Not the 60% or thereabouts we need to ensure the Democrats back down. But still.

[V]oters disapprove 51 - 35 percent of the health care overhaul passed by the House of Representatives which he has endorsed, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today.

Voters disapprove 53 - 41percent of President Obama's handling of health care.

The first finding they report is that voters like Obama personally, but disapprove of his policies. 74% "like" him, 47% "like" most of his policies. Obama's vaunted charm and presence seems to be having the same effect at home as it does abroad, i.e., none at all. I can "like" someone while refusing to support policies detrimental to my interests.

Gallup, meanwhile, attempts to spin a finding that hurts Obama as somehow "ambiguous."

As Congress debates a possible major expansion of health insurance in the United States, Gallup finds 38% of Americans rating healthcare coverage in this country as excellent or good, the highest (by eight percentage points) in the nine-year history of this question, and 12 points above last year's level.

Most of the change since last year involves a shift in Americans' ratings of healthcare coverage from "only fair" to "excellent" or "good." Since last year, the percentage rating healthcare coverage as only fair has declined by 10 points, while the percentage rating it poor has changed little.

Seems to take a lot of the wind out of Obama's sails, eh? If people now realize they've got it pretty good, seems a pretty good sign they don't need the massive changes Obama is proposing.

Gallup suddenly comes down with a case of the stupids and pretends it forgot what the question asked. They asked if people appreciated their health care now, as they have been asking for nine years. But given a finding that hurts Obama, they wonder: Gee, maybe we really asked how health care would be in the future, after Obama's changes take effect.

It is unclear based on the overall data whether this shift could be due to a greater appreciation for the current system among those who think it is threatened by the proposed changes, or perhaps an anticipation of better days ahead from those who support the changes.

Um, by the terms of the question itself, dear, it is not "unclear" at all. Pollsters often ask about people's belief about how things will be in the future. They did not do so here.

Gallup's headline for this references "Greater Optimism" on health care, optimism being a forward-looking word that implies a belief about the future.

The correct word, which they did not choose, is Satisfaction. The question asks not about optimism for the future but satisfaction in the present.

What is the point of polling people at all if Gallup is going to disregard the answers people provide, and even set aside the questions they themselves ask?

Hey, as long as we're making stuff up, maybe most of those people saying health care is poor are really talking about the future under ObamaCare, too.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Posted by: Ace at 10:00 AM | Comments (144)
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I'm second to no one in my loathing of Lindsay Graham's style of 'make a deal and get something done' politics but my guess is he's a hell of a lawyer.

There are a lot of knocks on Eric Holder but no one really thinks he's a stupid man. Misguided? Sure. Diagnosably retarded? No. Watch this exchange between Graham and Holder. Graham leaves Holder stammering like a fool.

Here's the crap Holder is trying to sell that Graham won't let him get away with...Holder says, 'we don't need to question bin Laden because we have so much evidence already so we won't question him for a statement, therefor Miranda doesn't apply'.

Graham nails him with the fact Miranda isn't just about 'the right to remain silent'. It's also about an affirmative right to an attorney.

The fight is about when does a "military capture" become a "civilian arrest" and when and how do all the rights that come with a civilian arrest and trial attach. Right now there are no answers because as Graham points out, the Obama administration is making it up as they go.

Guess who is going to get involved in that question at some point. The courts. Given the arc of cases since 9/11 is anyone 100% sure (hell, 50% sure) that a court won't throw out a conviction or even a bar a trial on any number of 6th Amendment grounds?

Holder is left babbling like a fool about these basic questions.

I'd be interested in what the lawyers here have to say about Graham's style of questioning. My guess is they wouldn't want their client on the other side of it.

Graham did this during the Sotomayor hearings. He walked her down a path where there was absolutely no doubt she was incompetent and lying. Unfortunately at that point Graham's political instincts overrode his legal training and he let her off the hook. Worse still, he then voted for her but his questioning left her, like Holder, in shreds.

I found the above video at The Corner. To make up for swiping it, I commend this post to you. McCarthy has been all over this and as someone who actually convicted terrorists (the first WTC bombers), he knows the drill and the limitations of the Obama approach.

UPDATE:

Oy. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 06:30 AM | Comments (433)
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Well, yes, but no, no, no.

