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Obama Approval Stays High
One hundred days in office, President Obama has a 58% to 30% job approval rating from American voters, including 53% to 35% among white voters, millions more than voted for him in November, according to a new Quinnipiac poll.

Interesting: There is a big religious split as white Catholics approve of the President 57% to 33% while white Protestants split 44% to 42%. Jewish voters back Obama 76% to 12%.

The Last Moderate Republican?
Olympia Snowe: “It is true that being a Republican moderate sometimes feels like being a cast member of Survivor — you are presented with multiple challenges, and you often get the distinct feeling that you’re no longer welcome in the tribe. But it is truly a dangerous signal that a Republican senator of nearly three decades no longer felt able to remain in the party.”

Mexico: Military’s Battle Against Mexican Drug Cartels Terrorizes Civilians
Mexican citizens face the constant threat from organized crime and the force that is supposed to protect them: the military.

Republicans Are Shrinking: Sen. Specter’s Defection Is a Promising Sign for the Dems
It’s looking like the 2010 elections may cement the Dems’ one party rule.

Michelle Malkin and Michael Savage Use Swine Flu Crisis to Peddle Their Xenophobia
The right-wing pundits who seized on the swine flu to push their anti-immigrant rhetoric are employing an ancient racist tactic.

Laura Rozen: Jane Harman Lawyers Up With :anny
The Harman case is pretty amazing all around. Now the Congresswoman is lawyering up big time with Lanny Davis* — fierce Hillary supporter and the primary season’s most trenchant Obama excoriator. (He is also very tight with AIPAC and is…

Specter: The Joy of Schadenfreude
I am delighted that Arlen Specter (R-PA) is now Arlen Specter (D-PA). But I am not sure how much it matters. With the President’s decision to push through his top agenda items by means of reconciliation — i.e, dodging the…

Kilmeade: McCain ?Should Not Be Allowed To Talk On Torture? Because ?He Was Tortured?
On CBS’ Face The Nation this past Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that “resignation would be a decision” that Judge Jay Bybee, who authored one of the recently released torture memos, “would have to make on his own.” McCain added that Bybee had “fundamentally” misinterpreted “what the United States is all about, much less […]

On CBS’ Face The Nation this past Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that “resignation would be a decision” that Judge Jay Bybee, who authored one of the recently released torture memos, “would have to make on his own.” McCain added that Bybee had “fundamentally” misinterpreted “what the United States is all about, much less things like the Geneva Conventions.”

On the Brian And The Judge radio show yesterday, Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade responded to McCain’s argument by saying that the former prisoner of war “should not be allowed to talk on torture because he is clearly somebody who went through unspeakable pain and punishment”:

KILMEADE: But he was tortured, he was tortured.

NAPOLITANO: And his views of torture are irrelevant?

KILMEADE: Are skewed.

NAPOLITANO: Because of what happened to him?

KILMEADE: Are skewed.

NAPOLITANO: I think his views are particularly telling.

KILMEADE: But what do you think, he’s going to be pro-torture after having been through it?

NAPOLITANO: No, of course he’s not going to be pro-torture.

Listen here:

McCain, who was tortured during the Vietnam war, responded last week to the revelation that the U.S. had waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times by saying, “One is too much. Waterboarding is torture, period.” After saying McCain shouldn’t be able to talk about torture, Kilmeade added, “and plus, I don’t think this is torture.”

Transcript: More ?? Less

CNN?s Rick Sanchez calls out DeMint?s vapid talking point: ?What the hell does that mean??
Today, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) appeared on CNN to talk about Sen. Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic party. Host Rick Sanchez asked DeMint about Specter’s statement that the Republican party is becoming more narrowly focused on the far right. DeMint replied, “Quite the opposite. We’re seeing across the country right now that the biggest […]

Today, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) appeared on CNN to talk about Sen. Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic party. Host Rick Sanchez asked DeMint about Specter’s statement that the Republican party is becoming more narrowly focused on the far right. DeMint replied, “Quite the opposite. We’re seeing across the country right now that the biggest tent of all is the tent of freedom.” Sanchez then stopped DeMint, demanding, “What the hell does that mean? The ‘biggest tent’ is ‘freedom’? Freedom? You’ve got to do better than that!” Watch it:

As part of this “big tent,” DeMint cited the people who came out for the anti-Obama tea parties.

Is FDR-Era Yardstick Still Relevant?
It was March 4, 1933, and Franklin D. Roosevelt was being sworn in as president after his Democratic Party assumed control of the levers of power in a country deeply troubled by a historic economic collapse.

Foreclosure Prevention Plan Expanded to 2nd Mortgages
The Obama administration unveiled an expansion of its $75 billion foreclosure prevention plan yesterday, providing new subsidies to mortgage lenders and investors.

The Obamas, Making Their Mark in Washington Through Public Outreach
The worker bees of federal Washington — people like Mazzie Simmons of Waldorf, who commutes 30 miles to her desk as a retirement specialist at the Office of Personnel Management — don’t expect to hear high praise from the White House, or from anyone else, for that matter. “Nobody ever comes to…

Health Authorities Study Swine Flu’s Differences in Severity
Health authorities raced yesterday to unravel the many mysteries about the ominous new swine flu spreading around the world, including how widely the virus might cause the severe form of illness that so far has been restricted to the epicenter of the outbreak in Mexico.

Specter Tries to Save His Political Career
Steve Chaggaris, CBS News

The Opposite of Intelligence
Debra Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle

General Petraeus’s ‘Anaconda Plan’
HDS Greenway, Boston Globe

Plane Dumb

Enough With This ‘100 Days’ Nonsense

On what basis have the cable channels decided that President Obama’s first hundred days are the most important thing to happen in the history of the world? As in the case of FDR before him, much has happened in the beginning of the president’s first term, and there is much more to come. Legacies are formed over years, not on Red Bull-addled deadlines.

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