Obama’s Sinking Approval Rating

Yesterday I posted that Rasmussen’s Daily Presidential Tracking Poll found the number of Americans who ‘Strongly Approve’ of Obama’s job performance fell to a new low.  The polling company’s Presidential Approval Index is calculated as the difference between the percentage of Americans who ‘Strongly Approve’ and those who ‘Strongly Disapprove.’  Monday was the first time since Obama took office the index was negative.  Though the ‘Strongly Approve’ number came up one percent today, the index is still negative with 33% strongly approving and 34% strongly disapproving of the President’s performance.  This makes it obvious yesterday’s results weren’t a fluke, now that we see the index in negative territory for two days in a row.

Early in the month, the index reached zero for the first time, but quickly rebounded following Obama’s Cairo speech to the Muslim world.  His rhetoric and promises weren’t enough to hold the numbers for long though as North Korea became evermore belligerent, firing missiles, refusing to honor UN sanctions, and even threatening war against the US.  The Islamic Republic of Iran also took its toll on the President’s ratings following the landslide victory for anti-American President Ahmadinejad in an election his opponents insist was rigged by the council of clerics who really run the terrorist sponsoring nation.  Days of protests by supporters of Ahmadinejad’s opponent, Moustavi, turned violent Saturday after Iran’s Supreme ruler, Ayatollah Khamenei, warned protesters of a crackdown that would result in bloodshed.

Freedom-seeking protesters defied the Ayatollah and the bloodshed began while Obama remained silent, refusing to offer even moral support for the oppressed citizens of the Muslim theocracy.  When he finally did speak out on behalf of the demonstrators, he refused to do so on camera–incredulously clinging to his campaign calls for dialogue with the Iranian rulers who’ve long referred to the US as ‘The Great Satan’–and instead released a three-paragraph statement to the press.  This from a President who’s not shy about asking to stand in front of the lens whenever he seeks to read from a teleprompter to promote his latest attempt to convert our economy to a Socialist system.

It probably didn’t help the President when he decided to slip away and enjoy an ice cream cone while the Iranian supporters of Mousavi, who sought to lower tensions between the US and Iran, died in the streets.   The graphic images broadcast via cell phone on Twitter and YouTube allowed the world to see young men and women murdered, beaten, and dragged from their homes while the American President appeared unconcerned, going about as if the travesty wasn’t even occurring.

Even his domestic policies are now contributing to the decline in the number of Americans who support his Socialist policies.  The President’s health care plan, once expected to pass Congress with relative ease, has suffered possibly mortal wounds in recent days.  Critics are landing blows that must be resonating since even the President’s own party are backing away.  Of course it didn’t help either when last week the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released its report that found Obama’s plan would only insure about 1/3 of the nation’s uninsured at a whopping cost of $1 trillion.

Add to that the President is now considering new taxes that he campaigned against to help pay for his expensive plan.  Recall that Obama lambasted McCain for supposedly considering a tax on employer paid health insurance premiums during the campaign, but now the President is considering doing just that to pay the astronomical costs associated with his plan to seize control over another 17.7% of the US economy.  He’s set an August deadline for Congress to pass his plan and have it ready for his signature because he knows it won’t pass public scrutiny if allowed to be thoroughly and publicly debated.

Today’s Rasmussen poll is just the latest in a string that are showing a downward trend that may indicate the public is losing patience with the President’s radical reforms.  We recently saw that more Americans call themselves Conservatives than any other ideological political group and that 80% disagree with Obama’s Socialization of the US auto industry.  A majority now say the President has abandoned bipartisanship, though he’s repeatedly called for it from Republicans and campaigned on the idea that he would bring people together.

It’s apparent the President is watching these polls and taking notice, since he’s recently made statements that contradict his actions but pander to dissatisfied Americans.  Obama is so narcissistic, he’s obviously convinced the American people believe him when he claims to support a pay-as-you-go (Paygo) budget so full of loopholes it will allow him and the Democratic Congress to continue their historic deficit spending while claiming to be fiscally responsible.  He expects us to believe he doesn’t want to run private companiies even while he seizes control of them.  But voters can’t be fooled forever.

Obama has enjoyed quite a honeymoon with American voters but, as the recent polls indicate, that may just be coming to an end.  Though he continues to blame most of his problems on Bush, people are realizing it’s Obama’s show now–for better, or worse.