In 2005, Texans amended their constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. The trouble, which is being stirred up by Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, is the second part of the amendment:

"This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

Obviously this was intended to prevent the legislature or the courts from establishing domestic partnerships or civil unions. But the plain text of the amendment says that the state may not create or recognize legal statuses like marriage.

So, yes, Texas banned marriage. At least on a purely textual reading of the amendment. Fortunately, I doubt even the most conservative judge would fail to read the second part of the amendment in light of the first part, which clearly set out to make marriage available in Texas under the limitation that it be between a man and a woman. (Although, now Texans can sweat over whether any liberal judges will temporarily adopt a strictly textualist jurisprudence to cause trouble.)

This doesn't seem to be stopping any marriages, anyway. Which means somebody's probably going to sue. Texas could have avoided the issue by including an extra word in the second part of the amendment: "This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any other legal status identical or similar to marriage."

Thanks to J. Joyner.

More:

People in comments seem to think it's mere "lawyering" to believe that if Texas had defined something in subpart A of the amendment that it could not have then banned it in subpart B. Except, of course, that's how laws get written all the time.

For example, the criminal law is filled with that type of thing. "Statutory rape is defined as X." "Statutory rape is a felony punishable by Y." Regulatory law is also fileld with that type of thing. "Controlled substance is defined as A." "No wholesaler, manufacturer, or retailer shall furnish controlled substances unless B (usually having to do with state licensing)."

When the legislature defines something it does not necessarily follow that it intends to approve that thing. Now, you and I know that Texas very much wanted to approve the traditional notion of marriage with its 2005 amendment and ban gay alternatives. The text of that amendment, though, followed a familiar pattern:

(A) Definition: Marriage is between a man and a woman.
(B) Proscription: The state shall not recognize legal statuses identical to marriage.

Commenters are reading an implicit "other" in subpart B ("The state shall not recognize other legal statuses"), because they know the intent of the amendment. The point of my original post is that the text alone does not get you there.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:30 AM | Comments (155)
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Dick Cheney takes candy from babies, then gives it to diabetic babies.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:03 AM | Comments (97)
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There's another Thursday night game, so don't forget. I could probably pick up a game by forgetting to remind you idiots, except one game ain't going to make much of a difference for me, and I'd have to actually get it right to gain ground.

That ain't happening.

Also, hope you're not flying today.

It may be Thursday for you, but it's Friday for me biznatches. I don't think you can just jump right into a short week with a holiday, you have to ease into it or else your head will asplode.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:56 AM | Comments (73)
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In the USSR, this used to be known as a "show trial".

...“I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him,” Obama told NBC’s Chuck Todd...

WHEN, not "if".
IS, not "might be".
Being a law professor and all that, Obama fully understands the semantic difference between "when" and "if", and "is" and "might be".

The problem of course is that a jury in a civilian trial can be a real wild card, as it was in the OJ trial. They CAN and often do ignore compelling evidence if they get a bug up their ass about something the prosecution has done that chafes them.

KSM's "trial" is plainly going to be a show trial, but the real question is what "the show" is going to be about (and we all have a pretty good idea about what that's going to be), since its OBVIOUSLY NOT going to be KSM, since a military tribunal could have convicted and sentenced him to die a long time ago, saving the taxpayers a monstrously expensive spectacle.

The next question is if the Obama administration has intentionally setup a show trial for one man with a predetermined outcome and penalty, they've just proven they're OK with the notion of rigging civilian trials.

That is a pretty chilling revelation.

"...words matter..." -- Benjamin Cardozo

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 07:32 PM | Comments (223)
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Good evening M&Ms! It's all downhill after hump day.

Oh and we have some upcoming holidays: Friday (11/20) is Kick A Ginger day so sharpen those boots and get your hate on. And Saturday (11/21) is Talk Like A Hobo day.

Robot Inspects High Voltage Lines
Here's a Japanese robot that rolls along live high voltage lines and inspects them for damage and corrosion. It's able to swing itself over cable connectors and suspension clamps.

High tech and all but kinda ho-hum you say? Well just watch this video to see how inspections are currently done by humans:

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:00 PM | Comments (630)
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Interesting thing about polls: When people like you, they claim to like everything about you. When they don't like you, they start saying they don't like anything about you.

