Poll: Bush approval drops to low of 29%
By Susan PageUSA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Opposition to the Iraq war has reached a record high, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, a development likely to complicate President Bush's efforts to hold together Republican support as the Senate begins debate this week on Pentagon priorities.
Bush's approval rating has reached a new low: 29%.
In the survey, taken Friday through Sunday, one in five Americans says the increase in U.S. forces in Iraq since January has made the situation there better. Half say it hasn't made a difference.
More than seven in 10 favor removing nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq by April.
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Unpopular US Congress enduring tough times
10 Jul 2007 13:03:52 GMT
WASHINGTON, July 10 (Reuters) - These are tough times for the Democratic-led U.S. Congress, where partisan battles
have led to little progress on big issues and have made lawmakers collectively less popular than President George W. Bush.
Congress, typically never all that popular to begin with, starts the second half of 2007 with an anemic job approval rating of about 25 percent, down from 43 percent in January, with one Gallup poll ranking lawmakers at 14 percent.
Experts attribute the woeful rankings to an inability to force a change in direction in Iraq, the priority Democrats campaigned on to gain power in both the House of Representatives and the Senate in last November's elections.
But that is not all. There has been little to show on other priorities, including a change in Social Security and other entitlement programs that will run out of money in the years ahead, in addition to overhauling a health care system that has left millions uninsured and a broken immigration policy.
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Panel Moves to Cut Off Funds to Cheney
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats moved Tuesday to cut off funding for Vice President Dick Cheney's office in a continuing battle over whether he must comply with national security disclosure rules.
A Senate appropriations panel chaired by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., refused to fund $4.8 million in the vice president's budget until Cheney's office complies with parts of an executive order governing its handling of classified information.
At issue is a requirement that executive branch offices provide data on how much material they classify and declassify. That information is to be provided to the Information Security Oversight Office at The National Archives.
Cheney's office, with backing from the White House, argues that the offices of the president and vice president are exempt from the order because they are not executive branch "agencies.
The funding cut came as the appropriations panel approved 5-4 along party lines a measure funding White House operations, the Treasury Department and many smaller agencies.
Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said Cheney's office was flouting requirements that it comply with the reporting requirements on classified information.
"Neither Mr. Cheney or his staff is above the law or the Constitution," Durbin said. "For the vice president to believe that he has no responsibility to meet this requirement of the law is a dereliction of duty."
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Busy Guy
You say you got paid to have sex with Sen. Vitter (R-LA)? Well, lady, get in line ... (just out from the Times-Picayune)
U.S. Senator David Vitter visited a Canal Street brothel several times beginning in the mid-1990s, paying $300 per hour for services at the bordello after he met the madam at a fishing rodeo that included prostitutes and other politicians, according to Jeanette Maier, the "Canal Street Madam" whose operation was shut down by a federal investigators in 2001.
Late Update: Ahhh yet more fun. David Corn digs up a 1998 column Vitter wrote insisting that Clinton's moral depravity was an impeachable offense.
Pretty Friggin' Late Update: Quite apart from the prostitution, several TPM Readers note, even more disturbing is the question: what's a fish rodeo?
Yep, Even Later Update: "He seemed to be one of the nicest men and most honorable men I've ever met." Character reference from Jeanette Maier, former New Orleans brothel owner, on her alleged former client, Sen. Vitter.
Todays Quote
I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary [Clinton]. If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me.
--Wendy Vitter, wife of Senator David Vitter (R-Louisana) (ABC News, 07/10/0
Earlier in the article, Senator Vitter told reporters that he and his wife reconciled, so figure that one out on your own.
Live by the Flynt, Die by the Flynt
Sen. David Vitter probably isn't too happy with Larry Flynt today, after the porn-king reportedly was the one responsible for revealing Vitters' adventures in DC hookerdom.
But Eric Kleefeld notes that Vitter probably can't get too high on his high horse because now-Senator Vitter (but for how long?) was first elected to the House of Representatives after his predecessor Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA) was himself run out of office when Flynt exposed him as an adulterer.
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