were also undermined by a raft of disappointing earnings.

The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares fell 58.82 points, or 1.4 percent, to 4,175.44, while Germany's DAX declined 96.81 points, or 2.1 percent, to 4,433.28. The CAC-40 in France was 45.08 points, or 1.5 percent, lower at 2,982.64.

Sentiment in Europe, already depressed by further losses in Asia earlier, was hit by the news that a number of companies across the continent reported worse than expected earnings and predicted further difficulties for the months ahead.

In Britain, drinks maker Diageo warned that its profits for the 2008-9 fiscal year would be lower than previously anticipated because of the global economic slowdown, while BT PLC, the telecommunications company, issued its fourth profit warning in the space of just six months as a result of further one-off charges.

Meanwhile in France, EDF, the world's biggest nuclear reactor operator, reported a 40 percent drop in net profit last year, due mainly to a provision related to changes in the regulation of power rates. And carmaker Renault SA swung into the red in the second half of the year and said it expected the outlook to darken further this year as the economic crisis continues to ravage car sales.

"There are no green shoots of recovery; with profit warnings, continuing bad news on the global economy, there is a risk that equity markets will continue to lose ground," said Neil Mackinnon, chief economist at ECU Group.

The raft of grim corporate news in Europe comes as the markets have largely given the thumbs-down to the passing of a $789 billion stimulus bill in Congress and U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's bank rescue plan, which could cost up to $2 trillion. On the Geithner plan, investors worried about the lack of detail, specifically the absence of any indications about how the banks' toxic assets would be bought.

"Policymakers will argue these details will be hammered out over time, but in the meantime the economic and financial black hole will potentially deepen, and for markets this means risk aversion will likely remain elevated," said Daragh Maher, an analyst at Calyon Credit Agricole.

That risk aversion was certainly evident in Asia earlier, where Japan's Nikkei stock average tumbled 240.58 points, or 3 percent, to 7,705.36 - the lowest in nearly three months. The Nikkei's losses were accentuated by the fact the markets had been closed on Wednesday for a national holiday.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 310.91 points, or 2.3 percent, to 13,228.30, while South Korea's Kospi lost 0.9 percent despite another rate cut from the country's central bank. Shanghai's main index was off 0.6 percent and Taiwan's benchmark retreated 2.4 percent. However, Australia's key stock measure gained 1.2 percent.

Shanghai's market came off lows late in the session after Aluminum Corp. of China, the world's biggest aluminum producer, announced it was investing some $19.5 billion in global miner Rio Tinto Group - China's biggest overseas investment ever. The state-controlled Chinese company, also known as Chinalco, will take a bigger stake in the Australian firm by setting up a joint venture and purchasing convertible bonds.

The deal, coming at a time when China's economy is being squeezed by the global economic crunch, reflects Beijing's determination to line up future resources it needs to sustain economic growth. It will also help Rio Tinto pay down some of its nearly $39 billion in debt.

The company's shares jumped 5.6 percent in Shanghai, but lost 4.8 percent in Hong Kong. Shanghai and Hong Kong price moves often differ, with mainland China's markets strongly reflecting local sentiment because they are largely closed to foreigners.

Oil prices fell slightly, with light, sweet crude for March delivery down 60 cents at $35.54 a barrel in electronic trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract shed $1.99 to settle at $35.94 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Wednesday.

In currencies, the dollar dropped 0.4 percent to 90.31 yen while the euro fell 0.7 percent to $1.2808.

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shokk

I cannot believe the way the Senators treated the executives from the Banks...........what a load of crap.........if I were the CEO's I would return all that freaking bail out money and if I had to file reorganization............what Lear jet liberal hypocrites!!!!!!!!...........those Senators are living off our tax money and flying around in private jets supplied by lobbyists and they have the nerve to be so disrespectful to these guys that were only following instructions and laws that said people had to have loans if they are minorities or low income whether they can afford to pay them back or not.........and then those same Senators and I don't give a flying puck if they are Democrat or Republican but retire to there "respect" retreats at posh hotels to meet and plan their strategies.........the Democrats go to that place in Virginia......I forget where the Republicans go...doesn't matter........they are behaving the same way as the bankers but the only difference is that the Senators are using OUR MONEY.......at least the bankers have used EARNED MONEY will until a few months ago.........what HYPOCRITES!!!!!!!!!! our congressmen are...........I am so steamed...........Shokk

Anonymous

"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." ~ Ronald Reagan

"It is only government that can break the vicious cycle..." ~ Barack

Anonymous

Shokk, you have every right to be steamed!  We ALL should be steamed about the mess our country is in, and most of it because of congress.   

