• Barack Obama,  G-8,  Nicolas Sarkozy

    Video: Was Obama and Sarkozy Conspicuously Checking Out The Woman’s ASSets?

    Yeah, I would say yes, despite the debunking.

    Here is the still photo once again:

    r33565525473299656 G-8 Photo of the Day: Obama and Sarkozy Check Out The ASSets

    U.S. President Barack Obama (C) and France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy (R) take their places with junior G8 delegates for a family photo at the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy, July 9, 2009. Leaders of the Group of Eight major industrial nations and the main developing economies are meeting in the central Italian city of L’Aquila until Friday to discuss issues ranging from global economic stimulus to climate change and oil prices


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  • Sarah Palin

    Vulnerable Republicans To Shun Sarah Palin Campaign Help?

    palintimecover

    The Lede from the Hill implies so. But, read the entire piece.

    Republicans facing tough elections in 2010 don’t want Sarah Palin campaigning with them.

    Though the soon-to-be-former Alaska governor is seen as popular with the conservative grass roots, several Republicans said she’d help them by staying home in Wasilla.

    Several of these Republicans hail from districts or states carried in 2008 by President Obama, a frequent target of Palin’s criticism. Republicans must keep these districts and win others where Obama is popular if they are to gain seats next year.

    GOP Rep. Lee Terry (Neb.), who squeaked out a victory despite his district’s overwhelming turnout for Obama, said he’d rather have House colleagues campaign for him than Palin.

    “There’s others that I would have come in and campaign and most of them would be my colleagues in the House,” Terry said.

    Politics is all about the money and Sarah Palin can turn out a crowd and bring in the bucks. I doubt any of these pols would turn down an event where they can bring in the campaign moolah.

    This left-slanting piece self-corrects at the end with quotes from GOP Representative Roy Blunt and Senator Charles Grassley.

    But, the headline is the headline and the MSM cannot help themselves in painting everything Palin as a negative.

    Now, a real story will be when SarahPac starts supporting conservative candidates in contested GOP primaries to rid the party of some RINOS.


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  • Democrats,  GOP,  Polling

    Party Support Poll Watch: Has the GOP Bottomed Out?

    GOP Dems ID

    Possibly, when one looks at the latest Gallup Poll.

    The Democratic Party continues to hold a solid advantage in party support over the Republican Party, as 49% of Americans interviewed in the second quarter of this year identified with or leaned to the Democratic Party, compared with 40% who did so for the Republican Party. However, that nine-point Democratic advantage is smaller than the 13-point edge Gallup measured in the first quarter of the year.

    The latest results are based on an average of the Gallup Poll stand-alone polls conducted in the second quarter of 2009, consisting of more than 5,000 interviews with U.S. adults. Gallup Poll Daily tracking shows a similar pattern of change from the first quarter to the second quarter.

    The declining Democratic advantage is due more to a drop in Democratic support (from 52% to 49%) than to an increase in Republican support (from 39% to 40%).

    The lessening Democratic advantage may to some degree reflect a return to more typical party support levels, because the 13-point Democratic edge from the first quarter is on the high end of what Gallup has found since it began tracking this measure of party identification in 1991.

    More likely is that the Democrats have topped out – at least for now.

    Independent voters have been increasing in California (even with closed primary elections) and in open primary states. There is really little incentive to register with one party or the other.

    Also, note during the Bill Clinton early years, the GOP surged when it gained control of the House. Might the GOP see a comeback as a result of an Obama Administration?


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  • Day By Day,  GOP

    Day By Day by Chris Muir July 10, 2009 – Bury The Hatchet

    daybyday071009

    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    Let’s see how the Democrats in Congress bury the hatchet as they try to ram Obama’s legislative agenda through the Congress.

    However, the polls show that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi may have overreached with their costly pork barrel spending plans.

    Is this the Bill Clinton era redo from 1992 when Newt Gingrich and his Contract for America carried the day in the midterm elections in 1994?

    Time will tell. But, the GOP seems to be lining up some good Congressional candidates to make a race of it.

    Previous:

    The Day By Day Archive


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  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2009-07-09

    • In a potentially alarming trend for the White House, independent voters are deserting President Barack Obama nationally and especially in key swing states, recent polls suggest.

