Barack Obama's retrospective job approval rating is 63%.

Courtesy of Gallup: 

Barack Obama's legacy appears to be on the right track, as 63% of Americans in hindsight say they approve of the way he handled his job. Gallup's first measure of Obama's retrospective job approval rating places him behind only John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan among the 10 most recent presidents. Richard Nixon is rated worst today for how he handled his job, with 28% approving.

Actually whoever typed this up made a mistake as George H. Bush is also rated higher than Obama by a point, which I find unacceptable.

I am also not pleased to see Jimmy Carter so far down the list, and Reagan at the top, as I do not believe this factually represents their contributions to this country.

I will say I fully expect that Obama's rating will only rise in the years to come, and that I would not be surprised if at some point he gave Ronnie a run for his money.

Donald Trump only enjoys an approval rating over 50% in 12 states.

Courtesy of Politico:  

New polling on that first year of Trump shows that the President has a lot of work to do in bringing the country together. There are just 12 states where Trump's job approval rating was above 50% for the entirety of 2017. That pales in comparison to the 41 states where then-President Barack Obama was above 50% approval for his first year on office.

Those numbers are reflective of two things: 

1. Trump's overall job approval number nationwide was never over 50% in Gallup polling at any point in 2017. Trump's high point was 366 days ago when he was at 45% approval and 47% disapproval. The last time Trump's approval was over 40% in Gallup polling was at the end of May 2017 -- when he was at 41%. Trump averaged the lowest job approval number -- 38% -- of any president ever in his first year in office in Gallup data. At the end of 2009, Obama's approval rating was at 57%. 

2. Trump's most loyal voters -- and states -- are staying with him. His job approval was highest in places like West Virginia, North Dakota and Wyoming where he won by huge margins in 2016. (One interesting note: Democratic senators are running for re-election in both West Virginia and North Dakota this fall.) Many of those states are also less populated. 

Viewed broadly, these numbers should worry Republicans -- especially those on the House side hoping to hold onto their majority after the 2018 election.

Dammit, of course my state is one of the twelve.

I really love the fact that Trump will never enjoy the popularity that President Obama enjoyed.

Nor will he ever see a second term.

The world's respect for American leadership hits record low.

Courtesy of NPR:

The global approval rating for U.S. leadership now stands at 30 percent — lower in President Trump's first year in office than it was under former President George W. Bush, according to the Gallup World Poll. The image of America's leadership now trails both Germany and China, Gallup says. 

International regard for U.S. leadership fell sharply from the 48 percent approval rating for 2016, former President Barack Obama's last year in office. The previous low of 34 percent was reached at the end of the Bush administration. 

The new survey was conducted between March and November of 2017. Gallup found that approval of U.S. leadership had fallen by double digits in nearly half of the 134 countries and areas it surveyed. 

The Gallup report also cites another record: for disapproval. Worldwide, a median 43 percent disapprove of U.S. leadership — more than the median disapproval for Germany (25 percent), China (30 percent) or Russia (36 percent). According to Gallup, that's a record for any major world power, not just the U.S., in the past decade.

Some of the more dramatic losses came from American allies like Germany and Mexico, while America only gained approval of ten points or more in four countries, Israeli, Liberia, Macedonia, and Belarus.

Yeah they really dig ole Trump in Macedonia.

A loss of respect also means losing the ability to lead, and that leaves a vacuum for other nations to take our place.

I guess I better start preparing my taste-buds for a lot more Chinese food. 

Americans once again choose Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as the most admired man and woman.

Courtesy of Gallup: 

Americans once again are most likely to name Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as the man and woman living anywhere in the world they admire most, as they have for the past 10 years. The pair retain their titles this year, although by much narrower margins than in the past. Obama edges out Donald Trump, 17% to 14%, while Clinton edges out Michelle Obama, 9% to 7%.

The 2017 survey marks the 16th consecutive year Clinton has been the most admired woman. She has held the title 22 times in total, more than anyone else. Eleanor Roosevelt is second with 13 wins. Obama has now been named the most admired man 10 times, trailing only Dwight Eisenhower, who earned the distinction 12 times. Obama won all eight years he was president, plus 2008 -- the year he was first elected -- and this year, his first as a former president.

