We’ve spent a long time with the President’s approval rating hovering just slightly underwater, in the single digits, trending toward double digits.  Some polls you can count as reliably red-shifted.  For example, polls from The Economist/YouGov are always 10 full points removed from what the rest of America was thinking about Presidential Job Approval.  Less egregious, but always with a pink tinge is Rasmussen or, as I like to refer to them, Rrrrasmussen, due to them always being in the ballpark, but always slanted Republican.

But something strange has happened in the last several weeks.  All of Barack’s approval rating numbers have been trending UP, and if it weren’t for the Economist/YouGov outliers, the RealClearPolitics average of polls would show him with a net POSITIVE rating for the first time in almost 3 years.

I noticed the shift in trend and have been watching it.  It seems that any polls taken after February 13 show the new bump in popularity.  But his approval on the economy, his approval on foreign policy and approval for ACA have all remained at their normal, very negative, numbers.

What ever could have happened in that time frame?

Oh yeah…

Nino Scalia kicked the bucket, and America finally had a chance to have a reality-based SCOTUS.  But then, within 24 hours, THIS guy opened up his turtly beak and quoth, “NONE SHALL PASS!”  And all his Merrye Bundists said the same.

Suddenly, Obama’s approval rating started heading north, from exactly that date.  Real Americans don’t like it when you actually mess with the Constitution.  This is the first indicator I’ve seen that this Republican intransigence could PLAY throughout the election.  Thanks, Mitch!

~Primo

There’s a congressvarmint who is really upset that the Navy SEALS are short on combat rifles.

Navy SEAL teams don’t have enough combat rifles to go around, even as these highly trained forces are relied on more than ever to carry out counterterrorism operations and other secretive missions, according to SEALs who have confided in Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.

Problem:  there’s not enough M-4 carbines to go around.

Solution: Sweaty Sally’s Gun Show and City Center Outdoor Firing Range.

Y’all, I think it’s finally happened.  There are more combat weapons on the damn street than in the military.

Alternative Solution:  people who already own combat weapons get drafted into the military immediately.

On second thought …

No.

For a couple of months now I have argued with Verdelia that Mitt Romney has been sitting back, waiting for a brokered convention so that he has a shot of being the Republican nominee.

Verdelia says I’ve been watching too much House of Cards.

Maybe so, but Mitt stepped out last week to remind everybody that he’s still alive, has a lot of money, and is almost exactly like Donald Trump except with better table manners.

And we all took note that every shot he lobbed at Trump was … ta da! … something Mitt Romney did.

For example —

Mitt:  “His [Trump’s] bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who worked for them.”

Yeah, unlike Mitt Romney, venture capitalist at Bain, who never laid off anybody.

And —

Mitt: He inherited his business, he didn’t create it.

Yeah, not like Mitt, whose father was a poor sharecropper and died penniless in a dog cage on the top of Mitt’s car.

Charles Pierce concludes,

But what is very clear is that Willard sees the perfect Romney scenario unfolding before him. If the party declines to nominate He, Trump, then maybe it will hand the nomination to Willard Romney—the nomination that always should have been his.

This ain’t politics, it’s show business.  And you just gotta love it.

All Trump needs now is binders full of women.  Oh, wait.

Thanks to Carol for the heads up.

Satire is dead.

Thanks to Jorge for the heads up.

There is a special place in hell for people like Rick Snyder.

It seems Snyder has gone and hired himself two defense attorneys to deal with the mess arising out of Flint, but he’s making the people of Flint pay for it. And every other taxpayer in the state.

That’s because their official job is to handle all the lawsuits directed at the State from an “investigatory” standpoint. But defending the “State” is actually defending the Governor, and all of the leg work, research and other legal dumpster diving they do on his behalf is covered by the good people of Michigan to the tune of nearly half a million bucks.

Why “nearly” $500,000?  Because each lawyer is getting $249,000 for working just the rest of this year.  Coincidentally, that’s $1,000 below the threshold where Snyder’s expenditure would have to go before a review board.

Snyder may be going to Hell in a taxpayer-funded bucket, but when he gets there, he’ll spend eternity with nothing to drink but molten lead.

~Primo

Ted Cruz ate a booger on live teevee last night and that was the least disgusting and offensive thing that happened all night.

.

Everybody senses that the GOP National Convention will be a-damn-mazing.

Overall, the debate was another mess. The crowd sounded like a bunch of angry goons. If you’re waiting for the Republican convention to see the GOP fall apart, you don’t need to wait any more. It happened tonight. It was a national embarrassment.

Remember the good ole days when somebody asked Bill Clinton “boxers or briefs?” and it was a national scandal?  Yeah well, that’s over.

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