Lunching With the Pundits

“The president does these lunches occasionally to try to explain to opinion-makers what his thoughts are about issues of the day.”
Riiiiight.
Sit David sit. Good dog.

An implicit suggestion, he said, was that “clients might stop using you if you continue.”
joedoe | Nov 6, 2009 3:30:02 PM
Right, that’s just like Al Capone. Al was always going around politely telling people he might not hire them if he saw them working with the police.

Then the President said, “Mike,David,
Chris,Gail,Howard,David,Mara,Josh,John,Cynthia and Andrew, here is what I want you all to say, ……..”

How long to Eric Cantor bows before Rush?
Posted by: Ryan C | Nov 6, 2009 3:38:46 PM
Bait-n-switch.

Twitter statement
“Elie Wiesel on the GOP Tea Party’s anti-Semitism and Holocaust comparisons: “This kind of political hatred is indecent and disgusting”

“Elie Wiesel on the GOP Tea Party’s anti-Semitism and Holocaust comparisons: “This kind of political hatred is indecent and disgusting”
_____________________________________
No kidding!
What an ugly crowd – why would anyone in America want to support or emulate this lot of haters?

Unlike the right wingers who come on here and mindlessly (and obviously) parrot what they’ve been told by the right-wing media – these people actually have thinking minds.
Posted by: tierra | Nov 6, 2009 4:06:53 PM
_______________________
Most conservatives have this uncanny ability to recognize BS when they hear it and don’t really need written instructions. On the other hand, liberals live in some type of la la land, completely oblivious to hard, cold facts. Some slick talker chants something they want to hear and their legs start to tingle.

Hillary, you’re doin’ a heckuva job:
MEXICO CITY — An accord that would have unblocked the political standoff in Honduras has failed, the deposed president said Friday, a week after it was mediated by the United States.

MEXICO CITY — An accord that would have unblocked the political standoff in Honduras has failed, the deposed president said Friday, a week after it was mediated by the United States.
__________________________________
Sure, and you’d rather blame it on the United States than on the lot in Honduras who exiled the elected President against the laws of the country? And then imposed restrictions on freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and so on.
You’re on the wrong side pal.

Nonsense, most of them don’t even know what to say until they’re told by the multi-millionaire right-wing media clowns
___________________________
Jeffrey Immelt furnishing the talking points for you?
——————————–
I don’t even know who you’re talking about . .. so the answer would be ‘no’.

Josh has now lowered himself to token liberal, I see.

However, the W.H. attempting to intimidate the press, or those that speak to certain members of the press is risky business.
joedoe | Nov 6, 2009 3:50:28 PM
There has been no indication that these are anything more than press availabilities over lunch. And Obama has done this with prominent conservative pundits too. In January, he attended a dinner party at George Will’s house with a number of conservative columnists (David Brooks, William Kristol).
The President should not hide in fear of the media, he should be available to them.

Please, Jake, encourage your colleagues to go back to being the Fourth Estate. We need objective and real reporting of the facts – no matter what. Please. The media bias is killing our unity and killing our country.

For the polling nerds, the guys at pollster have some articles analyzing polling firms and how they did on Election day
Here’s an excerpt from Brian Schaffner’s on robocalls.
“First, there is no way to control for other reasons that these polls might have generated different results, including different approaches to screening for likely voters and how undecideds are dealt with. With regard to the latter issue, it is important to note that the pollsters using live interviewing in New Jersey were showing more than twice the percentage of undecideds as those using IVR.
This leads to a second important point (related to the first): comparing these pollsters based on the final result presupposes that each pollster that has been entered into this fictitious competition was actually trying to get the final result correct in the first place. If that was the goal, then it seems as though each polling firm would have allocated all of their undecided respondents into one camp or another.
Third, one of the reasons for concerns with IVR polling is that citizens with only a cell phone cannot be reached by these pollsters and these citizens now comprise at least one-fifth of the population. Yet, while the cell-only problem may generally be an issue for IVR technology (and for live interview pollsters who aren’t calling cell phones), it is less of a problem for polling on elections, and particularly in low turnout elections. This is because the types of people that do not have landlines are less likely to be voters (and particularly less likely to be voting in low turnout elections). Ultimately, an off-year low turnout election may actually be less of a challenge for IVR-based polls because the non-coverage bias should be smaller for these contests. Where these polls may run into greater challenges is when they attempt to make inferences about the American public rather than registered (or likely) voters. ”
So Rasmussen doesn’t poll cell phone only people?
That’s a little surprising.

