Poll: GOP Favorability Falters – Surprise?

Poll: GOP Favorability Falters – The Page by Mark Halperin – TIME.com 

Latest CNN/ORC survey puts Republican approval at two-year low.

Dips to 36% for only the second time in a decade according to CNN/USA Today/Gallup Trends.

Poll: GOP Favorability Falters – The Page by Mark Halperin – TIME.com

Details: CNN/ORC Poll on Party Favorability – The Page by Mark Halperin – TIME.com 

From CNN:

Republicans: 36% favorable, 54% unfavorable

Democrats: 53% favorable, 41% unfavorable

Congress: 29% approve, 69% disapprove

Congressional Democrats: 38% approve, 59% disapprove

Congressional Republicans: 33% approve, 66% disapprove

Conducted Oct. 16-18, error margin +/- 3 points.

Details: CNN/ORC Poll on Party Favorability – The Page by Mark Halperin – TIME.com

Congress performs the worst in this poll.

When Buchanan Calls You an Idiot, You’ve Been Seriously Dissed (Bucky Knows His Nixon)

 Think Progress » Buchanan on GOP and Fox linking Obama to Nixon: ‘It is the most idiotic comparison I’ve ever seen.’

Taking cues from their communications shop over at Fox News, GOP Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) yesterday attacked the White House’s campaign against Fox’s unethical journalistic practices by comparing President Obama to President Nixon. “Let’s not start calling people out and compiling an enemies list,” Alexander said, touting his days as a junior staffer in the Nixon White House as credentials for his charge. Gregg said he was “fascinated” by Alexander’s criticism and wondered if Obama is “Nixon-fying” the White House. But yesterday on MSNBC, top Nixon aide Pat Buchanan dismissed out-of-hand any comparison of Obama to Nixon:

BUCHANAN: It is the most idiotic comparison I’ve ever seen. Barack Obama won 95 percent of Washington DC, he comes in with both houses Congress behind him, the media love him, the country loves him. Nixon came in with both houses of Congress against him, he probably got 8 percent of the vote in Washington DC, the media loathed him. … I don’t see any comparison between Obama and Nixon whatsoever. … [T]here’s no comparison. Barack Obama’s got enormous press support, he’s got problems with Fox News but for heaven’s sakes there is no comparison here.

Think Progress » Buchanan on GOP and Fox linking Obama to Nixon: ‘It is the most idiotic comparison I’ve ever seen.’

Lucky Timing

American avocets

I go to Chaco Canyon every year (except for this one). In 2008, I also traveled to a couple of outliers west of Chaco. The road into Kin Bineola (“where the wind whirls,” Navajo) crosses a dirt dam. I had never seen any water on either side of that dam before, but on this trip in May, there was a small pond near the dam, well below the road. I saw something circle over the pond. I stopped on the dam to consider taking a picture. The two adult avocets were cute enough – and seemed out of place enough – to warrant a photo. I just got lucky that the babies flew in just as I clicked. I respect photographic skill, experience, and equipment, but lucky timing is the most valuable asset a photographer can’t buy. I never expected to photograph shorebirds in the desert.

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This Week’s WTF?!

You probably thought the “joke” about gunning-down liberal democrats was this week’s WTF?! But, no, we have a last-minute winner, from the drooling maw of the Big Mouth of the Republican Party (sorry, Lush, take another Oxy), Glenn Blech:

 Think Progress » Beck says ‘progressives’ are descended from ‘tyrants’ and ‘slave owners.’

On his Fox News show today, Glenn Beck said that “in the last couple of years” he’s been “trying to read a different Founding Father all the time,” offering that his latest interest is in Samuel Adams. According to Beck, Samuel Adams would have hated modern day progressives. “We call them progressives now, but back in Samuel Adams’ day, they used to call them tyrants,” said Beck. “A little later, I think they were also called slave owners.” Watch it:

It’s kind of odd that Beck deifies the Founding Fathers while attacking progressives as “slave owners,” considering that some of the most famous Founding Fathers owned slaves.

