Northwest Indiana Discussion

In a Gallup tracking poll released Tuesday, former-President George W. Bush currently stands with a favorability rating of 49%, compared to 46% who see the 43rd president unfavorably. Meanwhile, another Gallup poll shows President Obama with only a 47% approval rating, with 44% disapproving.

If you think about it, this makes perfect sense.

After all, Obama fooled everyone when he ran as the anti-Bush in 2008.

Everyone thought Obama meant he would be less hawkish than his predecessor. But as we have seen, Obama apparently has no problem killing American citizens via remote control with drones or greatly expanding upon Bush's surveillance state. This, even though Obama told us he had pretty much won the War on Terror.

Therefore, it appears that what Obama meant by promising to be the anti-Bush is that, unlike George W. Bush, Obama would not get us out of a recession and into many years of economic prosperity. There would also be successful terror attacks on American soil during Obama's watch and a litany of scandals unseen in almost a half-century.

Maybe the next time a former community organizer raised in a creepy church runs for president, the media will work a little harder to dig into his real agenda.

Via CNN:

“The drop in Obama’s support is fueled by a dramatic 17-point decline over the past month among people under 30, who, along with black Americans, had been the most loyal part of the Obama coalition,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

The poll also finds that 49 percent believe Obama is honest to 50 percent who do not, the first time a majority have not found the president to be trustworthy.

A majority, 53 percent, also express doubts he can “manage the government effectively,” with 47 percent showing confidence.

In a wide-ranging interview with GRITtv host Laura Flanders, MIT professor and author Noam Chomsky plainly stated that President Barack Obama’s administration is “dedicated to increasing terrorism” all around the world.

In his view, the NSA spying scandal clearly illustrates how subservient to corporate and state power the American media has become. “There would be headlines saying this is a bad joke” if the press wanted to be truly independent, Chomsky told Flanders.

“The Obama administration is dedicated to increasing terrorism,” he went on. “In fact, it’s doing it all over the world. Obama, first of all, is running the biggest terrorist operation that exists, maybe in history. The drone assassination campaigns, which are just part of it… All of these operations, they are terror operations.”

Chomsky continued: “People have a reaction, they don’t say, ‘Fine, I don’t care if my cousin was murdered.’ And they become what we call terrorists. This is completely understood from the highest level, that as you carry out these operations you’re generating terrorism.”

In a poll conducted between June 14-18, Reuters/Ipsos found that President Obama’s job approval rating has fallen to 44%,with 48% disapproving. This poll is one of many showing the president losing favor with the public in the wake of a handful of scandals swirling around his administration.

Currently, both Rasmussen and The Economist have Obama upside down at 44% – 55%; the latest CN

President Barack Obama’s disapproval rating jumped three points over the weekend to 49 percent, according to the latest presidential approval rating from Gallup. This is the highest disapproval rating for Obama since October 2012, shortly before the November election that won him a second term.

About 200 South Africans protesting President Obama’s visit to their country gathered Friday a few blocks away from the Pretoria hospital that’s treating Nelson Mandela, chanting about the White House’s “arrogant, selfish and oppressive” foreign policy.

“We had expectations of America’s first black president. Knowing Africa’s history, we expected more,” said Khomotso Makola, 19, Reuters reported. “He has come as a disappointment. I think Mandela would be disappointed and feel let down.”

The protesters — mostly student activists Communist Party members and union members — are particularly upset with Mr. Obama’s use of drones for overseas military strikes, Reuters reported.

President Obama’s approval rating tumbled to a record low as Americans react to the government’s sweeping surveillance programs and other scandals, according to the latest IBD/TIPP Presidential Leadership Index.

The Presidential Leadership Index fell to 43.2 from 48.9 a month earlier, the lowest since Obama took office. The 11.7% monthly decline also was his worst ever. It’s the fourth straight reading below 50, signaling disapproval.

Revelations about the National Security Agency’s surveillance of Americans’ phone records and Internet activity dominated headlines over the past month. Meanwhile, more news came out of the IRS’ targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Washington (CNN) – During a question and answer session Wednesday with Democrats on Capitol Hill, President Barack Obama offered what Democratic sources said was a testy response to a question about a federal loan guarantee program, with one source in the room calling it “rude and dismissive.”

Other Democrats said they didn’t think the president’s response was dismissive, and pointed out Obama vowed to follow up with an answer. The lawmaker himself, freshman Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, said of the exchange, “I am the youngest of five brothers – I’ve been in a headlock before and it’s all in good fun.”

But the reaction from some Democrats is reflective of long-simmering tension between the president and fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill, many of whom don’t feel included or respected by Obama.

The query came from Maloney, a New York Democrat, whose office says the freshman lawmaker asked the president about a company in his district that applied for a loan guarantee through the Department of Energy in 2009, but whose application has been stuck in the final approval stages.

White House staffers have adopted a new and unflattering nickname for their boss: “Obam-me,” Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan says she heard in chats with a few senators.

And how did the staffers come up with that name?

“Because it’s all about him and his big thoughts,” Noonan writes in a column. “I guess the second-term team is not quite as adoring as the first.”

President Obama’s approval ratings have dropped to their lowest in two years, driven by the public’s view that the nation is fast heading in the wrong direction and the desertion of his core support groups — blacks, youth, women and independents.

Pollster John Zogby tells Secrets that the president has tumbled to a 43 percent approval rating, his worse since September 2011. Obama’s disapproval rating has hit 54 percent, his highest in two years.

And just 29 percent of the 1,000 likely voters polled September 17-18 said the country is heading in the right direction.

Worse still: Obama’s approval rating among independents has plummeted to 30 percent. He won a majority 10 months ago.