Barack Obama: Popular (for now)

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The approval rating polls of the Obama presidency are out, and President Obama is doing all right. He has a 68% approval rating overall, which is about where Reagan was for his first approval rating, but behind George Bush Sr. This isn't really surprising, as most incoming presidents start out with fairly high approval ratings. That said, he still isn't winning over many self-identified Republicans, as only about 1/3rd or them seem to think he's doing an okay job. So much for the whole post-partisan pipe dream.

But for the most part, Obama's a pretty popular dude. So popular, in fact, that even congressional Democrats are seeing their numbers go up. A whopping 50% of the country actually approves of the job the D's in the House and Senate are doing, which is huge because, cmon, who likes Harry Reid? Only 38% thought their Republican counterparts were doing a good job, because of, I don't know, we'll say the stimulus. Except less than half of those polled even think the federal government will manage to not screw that up, so maybe no.

Anyway, the point is President Obama is popular for now, and I'm still surprised this song was as big of a hit as it was.

Michele Bachmann: Still Talking

Pictured: Michele Bachmann, with some Turner fellow

Remember Real America's very own Michele Bachmann? She's the Congresswoman from Minnesota's 6th District, which is a oasis of horror in an otherwise tolerable at times state. Around election time, she said she was going to personally find every anti-American in Congress (hint: it's the Democrats) and personally crucify them, so their souls will be saved. Anyway, now she's back kicking the troof to the yoof. Here are some gems from a recent talk-radio appearance.

• ACORN, the radical squirrelfucking vote fraud machine that Barack Obama founded soon after he was born in Kenya, is being given $5 billion from the stimulus package by that guy, the President, even though they're under federal indictment (except they're not and they're . . . not.)
• President Obama has a grand scheme to redistrict the entire country with the census, leaving Democrats in power for "40 years." Aside from the fact that redistricting is done at the state level, not the federal level, cmon. These are the Democrats we're talking about. This si the same party that had a seemingly permanent majority after the 1964 elections and wound up giving away the country for the better part of 4 decades immediately following. Step your conspiracy game up, Michele.
• Apparently we're running out of rich people. Not sure how she even noticed; the rich people in her district consist of the warden at Stillwater and the one successful guy who graduated from St. Cloud State (if there is one.)
• "We are LITERALLY losing our country." She said this. God I hate people who don't know what literally means but say it anyway. It figureatively makes me want to jump off a bridge.
• Also, the stimulus will destroy medicine. That's right, liberal secular humanist Michele Bachmann has to rely on human beings and their "science" everytime she gets sick, instead of praying to Baby Jesus to drive the Flu Demons from her insides like a Real American. Sellout.

No matter what happens with our awful Senate recount, Michele Bachmann will always be the funniest person ever sent to Congress by the state of Minnesota.

Angry Dick.

Sometimes Dick and Bush just don't get along (no matter how many beers you've had to make it work, but that's another story).

Ex Vice President Dick Cheney is telling sources that he was mad at George Bush for not giving Scooter Libby a full pardon after he was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame case in 2007.

The source told the New York Daily News that he is furious with Bush and feels that Libby deserved a full presidential pardon.

Libby's 30-month sentence was commuted after intense lobbying by Cheney in the last hours before Libby was to go to jail. Because of the commutation, Libby is still a convicted felon and can't practice law.

If he doesn't know he can't lie in court and get in the way of an investigation, maybe he shouldn't.

Who wants to be Obama's King of Money?

Apparently nobody. After Bill Richardson withdrew his name from consideration to be Seceretary of Commerce, Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican who was to replace him, has ALSO pulled his name out.

The reason given is policy differences. Gregg is I guess not thrilled with the stimulus package, or maybe he just wants to wait and become Money King of a more prosperous country that will not soon be living out of a cardboard box. Either way, wasn't Obama's whole "reach out to Republicans" thing fun while it lasted?

Take 2.

Where will he find his fun now?


From the "Here we go again" department: Brett Favre announced his retirement for the second time from the New York Jets today.