      Obama’s job approval rating hit a — still healthy — low of 56 percent in the Gallup Poll on Wednesday. And pollsters are debating whether Obama’s expansive and expensive policy proposals or the ground-level realities of a still-faltering economy are driving the falling numbers.

      But a source of the shift appears to be independent voters, who seem to be responding to Republican complaints of excessive spending and government
      control.

    • He predicted that, positive press not withstanding, opinions among Americans about Obama could sour significantly by year's end if the economy doesn't improve.

      "When the mood of the public sees unemployment go above 10% before Christmas, things like that — if the bad things happen that are predicted — I think it's inevitable the public mood will change."

      According to the Rasmussen daily tracking poll, as of Thursday, 30% of Americans "strongly approve" of the way Obama is performing as president while 38% "strongly disapprove."

    • Economic headlines greeting Joe Biden in Ohio this morning:

      Furloughs may be next in Ohio county with 4-day wk

      33 Columbus-area post offices among 3,000 facing closure

      County budget slides deeper into red

      Marion City Fire Dept. closes two stations

      Xenia City Workers Face Budget Cuts

      Bad News For Buckeye State's Budget

      It's a great day to go before the public and call for "patience."

    • Sen. John Ensign's (R-Nev.) parents gave the family of the woman with whom he had an affair gifts totaling $96,000 after they learned of their son's indiscretion, an attorney for the Nevada senator said Thursday.

      Ensign's parents gave the gifts to Doug and Cindy Hampton, along with two of their children, in the form of a single check. The gifts were limited to $12,000 per person at most, in order to avoid taxes on gifts, given by each of Ensign's parents.

      (tags: john_ensign)
    • The truth is liberals are furious they won't have Sarah Palin to kick around anymore — at least not with Palin's hands tied behind her back by her public office.

      Something tells me Keith Olbermann isn't going to be pulling any big numbers this summer attacking Eric Cantor and Michele Bachmann. I don't anticipate any sudden outbreaks of "Mitch McConnell Derangement Syndrome."

      Soon we'll only hear about Keith when his creepy e-mails using his mother's death to hit on chicks start making the rounds again. (Tip to Keith: When a girl refuses to give you her phone number, her assistant's phone number or her personal e-mail address, and only gives you her assistant's e-mail address, you're not halfway in the sack.)

      Bonus: If Olbermann gets canceled as a result of Palin's resignation, that will put her in a really good position for 2012.

      (tags: sarah_palin)
    • President Obama today offered to scrap plans for a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe if Russia helped to stop Iran developing a nuclear bomb.

      He appealed in Moscow for a new era of partnership between Russia and the United States to fight the spread of nuclear weapons to rogue states and terrorist groups.

      "That is why we should be united in opposing North Korea's efforts to become a nuclear power and preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon," he said.

      Russia strongly opposes US plans to site the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, which Washington says is necessary to defend against a surprise attack from Iran. Mr Obama made clear that he was willing to strike a deal with the Kremlin.

    • This analysis by Plum Line, suggesting Palin couldn't have quit due to costs incurred by Alaska in fighting bogus ethics complaints is just silly. They suggest it wasn't about the costs, as the money was already budgeted for the state's lawyers and would have been spent anyway, simply on other matters. Well, Duh! Waste is waste, no matter how you cut it. All this does is show how distracted the lawyers were from working on more serious state business. It also proves how desperate they remain to throw any trumped up allegation Palin's way they can, even after she has resigned.
      (tags: sarah_palin)
    • Gov. Sarah Palin is the political train wreck that keeps on giving. First, she was an awful choice last year as John McCain's running mate. I came to this conclusion with regret – I am one of McCain's biggest admirers.

      But facts are facts. An inexperienced governor of a small state, she lacked the experience to be President and brought nothing to the ticket except a surefire knack for exciting voters who were already reliably Republican. It was a strategically awful choice, and I said so – both on and off microphone – at the time. Most pundits thought I was wrong. Look at the crowds she can draw, I was told. She "excites the base."

    • When the president travels out of country, his secretary of state customarily follows.

      Not so with Hillary Clinton.

