Gas Prices Have Risen $1.01 Per Gallon Since Obama Took Office

Gasoline prices haven’t gotten much attention amid all the other bad economic news for Democrats heading into a final week of campaigning, but the price per gallon has climbed nearly 15 cents since Labor Day – a surprising jump, given that prices usually plummet before an election.

The cost of a gallon of gas has eclipsed the $3 mark in several parts of the country and clocks in nationally at $2.82, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

 

That’s up from $2.68 on Sept. 6, and overall about $1 higher than the week of Jan. 26, 2009, when President Obama took office and the per-gallon price was $1.81.

 

From:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/25/gas-prices-rise-breaking-pattern/

Obama Blames Voters for His Political Failures; Says We’re All Confused and Not Thinking Clearly (Shades of Jimmy Carter!)

WASHINGTON – According to President Barack Obama, Americans are angry, frustrated, scared, anxious, uncertain, nervous, discouraged and shaken up.

 

They’re also confused and not thinking clearly.

 

Heading into critical midterm elections, Obama has been freely sharing this gloomy diagnosis on the campaign trail, at times sounding more like a psychiatrist than a politician. He usually couples it with a reminder that the country’s been through tough times before and is resilient enough to bounce back, and an appeal to voters to “choose hope over fear.”

 

Obama’s dreary assessment appears to be an attempt to empathize with voters in a time of acute economic anxiety. It also can serve as an explanation about why voters haven’t embraced his agenda — and why they look poised to deliver a drubbing to Democrats Nov. 2.

 

Americans would be more supportive of his policies, the president suggests, if they weren’t fettered by anxiety he accuses the GOP of stoking. And the descriptions of angst from a president criticized as overly cerebral and aloof also allow him to attempt to show he feels voters’ pain — even if he can’t cure it.

 

So the president who campaigned on hope and change now sometimes sounds more like he’s diagnosing depression than offering inspiration.

 

“People out there are still hurting very badly, and they are still scared,” Obama said recently at a Boston fundraiser. “And so part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we’re hard-wired not to always think clearly when we’re scared.”

  

From:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101026/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_angry_voters

Obama’s Popularity Sinks Even Lower…

Currently, two-thirds of Americans (67%) have a negative opinion of the job President Obama is doing while just over one-third (37%) have a positive opinion. This continues the president’s downward trend and he is now at the lowest job approval rating of his presidency.

 

These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 3,084 adults surveyed online between October 11 and 18, 2010 by Harris Interactive.

 

It’s perhaps not surprising that nine in ten Republicans (90%) and Conservatives (89%) give the job the president is doing negative ratings. What may be surprising is that one-third of Democrats (34%) and Liberals (33%) also give him negative ratings, as do seven in ten Independents (70%) and six in ten Moderates (60%).

 

Americans who give the president the highest positive ratings are those with a post-graduate education (48%), a college education (47%), and those living in the West (42%). On the other end of the spectrum, almost three-quarters of those with a high school education or less (72%) and two thirds of Midwesterners (66%) and Southerners (66%) give the President negative marks on his overall job.

 

While the president is at a low point, there is a political body with ratings much lower than his. Just one in ten Americans (11%) give Congress positive ratings on the job they are doing while nine in ten (89%) give them negative marks. While Congress may be under Democratic control, even four in five Democrats (81%) give them negative ratings.

 

From:  http://www.harrisinteractive.com/Hi_assets/TopHitPageNews.html

Obama Tax Panel Looks at Eliminating Mortgage Interest Deduction as Well as Child Tax Credits

Sacrosanct tax breaks, including deductions on mortgage interest, remain on the table just weeks before the deficit commission issues recommendations on policies to pare back with the aim of balancing the budget by 2015.

 

The tax benefits are hugely popular with the public but they have drawn the panel’s focus, in part because the White House has said these and other breaks cost the government about $1 trillion a year.

 

 Sacrosanct tax breaks, including mortgage-interest deductions, remain on the table just weeks before the deficit commission issues recommendations on ways to balance the budget by 2015.

 

At stake, in addition to the mortgage-interest deductions, are child tax credits and the ability of employees to pay their portion of their health-insurance tab with pretax dollars. Commission officials are expected to look at preserving these breaks but at a lower level, according to people familiar with the matter.

