39%

MSNBC (01.30.06):

“The survey, which was conducted from Jan. 26-29 of 1,011 adults and which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, shows Bush’s approval rating at 39 percent, which is unchanged from last month’s NBC/Journal poll.”

President facing ‘gray and gloomy’ electorate

The poll (link courtesy of Think Progress) has two very interesting questions.

This is question 23: “As you may know, since 2002, the Bush administration has been using wiretaps to listen to telephone calls between suspected terrorists in other countries and American citizens in the United States without getting a court order to do so. Do you approve or disapprove of the Bush administration’s approach on this issue?”

51% said they approved of the Administration’s approach, while 46% disapproved.

This is question 24: “Do you think that the Bush administration should conduct wiretaps of American citizens who are suspected of having ties to terrorists without a court order, or do you think that the Bush administration should be required to get a court order before conducting these wiretaps?”

53% said the Administration should be required to get a court order before wiretapping, while 41% said the should be able to without a court order.

So 51% say they approve of the Administration wiretapping without getting a court order, yet 53% say the Administration should be required to get a court order before doing so.

Very curious.

UPDATE: It’d only be a matter of time before some talking head started citing the responses to the first question (and only the first question) as proof that the public is behind the Administration on this one.

Another Thing We Don’t Get

Bloomberg (01.31.06):

“U.S. consumer confidence rose more than expected in January to the highest since June 2002 as employers added jobs.”

U.S. Consumer Confidence Rises to Highest Since 2002

Four days ago. Bloomberg (01.27.06):

“By a 59 percent to 37 percent margin, Americans disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy, according to a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll this week. About six out of 10 say the economy will stay the same in the next six months, while more say it will worsen than say it will improve.

And by 47 percent to 22 percent, the public says the country is worse off economically since Bush became president.”

Economy Is Getting Worse Under Bush, Americans Say

Then there’s the AP/Ipsos poll from the beginning of January, which reported that “(d)espite strong job numbers for December, Americans’ confidence in the economic state of the country declined in January”.

Go figure.

Bet You Didn’t Know About This

The Commerce Department has its very own “Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiaves“.

They do not, apparently, have spell-check.

Negative Savings

Wonder what the bank would think if we did that with our checking? AP (01.30.06):

“Americans are spending everything they’re making and more, pushing the national savings rate to the lowest point since the Great Depression.

Soaring home prices apparently have convinced people they don’t have to worry about saving, a belief that could be seriously tested as 78 million baby boomers begin to retire.”

Americans’ Savings Rate Declines in 2005

For 2005, our savings rate was -0.5%, meaning we spent more than we made. For a little contrast, the savings rate was 10.8% 1984. A mildly amusing coincidence for all you Orwell fans, eh?

Americans are literally betting the farm that real estate values will stay high. Sure looks good on paper, don’t it?

“The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only twice before — in 1932 and 1933 — two years when Americans were having to deplete savings to cope with the massive job layoffs and business failures caused by the Great Depression.”

Want some happy, happy, joy, joy about the economy? Go read a few of the Commerce Secretary’s press releases. If you’re a little vague on what Orwell meant by “double-plus good”, a few of these ought to clear that right up.

Mr. Popularity?

All we want are the facts, ma’am. Polling Report, via Kos:

	Approve		Disapprove
	Most Recent	Last	Most Recent	Last
Time	41	41	55	53
ABC/Washington Post	42	46	56	52
Fox	41	42	51	49
Cook	47	42	50	55
LA Times/Bloomberg	43	50	54	47
CBS/NY Times	42	41	51	52
Gallup	43	43	54	53
Diageo/Hotline	46	50	53	47
Pew	38	38	54	54
AP/Ipsos	40	42	59	57

Reminds us of a song: “Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jivin’ too.”

More Dollars Per Gallon

And this is only for the fourth quarter of 2005, mind you. Reuters (01.30.06):

“Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, on Monday reported a quarterly profit of more than $10 billion, capping a record year dominated by a surge oil and gas prices.

The results pushed up Exxon’s profit for the year to a staggering $36.13 billion — bigger than the economies of 125 of the 184 countries ranked by the World Bank. Profit was up 42 percent from the record results of 2004.”

Exxon profit tops $10 billion, capping record year

What Reuters is probably referring to is the World Bank’s estimate of total gross domestic product for 2004.