Talk about preaching to the choir.Did Fineman enjoy his beatific vision?Anybody have the intestinal fortitude to ask him about yesterday’s “Congressional Medal of Honor” winner?Even George Bush wasn’t that dumb.

More for the polling nerds.
Mark Blumenthal at pollster’s conclusion on his article analyzing poll results for this week
“I am planning to look more closely at this example, but the important point for now is that while the automated polls turned in a strong performance in New Jersey, Virginia and Maine, the PPP poll in NY-23 was highly misleading.
The larger lesson is this: Automated polls have been maligned, unfairly in my view, as inherently “unreliable.” Yet when it comes to predicting election outcomes they continue to prove, NY-23 aside, at least as reliable as surveys done by conventional means. In New Jersey this week, they were more accurate in predicting the winner. At the same time, however, it would be wrong to jump to the opposite conclusion and place inherently greater trust in all automated surveys, especially when used for purposes other than predicting election outcomes.
All polls have their limitations. Rather than trying to divide them into two categories, “reliable” and “crap,” we might do better to try to understand their limitations and interpret the results we see accordingly.”

Only friendlies. That’s his choice but he continues to look weak to most Americans.

I thought that we had freedom of speech and assembly in this country.Why do some feel the need to demonize people who are exercising their constitutional rights simply because they disagree with their political views? Most of these “haters” are gainfully employed and have families-not typical of some of the protest demonstrations that I have seen in the past (and I’m sorry to say to have participated in).

“As Ben Smith of Politic points out…
“Not much room for discussing who saw which sign in this statement from the Elie Wiesel Foundation”
Ben Smith made that statement because Boehner claimed he only saw American Flags and no signs that were about the Holocaust

Liberal Democrat Mickey Kaus, November 6:
Opposition to reform appears to have held steady among GOPs. but risen among independents by 15 percentage points (from 38% opposed to 53%) and also among Democrats by 7 percentage points (from 18% to 25%). Less clear is what could have provoked these drops. It’s hard to say “lack of a public option,” given that the public option seems to be in better shape today than early in October–though the poll was taken immediately following Sen. Lieberman’s filibuster threat. 

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.

What a group Obama has assembled! Seated
at the roundtable…LOYAL knights of the
realm, to a man. (“It’s GOOD to be the
KING.”) But does the king realize that
some at the table have written some
blasphemous prose recently? Oops…
maybe their “minds are being set right”
We’ll know in the coming days.

“An emergency should not be wasted”.
You go, Obama, Rahm, Axelrod, Pelosi!
………..some of us in flyover land
will remember your fervor down the
road.

Embarrassed for the media. FAILED

confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail.
mickey maoist | Nov 6, 2009 8:31:13 PM
More paranoid exageration from the right wing. Yeah, if you DON’T PAY YOUR TAXES, including the watered down penalty for not carrying health insurance (ie, freeloading off the ER system for catastrophic coverage), you can go to jail. Guess what – if you claim your dog as a dependent to not pay income tax, you could go to jail to.
BREAKING NEWS FROM REPUBLICANS: IF YOU REFUSE TO PAY YOUR TAXES YOU MAY GO TO JAIL – THIS IS THE DEMOCRATS FAULT!!11!