 

The officials are also looking at potential cuts to defense spending and a freeze on domestic discretionary spending. It is unclear if the 18-member panel will be able to reach an agreement on any of the items by a Dec. 1 deadline.

 

From:

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304354104575568643889337142.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLTopStories

It Must be Nice: Obamas Book all 570 Rooms at Taj Mahal Hotel in India for Latest Trip; Bring Two Jumbo Jets Full of People in Addition to Air Force One; Michelle to Meet With Indian Sex Workers

US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are scheduled to land in Mumbai, India on November 6.

 

To ensure fool-proof security, the President’s team has booked the entire the Taj Mahal Hotel, including 570 rooms, all banquets and restaurants.

 

Since his security contingent and staff will comprise a huge number, 125 rooms at Taj President have also been booked, apart from 80 to 90 rooms each in Grand Hyatt and The Oberoi hotels.

 

The NCPA, where the President is expected to meet representatives from the business community, has also been entirely booked.

 

The officer said, “Obama’s contingent is huge. There are two jumbo jets coming along with Air Force One, which will be flanked by security jets.

 

There will be 30 to 40 secret service agents, who will arrive before him. The President’s convoy has 45 cars, including the Lincoln Continental in which the President travels.”

 

Since Obama will stay in a hotel that is on sea front, elaborate coastal security arrangements have been made by the US Navy in consonance with the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard. “There will be US naval ships, along with Indian vessels , patrolling the sea till about 330-km from the shore. This is to negate the possibility of a missile being fired from a distance,” the officer said.

 

The President will be accompanied by his chefs, not because he would not like to savour Indian cuisine, but to ensure his food is not spiked.

 

Adding to the Obamas’ busy schedule is Michelle’s likely visit to Kamathipura, where she will meet commercial sex workers on the invitation of an NGO. The highprofile visit is likely to inconvenience the citizens, as there could be a complete clampdown on traffic on some main roads of south Mumbai and sanitisation of buildings flanking them.

 

As the world’s most powerful man and his wife zip around the city visiting the 26/11 memorial on Marine Drive, the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA), Mani Bhawan and other locations in south Mumbai, the security obviously will be water-tight .

 

From:  http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Barack-and-Michelles-Mumbai-darshan-plans/articleshow/6797379.cms

 

 

 

54 percent of Americans want Obama out NOW!

Gallup’s latest survey is probably the most damaging poll yet for the Obama presidency.

 

Not only does Gallup give Barack Obama the lowest approval rating of his presidency (44.7 percent), but it also illustrates just how difficult it will be for the president to be re-elected in 2012.

 

There’s no doubt about it. If Obama himself was on the ballot for this November’s elections he would be resoundingly defeated.

 

A striking 54 percent of Americans now say that President Obama does not deserve re-election.  Less than two in five Americans (39 percent) believe he should be returned to the White House. 

 

 In contrast, at the same stage of his presidency (September 2002), 62 percent of Americans thought George W. Bush was worthy of re-election.       

 

From:  http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100060436/president-obama-has-a-mountain-to-climb-in-2012/

Obama’s Lost Magic

Two years on from his historic election victory, US President Barack Obama is trying to recover his lost magic as defeat for the Democrats looms in the midterm elections. But he is no longer the man he used to be, and his window of opportunity has passed.

 

He wants everything to be as it was before. He wants it to be as innocent and passionate, as honest and boundless. He wants it to be as full of promises and the conviction that everything is possible in the Land of Opportunity. Because, as he told his supporters back then, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” It was a rallying cry so powerful and romantic it sounded like a line from a good song.

  

Today, Barack Obama is the first black president of the United States. Back then, in 2008, he was probably the best election campaigner of all time. And now he is on the campaign trail again. This fall he is speaking in Philadelphia, Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, spreading the message that “they” (the Republicans and their donors) want to rob “us” (open-minded, young Americans) of our future.

 

At the Crossroads

 

It is like a grown-up going back to the places of his youth: the public swimming pool where he learned to swim, the intersection where he had his first kiss. It’s a sentimental journey, and at the same time an admission that youth doesn’t last forever.

 

There are crossroads in every life, decisive moments. Afterwards, what was reality until a moment ago is just a memory, and the present has changed. The politician who once embodied a brave new alternative with his iconic slogan “Yes, we can” would probably love to be able to freeze frame the moment of his triumph as it was and hang on to the ease of those early, naive years. But that’s not possible. Political careers, like biographies, succeed or fail — but they do not stop.