I love the fact that Hillary has the first spot on the female side, and is closely followed by Michelle Obama, with Melania Trump showing up eighth on the list well below Elizabeth Warren and Angela Merkel.

Trump showed up at number two, which is troubling, but he did lose a percentage points since last year.

However I seriously doubt that he will spend very long near the top, as the more we learn about him the less the American people like him. 

New poll shows Donald Trump's approval rating as even lower than the last poll, but probably better than the next poll.

I don't do numbers, is that bad?

Courtesy of Gallup:

President Donald Trump's job approval rating in Gallup Daily tracking is at 34% for the three-day period from Friday through Sunday -- by one point the lowest of his administration so far. 

It is difficult to pinpoint the precise cause of the new low rating, but the changes were apparent on Friday, with his day-by-day ratings near 34% across Saturday and Sunday as well. Trump has consistently been in the news over the past week, including the continued focus on North Korea, even while taking a working vacation at one of his golf properties in New Jersey. The events in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the deaths of a 32-year-old woman and two Virginia State Police officers dominated news coverage on Saturday and Sunday. Trump's prior three-day low reading was 35%, registered March 26-28. 

From a broader perspective, Trump's rating of 36% for the week ending Aug. 13 was also by one point his lowest on a weekly basis. The president has talked in recent days about doing well with his "base," but Republicans' latest weekly approval rating of 79% was the lowest from his own partisans so far, dropping from the previous week's 82%. Democrats gave Trump a 7% job approval rating last week, while the reading for independents was at 29%. This is the first time independents' weekly approval rating for Trump has dropped below 30%.

If someone were selling stock options on Donald Trump right now you could buy about a dozen shares with whatever change you could find under your sofa cushions.

Gallup goes on to say that Trump's approval ratings are not the lowest in presidential history, but since this is only a little way into his first term I think we know that they will be breaking all records in the very near future.

Donald Trump's disapproval numbers hit a whopping 60%.

Courtesy of The Hill:

A record 60 percent of Americans disapprove of the job President Trump is doing, according to Gallup's daily tracking poll.

Neither former President Barack Obama nor President Bill Clinton ever reached 60 percent in the survey, while George W. Bush reached the 60 percent disapproval mark nearly five years into his presidency.

Is this all of that winning that Trump kept talking about?

The good news, belief in Creationism is at an all time low. The bad news, there are still 38% of Americans who believe in that superstitious nonsense.

Courtesy of Gallup: 

The percentage of U.S. adults who believe that God created humans in their present form at some time within the last 10,000 years or so -- the strict creationist view -- has reached a new low. Thirty-eight percent of U.S. adults now accept creationism, while 57% believe in some form of evolution -- either God-guided or not -- saying man developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life.

This is the first time since 1982 -- when Gallup began asking this question using this wording -- that belief in God's direct creation of man has not been the outright most-common response. Overall, roughly three-quarters of Americans believe God was involved in man's creation -- whether that be the creationist view based on the Bible or the view that God guided the evolutionary process, outlined by scientist Charles Darwin and others. Since 1982, agreement with the "secular" viewpoint, meaning humans evolved from lower life forms without any divine intervention, has doubled.

It is my habit to celebrate every one of these successes, as Americans slowly, almost imperceptibly, move toward enlightenment. 

I just wish they would hurry up.

I am not getting any younger, and my dream of witnessing a world without religion seems to fade further and further from a possible reality every day.

Oh well, everybody needs a dream to cling to, and this is mine.

New poll shows that now only 24% of Americans believe that the Bible is the "literal word of God."

Courtesy of Gallup: 

Fewer than one in four Americans (24%) now believe the Bible is "the actual word of God, and is to be taken literally, word for word," similar to the 26% who view it as "a book of fables, legends, history and moral precepts recorded by man." This is the first time in Gallup's four-decade trend that biblical literalism has not surpassed biblical skepticism. Meanwhile, about half of Americans -- a proportion largely unchanged over the years -- fall in the middle, saying the Bible is the inspired word of God but that not all of it should be taken literally.