‘Anguished’ Dems Balk at Health Bill
Some moderate Dems who reluctantly voted for energy bill, now wringing hands over health care vote

But the serfs and yokels still adore them all:
Talk about bad timing.
As Washington reels from the news of 10.2 percent unemployment, the Center for Responsive Politics is out with a new report describing the wealth of members of Congress.
Among the highlights: Two-hundred-and-thirty-seven members of Congress are millionaires. That’s 44 percent of the body – compared to about 1 percent of Americans overall.
CRP says California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa is the richest lawmaker on Capitol Hill, with a net worth estimated at about $251 million. Next in line: Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), worth about $244.7 million; Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), worth about $214.5 million; Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), worth about $209.7 million; and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), worth about $208.8 million.
It is surely worth noting that the rate or return of the company into which Sen. Kerry happened to marry dwarf quite obscenely those of the health insurance industry.

The leftist dolts must confront this reality, and soon, or face devastating electoral consequences:
“With House Democrats racing to pass their 2,000-plus page health care reform bill this weekend, a new CNN/Opinion Research poll shows that an overwhelming majority of those surveyed — 72 percent — want Congress either to make major changes, start over from scratch, or simply stop working on health care legislation.
“Just 26 percent want Congress to pass the current health care proposal as is, or with minor changes.”
Twenty-six percent: that’s about spot-on with the percent that the uncannily accurate Rasmussen finds “Strongly Support” the hapless president, as opposed to around 35% who Strongly Oppose him.

The hapless dunce blunders yet again:
“OBAMA:’ Please, everybody, have a seat. Let me first of all just thank Ken and the entire Department of the Interior staff for organizing just an extraordinary conference.
“‘I want to thank my Cabinet members and senior administration officials who participated today. I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow was around, and so I want to give a shout out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner. It’s good to see you.’
“Ah, the dangers of giving shout outs without a teleprompter. Crow is not a Medal of Honor recipient. As noted by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society:
“The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States. Generally presented to its recipient by the President of the United States of America in the name of Congress, it is often called the Congressional Medal of Honor.
“Crow’s name is not included on the Society’s Medal of Honor recipient list. He was, however, awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in August.”
A fool in far over his head. The troops surely know it, and are demoralized to be led by a pathetic sap.

To be really truthful about unemployment, you should use the U-6 number, which includes those who have stopped looking for work or who can’t find full-time jobs. That’s now risen to a whopping 17.5%, and is a more accurate portrayal of the current dismal situation of the formerly-free USA, under total liberal Democrat rule.

Leftist goofball yawns, stretches, and shows signs of awakening from slumber:
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W.Va.) tells the Washington Post: “The question is, do people think we’re tending to the things they care about?” It’s a rhetorical question: The Post adds that Rockefeller “said there was palpable concern among his colleagues Wednesday that the main agenda items Democrats are pursuing–health care and climate change–resonate very little with voters focused on finding or keeping jobs.”
He saw the election returns. He knows what they mean. It is great fun to watch the dumbest of his yokel followers deny that they meant anything.

HowHHis hapless, how feckless, how overmatched is this administration?
The Brits are finding out:
“Why is it taking President Obama so long to decide what to do in Afghanistan? There are a lot of reasons, a few good, but most are the consequence of past mistakes.”
We are paying to this day for the ineptitude of the absurd Carter administration. We will pay for this one for a long time to come, and in ways that can scarcely be imagined.
Three and a third million Americans have lost their jobs while this jackass fiddles around on an issue no one much cares about, and about which a majority disapproves of his solution.
He and his party will suffer dearly for this, and the suffering will be well-deserved. The Independents have left Obama, and no one listens to him anymore.

It remains for the New York Times to tell us what new record these simpletons have set while secretly holding meetings about healthcare legislation that people don’t want. Six months wasted on that nonsense, while this was going on under their noses:
“For all the pain caused by the Great Recession, the job market still was not in as bad shape as it had been during the depths of the early 1980s recession — until now.
“With the release of the jobs report on Friday, the broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment tracked by the Labor Department has reached its highest level in decades. If statistics went back so far, the measure would almost certainly be at its highest level since the Great Depression.
“In all, more than one out of every six workers — 17.5 percent — were unemployed or underemployed in October. The previous recorded high was 17.1 percent, in December 1982.”

at least chris and mara were there to bring some sanity!

