January 21, 2015

Poll: Chris Christie Approval Worst It's Been In Almost Four Years

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's (R) approval rating among New Jersey voters is at the lowest it's been in almost four years, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday.

The poll found that 46 percent of New Jerseyans approve of the job he's doing as governor while 48 percent disapprove. That finding is the worst showing for Christie in almost four years, Quinnipiac noted.

The last time Christie was able to get 50 percent support or more was almost exactly a year ago, in a January 15, 2014 Quinnipiac poll. That poll found the New Jersey governor who's believed to be planning to run for president with 55 percent of New Jerseyans approving of his job performance while 38 percent disapproved.

Broken down by party affiliation, 74 percent of Republicans approve of the job Christie is doing while 21 percent disapprove. Among Democrats just 26 percent approve of the job Christie is doing while 69 percent disapprove. The poll was conducted between January 15 and January 19 among 1,211 New Jersey voters. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/quinnipiac-poll-chris-christie-approval-disapproval-worst-almost-four-years

January 21, 2015

Ben Carson: Congress Should Remove Judges Who Rule For Gay Marriage

Former pediatric neurosurgeon and possible 2016 presidential candidate Ben Carson explained to an Iowa broadcaster on Tuesday that Congress can and should eject judges who rule in favor of gay marriage.

On the conservative Steve Deace Show podcast ("Fear God. Tell The Truth. Make Money.&quot Carson said most Americans are unaware of this authority "because they don't know the Constitution."

"When judges do not carry out their duties in an appropriate way, our Congress actually has the right to reprimand or remove them," Carson said. Any law on marriage should be decided by a popular referendum, and any decisions made by courts are "unconstitutional," justifying dismissal of judges, he added.

Later on in the interview, Carson agreed with Deace that ongoing spread of legalized gay marriage would make it “open season on Christians." Values and principles cannot be drummed out of us," Carson said. "They’re going to try, and the only way we maintain a country with values and principles is we have to be brave enough to stand up for what we believe.”

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ben-carson-remove-judges-gay-marriage

January 21, 2015

Obama Kicks Off the Next Presidential Campaign

http://politicalwire.com/2015/01/21/obama-kicks-off-next-presidential-campaign/

January 21, 2015

The Guardian: Obama full of swagger: State of the Union leaves GOP enraged

PAUL LEWIS, THE GUARDIAN
21 JAN 2015 AT 09:07 ET

When Barack Obama looked out into the audience of his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, he was met with a truly historic sight. No Democratic president in the last century has addressed a Congress dominated by so many Republican lawmakers.

The last time a US president delivered a State of the Union address in front of such a large number of Republicans was 1930. And that was president Herbert Hoover, a fellow Republican.

Yet anyone who expected Obama to begin his second-to-last year in office by courting the very adversaries he will need to pass any significant legislation – from tax reform to investment in infrastructure – left disappointed.


There was no sign of a president humbled by November’s electoral defeat. On the contrary, Obama seemed impervious to the new political balance of power in Washington, appearing at times to even goad his political enemies.

There were two especially revealing examples of Obama’s defiance, both of them unscripted. The first came after one of his opening lines, when the incoming Republican majority declined to applaud Obama’s praise for the economic recovery.

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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/obama-full-of-swagger-state-of-the-union-leaves-gop-enraged/

January 21, 2015

Obama trolls the GOP: How a not-so-lame-duck president left them bumbling - By Joan Walsh

With his modest tax proposals Obama is neither Piketty nor Robin Hood -- but here's why his SOTU riled up the right

JOAN WALSH

President Obama delivered his second to last State of the Union address with an epic combination of sweet-talking and trash-talking, cajoling and trolling. He brought us the story of Rebekah and Ben Erler, who got through some economic troubles with their family intact. “It is amazing,” Rebekah wrote the president, “what you can bounce back from when you have to…we are a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, very hard times.” You knew what was coming: Yes, Americans, we too are “a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, very hard times.”

Or more specifically, we’re a strong, tight-knit family whose Republican relatives have been wrong on Russia and Iraq, clueless about climate change and can’t even get right with the pope on Cuba. When he commented, “I have no more campaigns to run,” and Republicans applauded, Obama shot back: “I know, because I’ve won both of them.”

My personal favorite Obama taunt came during his call for a minimum wage hike. “To everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, go try it. If not, vote to give millions of the hardest-working people in America a raise.”

Anyone who tuned in expecting a conciliatory lame duck president was disappointed.

Since almost all of the president’s SOTU proposals were available for mass consumption days before the address, the night’s big questions involved theater, much of which was provided by Obama himself. But it was fun to watch Republicans frown at so many ideas they once supported. While much of the media framed Obama’s plan as a radical break from his first six years, that’s silly. I’m happy with what the president outlined, but it’s essential to say that aside from his community college proposal, he’s using mostly old-fashioned GOP ideas, though they’re DOA in this Congress.

more
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/21/not_so_lame_duck_president_cajoles_trolls_the_gop/

January 21, 2015

GOP Mentions Immigration In Spanish SOTU Response But Not In English One

By DYLAN SCOTT Published JANUARY 20, 2015, 11:58 PM EST

In a disparity that crystalizes the Republican Party's struggle with immigration reform, its official English-language response to President Obama's State of the Union address did not mention the issue -- but its Spanish-language response did.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) didn't mention immigration once during her official Republican response, which was aired nationally Tuesday night. A pledge that the GOP would "work to correct executive overreach" was as close as she came.

But Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), who delivered the Spanish-language GOP response, did bring it up. Democratic opposition research firm American Bridge pointed out the discrepancy in an email to reporters.

"We should also work through the appropriate channels to create permanent solutions for our immigration system," Curbelo said, as translated by American Bridge. A Google translation of Univision's report on Curbelo's remarks largely corroborated the translation.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/curbelo-ernst-gop-state-of-the-union-immigration

January 21, 2015

Obama Dares GOP to Help the Middle Class in His State of the Union

Michael Tomasky

The public is open to sharing prosperity now that the economy is finally chugging. Meanwhile, the Republican fear campaign is running out of steam.

Can you remember a time when the political zeitgeist has ping-ponged the way ours has in just two months? The day after last November’s election, Barack Obama was finished. Now, two positive jobs reports and a 60-odd-cent-per-gallon drop in gasoline prices later, he’s the president again. And the Republicans have just taken power and have run Congress for only two weeks, but suddenly they’re kind of on the defensive.

Of course this isn’t to say that Obama is going to get a single plank of the ambitious agenda he laid out in the State of the Union Address through Congress. The Republicans still hold those cards.

But what’s happened in the last couple of months, and what Obama seized effectively with this speech, is this. The mood has changed. The public is open to ideas it wasn’t open to a year ago; even two months ago.

Politics in this country is really about only one thing at a time, and that one thing favors one party or the other. In 1981 and for a few years thereafter, it was about how oppressive the federal government was. Advantage Republicans. For a short time in the late 1980s, it was about how we’d vanquished the Soviet Union (and won a little side war). Advantage Republicans.

For a while in the 1990s, it was about building a future-oriented economy. Advantage Democrats. After 9/11, it was about security. Advantage Republicans. And so on. It’s a little more complicated than this, because thrown into these cycles we have the scandals and the social changes that all have some impact on how people think about things, but basically, this is how American politics rolls: We go through these eras, and the eras make the majority of people decide that one party or the other is better equipped to do something about the challenges.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/20/obama-shifts-the-focus-to-sharing-prosperity-in-his-state-of-the-union-address.html

January 21, 2015

For Republicans, Muslims Will Be the Gays of 2016

Dean Obeidallah

Bobby Jindal isn’t stupid enough to believe in Muslim no-go zones. He’s working the base, which is more than willing to be worked.

Now that Republicans realize that the fight over gay marriage is over, they’re pivoting back to the old reliable: Muslims. It’s true that Muslim-bashing among Republicans is hardly new, but I think that as 2016 approaches we’re going to see even more of it as candidates try to outflank one another.

The latest example was LouisianaGovernor’s Bobby Jindal’s speech on Monday in London. Jindal told the audience that there are “no-go zones” in Europe where Muslims have in essence carved out Islamic “autonomous” zones that are ruled by Koranic law and where non-Muslims fear to tread. His point, of course, was to warn Americans that Muslims could try the same thing in the United States.

Now if that concept sounds familiar it’s because last week Fox News served up this same rancid red meat to its viewers. Some Fox News anchors claimed these so-called “no-go zones” existed in parts of France. And Fox News’ terrorism “expert” Steve Emerson even went as far as to say that Birmingham, England, the nation’s second biggest city with more than one million people, was a “totally Muslim city where non-Muslims don’t go in.”

The backlash to these comments was swift. Even British Prime Minster David Cameron responded, “When I heard this, frankly, I choked on my porridge and I thought it must be April Fools Day. This guy is clearly a complete idiot.”

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/21/for-republicans-muslims-will-be-the-gays-of-2016.html

January 20, 2015

Supreme Court Rules That Muslim Prisoner Has Right to Grow Beard

Source: Slate

Prisoners have the right to grow beards for religious reasons, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday morning in the case of Muslim Arkansas inmate Gregory Holt. Arkansas officials had argued Holt’s half-inch beard presented a security risk, while Holt’s representatives said a 2000 law called the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act protected his right to grow it. From USA Today:

Widespread skepticism toward the state’s security-driven argument was obvious in October when justices heard oral arguments in the case, SCOTUSblog wrote at the time. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a concurrence joined by Sonia Sotomayor, noted that she believes the religious freedom extended to Holt is of a different character than that extended to the Hobby Lobby store chain in a much more controversial 2014 court ruling. That ruling held that Hobby Lobby could cite religious beliefs in choosing not to provide contraceptives through its employee health insurance plan. Wrote Ginsburg, who dissented in the Hobby Lobby case: “Unlike the exemption this court approved (in Hobby Lobby), accommodating petitioner’s religious belief in this case would not detrimentally affect others who do not share petitioner's belief.”

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Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/01/20/supreme_court_beard_muslim_prisoner_ok_justices_say.html?wpsrc=slatest_newsletter&sid=5388f1c6dd52b8e4110003de

January 20, 2015

Republicans Like Romney More Than Jeb Bush — WSJ/NBC Poll

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds Mitt Romney begins the 2016 Republican presidential primary campaign with significant advantages over Jeb Bush, his chief rival for GOP establishment support.

“More than half (52%) of all Republicans still maintain a positive view of the party’s 2012 nominee, compared to just 37% who said the same about Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor. Mr. Romney does more than 20 percentage points better among self-identified tea party supporters and core Republican voters than does Mr. Bush, who last ran for office in 2002.”

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http://politicalwire.com/2015/01/20/republicans-prefer-romney-bush/