Think Progress » Beck says ‘progressives’ are descended from ‘tyrants’ and ‘slave owners.’

Think Progress declines to note that the tattered remnants of Conservatism resemble nothing so much as the end of the Confederacy (slave holders, if you’ve forgotten). I can’t wait until Blech finishes with the Founders and moves on to the Civil War. Was that war about progressive slave holders in the South? Wouldn’t that make the North the good guys? But wasn’t the War of Northern Aggression between an overbearing Federal government (Sam Adams says, “boo, hiss”) versus freedom-loving (for some) States’ Righters (or Tenthers, as they call themselves today)? Of course, as in the Republican party, the Confederacy consisted of rich people rallying poor people to their defense. The people who have everything use people who have nothing to fight people who want something for everyone. Who needs slaves anymore? Turns out, you have to feed slaves, but you don’t have to feed poor people – let them join the military.

Lucky Timing (from the Photo Archive)

American avocets

I go to Chaco Canyon every year (except for this one). In 2008, I also traveled to a couple of outliers west of Chaco. The road into Kin Bineola (“where the wind whirls,” Navajo) crosses a dirt dam. I had never seen any water on either side of that dam before, but on this trip in May, there was a small pond near the dam, well below the road. I saw something circle over the pond. I stopped on the dam to consider taking a picture. The two adult avocets were cute enough – and seemed out of place enough – to warrant a photo. I just got lucky that the babies flew in just as I clicked. I respect photographic skill, experience, and equipment, but lucky timing is the most valuable asset a photographer can’t buy. I never expected to photograph shorebirds in the desert.

www.flickr.com

mjhinton's items tagged with chacocanyon More of mjhinton’s stuff tagged with chacocanyon


Lucky Timing (from the Photo Archive) is a post from: Ah, Wilderness!. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

Gun Safety Tip #47: When you shoot yourself in the foot, be sure your foot isn’t in your mouth already

I had thought the “penny-pinching” remark would be the best example of Conservatives digging a deeper hole just by being themselves. Then along comes this gem from a Deep Thinker in the Party of Ideas. (Those self-assigned labels for Conservatives and Republicans seems so far from the truth they aren’t even ironic anymore, just completely irrelevant.)

Think Progress » GOP Rep. from district where civil rights workers were lynched talks about shooting ‘tree-hugging Democrats.’ 

In a new interview with Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS), Politico asks the congressman what the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus does. Harper’s response:

We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition.

Harper represents Mississippi’s 3rd congressional district, which contains Neshoba County — the place of one of the most infamous race-related crimes in American history. In 1964, white supremacists lynched three civil rights workers.

Think Progress » GOP Rep. from district where civil rights workers were lynched talks about shooting ‘tree-hugging Democrats.’

Of course a joke about killing people can be funny, unless it comes from people who have the means and inclination and feel they are so cornered they must “resist.” But the petty “waste of good ammo” truly reveals an ugly mindset. My advice: Shoot yourself between the eyes, not in the foot. That solves our mutual problems with the least amount of good ammo.

Update: Politico’s Glenn Thrush reports that Harper is unrepentant about his remarks. Harper’s spokesman said the remarks were "supposed to be fun. … It’s having a good time."

Har. Har.

The Builder

nesting material

I watched this robin gather grass for nesting material in our small sideyard a few years ago. It was a windy day and the robin kept dropping what it already had in its beak as it tried for more. (Called to mind Aesop.) After numerous attempts, the robin gathered up a good bundle. It took off from the grass and paused just long enough in a gap in the fence. Click. Thank you. With all the wind, I didn’t expect this photo to be in focus.

Robins love to bathe, perhaps moreso than any other birds I’ve seen in our yard.

robin bathes

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/tags/robins

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/tags/birds

[From the Photo Archive is an irregular series of photos I’ve taken some time ago but want to revisit.]

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"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams