Dump Duhbya

But Congressional Republican Approval of Themselves is at an All Time High!

Gallup: Only 37% Approve of Congress, a ‘Surprising Drop’

A new Gallup Poll released today finds what Frank Newport, its director, calls a “surprising drop in Americans’ approval of the way Congress is handling its job.”

A poll completed last week found only 37% of American approve of Congress’ job performance, down from 45% just one month ago, and its lowest rating since 1999. “My guess,” Newport reports, “is that congressional approval is suffering from a generalized reaction to the bickering about Social Security.”

In the same poll, only 42% said they were “satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S.” This is down from 45% in February. A closer look finds a dramatic partisan divide, with 69% of Republicans saying they are satisfied and only 18% of Democrats.

At the same time, President Bush’s approval rating stands at 52%, the same as last month.

Asked to rank the biggest problems facing the country, 28% mentioned various economic problems, 25% the war in Iraq, 12% Social Security, and 9% terrorism or health care. Among the issues mentioned by less than 1%: the energy crisis, gay issues, abortion, racism.

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‘he did his best to confuse, mislead and scare them’

The Daily Howler

Like so many other Republicans, [Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH)] was looking for a way to pretend that Social Security’s day of reckoning was disturbingly near at hand. According to the CBO, Social Security can pay full benefits through the year 2052. But it’s hard to get people worked up about that, so fakers like Gregg keep torturing facts to produce a sense of impending disaster. …

The surplus will be getting smaller each year—but duh! At this point, it will still be a surplus! In 2015, the surplus will be $85 billion, which is bigger than the surplus this year! But Gregg wanted to produce a sense of disaster. So that’s when he started to torture his facts to produce a disturbing conclusion:

GREGG: This is significant because every dollar collected in payroll taxes is spent, including the surplus. So in 2011, when budget writers are looking at the fiscal 2012 budget, they can count on less Social Security dollars to pad other spending, and the rest of the budget will begin to feel the pinch.

That means defense, education, federal highways, environmental programs—every other area of government will be impacted.

This will happen not in 2018, not in 2042, but just six years from now when Congress will have to make choices between Social Security benefits and other programs. People need to understand this reality.

“People need to understand this reality,” Gregg said—even as he did his best to confuse, mislead and scare them. …

Say what? If you know anything at all about the SS debate, you know [this] claim is inaccurate. Everyone has read, a thousand times, the current projection of the SS trustees—the payroll tax will produce an annual surplus through the year 2018. The CBO says 2020.

Theirs

Don’t Feel Sorry for Drillers

ABQjournal: Talk of the Town

Don’t Feel Sorry for Drillers

THERE IS AN arrogance that comes with being the biggest bully on the block. Chuck Moran, president of the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico, plays that bully perfectly in his recent commentary, “Otero Mesa Drilling No Longer Economical.”

Moran writes that pressure to preserve Otero Mesa, and subsequent dissatisfaction with BLM’s final decision to permanently protect less than 10 percent of the arena from drilling, comes from “they (grassroots environmental organizations) and their yacht and caviar foundations.”

Underhandedly, he suggests nonprofit environmental groups are rolling in cash, while the oil and gas firms he represents deserve the sympathy usually reserved for those down on their luck.

It reminds you of the bully that would push and push, and then run crying for a teacher when they were finally pushed back. Moran represents an incredibly powerful and rich lobby in New Mexico. They are required to pay the $1.3 billion in taxes that Moran mentions, and yet recently still cleared record profits.

Groups working to protect Otero Mesa operate with limited budgets, rely on volunteers and receive significant funding from members throughout New Mexico. Implying otherwise is doing a disservice to the real issue? whether a few days of energy from lands like Otero Mesa is worth the drilling of oil and gas wells all over that land.

NATHAN SMALL
Los Lunas

Drilling Debate Is All Talk

I HAVE TOURED several major oil and gas fields in New Mexico and have seen the industry’s standards and practices firsthand.

I challenge Chuck Moran and representatives from the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico to tour these existing (oil and gas) fields with the “self-indulgent, perverted,” environmentalists and with reporters from the Journal. Wouldn’t it be ideal for Moran to confront his foes on the battlefield, to prove their dishonesty, right in front of journalists?

The Journal seems satisfied doing nothing at all, while presenting a stream of neverending, point-counterpoint editorial rhetoric on the drilling issue. The Journal seems completely incurious about the truth, which is most un-journalistic. Isn’t it time to report on drilling and production standards and impacts in New Mexico firsthand, with the opposing sides there to defend their positions?

JOE ADAIR
Albuquerque

mjh’s Blog: We Pay Taxes, So You Shut Up!
mjh’s Blog: anti-environmentalists

Mine

Every facet of humanity

Liberal Bloggers Reaching Out to Major Media By JONATHAN D. GLATER

[Bob Fertik, president of Democrats.com,] maintains that the blurring of boundaries has benefited left-wing bloggers less than their adversaries on the right, saying that reports posted on conservative blogs more easily make the jump to the main news media. “The way we perceive it,” he said, “is that right-wing bloggers are able to invent stories, get them out on Drudge, get them on Rush Limbaugh, get them on Fox, and pretty soon that spills over into the mainstream media. We, the progressives, we don’t have that kind of network to work with.”

Some on the right disagree, arguing that the news reported by traditional media is tainted by liberal bias. “We learned years ago that the mainstream media just weren’t going to pay attention to us,” said Kristinn Taylor of the Web site FreeRepublic.com.