Obama Approval Ratings Reach New Lows

Today’s Daily Presidential Tracking Poll from Rasmussen shows fewer Americans strongly approve of the job the President is doing than at any time since he’s taken office.  His overall job approval ratings haven’t yet reached a new low, but are currently at their previous bottom.  It looks like the Iranian crisis is really taking a toll on the public perception of the effectiveness of his policies.

I posted here the other day when the strongly approve numbers reached their previous low, then the numbers spiked after his speech in Cairo.  But the upward momentum, and favorable impression, was short-lived as the public begins to realize that rhetoric has emboldened hard-line American enemies like North Korea and Iran.  We’ve recently seen other polls too that indicate the winds are changing and things don’t look really good for the President.

It’s late now, so I’ll update charts of trend lines and post them here tomorrow.

Iran Protest Coverage: Sun June 21, 2009

Yesterday I tracked coverage of the events in Iran on Twitter and posted them here.  Though it’s late Saturday night in the US, it’s now Sunday morning, 21 June 2009, in Iran.  I’ll update this post as events unfold throughout the day.

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Related Articles

With Twitter’s help, the youth of Iran take on the ayatollahs

Canadian Embassy in Tehran NOT taking injured

Life magazine reports photojournalist missing in Iran

Iran asks BBC reporter to leave

They killed Neda, but not her voice

Iran opposition leader vows to stand by protesters

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Video

(scroll down to see most recent videos)

Dawn fires, explosions, and protesters cheering

Screams, sirens, and gunshots in the black of last night

Thousands marching, chanting “We are all together”

Sunday protest in the streets

More Sunday protests

Police beating in Iran

YouTube user claims this is chemical attack

Protesters protect one of their wounded

Police attack protesters

Protesters flee advancing police

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Unconfirmed Reports

(user names not posted for their safety)

11:06 pm CST    FROM #IRAN* Tanks have rolled in Tehran … #iranelection

11:26 pm CST    RT: There was a military tank in Azadi square last night. #iran #iranelection

11:47 pm CST    RT From Iran: basij are beleived to be carrying out house raids, Please RT #iranelection

8:49 am CST     Ppl getting ready 2close down main market in Tehran known as “bazaar” Wuld have big effect on Econ. #iran

12:34 pm CST     RT from Iran: Still hearing gunshots from Tajrish SQ. People set fire and fired some Basijis motorcycles #iranelection

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Iran Protest Coverage: Sat June 20,2009

Finally!  At about 2:45 pm CST Saturday, President Obama finally released a statement in support of those standing for Democracy and freedom in Iran!  The President refused to make the statement on camera, but included the following in a press release.

We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

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Protests continue in Iran, despite the threat of a violent crackdown by the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei.  I’ll be updating this post throughout the day with videos, photos, and reports from Twitter.

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Related Stories

Three twitterers from early protests MIA

Mousavi ready for martyrdom

Journalist’s report from Tehran

Saturday in Iran: Deadly crackdown

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9:01 CST  Iranian state run media are reporting a suicide bombing of the shrine of Ayatollah Khomenei

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More video

Protesters intimidating Basij militia

More protest video

Huge crowds protest today in spite of crackdown

Protesters running through streets, gunshots heard in background

Woman shot to death by pro-Gov’t Basij militia [GRAPHIC]

Protesters shot on camera [GRAPHIC]

Another protester shot in the street [GRAPHIC]

More protesters clash with militia

Protesters clash with police at Shiraz Unitversity

Police murdering protesters [GRAPHIC]

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UNCONFIRMED REPORTS (via Twitter)

11:00 am CST RT from Tehran: There is bloodshed here. Some persons among the crowd have grenades (There is not clear who they exactly are) #Iran …

11:11 am CST      RT F IRAN Chemical warfare?Evidently not boiling water but something else being sprayed from helicopters. via daily dish #iran #iranelection

11:29 am CST    Protesters are being stopped, searched and their “weapons” (read: cell phones) seized. Information is power. #iranelection

12:20 pm CST #gr88 #iran09 #iranelection #Tehran Reports: People Blocking Streets at Tehran Pars (East Tehran) and Setting Fires

12:47 pm CST    Injured [protesters] are being removed from hospitals and taken away by Basij #IranElection #Tehran #Mousavi #GR88 #iranelection

12:52 pm CST    #IranElection #Iran Reports from the ground: Iranian govt is using Hezbollah against the protesters. Can NE1 confirm? http://tiny.cc/kEqS3