Rosemary44

Isn't courtship wonderful.  Just pick the most likely to be impressed and go for it. 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090212/us_time/08599187894200

Oh, Oh, I can call Joe on weekends.  Rahm was there, oh oh.

pconn03

I just called the Capitol main line again - got connected to one of MY (??) senators - Debbie Stabenow.  No answer but got her voice mail.  Left another begging message to please look into this bill more deeply and to not be so partisan when viewing it.  I also went on about the health insurance part that they are attempting to sneak in - it really really makes me afraid for us all.

The main number for the Capitol is 202-224-3121

I will try my other Dem senator later - Gary Peters. 

Pat

pconn03

Sherri:

Absolutely right . . . I wrote her an email about that last week when I first heard it.  I got some form reply back, you know the yadda, yadda, yadda type.  I thought I had heard on WJR though that she had somewhat (and I use the word cautiously) backed-off of this position after quite an outcry but then someother dimwit said the same thing on the same show I guess.  So, it is definitely in the works - we'll have to keep an eye of it for sure.  I can't believe I'm doing all of this b/c I am usually not a political person at all but I am in such fear of this administration's supposed policies that I really feel I need to do whatever it is I can do to see that we do NOT become a Socialist nation.  God help us.

Pat

Rosemary44

All circuits are busy to the main number at the capitol.  I'll keep trying.  I think email will be better at least for now it will go through. 

Rosemary44

I emailed Specter and Collins also.  Asking them to amend this bill to take the SPECIAL health care provision out of it.  Most likely they didn't know it was in there.  Sure they read it all.

Anonymous

See, this is the kind of wasteful spending that tax payers should not have to pay for!!!!  If some rich philanthropic organizations want a statue, they should pay for it. If the city wants a statue, go sell cookies or hold a fund-raiser, but damn why do they spend our money for crap like that!!

I would rather see that money go to the kids who are living on the streets in Berkeley, they need school supplies, a warm home with a bed and safe surroundings!!!  After working with our homeless shelter this year, I see the difference a little leg up can do. Our area shelter is truly unique. It has what they call transitional living where a family can live in their own room with beds and dressers, etc. Like a hotel room but no kitchen but they do have private bathroom.  The couple must be married and the children must be theirs. The single women with children live in a large room with bunk beds but they are sectioned off so the mom and her kids have their privacy sort of.  The kids must go to school or day care and the parents need to work or be looking for a job. They pay rent ($90 per month) and turn over their paychecks which get deposited into savings accounts. The office will pay your bills for you (with your money) just turn in the bill.  You can get your money when you leave.  Parenting classes and Financial classes must be attended by all adults, no alcohol or drugs allowed.

The food kitchen serves the families and others. Due to fact that single women and children live there, the people who come to eat there for the food kitchen, must not have felony records. So, in order to be a patron of the kitchen they have to have a 'clearance' from the police.

They do have emergency sleeping for 50 people after the kitchen stops serving food but again, no felons can be there and sadly, no single men at all. Married men with their wives or single women can stay. Some are their with kids. Everyone must shower if they wish to sleep there. They have large bathrooms with private stalls and also family style showers.  Some are on the list to get into the transitional living program.

I love that program since it gets them on their feet and teaches them life skills. I have met some really wonderful people, people who have turned their life around.

moodyk13

So I missed a day or two, or three reading and now too far behind to even attempt to read every page.  So the only intelligetn thing I have to add is: 

ibc am I still insane?  I forget....

