New poll brings bad news for Republicans

shortformblog:

  • -6 Obama’s net favorability, as of this month
  • -7 The Democratic Party’s favorability
  • -25 The Republican Party’s favorability source

» Why no love for the GOP? Over the last six months, everybody—Obama, Democrats, and Republicans—has seen a net drop in their approval ratings, but Republicans are clearly the most hated of the bunch. This is probably due to a combination of factors: Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, Scott Walker’s anti-union antics in Wisconsin, and the GOP’s handling of the debt ceiling debate were all high-profile issues that attracted (mostly) negative attention to the GOP. Whatever the cause, there’s one thing we can glean from these results: Democrats seem to be out-messaging Republicans in 2011. Whether or not this can carry Obama to reelection amidst a horrible economy remains to be seen.

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A record 82 percent of Americans now disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job — the most since The Times first began asking the question in 1977, and even more than after another political stalemate led to a shutdown of the federal government in 1995. More than four out of five people surveyed said that the recent debt ceiling debate was more about gaining political advantage than about doing what is best for the country. Nearly three-quarters said that the debate had harmed the image of the United States in the world.

Disapproval of Congress Reaches Historic Level, Poll Finds - NYTimes

“He learned, to his amazement, that modern members of Congress spend about 27 percent of the time just taunting each other.

“It’s jarring and surprising,” said Prof. Gary King, an expert in using computers to find patterns in large amounts of data. And, King said, probably counterproductive if we want Congress’s members to trust one another enough to make deals.”

27% of communication by members of Congress is taunting, professor concludes - The Washington Post

“Reagan was much different than Obama. Reagan invited the bipartisan leadership to the White House – Lugar as SFRC Chair – and told them planes were on their way to Libya for the sole mission of taking out Gadhafi, because of the intelligence that he had personally ordered the murder on a US soldier at a Berlin bar. Reagan said if anyone objected, he would order the planes turned around. No one, including Byrd, objected. …”

Ben Smith: how Reagan (brilliantly) handled Congress (& why Sen. Dick Lugar supported Reagan’s plan to assassinate Gaddafi but is not supporting Obama’s more limited goals) From an e-mail to Politico by Mark Helmke, an advisor to Lugar. - RealityChex
High-res “Maybe the easier answer is just to have scientists develop vegetables that pick themselves. The genetic engineers over at Fruit of the Loom have made great strides in human-fruit hybrids.” - Stephen Colbert HuffPo

“Maybe the easier answer is just to have scientists develop vegetables that pick themselves. The genetic engineers over at Fruit of the Loom have made great strides in human-fruit hybrids.” - Stephen Colbert

HuffPo

Stephen Colbert testifies at a House Judiciary Hearing on the state of agricultural jobs in the U.S. These are his opening remarks. 

The reason for Colbert’s appearance was because of a program launched by the United Farm Workers: Take Our Jobs, which invited legal citizens and residents to replace undocumented workers in the fields. Colbert had used his program in the past to highlight this initiative by performing field labor for a day.


Stephen Colbert is scheduled to testify Friday morning at a House Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Protecting America’s Harvest.” …Colbert will reportedly appear in character, following up on a segment that shows him spending “a day in August working at a corn and vegetable farm in New York state.” The segment will air tonight. TPM

Stephen Colbert is scheduled to testify Friday morning at a House Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Protecting America’s Harvest.”

…Colbert will reportedly appear in character, following up on a segment that shows him spending “a day in August working at a corn and vegetable farm in New York state.” The segment will air tonight.

TPM