“Exxon Mobil is the last of the major U.S. oil producers to report fourth-quarter earnings. Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil Corp. and Amerada Hess Corp. all reported profit increases last week. Hess’s earnings almost doubled, and Marathon’s almost tripled.”

The previous record for quarterly profits was set in the third quarter of 2005. Anyone care to venture a guess as to which company this was?

The reaction of the top 1 percent of US households who own 57.5% of our corporate wealth (as of 2003) was rumored to be discretely enthusiastic.

After all, not everyone owns Exxon.

Cream Of The Crop

The Army is looking for a few warm bodies. The number of junior officers resigning their commissions is up, “many after multiple rotations to Iraq.” LATimes (01.30.06), via The Washington Monthly:

“Struggling to retain enough officers to lead its forces, the Army has begun to dramatically increase the number of soldiers it promotes, raising fears within the service that wartime strains are diluting the quality of the officer corps.

Last year, the Army promoted 97% of all eligible captains to the rank of major, Pentagon data show. That was up from a historical average of 70% to 80%.”

Army’s Rising Promotion Rate Called Ominous

Used to be making major meant something. “Traditionally, the Army has used the step to major as a winnowing point to push lower-performing soldiers out of the military.” Not any more.

And it’s not just major. “The service also promoted 86% of eligible majors to the rank of lieutenant colonel in 2005, up from the historical average of 65% to 75%.”

The Army insists that “only officers that meet rigorous standards are elevated through its ranks.”

On the other hand, “‘The problem here is that you’re not knocking off the bottom 20%,’ said a high-ranking Army officer at the Pentagon. ‘Basically, if you haven’t been court-martialed, you’re going to be promoted to major.'”

And by the way, our “officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss the issue.”

Nor was he inclined to end his career.

In The Meantime

NYTimes (01.29.06):

“New government data indicate that the concentration of corporate wealth among the highest-income Americans grew significantly in 2003, as a trend that began in 1991 accelerated in the first year that President Bush and Congress cut taxes on capital.

In 2003 the top 1 percent of households owned 57.5 percent of corporate wealth, up from 53.4 percent the year before, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the latest income tax data.”

Corporate Wealth Share Rises for Top-Income Americans

“The top group’s share of corporate wealth has grown by half since 1991, when it was 38.7 percent.”

“In 2003, incomes in the top 1 percent of households ranged from $237,000 to several billion dollars.”

For the record, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (NOTE: this is a zip file, so you’ll have to unzip it to get the Excel spreadsheet (it’s called national_dl.xls) with the data), the 90th percentile wage as of November, 2004, was $69,300.00. Which means that 90% of us made this much, or less.

Oh and there were 129,146,700 folks in this survey, which means you’re probably included. Along with everyone else you know.

Won’t you tell me if you can,
‘Cause life’s so hard to understand.
Why’s the rich man busy dancing,
While the poor man pays the band?

Bush Pushed

We’re not thinking he’s liking this much at all. AP (01.29.06):

“Republican lawmakers said Sunday that President Bush should publicly disclose White House contacts with Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who has pleaded guilty to felony charges in an influence-peddling case.

Releasing the records would help eliminate suspicions that Abramoff, who helped raise more than $100,000 for Bush’s re-election campaign, had undue influence on the White House, the Republicans said.”

Lawmakers Push Bush on Abramoff Contacts

On the other hand, other suspicions may be confirmed. AP (01.29.06):

“The Bush administration’s former chief procurement official tipped off lobbyist Jack Abramoff that the government was about to suspend one of his clients from federal contracting, newly filed court papers say.

David Safavian provided ‘sensitive and confidential information’ about Tyco International to Abramoff regarding internal deliberations at the General Services Administration, says the filing in the criminal case against Safavian.”

White House Official Warned Abramoff

David also may have helped Jack on a little real estate deal.

What does the public think? Washington Post (01.28.06):

“The survey found that three in four — 76 percent — of Americans said Bush should release lists of all meetings between aides and Abramoff; 18 percent disagreed.

Two in three Republicans joined with eight in 10 Democrats and political independents in favoring disclosure, according to the poll.”

Most Want Bush to Disclose Links to Lobbyist

Maybe You Understand It

We sure as hell don’t. Why do these guys continually use numbers that don’t factor out inflation? Bloomberg (01.29.06):

“The Labor Department is forecast to report…a 0.3 percent increase in average hourly earnings for January.

