‘so, who’s still advertising on beck?’

Media Matters: At least 300 advertisers have reportedly dropped their ads from Glenn Beck’s Fox News program since he called President Obama a “racist” who has a “deep-seated hatred for white people.” Here are his April 4 sponsors, in the order they appeared:

Rosland Capital … Solar Solutions (mysolarbackup.com) … Lifestyle Lift … Schiff Nutrition International, Inc. (Move Free Advanced) … Law Offices of Pulaski and Middlemen … Foundation for a Better Life … News Corp. (Fox News’ Glenn Beck) … Goldline … International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (Passoverfoodbox.com) … EasyWater (Zerowater.com) … Sokolove Law, LLC … News Corp (Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor) …. Merit Financial … Can-Am … EasyWater … Lifestyle Lift … People Media’s OurTime Network (OurTime.com) … Tax Masters (txmstr.com) … Lear Capital … Realtybid.com … News Corp. (Fox Broadcasting Co.’s Breaking In) … News Corp. (Fox News’ Fox & Friends) … Lifestyle Lift … Law Offices of Pulaski and Middlemen (1-800-Bad-Drug) … Am Med Direct/Better Care … Rosland Capital … News Corp. (Wall Street Journal) … Sokolove Law, LLC … Solutions from Science (Survival Seed Bank)

Law Offices of Pulaski and Middlemen (1-800-Bad-Drug) – contact them here

Sokolove Law, LLC – contact them here

mysolarbackup.com – contact their customer services through their website

Schiff Nutrition International, Inc. – contact them here

EasyWater (Zerowater.com) – contact them here

Can-Am – contact them here

Tax Masters – contact them here

Rosland Capital – contact them here

OurTime.com – contact them here

Realtybid.com – contact them here

Am Med Direct/Better Care – contact them here

Merit Financial – contact them here

he’s so focused on 2012 he’s forgotten his duties!

President Barack Obama talks with advisors in the Oval Office before a phone call with President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon to discuss the situation in Cote d’Ivoire, April 4, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

looking good

CBS: President Obama has officially kicked off his re-election campaign. So it’s a good time to ask: how good are his chances – at the moment, at least – to win a second term?

The short answer is: Pretty decent. (The even shorter answer, according to the speculators over at Intrade, is: 59.4%.) For starters, Mr. Obama is polling well against two of his most likely opponents: A poll last month found Mr. Obama would beat Mitt Romney by nine points and Tim Pawlenty by 19 points in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup if the election were today.

… Mr. Obama’s approval rating two years into his term (49 percent) was higher than two of the last two three presidents to win a second term – Presidents Reagan and Clinton….

….even those who disagree with Mr. Obama tend to like him – a crucial factor in winning the independents who broke from the Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections. The fact that 84 percent of Americans (according to an Associated Press poll last month) call Mr. Obama a likeable person speaks to his advantage among the casual voters who may not go to the polls in a midterm year but will cast ballots in 2012.

…And that’s just the start of the bad news for Republicans. The potential candidates who would seem to have the strongest appeal to swing voters – people like Indiana’s Mitch Daniels and Utah’s John Huntsman – will have a tough time getting through the primaries if they enter the race. Even if someone with relatively broad appeal wins the nomination, they will be linked at some level to the more polarizing figures in their party – think Michele Bachmann – who are sure to win more than their fair share of media coverage.

…the economy seems to be improving – most notably, the unemployment rate fell to a two-year low in March. And while the trends could reverse before next year, it appears likely that the economic landscape will be improved from the depth of the recession by the time voters weigh in. That would take a lot of the sting out of Republican attacks over the stimulus package and, more broadly, Mr. Obama’s stewardship of the economy.

….Add to that the fact that the 2012 electorate will be very different than the electorate in 2010 – as former political operative Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) bluntly told Politico, “It’s going to be younger, browner, and more to the left.” The young and minority voters who came out for Mr. Obama in 2008 – and then, in many cases, sat out the midterms last year – will likely be back next year, which is good news for the president as well as other Democrats. (In the midterms, the wealthy and elderly were disproportionately represented.)

All this does not necessarily mean Mr. Obama will win – a lot can and will happen between now and November 2012. But the president’s relative popularity, coupled with the seeming weakness of the GOP field and the improving economy, suggest that he is well positioned to secure a second term.