There wasn't a tear-filled press conference like last time, but i'm sure his former teammates in the Jets locker room are crying tears of joy and burning his uniform right today.

ESPN and the other major networks won't tell you this, but Brett Favre is a major a--hole.

Not only did he distance himself from his teammates his entire time in New York (not to mention his past few years in Green Bay), he got his coach fired, and he cost the Jets a third-round pick, which they could have used this year to get a QB to fill the slot he just left.

I still don't think this saga is over though, be prepared for Favre to try to play for another team with a system that's more familiar (read: Minnesota).

Republican Congressman Is a SECRET MUSLIM!

It's hard out there for a Republican. The party is still recovering from a horrible November 4th and for the first time in a long time they find themselves searching for an identity. But Texas Congressman Pete Sessions (also the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee) finally has an idea for who the GOP should emulate. The Taliban.

Remember the Taliban? They were harboring bin Laden, so we were pissed at them. Then we kicked their asses from here to Tienanmen Square and they went away, joining Dip Set but then their album kept getting pushed back and now they do PSA's about how your TV antenna won't work anymore I think, although that black guy keeps saying we need to fight them, again, maybe. They were a backwards thinking, war-loving, science-hating gang of religous fundamentalists, only the red states don't like them because they won't eat the Moon Over My Hammy at Denny's. Anyways, Sessions thinks maybe the Republicans can learn a thing or two from the hated and deposed oligarchy.

Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban," Sessions said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. "And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban -- I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with.

It doesn't really matter, but could you imagine what would have happened if Barney Frank would have said this about his party? Sean Hannity would literally eat him alive, with Freedom Dressing for flavor.

Anyway, Pete Sessions is the American Taliban. Why do Democratrs foster the type of atmosphere that makes Republicans want to be like Our Enemies?

Strategery?

Given the state of today's economy, it's ironic that Obama's selection for commerce secretary would be the toughest sell.

Obama's decision to nominate Republican Judd Gregg to the position today is causing a ruckus because it could possibly give the Democrats a super-majority in the Senate.

The Democrats currently have a 58-41 advantage in the Senate. Whenever they can seat Al Franken of Minnesota, that will push their advantage up to 59-41. The Gregg appointment will take away a seat from the GOP, and given that New Hampshire's governor is a Democrat, its highly likely that a Democrat would be appointed to Gregg's vacant slot.

That would give the Democrats a filibuster-proof 60-40 advantage, which means that the GOP wouldn't be able to do anything to stop the Democrats from pushing whatever legislation they wanted through Congress.

According to Fox News, Gregg struck a deal with the governor to appoint a Republican in his seat, which is drawing some heat from the Democrats.

How this situation plays out could greatly affect legislation over the next couple years.

The future of the GOP

According to some new polling conducted by Rasmussen Reports, the Republican party's problem is it is too moderate. Or that it's too conservative. And that Sarah Palin is definitely the future of the party. Or she isn't.

Basically, nobody knows what Team Red should do. 43% of Republicans polled think the party needs to turn further to the right, with 55% saying they should look to Sarah Palin for the direction of the party. Unsurprisingly, most democrats think the Republicans have the opposite problem, with 64% saying the GOP is too conservative.

What's most telling is what unaffiliated and moderates think. 39% say the party is too conservative and 34% say it isn't conservative enough.

It kind of reminds me of the early part of this decade when Democrats were getting whooped up on, and all of your liberal friends were convinced that the only way to get back was to take the party further to the left. The D's made a comeback, but haven't really moved the party any farther leftward than they were in the 90's, when moderate Clintonites ruled the land. They just waited for the Republicans to screw up to the point where no one could stomach these trolls any farther and sort of fell in to power.

It seems to me that with the election of Michael Steele as RNC boss and the pre-emptive crowning of Sarah Palin as torchbeaer for 2012, Republicans are trying to have it both ways, by giving the image of a party moving to be more inclusive while moving to the right ideologically.

Will America respond to a Republican party that is more image-concious AND more conservative? Only if the Democrats REALLY screw up (which will probably happen soon.)