Anonymous

Daisy,

I heard the same thing on the news about pre-selected questions.  And I don't watch FOX news, ever!  ABC is my news of choice. Once in a while, CNN --- like maybe 1 or 2 times a month!!

vivre

Rock, that sounds like a great system, a leg up, not just a handout. Now how do you feel about spending a million or so for all those new welfare babies. These kids need to all be put up for adoption. That women is guilty of child abuse. Or maybe the doctor who implanted her should be forced to pay for them.

Maybe Piglosi wants to protect those mice so her docs can use them to do more botox experiments.

It is a waist of time to call congresspeople. My son did his internship in DC working for a rep. He said "Don't ever bother to write to you congressmen. They get opened by peons like me who just send back pat responses. No one even reads them, except if we get really bored". Most house members have an office in their district. You might have better luck there getting someone to answer the phone. As for my senators, why bother. One is a puppet the other is Dick Dirtbag.

BHO is in Springfield trying to tie himself to Abe. First of all Abe was a conservative, God fearing man, who actually cared about people. He did not run for office because he had dreams of being president, he really wanted to help people. Barry, you are no Abe, no matter how many times you paraphrase his speeches.

vivre

Love her or hate her, Ann Coulter knows how to hit the nail on the head. This column got almost 3000 responses. People are so mad, the dems are going to get a lot of backlash. My favorite comment was a Texas guy calling it the " stickitous" bill.

 Goodbye, America! It Was Fun While It Lasted by Ann Coulter (more by this author) Posted 02/11/2009 ET
Updated 02/11/2009 ET

It's bad enough when illiterate jurors issue damages awards in the billions of dollars because they don't grasp the difference between a million and a billion. Now it turns out the Democrats don't know the difference between a million and a trillion.

Why not make the "stimulus bill" a kazillion dollars?

All Americans who work for a living, or who plan to work for a living sometime in the next century, are about to be stuck with a trillion-dollar bill to fund yet more oppressive government bureaucracies. Or as I call it, a trillion dollars and change.

The stimulus bill isn't as bad as we had expected -- it's much worse. Instead of merely creating useless, make-work jobs digging ditches -- or "shovel-ready," in the Democrats' felicitous phrase -- the "stimulus" bill will create an endless army of government bureaucrats aggressively intervening in our lives. Instead of digging ditches, American taxpayers will be digging our own graves.

There are hundreds of examples in the 800-page "stimulus" bill, but here are just two.

First, the welfare bureaucrats are coming back.

For half a century, the welfare establishment had the bright idea to pay women to have children out of wedlock. Following the iron laws of economics -- subsidize something, you get more of it; tax it, you get less of it -- the number of children being born out of wedlock skyrocketed.

The 1996 Welfare Reform bill marked the first time any government entitlement had ever been rolled back. Despite liberal howling and foot-stomping, not subsidizing illegitimacy led, like night into day, to less illegitimacy.

Welfare recipients got jobs, as the hard-core unemployables were coaxed away from their TV sets and into the workforce. For the first time in decades, the ever-increasing illegitimacy rate stopped spiraling upward.

As proof that that welfare reform was a smashing success, a few years later, Bill Clinton started claiming full credit for the bill.

Well, that's over. The stimulus bill goes a long way toward repealing the work requirement of the 1996 Republican Welfare Reform bill and rewards states that increase their welfare caseloads by paying unwed mothers to sit home doing nothing.

Second, bureaucrats at Health and Human Services will electronically collect every citizen's complete medical records and determine appropriate medical care.

Judging by the care that the State Department took with private visa records last year, that the Ohio government took with Joe the Plumber's government records, that the Pentagon took with Linda Tripp's employment records in 1998, and that the FBI took with thousands of top secret "raw" background files in President Clinton's first term, the bright side is: We'll finally be able to find out if Bill Clinton has syphilis -- all thanks to the stimulus bill!

HHS bureaucrats will soon be empowered to overrule your doctor. Doctors who don't comply with the government's treatment protocols will be fined. That's right: Instead of your treatment being determined by your doctor, it will be settled on by some narcoleptic half-wit in Washington who couldn't get a job in the private sector.

And a brand-new set of bureaucrats in the newly created office of "National Coordinator of Health Information Technology" will be empowered to cut off treatments that merely prolong life. Sorry, Mom and Pop, Big Brother said it's time to go.