RCP average Obama approval among registered/likely voters: 49.5%.
A growing and increasingly apparent tragedy that this man is in this office. The doubts begin to gnaw on all but the serfs and yokels.
How sad. Try to remember the Hope of just a year ago. Such a distant, melancholy memory.

Presidential Job Approval Ratings
Approve/Disapprove
52/42 Gallup
49/51 Rasmussen Reports
54/45 CNN/Opinion Research
53/43 Ipsos/McClatchy
50/41 FOX News
51/42 NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl
51.5%/44.0% RCP Average*
*This is the REAL RCP average. Don’t be fooled by Fascist Hyena, who cherry-picks his favorite polls, calculates his own average, and then posts his handiwork here with the RCP label slapped on to it.

It reveals a lot about the lack of integrity on the right – and anyone who has been paying attention here has seen it.
Posted by: tierra | Nov 7, 2009 12:58:12 AM
********
Not really Tierra. Observers are watching and reading the desperate obama supporter posts and we are smiling. We are also smiling when we read the obama supporters quoting from CNN. Didn’t you know that CNN is the lowest rated cable “news” network now? No one watches them any longer because they do not tell the truth.

I just got up and read on Gallup that 71% of Republicans would consider Huckabee in 2012. I’d like to take this opportunity to restate my prediction that the Republicans will indeed nominate Huckabee in 2012–but the election he will lose. I’m hoping he will make the whole thing a much more honorable affair.

“Didn’t you know that CNN is the lowest rated cable ‘news’ network now? No one watches them any longer because they do not tell the truth.”
Didn’t you know that a university study shows that CNN, overall, comes out as the most trusted television news outlet? You would never know it if you watch Fox, because Bill O’Reilly only told viewers half the story…the half that put FNC in the best light.
O’Reilly stated: “A new study by Sacred Heart University in Connecticut says that Fox News is THE most trusted television news network in the USA. 30% of Americans say FNC is their most credible source of information. Second was CNN at 19%. Waaay down the list – NBC news 7 ½%. For doing the study, the folks at Sacred Heart are patriots.”
But, Spinmeister O’Reilly completely ignored the second half of the paragraph which said that Fox News was also the television news organization trusted LEAST. Fox News was waaay at the top of the least trusted list with 26.2%. Distant runners-up were NBC News and MSNBC, both at less than 10%. CNN came in at 8.5%.
So, subtracting 26.2% from 30.0% leaves Fox with a net trustworthiness of just 3.8%. Doing the same with CNN’s figures gives them a net trustworthiness of 11.0%.
But perhaps getting a tingle up one’s right leg from Fox News feels better than getting the whole story.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 31% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -7. That’s the President’s best daily rating in just over three weeks.

“Barack Obama and the Democrats have come back to earth — hard. Republican wins in the Virginia and New Jersey governors’ races Tuesday and recent polling and economic trends reveal a political landscape that has changed dramatically since the president’s convincing election victory a year ago. Anxious independent voters are starting to listen to GOP attacks on government spending and Democratic health reform proposals. Meanwhile, Republicans’ most loyal supporters are stirring at the grassroots level.”
So much for the “realignment” of 2008.

Oops, this just out from the CBO;
Senator Gregg stated, “The CBO estimate released last night finally sheds light on the smoke and mirrors game the majority has been playing with the cost of their health care reform proposal. Over the first 10 years, this legislation builds in gross new spending of $1.7 trillion – and most of the new spending doesn’t even start until 2014. Once that spending is fully phased in, the House Democratic bill rings up at more than $3 trillion over ten years.
“Additionally, this bill cuts critical Medicare and Medicaid funding by $628 billion, accounts for nearly $1.2 trillion in tax and fee increases and will explode the scope of government by putting the nation’s health care system in the hands of Washington bureaucrats. The $3 trillion price tag defies common sense – we simply cannot add all this new spending to the government rolls and claim to control the deficit.
Good thing it came out on a sunday. Hopefully no one will notice like Van Jones’s exit in the middle of the night.