 

President Obama, who has been in office for 21 months, has gone gray during his time in the White House. He has become even thinner and wirier than he already was. He is campaigning this October because he has to. He is campaigning on behalf of those Democratic candidates who still stand a chance in the midterm elections on Nov. 2.

 

If Obama is to have any chance of passing legislation in the next two years, his fellow Democrats must defend their majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives. In the last two weeks before the elections, Obama must reverse all the trends and bad poll ratings. To do that, he needs to create the illusion that it is indeed possible to reclaim your youth and your dreams, and that mistakes can be corrected — even the one big mistake that changed everything.

 

From:  http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,723814,00.html

Thank you, Obama! Applications for jobless benefits jump to 462,000…

WASHINGTON (AP) — More people applied for unemployment benefits last week, the first rise in three weeks and evidence that companies are reluctant to hire in a slow economy.

 

Initial claims for unemployment aid rose by 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 462,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. It was only the second rise in two months.

 

Jobless claims have been stuck near 450,000 all year. Few employers see much reason to create many jobs, and some are still laying off workers. Rail operator CSX Corp., for example, said Wednesday that it can lengthen its trains to handle rising shipments, reducing its need to hire more employees.

 

“The labor market is kind of frozen right now,” said Zach Pandl, an economist at Nomura Securities. “There’s not a lot of hiring going on, not a lot of quitting, not a lot of layoffs.”

 

From:  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Applications-for-jobless-apf-647526260.html?x=0&.v=2

Thank You, Obama! September Home Foreclosures Top 100,000…

(Reuters) – The number of homes taken over by banks topped 100,000 for the first time in September, real estate data company RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

 

Banks foreclosed on 102,134 properties in September, the first single month above the century mark, RealtyTrac said. There were 347,420 total foreclosure filings in September, 3 percent higher than August and 1 percent higher than a year earlier.

 

On Wednesday, all 50 states launched a joint investigation of the mortgage industry after widespread reports of mortgage industry officials signing foreclosure documents without knowing their contents.

 

For the quarter, there were 930,437 foreclosure filings, an increase of 4 percent over the prior three months and 1 percent lower than a year ago. One in every 139 homes received a foreclosure filing in the third quarter.

 

From:  http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69D0SF20101014

 

 

 

Poll: Women see Barack Obama Administration as a ‘Failure’

The White House may view the last 18 months as historic, racking up a legislative scorecard that includes a $787 billion stimulus package and an overhaul of the health care system.

 

A majority of women, however, see it as a failure, according to a new poll conducted by Kellyanne Conway for The Kitchen Cabinet, a conservative women’s group.

 

In the survey, 41 percent of the women identified themselves as Democrats, 37 percent as Republicans and 15 percent as independents.

 

The findings point to the divide this year between Washington and the electorate, which has yet to give President Barack Obama much credit for his string of legislative victories.

 

Fifty-six percent of women consider the health care reform law a failure, while 29 percent view it as a success, according to the poll.

 

The economic stimulus package is viewed only slightly more favorably: 53 percent say it was a failure, while 34 percent say it was a success.

 

Among independent women – a group that Democrats and Republicans are battling over – a majority viewed the health care overhaul, the stimulus package, the auto industry bailout and the Troubled Asset Relief Program as failures, the poll found. TARP was approved during former President George W. Bush’s administration.

 

The negative take on what the White House views as signature achievements helps explain, at least in part, why the president and congressional Democrats have seen their approval ratings plunge since early last year and are struggling to gain traction ahead of the midterm elections. Women historically turn out in larger numbers than men, spelling trouble for incumbents.

 

“People who voted for Obama feel just as betrayed by the outcome as conservatives,” said Sonja Eddings Brown, treasurer and creator of The Kitchen Cabinet. “Everybody realizes we’re burying our kids in debt, and even Democrats realize hope and change had a price tag they didn’t expect.”

 

Conway, a Republican who specializes in polling women voters, said she expected to see more optimism about the four major legislative achievements. The poll did not include any questions on the Wall Street reform law.

 

“Women are looking at this election almost entirely through an economic lens,” Conway said. “They expect the president to be a mathematician, not a magician. The policies they have seen in the last year literally don’t add with them.”

 

From:  http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43436.html