At every other workplace in the nation -- even Wal-Mart! -- workers are being laid off. But no one at any of the bloated government bureaucracies ever need fear receiving a pink slip. All 64,750 employees at the department of Health and Human Services are apparently absolutely crucial to the smooth functioning of the department.

With the stimulus bill, liberals plan to move unfirable government workers into every activity in America, where they will superintend all aspects of our lives.

Also, thanks to the stimulus bill, the private sector will gradually shrivel and die. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of servicing the bill's nearly trillion-dollar debt will shrink the economy within a decade.

Robert Kennedy famously said: "There are those who look at things the way they are and ask, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'"

The new liberal version is: There are those who look at things and ask, "Why on earth should the government be paying for that?" I dream of things that never were funded by the government and ask, "Why not?"

vivre

And the good news keeps getting better. Where is the press on all this? Oh yeah, I forgot, THEY WON!

Obama Takes the Appeasement Path by Robert Spencer (more by this author) Posted 02/12/2009 ET


According to a Syrian newspaper, the Obama Administration has agreed to sell airplane parts to Syria. If confirmed, this would be for the Obama team yet another departure from Bush Administration policy, and an especially disquieting one: Syria is one of only four countries that the State Department lists as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. The others are Cuba, Iran, and Sudan, and of those four Syria has been on the list the longest, since December 29, 1979.

Bush had barred all American exports to Syria except food and medicines, but now an ominous precedent is being set. The Syrian source has stated that the parts would be used only to repair two Boeing 747s, but once sales of airplane parts begin, would electronics and other materials useful on military aircraft also be released? This could lead to the spectacle of a designated State Sponsor of Terrorism using American materiel to attack an American ally, Israel.

This curious relaxation on trade restrictions with Syria, without removal of its State Sponsor of Terrorism designation, is of a piece with the conciliatory gestures Obama has made toward the Muslim world since he took office. He has repeated several times his intention to restore "mutual respect" between the West and the Islamic world, implying that such respect has only been lacking on the American side. And he seems determined to demonstrate that respect by ignoring all indications from the Islamic world that such "respect" might be ill-advised.

Even the notoriously pro-Palestinian United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) suspended aid shipments to the Gaza Strip after Hamas kept stealing them, but nevertheless Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum stating that "it is important to the national interest" to give $20.3 million to the United States Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund for the "humanitarian needs of Palestinian refugees and conflict victims in Gaza", which of course will be money that will benefit (and probably controlled by) Hamas.

More famously, Obama has ordered the Guantanamo Bay detention camp closed and ordered charges withdrawn against jihad terror suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, mastermind of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. Al-Nashiri will remain in custody and could be tried later in a military or civilian court, but the latter seems more likely, since he was already being tried in a military tribunal. If al-Nashiri ends up being prosecuted in a civilian court, the effect on the military could be catastrophic -- military personnel on the battlefield will have to be thinking about gathering admissible evidence in them middle of a fight, rather than defeating and killing or capturing the enemy.

Obama also cozied up to the principal enemy of free speech in the world today, writing a conciliatory letter to the 57-government Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), the largest voting bloc at the United Nations and saying that he was confident that the United States and the OIC could work together. Although neither the OIC nor Obama released the text of the letter, the President doesn't seem to have addressed in it the question of whether this cooperation would extend to the OIC's stated goal of forcing the UN to "adopt an international resolution to counter Islamophobia, and call upon all States to enact laws to counter it, including deterrent punishments." The OIC has made it quite clear that what they mean. To them, "Islamophobia" encompasses all speech about Islam that they dislike even if it goes under the "pretext" of "freedom of expression, counter terrorism or national security."

All this appeasement has had the predictable effect: it has emboldened the jihadists, chiefly in Iran. Obama has notoriously declared that he will sit down and talk with the Iranian mullahs "without preconditions," and the Iranians have reacted with gleeful contempt. Government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham crowed that Obama's request for talks "means Western ideology has become passive, that capitalist thought and the system of domination have failed." President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that the U.S. "must apologize to the Iranian people and try to repair their past bad acts and the crimes they committed against Iran." And the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Ali Larijani, said that "in the past years, the U.S. has burned many bridges, but the new White House can rebuild them" -- if, that is, it "accepts its mistakes and changes its policies."