From the mid-1970s through 1984, close to 40% of Americans considered the Bible the literal word of God, but this has been declining ever since, along with a shrinking percentage of self-identified Christians in the U.S. Meanwhile, the percentage defining the Bible as mere stories has doubled, with much of that change occurring in the past three years. 

Okay that's progress, but there are still WAY to many Americans buying into this superstitious nonsense.

Our gullibility makes us easy marks for frauds and charlatans, and that gullibility is fed into and nourished by these primitive books of fairy tales.

You would think in the days of Google, where computers are built into our mobile phones, and information about EVERYTHING is only a button click away, that we would stop clinging to stories of miracles and ancient demigods.

And yet here we are, still pathetically unable to shake off the shackles of ignorance and the desperate need to believe in the impossible.

Donald Trump has the lowest approval ratings of any other president elected since World War 2.

Courtesy of Gallup:

Donald Trump averaged 41% job approval during his first quarter as president, 14 percentage points lower than any other president in Gallup's polling history. Bill Clinton had the previous low mark of 55%. The average first-quarter rating among post-World War II presidents elected to their first term is 61%, with John Kennedy's 74% the highest.

You know I so want to celebrate this, but the fact is that this asshole represents all of us now so unfortunately this is also a reflection on the entire country. 

God I hate Vladimir Putin right now.

The Affordable Care Act is now more popular than it has every been before.

Courtesy of Gallup: 

Fifty-five percent of Americans now support the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a major turnaround from five months ago when 42% approved and 53% disapproved. This is the first time a majority of Americans have approved of the healthcare law, also known as Obamacare, since Gallup first asked about it in this format in November 2012.

Well THAT is certainly going to complicate things for the Republicans are supposedly working to take this away from the American people. 

Personally I hope they keep threatening to take it away as it will be a great campaign slogan for Democrats in 2018.

Good Morning. It's Tuesday and Donald Trump's approval ratings are now at 36%.

Courtesy of Gallup: 

President Donald Trump's job approval rating fell to 36% for the three-day period of March 24-26, following Republican House leaders' failed effort to pass a new healthcare bill that would have replaced the Affordable Care Act. 

Trump's three-day reading prior to Friday's events was 41%. His previous low point was 37%, recorded March 16-18. His highest reading was 46% in the week following his Jan. 20 inauguration, and he has averaged 42% for his term to date. 

Trump's current 36% is two percentage points below Barack Obama's low point of 38%, recorded in 2011 and 2014. Trump has also edged below Bill Clinton's all-time low of 37%, recorded in the summer of 1993.

Who thinks this is just the beginning of a downward trend?

I wonder if Donald Trump is tired of winning yet?

NBC News reports on Donald Trump's problems with lying as his approval ratings plummet.

THIS is what NBC News is starting off their broadcast with tonight following the Comey hearings this morning.

No longer is there any pussyfooting about Trump's false statements, NOW they are simply calling him what he is.

A liar.

And if that were not bad enough Trump's approval ratings are now reflecting the American people's lack of confidence in his ability to do the job and their ability to trust anything that he says.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

President Donald Trump’s latest approval rating has sunk to a new low, according to the latest Gallup poll. 

Only 37 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing, and 58 percent disapprove, the daily poll found Sunday. Those are the worst ratings since he took office eight weeks ago. His approval rating stood at 45 percent just nine days ago. 

Trump’s approval rating is lower than any other president at this point in his first term since Gallup started tracking the numbers 72 years ago in 1945. Barack Obama’s rating at this point in his presidency was 60 percent.

And remember, this was BEFORE the Comey hearing this morning.

Wait until it starts to hit negative numbers. 

Donald Trump's approval ratings dropping like a stone.

Courtesy of TPM: 

President Donald Trump’s net approval rating dropped by eight points in his first week in the Oval Office, according to daily polls tracked by Gallup. On Sunday Jan. 22, two days after being sworn in, 45 percent of respondents said they disapproved of Trump’s job performance and 45 percent approved. 

