memeorandum: Rasmussen: GOP now more trusted on health care than Democrats (Allahpundit/Hot Air)

3:20 PM ET, August 13, 2009

Top Items:

Cheney Uncloaks His Frustration With Bush — ‘Statute of Limitations Has Expired’ on Many Secrets, Former Vice President Says — In his first few months after leaving office, former vice president Richard B. Cheney threw himself into public combat against the “far left” agenda of the new commander in chief.

Rasmussen Reports:

Election 2010: Pennsylvania Senate Election — Pennsylvania 2010 Senate Match-ups: Specter, Sestak Top Toomey — Uncomfortable town hall meetings are just the tip of the iceberg for Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter. He now trails Republican Pat Toomey by double digits in his bid …

Rasmussen Reports:

Trust on Issues — Voters Give GOP First-Time Lead on Health Care — For the first time in over two years of polling, voters trust Republicans slightly more than Democrats on the handling of the issue of health care. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that voters favor the GOP on the issue 44% to 41%.

Discussion: YID With LID, Moe Lane, JammieWearingFool and NO QUARTER

Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Rasmussen: GOP now more trusted on health care than Democrats

Discussion: Telegraph

Patterico's Pontifications:

Roxana Mayer: I'm Not a Doctor But I Play One at Town Hall Meetings — [This post follows up on a previous post in which I questioned the credentials of a woman at a Texas town hall meeting who claimed to be a doctor, but turned out to be anything but. She is a graduate student in social work — oh, and an Obama delegate.

Matt Bramanti / Lone Star Times:

Obama camp plants fake doc, Che fan at Jackson Lee forum — I was reading the Chron's piece about Sheila Jackson Lee's town hall, when something caught my eye: … In this video, Mayer claims to be a general practitioner, eliciting applause and even a hug from Queen Sheila:

Discussion: Townhall.com, Blue Crab Boulevard, American Power, Gateway Pundit, Freedom's Lighthouse, Michelle Malkin, Redhot and Weasel Zippers

Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
Video: ObamaCare fans take Astroturfing to a new level; Mayer an OFA organizer

Discussion: NO QUARTER and NewsBusters.org

The Huffington Post:

Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big Pharma — A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week.

Discussion: The Atlantic Politics Channel, Dennis the Peasant, The Washington Independent and Swampland

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:

‘LOST CONTROL OF THE MESSAGE’.... There was an interesting exchange yesterday in the White House briefing room. A reporter asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the administration's message strategy when it comes to health care reform. … Gibbs responded by noting that there's …

Discussion: WhiteHouse.gov Blog and Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog!

Karl Rove / Wall Street Journal:
Obama and the Permanent Campaign

Discussion: Think Progress, Time, Washington Monthly, Commentary and And So it Goes in Shreveport

David D. Kirkpatrick / New York Times:
Obama Is Taking an Active Role in Talks on Health Care Plan

Discussion: Political Punch, Ben Smith's Blog, Washington Post, PoliGazette, Ezra Klein, The Note, The Confluence, Dennis the Peasant, The Page, Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! and The Huffington Post

Jill Lawrence / Politics Daily:

Nineteen Minutes In a Car With Harry Reid — LAS VEGAS - Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, was having second thoughts - or was he? - about the way he had characterized people who are disrupting town halls with “lies, innuendo and rumor,” and not letting others speak. They are, he said, “evil-mongers.”

Discussion: The Atlantic Politics Channel, Eye on 2010, Hot Air and Power Line

Eric Zimmermann / The Hill's Blog Briefing Room:

Reid: Protesters are ‘evil-mongers’ — Town hall protesters are “evil-mongers,” says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) — Reid coined the term in a speech to an energy conference in Las Vegas this week and repeated it in an interview with Politics Daily.

Discussion: Weekly Standard

J. Patrick Coolican / Las Vegas Sun:
Heller acknowledges the John Ensign effect

Discussion: The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, Swing State Project, Scorecard's Blog, TPMMuckraker and TPMDC

Greg Scandlen / AmSpecBlog:

Palin Is Not Wrong — As virtually everybody in America now knows, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin posted the following on her FaceBook page: … Naturally, she was roundly reviled for these comments. One person quoted by the New York Times replied, “One problem …

Discussion: 24Ahead

CBS News:
Oregon Rep. Fights Palin, Gingrich Attacks

Discussion: The Politico, PERRspectives and Taibblog

Michael O'Brien / The Hill's Blog Briefing Room: Coburn: ‘Death panel’ claims aren't outrageous

Los Angeles Times:

Wanted: Obama healthcare reform volunteers willing to be paid $15 an hour — It seems that, despite all the media attention lavished on e-mail appeals to his supporters, not everyone pushing for President Obama's embattled healthcare reform plan these warm August days is an idealistic volunteer …

Discussion: The Strata-Sphere, Sister Toldjah, Neptunus Lex, Hyscience and Gateway Pundit

Janet Adamy / Wall Street Journal:

End-of-Life Provision Loses Favor — The cost of caring for patients who are near death accounts for a big piece of the government's medical spending. But a furor over a provision for government-paid counseling to plan for end-of-life care is steering lawmakers away from the issue.

