Friday, June 17, 2005

The Latest Poll Shows People Think Bush Blows   The previous AP/Ipsos poll had the President’s approval rating at 43%, which was the lowest number of his Presidency, so I blew it off; one in 20 polls is just wrong, regardless of how well-conducted it is, and I thought it might be one such outlying poll.  Not so.  Today, the latest New York Times/CBS poll has the President’s approval even lower, at just 42%.  The only major issue on which the President commands majority support is terrorism, where a whopping 51% think he's doing okay.  (This poll was taken before a new report was released that announced the administration has consistently failed to enact federally mandated counterterrorism efforts on time, if at all.)  And even these numbers do not reflect the true depths of the unpopularity of the President's policies.  Partisan supporters of any President consistently lie to reporters about how well they think a President of their party is doing, because they want the polls for their party's standard-bearer to be higher than his actual merits deserve.  This is by no means a reflection on Republican voters; supporters of both parties do it.  The best reflection of the true state of support for the government can always be found in the right track/wrong direction question.  The number there is an astonishing 33%-61%.  It has been argued by some that the right track number is lower than it would otherwise be because of spiking oil prices, which sounds reasonable, but the cost of gasoline at the pump dropped 6% last month, and the right track number has continued to sink.  So either those members of the chattering class are just wrong, wrong, WRONG!!!  ...Or else many, many people have grown to despise the President and all his works in just the last couple of weeks. 8:14:28 PM    comment []

Lawyers Forced to Reduce Tobacco Case Penalty   We now know that the lawyers leading the federal tobacco racketeering and fraud trial lowered the financial remedy requested only under strong protest.  They were concerned that changing the request for money from $130 billion to $10 billion was not justified by the facts of the case, and so could not help but be seen as politically motivated.  They sent a memo to their Justice Department superiors saying that the "adjustments in our remedies presentation...[is] not based on evidence", and that it would set a bad and dangerous precedent for the future, giving "an incentive for defendants to engage in future misconduct by making the misconduct profitable".  People will die in the future, because the government is not prepared to punish the tobacco industry adequately for fraud and racketeering, is their point.  A telling point, but the President and the Attorney General are only in favor of the "culture of life" some of the time.  When death is good for business... The tobacco industry has donated millions of dollars to Republicans in recent years.  They stand to save $120 billion in penalties because of a single Justice Department order, which had to be approved by the President.  That means they didn't donate the money in the Republican party, as invest it…and it was a good investment.  A 1,000,000% return on your investment in four years is a Hell of a good investment.  I am not suggesting that the President reversed these career prosecutors for those paltry donations; no, maybe he would have done so anyway.  Perhaps it was just a coincidence.  You can never be sure that a Republican is corrupt; because Republican politicians will often do for free what anyone else would have to be paid for.  And as long as they behave that way, the money will come rolling in anyway. But, ah, for a President who just sells the use of the Lincoln bedroom, instead of the honor of the country, and justice for her dead. 2:16:17 PM    comment []

Quote for the Day, 6/17/2005   "[The Ground Sloth] could not see the advantage of staying awake in the daytime.  By the way, what is the advantage?"   -Will Cuppy, How to Become Extinct, "The Great Ground Sloth" 4:04:03 AM    comment []