Everyone is jumping on the bash Obama bandwagon these days because of the technical problems with the Obamacare website. But when CNN’s Don Lemon opened his mouth on this week and compared the President to Toronto’s crack smoking mayor Rob Ford, well, people took notice.
Said Lemon: “You won’t find two politicians who’ve had worse weeks…. President Obama saying ‘I’m Sorry’ over and over for his so-called signature achievement Obamacare, Rob Ford though admitting to crack– to be a crack smoker.”
Steven Colbert took notice. In his show last night, Colbert took aim at Lemon for his maladroit comparison. Lemon it seemed, thought it was a correct comparison because both President Obama and Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford had a bad week and offered apologies. Colbert then wondered if a comparison between Lemon and a goat could be made if both were shown on video.
Colbert’s conclusion? “Yeah, they’re both in trouble. Therefore it’s an entirely fair comparison,” he mocked. “The same way that since they’re both on video, it’s fair to compare Don Lemon’s reporting to this dog milking a goat.”
I haven’t been writing about the healthcare.gov thing, for the simple reason that I have nothing to say. What’s going on isn’t a policy question: we know from the states with working exchanges (including California) that the underlying structure of the law is workable. Instead, it’s about an implementation botch, which is an incredible mess, and reflects very badly on Obama. But the future of the reform depends not on policy per se but on whether the IT issues can be fixed well enough soon enough, a subject on which I have zero expertise.
Of course, that hasn’t stopped other people from breathlessly commenting on every twist and turn in the polls, every meaningless vote in the House, and so on. Hey, it’s a living.
But at this point there’s enough information coming in to make semi-educated guesses — and it looks to me as if this thing is probably going to stumble through to the finish line. State-run enrollments are mostly going pretty well; Medicaid expansion is going very well (and it’s expanding even in states that have rejected the expansion, because more people are learning they’re eligible.) And healthcare.gov, while still pretty bad, is starting to look as if it will be good enough in a few weeks for large numbers of people to sign up, either through the exchanges or directly with insurers.
If all this is right, by the time open enrollment ends in March, millions of previously uninsured Americans will in fact have received coverage under the law, and reform will be irreversible. Obama personally may never recover his reputation; Democratic hopes of a wave election in 2014 are probably gone, although you never know. But anyone counting on Obamacare to collapse is probably making a very bad bet.
Republicans rejoice! The easily fooled Americans are buying your lies about the president and healthcare.
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s approval ratings are so sickly that Mitt Romney could beat him right now, a new poll has found.
Obamacare is the heart of the problem, with opposition to the Affordable Care Act at a new high, 57%, according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll released Tuesday.
The President’s overall approval rating is at 42%, a loss of six points in a month.
He’s at career lows for leadership and honesty, with his rating for leadership down by 15 points this year.
Romney topped Obama 49% to 45% among registered voters in the poll, while the 2012 rivals were tied at 47% among all Americans polled.
In the 2012 election, Obama beat Romney, 51% to 47%.
A big reason for the turnaround is chagrin among independents and moderates. Their disapproval of Obamacare has risen sharply.
President Barack Obama faced perhaps the worst job approval numbers of his presidency in a new Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday afternoon.
American voters disapprove of the job he’s doing by a margin of 54 to 39 percent — up from a 49-45 percent disapproval on Oct. 1, according to the same poll. It’s the first time his approval rating has dipped below 40 percent. His lowest score in the ongoing Quinnipiac survey was a 55-41 percent disapproval on Oct. 6, 2011.
“President Obama’s job approval rating has fallen to the level of former President George W. Bush at the same period of his Presidency,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
The president faces net disapproval among men (58-37 percent), independents (63-30 percent), white voters (62-32 percent), senior citizens (59-36 percent) and even women (51-40 percent) and Hispanic voters (47-41 percent). Democrats and black voters continue to strongly approve, 79-14 percent and 75-15 percent, respectively
They’re attacking from all angles. Republicans are circling the president like sharks tasting blood in the water. They think they have the upper hand this time and they’re going all out to convince you that having affordable health insurance is not a good thing for you.
They’re now attacking the claim the President made during the campaign when he said, “if you like your insurance you can keep it.” Republicans are now using this claim to say the President lied to you, because Insurance companies are now forced to cancel the garbage plans some people had, and upgrading those plans to acceptable plans.
Some people just don’t get it, so now the President has to explain his phrase, if you like your insurance you can keep it. “What we said was you could keep [your plan] if it hasn’t changed since the law was passed,” Obama said, as quoted by CBS News. “If the insurance company changes it … they’ve got to change it to a higher standard.”
But these people don’t care about getting a better plan or having their garbage plans upgraded to a higher standard. This is not about health, it is about winning a political argument. So the garbage collectors will happily give up their healthcare – some wouldn’t even look at the upgrades available – if it means winning the argument.