Discussion: The Atlantic Politics Channel, Washington Monthly, Glenn Thrush's Blog, Ezra Klein, TPMDC, Talking Points Memo and Capitol Briefing

Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Finance Committee to drop end-of-life provision

Discussion: Michelle Malkin

Mike Allen / The Politico:

Massive campaign for Obama hits air — A new coalition on Thursday launched $12 million in television ads to support President Barack Obama's health reform plan, in the opening wave of a planned tens of millions of dollars this fall. — The new group, funded largely by the pharmaceutical industry …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Firedoglake, The Page and The Atlantic Politics Channel

Jonathan Martin / Ben Smith's Blog:
Strange bedfellows coalition begins massive ad campaign

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias

Max Abelson / New York Observer:

Paul Krugman Gets a New Place to Hang His Hat and Nobel — The Times columnist, Princeton professor, recent Nobel winner, and all-around ceaselessly smart economist Paul Krugman has a nice new co-op. According to a deed filed in city records today, Mr. Krugman and his wife …

Discussion: Gawker and Telegraph

Jesse Lee / WhiteHouse.gov Blog:

The Return of the Viral Email — Read an email out this morning from Senior Advisor David Axelrod and watch a new “Reality Check” video from Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle below. Both respond to the malicious chain emails that have been circulating on health insurance reform:

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Swamp, erica's Blog, USA Today, Big Brass Blog, Gawker and msnbc.com

Guy Trebay / New York Times:

It's Hip to Be Round — THIS summer the unvarying male uniform in the precincts of Brooklyn cool has been a pair of shorts cut at knickers length, a V-neck Hanes T-shirt, a pair of generic slip-on sneakers and a straw fedora. Add a leather cuff bracelet if the coolster is gay.

Discussion: The New Republic and The Awl

David Frum / THE WEEK News & Opinion:

The reckless Right courts violence — Hysterical talk from TV and radio hosts may be a cynical marketing exercise. But it's getting too dangerous to ignore. — A man bearing a sidearm appears outside President Obama's Aug. 11 town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., under a sign proclaiming …

Discussion: Firedoglake, msnbc.com, PoliBlog, The League of Ordinary … and Conservatives4Palin.com

Judith Warner:

Hillary Fights a Tide of Trivialization — This was supposed to be the trip that would show exactly how Hillary Rodham Clinton would make good on her pledge, at her confirmation hearing for secretary of state, to make women's issues “central” to U.S. foreign policy, not “adjunct or auxiliary or in any way lesser.”

Discussion: The New Republic, TalkLeft, Outside The Beltway, New York Times, DailyHowler.com and ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

National Enquirer:

JOHN EDWARDS SECRET DNA TEST PROVES HE'S THE DADDY! — BOMBSHELL WORLD EXCLUSIVE! John Edwards has secretly undergone a DNA test - and it proves he's the father of his mistress' love child, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively. — Multiple sources confirm the bombshell development …

Discussion: Gawker, Swampland, MomLogic, Scared Monkeys, Liberal Values and Stop The ACLU

Mickey Kaus / Kausfiles:

Will You/Won't You Be on My “Death Panel”? — My friend Bob Wright posts a persuasive “partial list” of the “false and misleading things” he argues a recent New Republic book review said about The Evolution of God. … The disputes are grouped into six substantive issues.

Discussion: Conservatives4Palin.com, Cold Fury, JustOneMinute and TigerHawk

Carol E. Lee / The Politico:

Says he flubbed stats — Before presenting tennis legend Billie Jean King with the Medal of Freedom Wednesday, President Obama ticked off some ... ... of her accomplishments: 12 Grand Slam titles, 101 doubles titles, 67 singles titles. — “Pretty good, Billie Jean,” he quipped.

Discussion: Michelle Malkin, Outside The Beltway, Scared Monkeys and Freedom's Lighthouse

Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:

The Limited Powers of the Presidency — I think Ezra Klein nails this: … That's right. I know a lot of people on the left who seem to have voted for Barack Obama because they liked his progressive agenda, then gotten excited when Obama won the election because they liked his progressive agenda …

Discussion: TalkLeft

Henry Payne / Detroit News:

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Energy Leader (National Review, 08.10.09) — Detroit, Mich. - Michigan just experienced its coldest July on record; global temperatures haven't risen in more than a decade; Great Lakes water levels have resumed their 30-year cyclical rise (contrary to a decade …

Discussion: theblogprof, Moonbattery, Don Surber, Dennis the Peasant and The Foundry

Yves Smith / naked capitalism:

Banks Turn Up Noses At Lending to Small Businesses Under Stimulus Program — The 1980s supermodel Linda Evangelista once said. “We don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day.” That seems to be the motto of American bankers, (save Citigroup's Andrew Hall, who needs 40 times that much per business day).

Discussion: The Huffington Post, New York Times, Obsidian Wings, Clusterstock and Wonk Room

Jack Healy / New York Times:

Despite ‘Cash for Clunkers,’ Retail Sales Decline in July — Retail sales fell unexpectedly in July, the government reported on Thursday, chilling hopes that consumers are ready to lead the American economy out of recession. — The Labor Department reported that retail sales fell …

Discussion: The Agonist