More here

‘why i cannot for vote obama’

Motley Moose: So I received an email from my friend and President Barack Obama this morning. He has announced his intention to pursue another term as presiding executive of that circus of dysfunctional acrimony that passes for the US government. I was immediately reminded of the headline in The Onion on the morning following his election: “Black Man Given Worst Job in the World.”

I have supported Obama since the primaries. But I can no longer do so. What kind of nut job would ask for a second helping of what he’s received? I have come to question his sanity. Do we really want a pathological masochist with his “finger on the button” to “answer the 3AM call?”

But all jokes aside, if Obama sees this as the moment to begin to mobilize supporters and activists, it seems the right time for us to start discussing the particular challenges that lie ahead …. how do we get this deranged fool of a president another 4 years of insults, misery and frustration?

More here

😆

Thank you Carole!

The Onion (2008): Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job – African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation’s broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, “It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can’t catch a break.”

what a journey!

laying the blame ….. in the wrong place

Steve Benen: Many in the media, and many more of President Obama’s detractors from the left, are hitting his administration pretty hard today for this reversal (the Obama administration has decided to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for his role in the attacks of Sept. 11 before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and not in a civilian courtroom). The development is obviously disappointing, but if we’re assigning blame, let’s at least direct at those responsible.

…Attorney General Eric Holder … told reporters this afternoon that his original decision was still the right one, but blamed Congress for “tying our hands.”

He happens to be right. Even today, Holder wants to do the right thing, and so does President Obama. And yet, Gitmo is open today, and KSM will be subjected to a military commission in the near future, not because of an administration that backed down in the face of far-right whining, but because congressional Republicans orchestrated a massive, choreographed freak-out, and scared the bejesus out of congressional Democrats. Together, they limited the White House’s options to, in effect, not having any choice at all.

There’s plenty of room for criticism of the administration, but those slamming Obama for “breaking his word” on this are blaming the wrong end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

More here

reverend superior

Thanks so much for letting me know about this interview, MB.

It was nice of Joe Scarborough to try and tell the Rev Al Sharpton how the African American community should feel about the President. But it was nicer still that the Rev put Joe – politely – in his place 😉

mlk

Time: From the standpoint of history, April 4, 1968 has gone down as one of the most infamous dates of the 20th century. It was on that evening, 43 years ago today, that Martin Luther King was cut down by an assassin’s bullet at a Memphis motel….

More here

are you fired up?

Thank you tigerfists88 😉

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama greet Edith Childs, from Greenwood, S.C., in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House, during a holiday party, Dec. 4, 2009. Childs coined the campaign slogan “fired up, ready to go.” (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

‘obama averted disasters, but getting credit is the hard part’

Michael Grunwald (Time): The New Republic recently asked an intriguing question about the U.S. intervention in Libya: Why isn’t Obama getting credit for preventing an atrocity? The answer is obvious when you think about it: because he prevented the atrocity. It’s hard to get credit for avoiding a disaster when it’s impossible to prove the disaster would have happened without you. Social scientists call this the counterfactual problem….

This is a problem for public policy because preventing disasters is infinitely preferable to stopping them in progress. And it’s a political problem for Obama … He is the counterfactual President, not just on his Libya policy, but on almost all his policies. And as his aides often complain, “I prevented a disaster” is a lousy political slogan….

The most extreme example, of course, was the $787 billion stimulus package that Obama signed during his first month in office, when the economy was shedding 700,000 jobs a month. The immediate goal was to avoid a depression, and in that sense it was a tremendous success, stopping the hemorrhaging and stabilizing the scariest economic situation since the Great Depression…..

… His financial reforms should reduce the chances of another Wall Street meltdown, but it’s classic disaster prevention: if they fail, it’s a scandal, and if they work, we won’t notice…

Most of Obama’s counterfactual problems can be traced to what his former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel calls the “gift bag” that President Bush left for him. The gift bag included the worst economy in 80 years, a nightmare on Wall Street, a deficit spiraling out of control, one unnecessary war in Iraq and one intractable war in Afghanistan, a dysfunctional health care system, and an energy policy that was broiling the planet and exposing consumers to violent swings in gas prices….

Full article here