In this week’s address, President Obama says that in order to keep growing the economy and creating good jobs, Washington must end its cycle of manufactured crises and self-inflicted wounds. It’s time for both parties to work together to pass a budget that reflects our priorities – making smart cuts in things we don’t need and closing wasteful tax loopholes, while investing in areas that create opportunities for the middle class and our future generations.
As reported by The Hill, President Obama expressed a great deal of frustration at a fundraiser in Boston yesterday.
“Sometimes people ask me, ‘Man, how do you stay optimistic because it just seems like a bunch of problems piling up on your desk, and it doesn’t seem like you’re getting a lot of help from the other side?’”
And the president expressed concerns that some of the most tragic events in recent history were unable to end the partisanship in Washington.
“We would have hoped that coming out of those two tragedies that we would see a new spirit in Congress of people pulling together, and rolling up sleeves, and working on the things a broad spectrum of Americans agree on, but that’s not what we got,” Obama said. “Instead, we got more obstruction and more resistance to getting anything done, most recently culminating in a shutdown that was entirely unnecessary.”
It is being widely reported that Republican Congressman Pete Sessions was behind yet another blatant remark disrespecting the President of the United States.
According to reports, Sessions made the statement during a meeting at the White House when President Obama was trying to find an end to the GOP government shutdown. The statement, disclosed first by Democratic Congressman Dick Durbin, claims that the Republican congressman told the president, “I cannot even stand to look at you.”
“Many Republicans searching for something to say in defense of the disastrous shutdown strategy will say President Obama just doesn’t try hard enough to communicate with Republicans. But in a “negotiation” meeting with the president, one GOP House Leader told the president: “I cannot even stand to look at you.” What are the chances of an honest conversation with someone who has just said something so disrespectful?”
Of course, Sessions is denying the story. And the White House is claiming that it never happened. Asked to clarify the events of the meeting, White House spokesman Jay Carney said;
“I looked into this and spoke with somebody who was in that meeting and it did not happen.”
Who to believe? I’ll believe Mr Durbin, not because he’s a Democrat, but because the congressman is known and respected among his peers as a no nonsense kind of guy. Also because Mr Durbin’s recollection is supported by others familiar with the meeting.
Senator Harry Reid not only corroborated Durbin’s story, he went one step further, pointing fingers and naming names.
According to the Huffington Post, Reid told the caucus about the incident on Tuesday and named Sessions. Reid also told the caucus that he was “sorry” to have to tell them about it… but gave Obama credit for his “dignified” response to Sessions. Reid reportedly told the caucus that Obama responded to Sessions by saying he understood that they disagreed on many issues and he respected their differences.
Just another example of the disrespect this particular president is getting from the Republicans. And, according to Harry Reid, Mr. Obama still maintains his respect for his haters.
During a speech this morning by President Obama on Obamacare, a woman standing directly behind the president began to wobble back and forth as if she was about to faint.
Luckily, Obama realized there was something going on behind him and immediately turned around to catch the woman, making sure she remained steady on her feet.
Good catch Mr. President!
Apparently the woman was attending the speech as a guest who was a beneficiary of the Affordable Care Act.
“This is what happens when I talk too long,” the president said after helping her get escorted off the stage.
Last night I signed legislation to reopen our government and pay America’s bills. Because Democrats and responsible Republicans came together, the first government shutdown in 17 years is now over; the first default in more than 200 years will not happen.
These twin threats to our economy have now been lifted, and I want to thank those Democrats and Republicans for getting together and ultimately getting this job done
President Obama used this weeks weekly address to discuss his recent meetings with Republicans at the White House. The President urged Congress to pass a budget, and allow Americans to get back to work.
Over the past few days, I’ve met with Republicans and Democrats from both houses of Congress in an effort to reopen your government and remove the dangers of default from our economy.
It’s a positive development that House Republicans have agreed on the need to avoid the economic consequences of not meeting our country’s commitments. Because once the debt ceiling is raised, and the shutdown is over, there’s a lot we can accomplish together.
We’ve created seven and a half million new jobs in the past three and a half years. Now let’s create more. We’ve cut our deficits in half over the past four years. Now let’s do it in a smarter, balanced way that lets us afford to invest in the things we need to grow.
The truth is, there’s a lot we can agree on. But one thing we have to agree on is that there is no good reason anyone should keep suffering through this shutdown. I met with some really innovative small business owners on Friday who’ve already lost contracts, lost customers, and put hiring on hold – because the pain of this Republican shutdown has trickled down to their bottom lines. It’s hurting the very citizens that our government exists to serve. That’s why a growing number of reasonable Republicans say it should end now.
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