That would put hourly wages 3.1 percent higher than the same month last year, matching December’s 12-month increase as the biggest in almost three years.”

Hiring Rebounds, Manufacturing Expands: U.S. Economy Preview

The problem? The numbers Bloomberg uses when it describes this higher biggest increase are not adjusted for inflation.

Go look at the actual BLS numbers. In current dollars, the average hourly wage of a production worker in December, 2004, was $15.85. In December, 2005, it was $16.34. Yippee!! Without factoring out inflation, it looks like you got a raise.

But did you really? Hey, you make the call. In constant 1982 dollars, you made $8.23 in December, 2004. In December, 2005, you made…(drum roll, please)… $8.19.

Higher, bigger, better? Indeed.

Fog Of Incompentence Is More Like It

NYTimes (01.28.06):

“The White House was beset by the ‘fog of war’ in the crucial days immediately after Hurricane Katrina, leaving it unable to respond properly to the unfolding catastrophe, House investigators said Friday after getting the most detailed briefing yet on how President Bush’s staff had handled the events.

The [closed-door briefing] was a compromise, a result of White House objections to the investigators’ requests for copies of e-mail messages and other correspondence from top presidential aides.”

Hurricane Investigators See ‘Fog of War’ at White House

“‘We are left with a picture of a White House that was plagued by the fog of war,’ said David Marin, the Republican staff director to the House committee investigating the government’s response to the hurricane. ‘The committee is likely to find a disturbing inability by the White House to de-conflict and analyze information — and that had consequences.'”

Which sure sounds like a mighty polite way of saying the lads at White House had no clue what was going on. Not like they weren’t warned about what could happen.

Deputy White House press secretary Trent Duffy stuck to the party line: “‘There was a lack of situational awareness at all levels.'”

OK so the Administration pooched this one. It’s made up for it since then, right?

Uhhhh, not exactly. Washington Post (01.28.06):

“Nearly five months after Hurricane Katrina swamped New Orleans, President Bush’s lofty promises to rebuild the Gulf Coast have been frustrated by bureaucratic failures and competing priorities, a review of events since the hurricane shows.

While the administration can claim some clear progress, Bush’s ringing call from New Orleans’s Jackson Square on Sept. 15 to ‘do what it takes’ to make the city rise from the waters has not been matched by action, critics at multiple levels of government say, resulting in a record that is largely incomplete as Bush heads into next week’s State of the Union address.

Post-Katrina Promises Unfulfilled

“The problems include the slow federal cleanup of debris in Mississippi and Louisiana; a lack of authority for Bush’s handpicked recovery coordinator, Donald E. Powell; the shortage and poor quality of housing for evacuees; and federal restrictions on reconstruction money and where coastal communities can rebuild.”

And this isn’t just in Louisiana. LATimes (01.28.06):

“Where Sen. Trent Lott’s 154-year-old home once stood, the president said, ‘There’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m going to look forward to sitting on the porch.’

Not only is there no porch five months later, but Lott’s house on Beach Boulevard is nothing but a concrete slab and a neat stack of bricks.”

Senator’s Lesson in Frustration

“(A)s the months go by with no relief, Lott and his neighbors are voicing the same frustrations as thousands of other families around the hurricane-ravaged region.”

“‘The government is not going to rebuild my house,’ said Lott. ‘”I don’t even have a FEMA trailer.'”

He does, however, “own two other homes far from the destruction”, so he’s probably doing better than a lot of other folks.

“The longtime Washington foe of ‘frivolous’ lawsuits was no less critical of insurance companies that balked at paying claims to Mississippi homeowners.” Trent sued State Farm last month alleging that the storm surge from Katrina which washed away his home was hurricane damage. State Farm denied his claim (and the claims of a lot of other folks) claiming that the storm surge was actually flooding, and flood damage isn’t covered.

“‘Funny how frivolous lawsuits stop being frivolous when it’s you,’ said Lott’s brother-in-law, Richard Scruggs, who is representing the senator.”

Hopefully then, the next chance he gets to address it, Trent will be inclined to consider the issue more comprehensively.

Comrade Max Posits A Hypothesis

This is pretty damned funny. MaxSpeak (01.27.06) (link in original):

“It happens that the extent of actual job growth can be accounted for by growth in public sector jobs.