By Friday Jan. 27, the percentage who disapproved rose to 50 and percentage who approved dipped to 42.

If Trump keeps on gong the way he is he might just bottom out at zero before spring. 

Personally I think we should redo the election now that the American people have a true sense of who Donald Trump REALLY is.

I guarantee the largest turnout in American history.

Donald Trump's inaugural polling shows him with the lowest numbers in the history of the poll.

Courtesy of Gallup:

President Donald Trump is the first elected president in Gallup's polling history to receive an initial job approval rating below the majority level. He starts his term in office with 45% of Americans approving of the way he is handling his new job, 45% disapproving and 10% yet to form an opinion. Trump now holds the record for the lowest initial job approval rating as well as the highest initial disapproval rating in Gallup surveys dating back to Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Trump's inaugural approval rating is not much lower than the 51% recorded for George H.W. Bush in 1989 as well as for Ronald Reagan in 1981, but his disapproval rating is substantially higher than theirs. Whereas 45% disapprove of Trump, only 6% disapproved of the elder Bush and 13% disapproved of Reagan.

By contrast President Obama polled at 68% approval at the beginning of HIS presidency. 

Low inaugural TV ratings, small inaugural crowds, and now low polling numbers.

I swear the only huge numbers associated with Trump's inauguration were the record breaking crowds who came out to protest it the next day. 

President Obama leaves Donald Trump in the dust as the most admired man of 2016, while Hillary Clinton wins again for the 15th year in row.

Courtesy of Gallup: 

Americans are most likely to name President Barack Obama as the man they admire most in 2016. Twenty-two percent mentioned Obama in response to the open-ended question. President-elect Donald Trump was second at 15%. It is Obama's ninth consecutive win, but the seven-percentage-point margin this year is his narrowest victory yet.

Obama's win over Trump this year is largely a result of the president earning more mentions among Democrats than Trump receives from Republicans. Fifty percent of Democrats named Obama as most admired, compared with 34% of Republicans choosing Trump. 

The remainder of this year's top 10 most admired man list includes Pope Francis, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Rev. Billy Graham, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, The Dalai Lama, former President Bill Clinton, businessman and philanthropist Bill Gates, and Vice President-elect Mike Pence.

I would not be surprised if next year, after Trump has demonstrated what a total fuck up he is, that President Obama might STILL win this category and by an even wider margin.

As for the women:

Americans named Hillary Clinton the Most Admired Woman for the 15th consecutive year and 21st time overall. Since her initial win in 1993 as first lady, Clinton has topped the list every year but 1995 and 1996 (when she finished behind Mother Teresa) and 2001 (behind Laura Bush). Eleanor Roosevelt has the second-most No. 1 finishes among women, at 13. 

First lady Michelle Obama finished second on the Most Admired Woman list this year, tied with 2012 as her best finish. The remainder of the top 10 most admired women include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former and current talk-show hosts Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres, Queen Elizabeth of England, human rights activist Malala Yousafzai, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Okay well it is just pathetic that Sarah Palin still makes this list, even if it is with only 1%.

But wait, isn't there a name missing?

Why didn't future first lady Melania Trump make the list?

Does that mean that prostituting yourself to a disgusting wealthy man in order to live a life of opulence is not considered admirable?

Hmm, who knew?

Trust in the media is at an all time low. Guess why.

Who ya going to trust, the fact checkers with the media or the bullshit that I shovel at you?

Courtesy of CNN Money:

While Americans' faith in media has been in decline for over a decade, this year's findings represent a sharp drop from the previous eight years, when between 40 and 45 percent of Americans expressed trust. 

The change is largely fueled by the aggressive anti-media rhetoric of Donald Trump and other Republicans, Gallup said. 

"With many Republican leaders and conservative pundits saying Hillary Clinton has received overly positive media attention, while Donald Trump has been receiving unfair or negative attention, this may be the prime reason their relatively low trust in the media has evaporated even more," Gallup said in its press release. 

