That's what one Democratic pollster is reportedly saying..

The advice from Democratic consultants and strategists is almost unanimous: Run away from the president, and fast. A prominent Democratic pollster is circulating a survey that shows George W. Bush is 6 points more popular than President Obama in "Frontline" districts -- seats held by Democrats that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sees as most vulnerable to Republican takeover. That Bush is more popular than Obama in Democratic-held seats is cause for outright fear.

..."He is a walking radioactive disaster," one senior Democratic operative said of the (current) president. But any effort to seriously distance oneself from Obama is dangerous for an incumbent; go too hard against the president and voters think the candidate is faking it.

"People know that a Democratic congressman will agree with a Democratic president more often than not, so the worst thing a candidate can do is manufacture differences with the president," said Phil Singer, a party strategist and former top aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign. "Voters can spot a fake right away."

What's more, virtually every Democratic strategist agreed, if the president of the United States shows up in a candidate's home state, the candidate should show up too. Dodging Obama by claiming a scheduling conflict only breeds more stories about how much of a drag he is, and about how desperate Democrats are to avoid him.

The link above is to Jim Geraghty's piece but follow though to the Roll Call story where this came from and see how the Democrats are simply in damage control/survival mode at this point.

"How is this possible? What about my leg?"

The Democrats in 2010 are like a slow motion train wreck, there's no stopping it, but we'll have to wait just a bit longer to see how big the explosion and resulting damage is. I can't wait to find out.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:32 AM | Comments (90)
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Brand Democrat™ from Slublog.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:19 AM | Comments (165)
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Weekly jobless claims hit 500,000.

Unexpected even.

Discount retailer WalMart showed a solid 2nd quarter increase in net income, up 3.6%, but that was a result of growth in Asia, Central and South America, and cost-cutting in the US. The only measure of activity that matters domestically is same-store sales (year ago year-to-date comparisons), and that's down for the 5th consecutive quarter. There is however another discounter that showed a big jump in same store sales, Dollar Tree.

Used to be when you saw economic downturns, they were accompanied by upticks in WalMart same store sales (people with less money need to save money, or so the theory went).

Not anymore.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:04 AM | Comments (99)
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Who's extreme, now? more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:15 PM | Comments (180)
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* MUST CREDIT ACE OF SPADES HQ *

Here's what Fox local news in Chicago reports:

Jurors who have been interviewed so far will not identify the juror, other than to say the juror was a female.

FOX Chicago News reported that speculation is centering on juror Jo Ann Chiakulas of Willowbrook, after a second-hand acquaintance said that she has been saying for weeks that she would find Blagojevich not guilty.

Chiakulas is a retired director from the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Contacted Tuesday night, she told FOX Chicago News she would call on Wednesday if she wished to talk about the case.

On one count at least, Chiakulas voted with her fellow jurors, agreeing to convict Blagojevich of lying to federal agents.

Note that that is not yet confirmed. It is now confirmed by CBS local news Chicago.

They actually could have reported more -- because pre-trial, they had this to say about a female "retired public health director" on the jury panel:

Juror # 106, a black female believed to be in her 60s, is a retired state public health director who has ties to the Chicago Urban League. She has handed out campaign literature for a relative who ran for public office. She listens to National Public Radio and liberal talk radio shows.

Media accounts mention the campaign literature, but they don't mention NPR and liberal talk radio. Why?

We know they read this description -- why do they end their repetition of it at that point?

The media is quick to stereotype conservative-tilting Americans and attribute to them bad motives.

Think they'll do the same here?

What were her motives for so egregiously ignoring the law to set a guilty man free that her fellow jurors had to confront her with her own oath to render a true verdict?

Ties to the Chicago Urban League?

The Chicago Urban League supports and advocates for economic, educational and social progress for African Americans through our agenda focused exclusively on economic empowerment as the key driver for social change.

The Chicago Urban League provides African Americans with the tools, the programs and the experiences to help them reach their full economic potential. We are committed to growing ChicagoÂ’s African-American workforce and business community with well-informed pursuit of the following four strategies....

So she's sort of hooked up with... community organizers?

I am pretty accustomed by now to having my motivations questioned by the media, and having unethical or vile motives assigned to me.

How about for this cog in the Chicago machine?

You know, to date, the Tea Party has done zero damage to anyone, and yet it is castigated daily by our hectoring press.

This woman, this ward-heeler's moll, just sprung a guilty man free and cost the taxpayers millions.

Where did she get her ideas from?

I know FoxNews gets blamed a lot for all the "poison" it's putting into the body politic -- what poison did she ingest from NPR and liberal talk radio?

From where did she get the idea that it was right to spring a guilty man in the interest of some political gamesmanship?

Think it's just an oversight that they left this out there for a blogger to find?

I know this is already known to reporters from my source.

More: What was she doing in the jury pool?

Coincidentally, the Chicago Urban League was once headed by Cheryle Jackson, a former Blagojevich press secretary, although it appears Chiakulas left the Urban League several years before Jackson became the league's president.

Coincidentally.

I don't think that there's some direct thing going on here -- but this is obviously a highly political woman, steeped in dirty Chicago machine politics. And she knows who gets hurt and who gets helped based on her verdict.