The upshot is that the triumph of Republican-conservatarian economic policy consists of an expansion of government jobs financed by loans from the Communist Peoples Republic of China.”

It Has Come To This

Das vidanya, Tovarich!

Crapola

The President’s assertions grow even more outlandish. NYDaily News (01.27.06), via The Carpetbagger Report:

“In speech after speech, President Bush claims that if the National Security Agency could have wiretapped two Al Qaeda operatives living in San Diego, the 9/11 attacks might have been thwarted.

That’s a whopper, critics say.”

Foes see more Bush spy lies

“‘It’s not true,’ ex-9/11 commissioner Bob Kerrey, president of the New School in Manhattan, told the Daily News. ‘We knew about those two guys – the CIA lost them.'”

Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid Al-Mihdhar, “who hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 and flew it into the Pentagon”, were “identified in late 1999 by the NSA as Al Qaeda agents and tracked by the CIA to Malaysia and Thailand, where they were lost, according to the 9/11 Commission’s report. The CIA learned in March 2000 that Al-Hazmi flew to Los Angeles in January, but kept it secret.”

“‘The problem was the CIA and FBI not communicating and not picking them up,’ said Thomas Kean, the commission’s former chairman.”

The Carpetbagger continues (links in original):

“The message is about as subtle as a sledgehammer: we should all embrace Bush’s warrantless-search program because it could have prevented 9/11.

The administration didn’t need warrantless, legally-dubious searches to track the 9/11 terrorists down; intelligence officials already knew about these guys.

And we didn’t need warrantless, legally-dubious searches to warn us about the attacks; the NSA intercepted warnings of the attacks the day before, but they weren’t translated until Sept. 12, 2001.”

The Carpetbagger Report

The Latest

Man, this Medicare Drug Program just sucks. LATimes (01.27.06):

“The new Medicare drug program is denying supplies that seriously ill patients need to administer intravenous antibiotics and other medications at home. As a result, some patients are being referred to nursing homes, and others have had to go into hospitals.

Essentially, the prescription program allows coverage of the drugs but does not pay for the medical supplies and nursing help needed for the home infusion treatments to be safe and effective — a policy that effectively shuts down such treatment for some patients, even though it is substantially cheaper than the alternatives.”

Medicare Drug Plan Leaves Out Supplies

No one is sure how many people could be effected, the Times reports that ” (o)ne Anaheim pharmacy says 200 of its patients are having trouble.”

Well this must have been totally unanticipated, right?

Uhhh, not exactly. “Republican Sens. Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum, both of Pennsylvania, wrote to the Medicare agency [last] October, saying it ‘has opted to define the coverage of home infusion therapy in a manner that does not include financial coverage for … professional services, supplies and equipment that are required for the safe and effective provision of therapy.'”

“In a response dated Dec. 27, Mark McClellan, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the agency lacked specific legal authority to broaden the coverage policy, in effect, handing the problem back to Congress.”

“‘If we could pay for it, we would,’ said Dr. Jeff Kelman, chief medical officer for the division of Medicare that handles the drug benefit. ‘Read the act yourself …. It’s a drug benefit, not a medical benefit.'”

Well that was kind of a snotty answer, eh Jeff?

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Better not call the VA. Knight-Ridder (01.26.06):

“Key members of Congress from both major political parties are demanding that the Department of Veterans Affairs explain why its call centers routinely provide veterans with bad information.

According to the VA’s own ‘mystery caller’ program, Knight Ridder revealed that people who call the agency for help and advice are more likely to receive completely wrong answers than completely right ones.”

Congress demands VA explain its bad advice

The “mystery caller” program had people call and say “they were relatives or friends of veterans inquiring about possible benefits”. After making 1,089 calls, “VA experts then rated the answers given by the VA’s regional office workers.”

The results were abysmal. “They found that 22 percent of the answers that callers received were ‘completely incorrect,’ 23 percent were ‘minimally correct’ and 20 percent were ‘partially correct.’ Nineteen percent of the answers were “completely correct,” and 16 percent were ‘mostly correct.'”

So 2/3rds of the time, the information was essentially worthless.

To add insult to injury, the program “also found that some VA workers were dismissive of some callers and unhelpful or rude to others.”