2:10 pm CST   RT Hospital close to the scene in Tehran: 30-40 dead thus far as of 11pm and 200 injured. Police taking names of injured. #iranelection

2:18 pm CST    POLICE HELICOPTERS NOW SPILLING ACID ONTO PROTESTORS FROM ABOVE #iranelection

2:43 pm CST   RT News arriving that ppl planning to march into centre Tehran tonight as darkness falls. #iranelection #gr88 #Tehran

2:45 pm CST    Zhila Baniyaghoob’s (woman activist) home has been raided #Tehran #iranelection #GR88 #mousavi

3:04 pm CST    homes getting raided, journalists getting arrested. bad day in #iranelection

3:41 pm CST    RT Eye witness reporting that milita use ambulances to lure people & then shoot them (Roodaki & Azarbayjan st.) #IranElection

4:09 pm CST    Iran source says thr is a military tank in Azadi Square (I cnt confirm ths) #iranelection

4:11 pm CST IRAN FRIEND JUST SAID BASIJI ARE THROWING MOLOTOV COCKTAILS INTO CROWDS. #iranelection #iran. Trying to confirm elsewhere/ 1st hand

7:52 pm CST    REPORTS THAT EMBASSIES ARE CLOSED! I STILL NEED CONFIRMATION! PLEASE RT! #IranElection #Iran #Tehran #Basij

8:37 pm CST    Iran Basij are marking doors to attack later.Use oil/petrol to remove the mark from your door. #IranElection #Tehran

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The Obamacare Horror Story You Won’t Hear

by Michelle Malkin on Townhall.com

The White House, Democrats and MoveOn liberals are spreading health care sob stories to sell a government takeover. But there’s one health care policy nightmare you won’t hear the Obamas hyping. It’s a tale of poor minority patient-dumping in Chicago — with first lady Michelle Obama’s fingerprints all over it.

…

While a top executive at the hospital, Mrs. Obama helped engineer the plan to offload low-income patients with non-urgent health needs. Under the Orwellian banner of an “Urban Health Initiative,” Mrs. Obama sold the scheme to outsource low-income care to other facilities as a way to “dramatically improve health care for thousands of South Side residents.”

In truth, it was old-fashioned cost-cutting and favor-trading repackaged as minority aid. Clearing out the poor freed up room for insured (i.e., more lucrative) patients. If a Republican had proposed the very same program and recruited black civic leaders to front it, Michelle Obama and her grievance-mongering friends would be screaming “RAAAAAAAAACISM!” at the top of their lungs.

…More

U.S. Government’s Climate Con-job

by Paul Driessen on Townhall.com

Suppose a company doctored data, misrepresented study findings, replaced observations with computer simulations and hired PR flacks to promote its new “wonder drug.” News stories, congressional hearings and subpoenas would be in overdrive. Fines and jail sentences would follow. And rightly so.

But the standards change when “climate catastrophe” is involved.

…

But average global temperatures peaked in 1998 and since have fallen slightly, even as carbon dioxide levels continue to climb. Antarctic ice shelves show no signs of climate change, a six-year study has determined, while Arctic ice is seasonably normal. Hurricane activity is at a 30-year low.

…

Climate Armageddonites are trying to counter these inconvenient truths, scare people into clamoring for climate legislation, and enact the job-killing Waxman-Markey bill before more citizens realize they’ll be forced to pay $$$$ trillions for a hypothetical 0.1 degree Fahrenheit reduction in global temperatures. What to do?

…More

The results of Olive Branch Foreign Policy

You’ve read it here before, but the President just refuses to believe his Jimmy Carter-styled approach to foreign policy isn’t working.  Obama, and most other liberals, just may never get it–despots respect strength, not capitulation.

When one of the first things out of his mouth upon taking office was to tell the world that we will close down the detention center at Gitmo and would no longer practice harsh interrogation tactics that saved American lives, our enemies had to be heartened.  This communicated to the world, including those who wish to kill American citizens, that we are no longer fully committed to defeating our enemies.  Though the terrorists hang our men from bridges, decapitate them, and drag their bodies through their streets, Obama wants to serve them tea and make them as comfortable as possible.  Anything less, he considers human rights abuses. 

Iran and North Korea don’t respect this, they laugh at it.

