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    links for 2009-08-06

    • ABC News' Jonathan Karl reports: The effort to inject another two billion dollars into Cash for Clunkers has hit a potential road block in the Senate that could kill the bill.

      Republiicans are throwing their support behind an amendment offered by Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, that would limit clunker rebates to individuals with annual incomes of 50 K or less. With Republican support the amendment stands a good chance of passing unless the majority of Democrats, who mostly favor the amendment, vote against it.

    • Rielle Hunter, John Edwards' former mistress, went inside the federal courthouse in Raleigh Thursday morning. A grand jury is meeting in the courthouse.

      Hunter was taken into a back entrance at the courthouse shortly after 8:30 a.m. by her New Jersey-based lawyer, Michael Critchley, an FBI agent and an agent with the Internal Revenue Service. She was carrying her 18-month-old daughter, Frances.

    • Twitter and Facebook, two of the Web's hottest hangouts, suffered service problems on Thursday, raising speculation that they had come under a pre-planned coordinated attack by hackers.

      Twitter, the popular micro-blogging service, was knocked down by a malicious attack that prevented people from accessing its website for several hours on Thursday.

      Facebook members saw delays logging in and posting to their online profiles. The social networking site is working with Twitter and Google Inc to determine whether there was foul play, a person familiar with the company said.

    • Facebook has confirmed to Wired.com that — like Twitter — it was the victim of a denial-of-service attack Thursday morning.

      The service has been working just fine for me, but I contacted the Facebook press office to ask whether the rumors of an attack were true.

      “Earlier this morning, Facebook encountered network issues related to an apparent distributed denial-of-service attack, that resulted in degraded service for some users,” responded Facebook spokeswoman Kathleen Loughlin via e-mail.

      “No user data was at risk and we have restored full access to the site for most users,” she added. ” We’re continuing to monitor the situation to ensure that users have the fast and reliable experience they’ve come to expect from Facebook.”

      (tags: facebook)
    • Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, the Charles Manson cult follower who tried to kill President Ford, is scheduled to be released from prison next week.
      Fromme, now 60, took aim at the president with a semi-automatic .45-caliber pistol Sept. 5, 1975. There were four bullets in the gun's magazine, but none in the chamber and an alert Secret Service agent grabbed the gun from Fromme.

      Fromme was a devoted member of the demonic Manson "Family." At the time of the assassination attempt, Manson and several of his followers were serving life terms for killing nine people in his grisly Helter Skelter plot to start a race war.

      She told her defense attorney that she targeted Ford because she wanted to garner attention for a new trial for Manson.

    • Amid the economic downturn, there are fewer places in New York to plug in computers. As idle workers fill coffee-shop tables — nursing a single cup, if that, and surfing the Web for hours — and as shop owners struggle to stay in business, a decade-old love affair between coffee shops and laptop-wielding customers is fading. In some places, customers just get cold looks, but in a growing number of small coffee shops, firm restrictions on laptop use have been imposed and electric outlets have been locked. The laptop backlash may predate the recession, but the recession clearly has accelerated it.
      (tags: Economy)
    • Last year, lawmakers excoriated the CEOs of the Big Three automakers for traveling to Washington, D.C., by private jet to attend a hearing about a possible bailout of their companies.

      But apparently Congress is not philosophically averse to private air travel: At the end of July, the House approved nearly $200 million for the Air Force to buy three elite Gulfstream jets for ferrying top government officials and Members of Congress.

      The Air Force had asked for one Gulfstream 550 jet (price tag: about $65 million) as part of an ongoing upgrade of its passenger air service.

      But the House Appropriations Committee, at its own initiative, added to the 2010 Defense appropriations bill another $132 million for two more airplanes and specified that they be assigned to the D.C.-area units that carry Members of Congress, military brass and top government officials.

      (tags: Nancy_Pelosi)
  • Barack Obama,  Polling

    More View Obama’s Presidency as a “FAILURE” Than George W. Bush’s

    President Obama and former President Goerge W. Bush

    So, says the latest CNN Poll.

    A rather surprising finding from the newly released CNN poll. Question three on the national survey of 1,136 adults (which includes an oversample of African-Americans) asks, “Do you consider the first six months of the Obama administration to be a success or a failure?”

    Thirty-seven percent (37%) said they believe the Obama administration is a “failure,” while 51% consider it a “success” and 11% say it’s still “too soon to tell.”

    An identical question was asked of the Bush administration in an August 2001 CNN/Gallup/USA Today survey.  At the time, 56% said the Bush administration was a “success” while only 32% considered it a “failure.”

    The link to the poll is here.

    The voters are definitely impatient with President Obama.


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  • Barack Obama,  Polling

    Obama at 200 Days: Failed Experiment

    Well, President Obama is falling precipitously in the polls.

    President Barack Obama’s approval rating is falling amid concerns about the U.S. economy and his push to revamp the U.S. health-care system, a Quinnipiac University poll shows.

    Exactly half of the registered voters surveyed from July 27 to Aug. 3 by Quinnipiac said they approve of the job Obama is doing, compared with 42 percent who disapprove. That’s down from 57 percent approval and 33 percent disapproval in a poll taken in late June, according to results released today.

    Americans are upset about rising unemployment and worried that health-care plans making their way through Congress will add to the U.S. budget deficit, said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Hamden, Connecticut-based polling institute. The combination has helped drive down the president’s ratings.

    I like to think it goes back to the “Beer Summit” when the bloom came off the rose. But, it is the economy. The government takeover of the private economy has done little to help the unemployment numbers and voters have become skeptical and impatient.

    The following video from the Republican National Committee sums it up well:


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  • Barack Obama,  Day By Day,  Obamacare

    Day By Day by Chris Muir August 6, 2009 – They Can’t Take It



    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    Yes, Chris, what else is new?

    The LEFT wants exclusively ownership of Saul Alinsky and all of his tactics. I guess they don’t suppose the RIGHT can actually read and adapt – like the Borg.

    Did you see the Democrat National Committee video yesterday?

    I mean comparing Obamacare protesters to a MOB. Come on NOW.

    The same was true on Tax Day, April 15, 2009 when the LEFT dismissed the tax protesters as “Tea Baggers.”

    Moderate Democrats are in electoral peril, if they follow the dictates of Obama (falling precipitously in the polls) and Pelosi (already in the poll basement). Rahm may coak them and supply the talking points but won’t be able to supply the votes come November 2010.

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