But bloggers on all sides agree that the left has made less effective use of the opportunities to organize and wield influence afforded by the Internet. [mjh: what about the phenomenal online fundraising of Dean and Kerry?] The reasons, though, are more complex than they might appear. “It’s not just a story about the blogosphere,” said Jack M. Balkin, a professor and director of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. “It’s a story about the conservative social networks of which the blogosphere is a part. The important thing is the network – and I mean the social network.” [via dangerousmeta!]

As usual, Conservatives control the discussion. What evidence is there that there are more conservative bloggers or that they are more successful (is success simply ‘being read’ or more than that?). Conservatives coined Rathergate and pat themselves on the back mightily for slaying their enemy. BFD.

Remember that the Radical Right has been on the warpath for ages, perhaps back to the New Deal, certainly since Goldwater and Wallace. They have worked very hard, very aggressively, to takeover. They thought they had with Raygun. They were dismayed with Clinton’s success and worked like devils to undo that (even though Clinton was the perfect response to Raygun, two sides of the same coin). They regained their footing with Gingrich and the Contract On America. They triumphed in Florida and Ohio. They will destroy themselves. The blogosphere will document that.

The Internet and the Web belong to humanity. Every facet of humanity will find a place in cyberspace — our best qualities and our worst, in the same proportions found within us collectively wherever we go. mjh

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Governator is taking PR cues from Duhbya

The Nation | Blog | The Daily Outrage | Ari Berman

Amazingly, the Governator is taking PR cues from George W. Bush.

Last week the California Governor’s office admitted to sending at least five fake news segments hyping Arnold’s policies to local TV stations under the guise of real news. The mock news spots–sent out to stations in December–promote an end to mandatory lunch breaks for workers, cuts in the number of nurses at hospitals, a revised pay scheme for teachers and stricter tenure track for professors.

Here’s the Los Angeles Times’ description of the segments: “A written introduction offers suggested opening lines to be read by television news anchors. A state employee, who previously worked as a reporter for a Sacramento television station, is the narrator. Each video includes interviews with advocates for the proposals. The tapes do not acknowledge dissenting views or offer balance as required in news accounts.”

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This much secrecy fails to protect Americans

This much secrecy fails to protect Americans By MYRIAM MARQUEZ, Orlando Sentinel

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft changed the meaning of the Freedom of Information Act from a presumption of disclosure to a rationale for secrecy. In October 2001, he advised federal agencies not to release documents to the press or the public so long as they had any possible legal rationale to keep them hidden from public view. That memo was in the works even before the terrorist attack, which should give all Americans pause.

The memo was overkill. …

Accidents are more likely than terrorist attacks on [chemical] plants. Now people are more vulnerable, not less, because they haven’t a clue what risks they face. Until it’s too late. …

Emergency response teams know what’s in a rail car by a sign that’s posted on the side of the tank car detailing the deadly chemicals it might carry. Now federal agencies are considering removing those placards from all trains as a way to “protect” the public from terrorists with devious plans.

Rail workers, firefighters and other emergency workers aren’t too happy with the proposal. Even chemical companies prefer to keep the signs in public view. …

The problem with secrecy for security’s sake is that it doesn’t protect us. It simply spares the government any accountability to the public.

If citizens can’t know what train routes carry potentially poisonous materials, which nuclear plants are vulnerable or what underground pipelines are carrying through our towns, then we have no clue if our government is indeed keeping us safer from terrorists. The real threat is using secrecy to hide public-policy decisions that are supposed to keep us safe.

It’s a delicate balancing act, and right now the scales have tipped way too far, at our peril.

Mine

You Are What You Eat

Am I the only one disturbed by the Burger King Singing Cowboy commercial?

If you give it only the slightest notice, you might see a retro commercial with a nice modern twist of a black singing cowboy (yes, there were and are black cowboys, but there were no Black Singing Cowboys ala Roy Rogers). He is good looking and sings well about “the breasts that grow on trees.”

All around him are women moving to a slightly slower tempo. They are dressed in camp vamp. They seem to be pulled forward by their breasts and rearward by their asses. They touch their open mouths, faces, flowing hair. They display a different hunger. They are nubile and comely. They are very soft porn — the kind of images that make a 13 year old boy take notice and hope his parents haven’t.

I don’t know what to make of the fact that all the men are black and all the women white. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Yes, one woman is Asian. Notice she occupies the lowest point in the frame AND exaggerates her legs to hide the fact that her breasts and ass were inadequate for a standing role.

And, yes, there is a white guy, the Top Dawg: the Burger King himself (though under the mask could be any gender or race). The BK occupies the highest point in the frame, towering, lording over his frolicking, fornicating subjects as he bangs his wench from the rear. She, surely a real porn star, raises her arms and cries, “Come and get it.” In the Director’s Cut, she is topless and cries, “Oh, god, yes! yes!”

Think I’m over doing it? We all know that sex sells very well. What alarms me is the pornicious hiphopification of mainstream advertising. Hip-hop music videos always feature an endless herd of sexy women, provocatively dressed, thrusting their breasts and grinding their hips while maintaining a strangely blank expression , as if they couldn’t care less about anything, or as if on bear tranquilizers. At least the BK girls look happy — maybe they know they don’t have to have sex with the star and his entire entourage after the shoot.

After I wrote this, I did a Google search and found another commentary, which confirms a couple of my thoughts, but is quite a different reaction (good piece, though).

Also, the Burger King website (which I refuse to link to), repeats aspects of this commercial (starting with “the breasts that grow on trees”) without any of the people. They thoughtfully provide a link to Black History Month, though not to Women’s History Month. mjh

"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