The Obama administration seem to think that freedom of speech means they are free from criticism and that to criticize them is to infringe upon their rights.
Dissent is no longer patriotic it is right wing hate speech. The irony is lost on many.

Friday the 13th was good for the Democrats and Jeffersonl
“Friday night, prosecutors in the case of The United States v. William Jefferson (D-LA) issued a memorandum recommending a prison sentence of 27 to 33 years for the former congressman from New Orleans, consistent with Federal sentencing guidelines. Such a long sentence is justified, according to the memo, by the severity of the crimes, flight risk, and the possibility of hidden assets.
Anything approaching the recommended punishment would be the longest sentence ever meted out on given to a U.S. Congressman.
Jefferson will be sentenced on November 13 by Federal Judge T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria, VA.”f,redstate.
I hope Congressman will keep this sentence in mind as they vote on this unconstitutional piece of obama-pelosicare.

“Your taxes in order buddy?:
I have an ironclad accounting firm handling them. Believe me, the Alyson’s of the world are still naive enough to believe they are doing the right thing.
They never learned from history. They are ignorant about where this kind of thinking leads. Hopefully, they’ll wake up before too much damage is done through their unquestioning devotion to a charismatic leader.
Though after that first Fort Hood press conference, you have to wonder why they aren’t already quesioning their beliefs.

“Paranoia and scaremongering– two more daily specials, every day, on the right wing menu.”
‘Scuse me? Axe threatened me with having my taxes audited and he tried to float the idea that you were working for the Obama administration or a private firm working on their behalf. That sounds like scaremongering from the left wing menu.
Believe me, I am not paranoid either. Threaten me all you want. I am also a firm believer in “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” (Edmund Burke) I won’t be frightened, I won’t stop speaking out.
I was not a fan of W either. I questioned many of his actions. I called my congresscritter to vote against the Bush TARP bailout. He didn’t.
Do you ever, in the far recesses of you mind, question what O is doing? Ever?

the Republican strategy to delay and derail, they haven’t provided a legitimate or serious or bipartisan alternative
Posted by: Alyson | Nov 7, 2009 10:36:44 AM
_____________________
Oh, but they have provided their plan. Many here know that. Citizens may agree or disagree with it–just as they agree or disagree with the Democrat plan–but to say the Republicans haven’t presented a plan is incorrect.

The goal of socialism is communism.”
“A lie told often enough becomes truth”
—Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924)
Do not pretend you are a moderate when you are really a marxist.

Trying to pry more propaganda out of the Lame Stream Media, Obummer?

Alyson: “. . . a Harvard Study, every year 45,000 Americans die because they don’t have health insurance.”
That’s not what the report said. Try reading it again, but more carefully this time. The report says lack of health insurance is “associated” with the death of 45,000 Americans. The term “associated” is much less conclusive than “cause.” Further, my thought is that, by definition, the uninsured are likely to be less healthy than those that cared to insure themselves, causing the uninsured to die more quickly. The two go hand in hand.
We already have health insurance for those that are unable to obtain health care — it’s called Medicaid. Everyone else needs to pay their fair share if they want health insurance.
Alyson: “We can’t afford to derail and delay.”
The truth is we can’t afford the government to subsidize health care for all. Just ask the CBO. Unless we want to start dismantling what makes America the greatest country in the world, we need to maintain the freedom of our health care industry and keep it in the private sector.

The Reminder: “I,for one was glad Glenn Beck wasn’t invited. It’s SO hard to get drool-stains out of nice table cloths……”
With this group you have to worry about the stains under the table, not above. Considering all of the “tingly legs” about.