There was just a 6.0 earthquake in Washington. Obama wanted it to be 3.4 but the Republicans wanted it to be 6.0 so he compromised.

Is this his Katrina moment?

link

I love this piece of music. It always lifts my spirits. I don't know if that is what Ravel intended, but that's how it works for me. Part of that is because it calls to mind the amazing gold medal winning ice dancing performance by Jane Torville and Christopher Dean at the Sarajevo Olympics.

On one hand, we have an incumbent president with dismally low job-approval ratings; his signature legislative accomplishment of health care reform remains very unpopular, and he is presiding over an enormously weak and worsening economy. This is a combination sufficiently bad to prevent any president's reelection.

On the other hand, we have an opposing party whose center of gravity and energy levels have swung so far to one side of the ideological spectrum as to have been designed to alienate the independent and swing voters, the people who will effectively decide this presidential election. To put it more simply, this election is the Republican Party's to lose, and yet, they may pull it off, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

It's hard to argue with the proposition that President Obama is extremely weak heading into his reelection campaign.  Though presidential job-approval ratings don't begin taking on predictive value until about a year before the actual election, his 40 percent Gallup job-approval rating for the week ending July 14, with 52 percent disapproving, is not good.  Although 74 percent of Democrats approve the job he is doing, among independent voters, a group he carried by 8 percentage points in 2008, just 36 percent approve; among Republicans, only 9 percent approve.

In the end, upwards of 90 percent of Democrats will likely end up voting for Obama just as more than 90 percent of Republicans will end up opposing him; it's that independent group that will likely make up all the difference.  Americans are known to vote their pocketbooks, and the economy is almost inevitably the dominant issue. The August 11-14 Gallup Poll that got all the attention (the one that showed that only 26 percent of Americans approved the job Obama was doing handling the economy) indicated that his approval rating among independents on handling the economy was just 23 percent--on creating jobs, 24 percent. Those are ugly poll numbers, consistent with a president losing reelection.  Yes, President Reagan had some awful job-approval numbers in the first half of 1983. but by this point they had turned up above where Obama is today and didn't drop to this level for the duration of his reelection campaign. In short, Reagan had already turned the corner by now.

"Federal officials have warned that Irene could cause flooding, power outages or worse all along the East Coast as far north as Maine, even if it stays offshore. The projected path has gradually shifted to the east and Irene could make landfall anywhere from South Carolina to Massachusetts over the weekend."

Most likely, based on geography and the fact that it's "shifting east" it will hit either North Carolina or RI/MA first, with Long Island also being a slight possibility.

Thanks to Governor Quinn for showing how to get things done.

he comes off as a nut even when he's not saying something crazy

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Nearly one of every 10 midsized or big employers expects to stop offering health coverage to workers after insurance exchanges begin operating in 2014 as part of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, according to a survey by a major benefits consultant.

Towers Watson also found in its July survey that another one in five companies are unsure about what they will do after 2014. Another big benefits consultant, Mercer, found in a June survey of large and smaller employers that 8 percent are either "likely" or "very likely" to end health benefits after the exchanges start.
...The percentage of companies that are already saying they expect to do this surprised some experts, and if they follow through, it could start a trend that chips away at employer-sponsored health coverage, a long-standing pillar of the nation's health system.
...
Such a move could lead to more taxes for both companies and employees, since health benefits currently are not taxed, and companies could be fined for dropping coverage. It also would give their employees a steep compensation cut if they don't receive a pay raise, too. link

Children covered under the health care bill, which allows for coverage of children between the ages of 19-26 who are not full time students or disabled or don't have health care from their employers, are going to be taxed on the COBRA cost of the value of their insurance benefit ($415.00/mo) retroactive to Jan 1 2011. This tax is per child. That amounts to an additional tax liability of almost $5000/yr per child.