What. Was. She. Doing. In. The. Jury. Pool.

If You're Wondering About Her Last Name... She married a Cypriot. He was a family and employment lawyer... who represented unionized workers, like Chicago bridgeworkers.

Again, I'm not alleging payoff. I'm alleging that this woman had no business being anywhere near a jury.

Posted by: Ace at 05:59 PM | Comments (503)
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Good evening and happy Hump Day all

Remembering "Connections"

For those who've never heard of it Connections was a 10 part documentary by British science historian, James Burke, that was first shown in the US in 1979. It followed how minor scientific discoveries and accidents were triggered from and interconnected with historic events of the time and how all of these built on each other to give the technology around us today.

Typically Burke would pick some obscure object or observation from ancient times and show how this lead step by step to a modern device or technology - in episode two he followed how the discovery of special kind of stone several thousand years ago lead through a convoluted path to the advanced technology the military uses today. And he managed to make the entire sequence both exciting and educational.

I was a little too young to catch the first run of the series but I finally saw it sometime in the 80's and it was excellent. In fact I can still recall details of some episodes even though I haven't seen them in 20+ years. Pretty much every episode is worth watching and thanks to the generosity of James Burke they're now all available on YouTube. I have to warn you though - they're addictive. I ended up spending at least two and a half hours watching the shows when I should have been polishing up the lighthouse. So don't start watching if there's if there's someplace you have to be anytime soon.

Here's part 2 of Episode 1 (part1 is mostly just the opening). The flavor of the first part is a little different from the rest of the series so stick with it through at least the end of part 3 when he really starts swinging.

Here are the rest: Ep 1 Part 3, Ep 1 Part 4, Ep 1 Part 5, and Ep 1 Part 1.
Thanks to chad98036 at DPUD for his post reminding me of this awesome series. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:06 PM | Comments (483)
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No, really. I mean, not great, but interesting.

For relaxing/haunting background music, maybe, while you clip banzai trees or pick out which set of forceps you'll include with tonight's murder bag? You could do worse than Justin Bieber at 1/8th speed.

Actually it sorta sounds like Vangelis' score for Blade Runner, but maybe done for kids, like for a Saturday morning cartoon show, Jimmy Deckard, Junior Blade Runner!

Posted by: Ace at 05:00 PM | Comments (45)
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OMG, I had no idea.

The final convoy of the ArmyÂ’s 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Lewis, Wash., were about to enter Kuwait shortly after 1:30 a.m. (6:30 p.m. Wednesday ET), carrying the last of the 14,000 U.S. combat forces in Iraq, said NBCÂ’s Richard Engel, who has been traveling with the brigade as it moved out this week.

“We won! We won! It’s over! We brought democracy to Iraq!” a soldier shouted as fellow soldiers celebrated their arrival in Kuwait this week.

For Staff Sgt. Heon Hong of Guam, the brigadeÂ’s departure, which began over the weekend, marked the end of his third tour of duty in Iraq.

“I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad we’re done with Iraq,” Hong said as his transport arrived this week. Hopefully, I never come back to Iraq.”

Another soldier, Sgt. Devon Scarey of Deltona, Fla., said simply, “It feels awesome.”

I don't think anyone can really express the depths of gratitude we must all share for the dangerous, dirty work these heroes did.

Major Garrett Notes: "And, to be clear, 50K US "non-combat" forces will remain in Iraq. Doesn't mean they won't face peril, danger."

Right. And I assume this distinction between "combat" and "non-combat" forces is a political contrivance anyway, at least largely.

Still, it's a milestone.

Posted by: Ace at 02:45 PM | Comments (252)
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No wonder he only spent 26 hours of his eighty-seventh two-week vacation in the Gulf, "healing" it through his mere presence.

Look at the hero's welcome he gets up in Six Flags At Herpes Petri Dish.

Remember how the media always made a point to note that from 2006-08 Bush's public appearances tended to come in Heartland strongholds?

I predict Obama will retreat further and further into deep-blue playgrounds of trust-funds and tenure-tracks, campaigning harder and harder among his real base, those without real jobs, except for their make-pretend fauxcupations in pretendustry and nagriculture.

Via Jake Tapper's twitter feed, brought to my attention by ExJon.

Posted by: Ace at 02:14 PM | Comments (335)
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I say "boosts Rubio" because were the weaker (white) Democrat to win the primary, black voters would move massively to Charlie Crist, who apparently is somewhat popular with them.

Ergo, it's in Rubio's strong interest that Meek should win the nomination, and Obama came through for him.

The White House on Wednesday stressed that President Obama has fully embraced Florida Senate candidate Kendrick Meek, and when the president got off Air Force One in Miami, he gave Meek a hug.

Obama is headlining a fundraising event for the Florida Democratic Party, an event that also features Meek as a speaker.

It will be the first time Obama has appeared jointly with Meek this cycle, in which the congressman faces a tough August 24th primary against self-funded billionaire Jeff Greene.

Still a tough race for Rubio, but it helps to have Obama pulling for him like this.

Via DrewM's twitter feed.

Posted by: Ace at 01:48 PM | Comments (64)
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