That is why, for example, when Captain Wonderful was leading in the run-up to the 2008 election, pollsters reported the public claimed they actually trusted Obama on taxes more than McCain.

Taxes. And the deficit. And controlling government spending.

And for American Jews? They claimed they thought that Obama would be better for Israel.

Um, okay.

Just a tendency people have to blow off specific, secondary questions and just keep answering the same way they answer the primary, general question.

Which candidate is has a better understanding of the trauma experienced by captured pilots held hostage at the Hanoi Hilton for eight years? Why, Barack Obama, naturally!

I don't know if this poll finding really indicates that independents are waking up specifically to the fact that Obama is very deceptive and manipulative, or if it's just the standard "Yeah, he kind of sucks on everything" response, but either way, I likes it.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Posted by: Ace at 04:19 PM | Comments (179)
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The latest sham number coming from the Democrats.

Among the reasons it is sham: It proposes $500 billion in Medicare "cuts" that 1, are likely to never, ever happen, or 2, which represent a true and undeniable reduction of services to the elderly. One or the other, or some mix of both.

First of all, let's look at the so-called "doctor fix" which is being used to bribe the AMA to support this abortion. In 1997, the government passed, supposedly, cuts to how much doctors would be paid under Medicare to "bend the curve" of long-term costs. (Sound familiar?)

Doctors quickly lobbied Congress, noting they were already taking a bath on Medicare patients, and if they were forced to take less money still, they'd have to begin turning them away.

Every year or two since then Congress has passed a "doctor fix" suspending the supposedly-required cuts to the payment schedule. Every year the AMA lobbies to have the "cuts" put off another year, and every year Congress does so.

Now, in 2009, to pay off the AMA -- which is frankly sick of lobbying for this legislation every year -- Obama and the Democrats propose the "doctor fix," a ten year suspension of cuts that were supposedly mandated back in 1997.

For 12 years these cuts have been put off on a year-by-year basis. To pay off the AMA for its purchased support, a "doctor fix" will be passed suspending the phantom cuts for 10 more years.

Obama's plan will supposedly save money by reducing Medicare payments to the tune or $500 or $600 billion. And yet we have an instance here of cuts that were already suspended for 12 years and are now to be suspended for another 10, making what was supposed to be an effort to reduce long-term costs of federal health spending beginning in 1997 suspended until at least 2019.

And what do you think the odds are of the cuts taking place in 2019, when now we will have a full twenty-two year backlog of yearly cuts which are supposed to happen? I.e., in 2019, will doctor's rates really be rolled back to what they were supposed to be in 1997, 22 years earlier?

No: They will never occur.

And the cost of the ten year doctor fix? $250 billion, or thereabouts.

But Congress is supposedly quite serious, now, about carving $600 billion out of Medicare, and no sirree Bob, they won't be similarly suspending "required cuts" into the approximate timeframe of the events depicted in Dune.

Now, supposing, hypothetically, these cuts do in fact happen? Then seniors are denied about $600 billion in services they're now receiving. If you can follow this logic, we'll be saving money by denying seniors preventative, precautionary testing, because such tests are "unnecessary" when it comes to the elderly, while also saving money by providing the young and currently uninsured with preventative, precautionary testing, which is not only good medicine for the young, but also necessary, because testing early and often when it comes to the young actually saves us money in the long term. (Actually, it doesn't, and the CBO already said so, but notice how the same tests are "unnecessary" for the old and vitally necessary for the young.)

As I keep saying: We are talking here about taking $600 billion in benefits from a demographic that doesn't vote for Barack Obama in order to give it to a demographic that does, and nobody is supposed to notice this.

Incidentally, the doctor fix itself is therefore part and parcel of Obama's "reforms" and yet is being kept out of the bill itself so that the CBO is required (by law) to ignore it and report back, falsely, that the plan "saves" $127 billion.

It doesn't. First things first, the $250 billion doctor fix wipes that out and then some, and then on top of it, the CBO knows, but is not allowed to say, that Congress will likely not be cutting the alleged $600 billion in "savings," ever.

Let me just put in a centimeter, just to see how it feels.

Okay.

2074 Pages... And senators will have a full three days to read it before voting.

2074 pages. For your reading pleasure.

Posted by: Ace at 03:04 PM | Comments (190)
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Behind the curve, but at least on the curve. more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:25 PM | Comments (151)
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