Iran's haughty and dictatorial tone results from their perception of Obama as weak and naïve. Will he disabuse them of this impression before it is too late?

suzfive

Hey Daisy - I live in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin - we are practically neighbors.

Listened to the radio this morning and Governor Doyle wants to use some of the stimulus money to re-do I-94 from Milwaukee to the border with Illinois - My son lives in Chicago and I drive down to see him every couple of weeks - does that stretch really need to be torn up or is this just going to be "busy" work because we have the money. Just like Milwaukee County is putting bike racks on buses - because they could not pass up the federal money they were being offered - even though they had to chip in some of their own money (which they don't have but that's beside the point) - just can't pass up what the feds are giving out. Milwaukee is cold half the year - who is going to use these bike racks? It makes sense in places like California where you can ride a bike year round, but in Milwaukee????

People in this country are really dumb if they believe what the Dems are trying to pull over on them - no earmarks in this porkulus bill. Most of it is earmarks that will not create jobs.

Apparently Bush also had a list of pre-selected reporters that he called on at press conferences early on in his presidency although he was much more subtle about it. At least PBO could have made it look less obvious.

They are paying census workers 10 dollars an hour (I guess that is considered a "living wage" cuz you know that is soooo important to the Dimwits).

They did a poll and the majority of Americans said they liked PBO's healthcare plans. Of course this was his pre-election plans - you could keep your own insurance or get insurance as good as Congress. Wonder what people would say if they knew what was in this bill. Your medical records will be scoured for every possible thing that could be wrong with you - then your age, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, liver function, kidney function, whether you smoke or drink alcohol, can't forget height, weight and BMI, cancer history among other things will be plugged into a mathematical equation and crunched by a computer which will then decide whether you get treatment or not. The scariest part is you WON'T BE ABLE TO GET TREATMENT EVEN IF YOU CAN PAY FOR IT!!!  Get your passports ready. You can already go to some very good hospitals in India for care - more will pop up as Indian-born, American trained doctors return home to set up practices due to this. 

shokk

WOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..............tax cuts are on the way for 95% of Americans........1st year 13 dollars a week/676.00 per year............2nd year 8 dollars a week/416.00 per year....................of course last year when Bush issue stimulus checks for 600.00 Michele Obama made the comment that it was a gimmick and wouldn't even buy a good pair of earrings..............hmmmmmmmm.........don't care...........Obama said we would be getting a tax cut and we are........WOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO..........maybe Obama is getting Michelle a pair of  earrings for Valentines............Shokk

suzfive

Vivre- that Syria deal is probably the work of Samantha Powers. She is at the NSC which I guess is going to be in charge of foreign policy. She is a radical who is very anti-Israel. I am sure Hillary is kicking herself for taking the SOS job. She is being sent on ceremonial foreign trips with really no power - she barely makes the news - actually not much in the way of foreign policy makes the news - it will all be done behind the scenes - gotta love the new definition of transparency!

suzfive

Shokk - $13.00 a week won't even fill the gas tank! LMAO!! Speaking of earrings, I lost one earring of a favorite pair .

Anonymous

Iran's response is typical and what was expected ---- kind of like the bad neighbor who beats his wife, doesn't keep their yard clean and whose kid broke your window on purpose--- you need to apologize for calling the police, calling the HOA, and calling my kid a bully and tell me you were wrong before we can even discuss having a neighborhood bbq but I'm still gonna beat my wife and refuse to clean up my yard.

vivre

Yeah, Suzfive, I agree they put Hillary out to pasture. They will keep her busy, running around while they do their dirty work behind the scenes. To Hillarys credit, she probably took the job because she thought she would have some impact, but the great Clinton machine has been outmaneuvered by the Chicago machine. If she wants to get out of this with any sense of pride, she should resign on the grounds that the role of SOS is in name only. People whole emphathize with her, and she would be a heroine.

saluki

Dick Morris was so on the mark on this.........

