Thursday Open Thread [1.2.14]

Filed in Open Thread by on January 2, 2014

President Obama “has picked up five points in public approval since he’s gone away to Hawaii for a year-end family vacation,” Bloomberg reports.

“The president’s public approval rating was hanging at 39% in the days before Christmas, by the Gallup Poll’s average of daily tracking surveys. Today… his approval has risen to 44%. His disapproval rating, 54% pre-Christmas, is down to 49%.”

Some will joke that going on vacation, and thus being allegedly off the job (though Presidents are never off the job), is the reason for the spike. I think people are calming down from the Obamacare site glitches and realizing, hey, I have insurance!

This is interesting and presents a possible paradox of conservative ideology that will destroy it once and for all. From Haaretz:

“Israel will pay for abortions for women aged 20 to 33 regardless of circumstance starting next year, health officials said Monday, adding that they hope to make eligibilty for state funding universal in the future.”

Conservatives, especially the theocons and neocons, place utmost importance on Israel. For the theocons, the reason is obvious, it is the Holy Land. For the neocons, it is the protection of Israel is almost the sole purpose of the existence of the United States. The conservative Likkud government of Israel is now going to provide not only free abortions, but they are going to do it through evil socialist universal healthcare.

Michael O’Brien thinks the GOP might want to change its mind about its 2014 strategy: “a referendum on the president and his health care law.”

Indeed, as Joan McCarter at Daily Kos points out:

“The law still has powerful enemies, like the Republican U.S. House of Representatives. But it also has more than six million new beneficiaries, by Kossack Brainwrap’s ongoing count: 2,104,332 in private plans and 4,002,609 in Medicaid/CHIP. For everyone in existing plans, annual and lifetime caps are gone. Some basic stuff–like hospitalizations, prescription drugs and mental health–now has to be covered…From now on, every attempt by Republicans to repeal the law means trying to take away those benefits and all the benefits that have already kicked in for millions of people. And that changes the politics of this law immeasurably.

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  1. Jason330 says:

    The GOP might WANT to change its mind about its 2014 strategy: “a referendum on the president and his health care law.” – but what else do they really have?

    – We hate Mexicans
    – We want taxes and services on par with Ethiopia
    – We want to bomb Iran, because talking is for sissies
    -Rich people have too little money, Poor people have too much

    None of their big ideas have very broad appeal.

  2. rustydils says:

    Liberals are the modern day “Robber Barons”. On January 8th, 1964, 50 years ago in six days, In his state of the Union Address, President Johnson declared a “War on Poverty”. 50 years and 15 trillion dollars later, it looks like the poor lost. 50 years ago poverty was at 19 percent, now, on a much much larger population, it is still high at 15.1 percent. Federal and State anti poverty programs have spent 15 trillion over the last 5 decades. That is $20,610 for every poor person. Most of these people now, (which was not the case when Johnson made his pledge) are highly dependent on government, which robs them of the dignity and opportunity of work. Take a poor kid in Detroit today as an example. If that kid is 10, and the mom is 25 or 30, and the Grandmother is 45 or 50, then that means the 10 year old is the third generation under government dependence. This kid has a tough time infront of it, the mom hardly ever worked, his grandmother hardly ever worked, So how is this kid supposed to learn that working is the key to opportunity, not government handouts. This kid may figure it out, but this kid is going to have a much harder time figuring it out because the Liberal Robber Barons stole this opportunity from his mom and grandmother, and have big plans to keep stealing these people’s lives, until the conservatives can finally stop them.

  3. Tom McKenney says:

    Rusty as usual you have no idea what you are talking about. The war on poverty was only fully funded one year, another victim of the Viet Nam war. Nixon killed the rest of it. You are engaging in one of the favorite conservative lies. It did however help the south but because of their racism they rewarded the Democrats by turning Republican.

  4. Jason330 says:

    Where is my top hat and monocle ?