ThinkFast: August 12, 2010
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 13th, 2010 4:37 am by HL
According to a new WSJ poll, “Just 24% express positive feelings about the Republican Party.” That number is the lowest on record in the 21-year history of the survey. “Democrats are only slightly more popular, but also near an all-time low.”
According to a new Pew Research poll, only one-third of Americans know that the Troubled Asset Relief Program was passed under President George W. Bush. Almost half (47 percent) responded that TARP was passed under President Obama, and 19 percent admitted they did not know who was president when it passed.
Referring to Robert Gibbs as “Bozo the Spokesman,” Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) yesterday called for the embattled White House spokesperson to be fired. “I don’t think he should resign, I think he should be fired. He’s done a miserable job,” Grayson said on MSNBC.
U.S. military officials are starting to build “a case to minimize the planned withdrawal of some troops from Afghanistan starting next summer.” Top U.S. commander in Afghanistan Gen. David Petraeus is taking steps to make the argument that a “rapid withdrawal” would be unwise, while expert officers in the field “have begun quietly telling administration officials that they need time to get their work done.”
Iraqi army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Babakar Zebari, the country’s most senior military official, warned yesterday that the full withdrawal of U.S. forces at the end of next year may be premature. Zebari said his troops will not be “
The Dow fell 265 points yesterday as investors registered concern about a renewed recession. “Investors’ gloom deepened a day after the Federal Reserve said it would begin buying government bonds as a way to stimulate the economy. News of slower industrial growth in China and a disappointing economic indicator in Japan helped send stocks plunging first in Asia, then in Europe.”
“About 340,000 of the 4.3 million babies born in the United States in 2008 — or 8 percent — had at least one parent who was an illegal immigrant,” according to a new study by the Pew Hispanic Center. About 85 percent of the undocumented immigrant parents are Hispanic.
The U.S. Senate will return from summer recess Thursday for a rare and brief mid-August session to pass a $600 million border security bill and a resolution honoring the late Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK). But “don’t expect to see Senators flying back to Washington or on the Senate floor,” as the measures will be passed by unanimous consent agreement or voice vote which does not require their attendance.
While Tea Party candidates like Rand Paul (R-KY) “tout their anti-establishment credentials,” “much of their financial clout comes from veteran Republicans” like Dick Armey, Sarah Palin, and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). The president of Armey’s FreedomWorks called the Tea Party “a hostile takeover of the Republican Party” and reported training 50 Tea party activists last weekend to help to “reshape” the party.
And finally: Last night’s episode of “Top Chef” featured House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as a guest judge. Calling herself a long-time “foodie,” Pelosi said, “As speaker, any meeting that we have, our motto is ‘first we eat.’” She later criticized a dish for being “too salty” and praised one team for its “al dente” angel hair, which she said is a hard feat to achieve.
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McCain Promises He Won?t Work With Democrats On Immigration If He Is Re-Elected
It has been well-documented that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has changed his position on various issues for political expediency — particularly on immigration. Once a champion of bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform, McCain drifted far right during his primary run for president in 2008 and then flipped back once he secured the nomination.
Now that he’s in a primary fight to save his U.S. Senate job, McCain is back courting the right wing in Arizona on immigration, for example, latching onto far right positions on border security that he previously shunned and embracing the radical call to repeal the 14th Amendment. Today on a local Arizona radio show, McCain went a bit further, promising a caller that he will never work with Democrats on immigration reform:
CALLER: I would like to ask Sen. McCain if he will make a promise on the air now that if we reelect him, he will not reach across the aisle, especially with Lindsey Graham, for comprehensive immigration reform. Will you not do that for the time you’re in office.
MCCAIN: Yes ma’am. … I am promising that I will try to address the issue of immigration in a way that is best for the United States of America.
Listen here:
McCain also used to publicly pride himself as a champion of bipartisanship. Here he is in July 2008 trying to be president:
But let me just finally say, Americans need trust and confidence in their government. The most important thing I would do, the most important of all, is what I have done all the years I’ve been in the Congress. I’d reach across the aisle to the Democrats, and I’d say, “Let’s go work together.”
And just last March, McCain attacked the Obama administration for allegedly not working with the minority party:
So there’s never been any genuine outreach on the part of this administration to work in a bipartisan fashion. As you mentioned, I’ve been involved in bipartisan issues. It is not there. And it is compounded by the fundamental fact that America is a right-of-center nation, and this administration is governing from the left.
First, the senior Arizona senator abandoned comprehensive immigration reform, and now bipartisanship. Looks like the same old John McCain.