I think maybe Shirley posted this somewhere but these pages move so fast its nearly impossible to find the stuff------

Told you as soon as I heard Samantha Powers was back and General James L. Jones was in the administration I knew Hillary would just be a titular head of a shadow government as far as foreign policy was concerned--after all Samantha Powers was always Obama' foreign policy soul-mate.--------"team of rivals"----I have a bridge I can sell you

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HILLARY’S INCREDIBLE, SHRINKING ROLE
By Dick Morris
02.10.2009

Published on TheHill.com on February 9, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is finding that her job description is dissolving under her feet, leaving her with only a vestige of the power she must have thought she acquired when she signed on to be President Obama’s chief Cabinet officer.

Since her designation:

• Vice President Biden has moved vigorously to stake out foreign policy as his turf. His visit to Afghanistan, right before the Inauguration, could not but send a signal to Hillary that he would conduct foreign policy in the new administration, leaving Hillary in the role of backup.

• Richard Holbrooke, the former Balkan negotiator and U.N. ambassador, has been named special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He insisted on direct access to the president, a privilege he was denied during much of the Clinton years.

• Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine), negotiator of the Irish Peace Accords, was appointed to be the administration’s point man on Arab-Israeli negotiations.

• Samantha Powers, Obama’s former campaign aide, who once called Hillary a “monster,” has been appointed to the National Security Council (NSC) as director of “multilateral affairs.”

• Gen. James L. Jones, Obama’s new national security adviser, has announced an expansion of the membership and role of the NSC. He pledges to eliminate “back channels” to the president and wants to grow the NSC’s role to accommodate the “dramatically different” challenges of the current world situation.

• Susan Rice, Obama’s new United Nations ambassador, insisted upon and got Cabinet rank for her portfolio, and she will presumably also have the same kind of access to Obama that she had as his chief foreign policy adviser during the campaign.

So where does all this leave Secretary of State Clinton?

While sympathy for Mrs. Clinton is outside the normal fare of these columns, one cannot help but feel that she is surrounded by people who are, at best, strangers and, at worst, enemies. The competition that has historically occupied secretaries of State and national security advisers seems poised to ratchet up to a new level in the current administration.

Hillary’s essential problem is that she is an outsider in the current mix. She was the adversary in the campaign, and Rice and Powers — at the very least — know it well, having helped to run the campaign that dethroned her. Can they — and she — be devoid of bitterness or at least of normal human trepidation? Not very likely.

The fact is that the power of the secretary of State is not statutory, nor does it flow from the prestige of the post’s occupant. Former Gen. Al Haig, once supreme commander of NATO and chief of staff to President Nixon, found that out when he was undercut as secretary by the White House troika of Mike Deaver, James Baker and Ed Meese. Bill Rogers, Eisenhower’s attorney general and Nixon’s California confidant, found himself on the outs from the moment he became secretary of State, with Henry Kissinger soaking up all the power through his direct access to Nixon as national security adviser.

The power of the secretary of State flows directly from the president. But Hillary does not have the inside track with Obama. Rice and Powers, close advisers in the campaign, and Gen. Jones — whose office is in the White House — all may have superior access. Holbrooke and Mitchell will have more immediate information about the world’s trouble spots.

So what is Hillary’s mandate? Of what is she secretary of State? If you take the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan out of the equation, what is left? One would have to assume that the old North Korea hands in the government would monopolize that theater of action. What, precisely, is it that Hillary is to do? The question lingers.

And for this she gave up a Senate seat?
 

Anonymous

Susie -- I posted that over on the Hillary thread ......  I bet she is steaming about all this!!!  She really would be poised to run against him if she quit and watched him fall on his face.

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Regarding the way BoBo is bowing to the Middle East, I think he deserves a pat on the back! (And while I am doing that, I will tape a big sign on his back that says: KICK ME!)

saluki

Rockermom--Kudos to you for posting that article-----

Anonymous

I like Hillary and it's sad to see her relegated to this Incredibly Shrinking Woman.  She is a fantastic fighter, she cares, and I think she would have done a good job.

