Debt Deal Fallout Potpourrie

by JASmius

Sometimes the American people are collectively dumber than a box of hair - as evinced by the very election of Barack Hussein Obama to the presidency thirty months ago. But other times, and after enough evidence has amassed of their foolishness, they start to "get it". This Insider Advantage poll exemplifies the latter:

Americans narrowly disapprove of the deficit reduction bill agreed upon in Washington on Monday, but they disapprove of Congress’ and President Obama’s handling of the debt ceiling crisis by a wide margin, according to a Newsmax poll conducted by InsiderAdvantage.

The survey also found that House Speaker John Boehner gets the highest approval marks among prominent members of Congress who played key roles in the agreement.

In the poll of more than 1,500 registered voters, 44% of respondents said they approve of the legislation, but 47% don’t like it, and the rest have no opinion.

Was the debt deal a "turkey"? You betcha. Was it a lot better than it could have been if Republicans hadn't held their ground against Donk demands for tax increases and a "clean" debt ceiling raise? Absotively. Did it force the Dems to (finally) take the lion's share of responsibility for the economy their "god" has laid waste? Definitely. The Cryin' Man comes out of it as a sympathetic figure, a statesman dealing with rabid, intellectually adolescent children who got the best deal he could while fully acknowledging that America needs and deserves better.

A step, in other words, towards American renewal that can only be reached with a new president and Senate in 2013.

Here's another key takeaway:

“Most interestingly, just 38% of Republicans approve, so we can now understand why Republican candidates say they oppose the bill: They have pollsters, too, and understand the opposition among GOP voters.

“It’s also significant that more than half of independents disapprove, and independents will be crucial if Republicans expect to knock off President Obama in 2012.”...

Significantly, 60% of the crucial independent voters say they don’t approve of Obama’s performance.

The ground for America's de-Obamification in 2012 is growing more fertile by the day. And we have Speaker Boehner's cagey debt ceiling compromise to thank for it.

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Especially since the bigger debt problem hasn't been so much as looked at crosseyed, and the larger economy is still in Red Barry's commode:

A sell-off erased this year's gains in the stock market Tuesday as investors grew increasingly concerned about the economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 265.87 points, or 2.2%, to 11,866.62. The Dow has lost 858 points, or 6.7%, in the last eight trading days.

The Standard & Poor's 500 -- the benchmark for most U.S. mutual funds -- lost 2.6% and fell to its lowest point of the year. It is down 0.3 percent for the year and is off nearly 8% since reaching a high for the year of 1,363 on April 29.

A series of weak economic reports and poor earnings reports from several big companies spurred the decline.

Reports such as....:

The Commerce Department reported that consumers cut
their spending in June for the first time in nearly two years. Analysts had
predicted a slight increase. Incomes also rose by the smallest amount since
September, reflecting a weak job market.

The report came one day after a weak manufacturing report. And on Friday the government said that in the first half of the year, the economy grew at its slowest pace since the recession ended in June 2009.

"The market is starting to wonder where the growth is going to come from," said Nick Kalivas, a vice president of financial research at MF Global. "It hasn't hit the panic button yet, but that's where we're drifting."

At warp ten, my friends. The only way to avoid the brick wall is to tear one of the Li'l President's feet off the gas pedal, and then pry his other of the private sector's throat.

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You'd think a guy like Glenn Beck would recognize that imperative, and the means of attaining it. And you would be wrong:

Conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck leaves no doubt about how he feels about the deficit reduction bill that President Barack Obama and Congress finally agreed upon, calling the “big compromise” a betrayal.

“Don’t be fooled. We’ve just been betrayed by Washington,” Beck writes in a commentary for The Blaze website.

“When Harry Reid hails a ‘bipartisan compromise,’ you know we’re doomed.

“Republicans and Democrats have just negotiated away the future of our children behind closed doors. The big compromise on Capitol Hill features elaborate triggers, tranches, Hornswogglers, Snozzwangers, Super Duper Commissions that will make the Snozzberries taste like Snozeberries, and a whole bunch of other convoluted gibberish that will, no doubt, come with loopholes and create entire new bureaucracies. What it doesn’t do is fix the problem.

No, Glenn, we haven't been "betrayed by Washington". We, the People, crapped our own bed by electing Barack Obama and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in the first place, and now we're frantically trying to climb out of this hellhole they've dug us. But it's a long, arduous process that won't be aided or abetted by delivering forearm shivvers to the people at the top of the rope - especially when Captain Awesome still holds the high ground.

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Here's an example of why that high ground most definitely is not of the "moral" variety:

Sarah Palin is the latest politician to speak out against Joe Biden’s alleged likening of tea party lawmakers in debt-ceiling negotiations to terrorists, saying that his words were appalling and vile, reports ABC News.

“I think we’re getting kind of used to being called names — racists, inciters of violence, being accused of things that we have nothing to do with,” the former Alaska governor and tea party activist said on Greta Van Susteren’s Fox News show. “I suppose it’s a bit more appalling to have been called acting like terrorists by he who is second in command of the most powerful office in the world. It’s quite appalling. It proves how out of touch this White House is.”

Oh, they're not "out of touch"; they simply know that the only hope they have to avoiding "change" next year is to piss in the electoral punch bowl so much that independents and RINOs will tune out, turn off, and stay home, and Red Barry can scrape to another term on the strength of the extremist Donk base alone. Which is why Glenn Beck's GOP-turnout-depressing comments are so monumentally unhelpful.

Take a good, whiff of Sherriff Rogaine's slime, ladies and gentlement; between now and next November, you ain't seen NOTHING yet.

[cross posted at Hard Starboard]