Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
ERIC W. DOLAN, - The Raw Story
Stephan: This is all part of the rising tide of disaffection that is quite justifiably sweeping the country. The question is whether the President and Congress respond to it, or are swept aside.
I have been talking to people 30 and under for the past several days, just asking them at random, and have yet to find one willing to work for Obama's re-election campaign. At the same time they all voice their contempt for the Right.
Americans are more upset with their government than ever after lawmakers and the president reached an agreement to raise the debt ceiling until 2013 and cut the federal deficit by about $2.1 trillion over a 10-year period.
The majority of Americans don’t believe their own member of Congress deserves to be reelected, according to a CNN/ORC poll released on Tuesday.
Only 41 percent say the lawmaker who represents their Congressional district deserves reelection and 49 percent say their representative doesn’t deserve reelection in 2012.
It is the first time in CNN polling history that the figure has dropped below 50 percent.
‘Now anti-incumbent sentiment is so strong that most Americans are no longer willing to give their own representative the benefit of the doubt,’ CNN Polling Director Keating Holland explained. ‘If that holds up, it could be an early warning of an electorate that is angrier than any time in living memory.’
The national survey also found that American’s view of the Republican Party dropped 8 points over the past month, to 33 percent. Favorable ratings for the tea party movement also dropped from 37 percent to 31 percent.
The Democratic Party now has a 14-point lead on the Republican Party and a 16-point lead over […]
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Tuesday, August 9th, 2011
BRIAN BEUTLER, - Talking Points Memo
Stephan: The lines are being drawn and it appears that the Right is more interested in ideology than reviving the economy. This plus what is happening in Europe suggest we are in for a very difficult period. It is possible another of the rating agencies will downgrade the US. The argument that these agencies have been complicit in creating the problem is true, but psychologically the affront to America's pride is almost as damaging as the truth about the economics so it doesn't matter.
Will S&P’s controversial decision to downgrade the country’s bond rating — and its explicit citation of GOP intransigence on tax revenue — be enough to break the Republicans’ broad opposition to tax increases in future deficit reduction legislation?
Not if House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) can help it.
In a Monday memo to the House GOP caucus, he candidly acknowledged that S&P faulted the party’s unyielding stance on tax revenues for the downgrade. But he encourages members not to erase this bright line.
‘Over the next several months, there will be tremendous pressure on Congress to prove that S&P’s analysis of the inability of the political parties to bridge our differences is wrong,’ Cantor wrote. ‘ In short, there will be pressure to compromise on tax increases. We will be told that there is no other way forward. I respectfully disagree…. I firmly believe we can find bipartisan agreement on savings from mandatory programs that can be agreed to without tax increases. I believe this is what we must demand from the Joint Committee as it begins its work.’
In other words, House Republicans should unite against a plan that isn’t dominated by Medicare cuts and contains no tax increases. There are 240 […]
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Tuesday, August 9th, 2011
MOTOKO RICH and NELSON D. SCHWARTZ, - The New York Times
Stephan: This is what concerns me as much as the actuality of the economics. Economies trend not just on the numbers. They are also deeply affected by a wide range of psychological issues, and these are much harder to define or control.
Just a few months ago, analysts were predicting that the economy would grow about 4 percent this year. The forecast is now closer to half that number as a wave of pessimism sweeps the country.
‘Everybody gets into this hangdog demeanor with respect to economic expectations,
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Tuesday, August 9th, 2011
ERIC W. DOLAN, - The Raw Story
Stephan: In my view this poll is the latest manifestation of the wealth distribution inequity that is one aspect of the transfer of the wealth of the middle class to the uber-rich. I take this as a very serious symptom of a growing disaffection people feel for the government and the social structure. It is from feelings such as these that violent social upheavals arise.
Note also that most people understand what our current situation is really about -- jobs. Not debt. The sleight-of-hand exercised by the Right in which what should have been a period of job creation got turned into a sterile argument over debt was a master stroke politically, but a disaster for the country.
Sixty-two percent of Americans think the bill that raises the federal’s debt ceiling through the year 2013 and makes major cuts in government spending benefits the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class, according to a CNN/ORC poll released on Monday.
President Barack Obama signed a debt ceiling deal into law, called the the Budget Control Act of 2011, last week that to raise the debt ceiling until 2013 and cut the federal deficit by about $2.1 trillion over a 10-year period. The two-stage agreement, which was criticized by both tea party lawmakers and progressive Democrats, passed by a vote of 269 to 161 in the House and a vote of 74 to 26 in the Senate.
Only 27 percent say that the debt ceiling deal treats all classes fairly and 11 percent have no opinion.
The poll (PDF) also found that 47 percent of Americans rate the economy ‘pretty badly’ and 28 percent rate it ‘very badly.’ Only 23 percent think the economy is going ‘fairly well’ and a meager 1 percent say it is going ‘very well.’
Another CNN/ORC poll (PDF) released Monday found that 60 percent of Americans think the economy is the most important issue currently facing […]
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Tuesday, August 9th, 2011
BRIAN VASTAG, - The Washington Post
Stephan: I think this is less about the source of DNA coming from outerspace, and more about the underlying structure that pervades space time.
For 50 years, scientists have debated whether the components of DNA - the molecule central to all life on Earth - could spontaneously form in space. A new analysis of a dozen meteorites found in Antarctica and elsewhere presents the strongest evidence yet that the answer is yes.
Meteorites are space rocks that have fallen to the ground, and the new report bolsters the notion that heavy meteorite bombardment of the early Earth may have seeded the planet with the stuff of life.
‘[M]eteorites may have served as a molecular kit providing essential ingredients for the origin of life on Earth and possibly elsewhere,
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