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s promised consequences for North Korea’s antagonistic actions over the past couple of months amounted to nothing more than a resolution that can’t be enforced, the Communist rogue nation did as many of us expected and ramped up its rhetoric.  As I type, the US Navy is trailing a N. Korean flagged ship suspected of violating UN Resolution 1874, but we have no authority to board, inspect, or stop the ship and Kim Jong-Il has declared any such attempt would be considered an “act of war.”  Japanese intelligence officials are now reporting the totalitarian regime is planning to launch a long range missile at Hawaii on the 4th of July.  Obama’s olive branch has done nothing to alleviate the threat N. Korea poses to the international community.  If anything that threat is now more deadly than ever before!

Then there’s Iran.  Following the rigging of that country’s latest election by the ruling clerics, a massive pro-Democracy, pro-freedom movement was spawned.  A movement the US would have proudly proclaimed its support for at any previous point in history, but not now.  After 30 years of anti-American policies and rhetoric, 30 years of supporting terrorism targeting American interests, 30 years of identifying the US as “The Great Satan,” throngs of Iranian citizens have taken to the streets (placing their lives in peril) to demand change that would almost certainly be more prone to ally with the US than the current Islamic theocracy that rules the country.  In deference to that greatest of human rights advocates, the Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei, the President won’t even express support for the pro-freedom movement taking place, because he doesn’t want to “meddle” in Iran.

 It’s absolutely unbelievable that this President refuses to express even token support for a repressed people, now standing up to demand freedom.  What happened to the Democratic Party of JFK who, in his inaugural address, stated “To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves…”  Right now the Iranian protesters would probably be satisfied with less than our “best efforts,” just some moral support might go a long way to encourage them to keep up the pressure and tear down the wall of radical Islam that has separated them from the freedoms we enjoy for these past 30 years.  Just a few words of encouragement, any show of support would be welcome.  But they get nothing, nothing but appeasement of the radical clerics who preach the duty of Muslims is to destroy Israel and the US.

In spite of the President’s continued attempts to assuage the tension between the US and Iran’s rulers, the Iranian radical clerics blamed the US for inciting the protests by “meddling” in Iranian affairs.  And today, Obama’s hands-off, mouth-closed approach paid off with Khamanei’s declaration of an impending crackdown if the protests continue.  So the olive branch Obama continues to offer has done nothing to improve our relations with Iran.  Nothing.

It’s time for Obama to admit he was wrong.  His apology tour and his offer of dialogue have not made our enemies respect us.  We become weaker each time he extends an olive branch, and our enemies become stronger.

Obama Protects Cronies at Taxpayers’ Expense

by David Limbaugh on Townhall.com

The more we learn about the White House’s summary firing of AmeriCorps’ inspector general, Gerald Walpin, the more it smells of lawlessness, cronyism and a flagrant disregard for transparency and government accountability. Remember President Barack Obama’s commitment to oversee the expenditure of taxpayer funds to avoid waste and inefficiency — to the point that he deputized Vice President “Mean” Joe Biden as the executive enforcer? That was then. This is now. As has proved customary with this administration, the walk has not matched the talk. Biden’s casual admissions that the administration “guessed wrong” and that money has been wasted don’t begin to describe the fiscal recklessness and corruption that define this White House. …More

Hope and Change – But Not for Iran

by Charles Krauthammer at Townhall.com

WASHINGTON — Millions of Iranians take to the streets to defy a theocratic dictatorship that, among its other finer qualities, is a self-declared enemy of America and the tolerance and liberties it represents. The demonstrators are fighting on their own, but they await just a word that America is on their side. And what do they hear from the president of the United States? Silence. Then, worse. Three days in, the president makes clear his policy: continued “dialogue” with their clerical masters. Dialogue with a regime that is breaking heads, shooting demonstrators, expelling journalists, arresting activists. Engagement with — which inevitably confers legitimacy upon — leaders elected in a process that begins as a sham (only four handpicked candidates permitted out of 476) and ends in overt rigging. …More

You did it: KS teacher rehired!

Great job and many thanks to all who stood up for Lawrence High School history teacher Tim Latham, whose contract wasn’t renewed due to his conservative beliefs.  The pressure you put on resulted in Mr. Latham being rehired!

Mr. Latham’s response:  ”I couldn’t be more pleased with this outcome. While I am happy to have this behind me, and look forward to returning to LHS next fall, I will always be grateful to my students for actually putting what I teach into practice.”

I, too, am grateful to Mr. Latham’s students, several of whom created the Facebook group, Save Mr.Latham, Lawrence High History Teacher, which counts almost 2,000 members after only a few days.  These students refused to stand by and let their successors at Lawrence High be deprived of, as one student put it, ”…a really good teacher.”