      More and more, President Obama is ditching his top diplomat when he travels abroad. By the time Obama returns from Ghana on Sunday, the last stop on his latest three-country tour, he will have visited nine countries without Clinton.

      That's highly unusual for a new secretary of state. Though Clinton has accompanied Obama on several key international visits this year, including Egypt and Trinidad and Tobago, Obama has spent far more time than his predecessors without his foreign policy point person.

    • Rep. John Murtha (D., PMA Group), on the stimulus, yesterday: "We haven't seen any results."

      According to the Washington (Pa.) Observer-Reporter, Murtha said he would not have created the stimulus package the way Pres. Barack Obama designed it. Perhaps he would have preferred the funds be given directly to his family members.

      (tags: John_Murtha)
    • owa Republican Party officials Wednesday said they are aggressively courting Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to headline the state GOP's premier annual fundraising event.

      And they have put a well-connected Des Moines woman in charge of trying to land the 2008 vice presidential nominee and popular party figure in the leadoff caucus state.

      Aides to Palin did not immediately respond to Des Moines Register inquiries about whether the outgoing governor would consider the invitation to appear at the Ronald Reagan Dinner. The event has become a popular and high-profile stop for would-be presidential candidates.

      (tags: sarah_palin)
    • Carly Fiorina, whose rocky tenure as chief executive of Hewlett Packard ended with her firing, is making serious preparations to run next year for the Republican nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

      Fiorina's candidacy would be her first foray into elective politics and would turn California's Senate contest into one of the most closely watched in 2010.

      In a state that tilts strongly toward Democrats, Boxer would still be favored to win a fourth term, polls suggest.

      But Fiorina, a top economic advisor to John McCain in the 2008 presidential race, would be the wealthiest Republican ever to face the Democratic incumbent, making her a more serious threat than previous rivals. Fiorina's personal fortune — her HP severance alone exceeded $21 million after six years as chief executive — ensures she could run a full-scale campaign.

    • If Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin thought her decision to step down might end ethics accusations against her, she quickly found out she was wrong.

      Just days after her bombshell resignation announcement, a new ethics complaint was filed with state authorities arguing that she should not be able to claim per diem funds when she stays at her Wasilla, Alaska, home instead of Anchorage or Juneau, where she has offices. The complaint says she was charging the state when she stayed in Wasilla and commuted to her offices.

      The governor's mansion is located in Juneau.

      Palin claims she is the target of the "politics of personal destruction," as she and some staff members face 19 filings regarding allegations of ethical violations.

      "It doesn't cost the critics anything to file frivolous lawsuits or ethics violation charges. It costs our state such a great deal — thousands of staff hours, millions of dollars in public resources that aren't going to things that it should be going to," Palin told CNN.

      (tags: sarah_palin)
    • Five Iranian officials held by the US military in Iraq since January 2007 have been freed, according to Iranian state media.

      Tehran's ambassador to Baghdad was quoted as saying US forces had handed the five, whom he said were diplomats, to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

      Hassan Kazemi-Qomi said they would soon be taken to the Iranian embassy.

      US forces seized the five in the Kurdish city of Irbil on suspicion of arming and funding Shia militias.

      There was no immediate comment from the US embassy on Thursday about the reported releases.

      (tags: Iran usa iraq)
    • Billions of dollars in federal aid delivered directly to the local level to help revive the economy have gone overwhelmingly to places that supported President Obama in last year's presidential election.

      That aid — about $17 billion — is the first piece of the administration's massive stimulus package that can be tracked locally. Much of it has followed a well-worn path to places that regularly collect a bigger share of federal grants and contracts, guided by formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for manipulation.
      The reports show the 872 counties that supported Obama received about $69 per person, on average. The 2,234 that supported McCain received about $34.

    • A new University of Texas poll finds Gov. Rick Perry (R) leading Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) in a Republican gubernatorial primary, 38% to 26% with another 34% still undecided.

      Said pollster James Henson: "The much anticipated match-up between Gov. Perry and Sen. Hutchison is proving to be a close one. While the governor has pulled ahead in this and other recent polls, the race is still apparently very close, and a lot of people have yet to make up their minds."