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Well, since Republicans are not in charge of Congress, they really need to get back down into the cities and counties, start doing things right for us locally, maybe we can get rid of surplus things we don't need in order to concentrate on things that work.  Reduction of expenses locally, like assisting small business owners competing with the Wal-marts, assisting working parents with longer aftter-school care (school run day care closes at 6pm -- most people get off work at 5 and work at least an hours commute away forcing parents to pay for premium day care! Closing at 6:30pm would relieve a hefty financial burden off parents)

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President Obama's overall approval rating remained high and relatively steady over the past week, as he ratcheted up his efforts to push the $800 billion-plus economic stimulus legislation through Congress.

The rolling 3-day average in the Gallup organization's daily tracking poll reported Sunday showed 64 percent of respondents approved of Obama's performance since he took office nearly three weeks ago, while 22 percent disapproved. This amounted to a slight downtick in approval, from 66 percent last Monday, and a slight bump in disapproval, from 19 percent.

Yet the plus-42 gap between approval and disapproval would be the envy of most politicians.

That might include Republicans in Congress -- the vast majority of whom have so far steadfastly opposed the stimulus legislation, based on their contention that it contains too much spending, and that much of that spending would be wasteful and would not stimulate the economy in the near-term.

While some Republicans believe their fight against the major expansion of government spending has given them some political high ground, a separate Gallup poll released Monday showed Obama holding a big advantage in public opinion on the handling of the stimulus measure.

The survey conducted Feb. 6-7 showed that 67 percent approved of how Obama has "handled the government's efforts to pass an economic stimulus bill," while 25 percent disapproved and 8 percent had no opinion. By comparison, the Republicans in Congress drew a 31 percent approval rating on the stimulus bill while 58 percent disapproved and 11 percent had no opinion.

The Democratic majority in Congress was in the middle and just slightly in positive territory, with 48 percent of respondents approving, 42 percent disapproving and 10 percent stating no opinion. The survey of 1,018 adults across the nation had a statistical margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The public's dour outlook on the nation's recession-burdened economy may be buying Obama a bit of extended political leeway. The Gallup tracking poll measures a variety of indicators of the public's mood on the economy, all of which show extremely low levels of optimism and some of which eroded over the course of last week.

On consumer confidence, 79 percent of respondents said they were negative -- up 5 percentage points from the previous Monday -- while 3 percent (down from 4 percent) said they were positive. Given that the poll has a 3-point margin of error, that positive figure really can't get much lower.

Those saying economic conditions were excellent or good slipped from 10 percent last Monday to 7 percent by week's end. Those describing the economic outlook as "getting worse" bumped up from 77 percent to 81 percent.

Opinion on the overall "state of the union" remained nearly unchanged, but that's not good news. The Sunday figure was 15 percent satisfied (16 percent last Monday) and 81 percent dissatisfied (no change).

The Obama approval number is in sync with other recent independent national polls. A USA Today/Gallup poll taken Jan. 30-Feb. 1 - a different survey produced by Gallup - showed the approval/disapproval split at 64-25. A [@CBS News

suzfive

Have any of you been polled?

Yay for  Senator Judd Gregg - he is withdrawing his name from nomination for Commerce Secretary - citing differences of opinion on how things should be done (census and stimulus). They were only going to use him anyway - blame it on the Republican. Wonder if they will be able to find a non-tax cheating Dem to take his place.

Anonymous

Well, so much for Pres Obama not wanting to surround himself with 'yes' men.  Isn't that what he criticized Pres Bush for?  Apparently, the truth is he only wants people who will agree with him 100% on ALL his policies.  Hypocrit!  But, why am I so surprised.  I'm just a dumb old hick 'clinging to my religion and my guns.' 

Anonymous

Hillary needs to resign and get her seat back.  Maybe she can replace Schumer.  When does his term end?

suzfive

If I were Hillary - I would hand in my resignation. She is probably only staying on out of party loyalty.

Anonymous

I really think they only wanted Hillary out of her seat to give it as a reward to Caroline Kennedy for supporting Obama during the campaign.  Just like I think the only reason the democratic party turned on one of their own like Blago, because he wouldn't play ball with who Obama and his chief of staff wanted to take Obama's seat.