"It is also possible that Republicans think less of the media as a result of Trump's sharp criticisms of the press," the release continued. "Republicans who say they have trust in the media has plummeted to 14% from 32% a year ago. This is easily the lowest confidence among Republicans in 20 years."

By contrast among Democrats trust in the media only dropped four points, 51% this year as opposed to 55% last year. 

Don't imagine for a second that this is an accident.

THIS is what Donald Trump and the Republican party are counting on.

Now when the news reveals something scandalous about Donald Trump the conservative voters assume it is a left wing hit job and it does nothing to hurt his poll numbers.

And the poll numbers are ONLY trusted if they show the race is tight or favor Trump, and if that is the case he gives them his stamp of approval on Twitter or during one of his rallies.

We have asked ourselves how such a clearly unqualified and dangerous candidate has made it this far, well this is our answer.

According to Gallup life got better for essentially everybody during the Obama presidency.

Courtesy of the Washington Post: 

"The percentages of U.S. whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians who are thriving have all increased during the Obama era," Gallup notes. The percentage of blacks thriving has risen by about 6 points, as has the percentage of whites and Hispanics. Asian thriving has risen by about 10 points since 2008.

Kind of flies in the face of the Republican talking points that Americans are suffering and the country is going down the toilet now doesn't it?

In fact President Obama has been one of the greatest Presidents in our lifetime and will undoubtedly go down in history as being one of the top ten Presidents of all time.

Count on it.

Once again among Americans Hillary Clinton and President Obama are the most admired man and woman in the world. This makes twenty years in a row for Hillary.

Courtesy of Gallup:  

Americans again name Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama the woman and man living anywhere in the world they admire most. Both win by wide margins over the next-closest finishers, Malala Yousafzai for women and Pope Francis and Donald Trump for men.

 This makes the twentieth time that Hillary has claimed this honor and the eighth time for Obama.

I have to admit I am more than little saddened by the fact that Trump is so close to the top and completely puzzled by Palin's inclusion at all. 

Support for the tea Party hits an all time low. Well finally some good news.

Courtesy of Gallup:  

Americans' support for the Tea Party has dropped to its lowest level since the movement emerged on the national political scene prior to the 2010 midterm elections. Seventeen percent of Americans now consider themselves Tea Party supporters, and a record 54% say they are neither supporters nor opponents.

The Tea Party emerged in 2009 in opposition to the fledgling Obama administration, and many Americans took sides for or against the movement in the midterm elections the next year. Support peaked at 32% in November 2010, just after those elections, in which Tea Party supporters were widely credited with helping the Republican Party gain control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

As support gradually eroded over the next year, opponents of the Tea Party gained the upper hand and have led supporters in all 10 Gallup polls measuring views of the movement since the start of 2012. Since August 2012, support has failed to reach 25%, and it has fallen below 20% in each of the last two polls.

Well that's all good news of course, and it explains why it appears that the moderate Republicans are starting to get the upper hand in the choosing of a new Speaker of House to replace John Boehner.

(Yes I know Paul Ryan sucks, but hey at least it's not Louie Gohmert!)

However here's the part that still bothers me.

If there is still 17% support for the Teabaggers, and 54% who seem agnostic towards them, then that leaves only 29% of us who are openly against them.

That seems like a much too low of a number to me.

I will not be happy until more than two thirds of the American people recognize that the Tea Party is made up of a bunch of ignorant racists, who could not pass a test on US History with a gun held to their head. 

Recent Gallup polling shows that Americans are moving left on a whole slew of issues.

Courtesy of Gallup: 

Americans are more likely now than in the early 2000s to find a variety of behaviors morally acceptable, including gay and lesbian relations, having a baby outside of marriage and sex between an unmarried man and woman. Moral acceptability of many of these issues is now at a record-high level. 

The upward progression in the percentage of Americans seeing these issues as morally acceptable has varied from year to year, but the overall trend clearly points toward a higher level of acceptance of a number of behaviors. In fact, the moral acceptability ratings for 10 of the issues measured since the early 2000s are at record highs.

Of course as you can see from the graphic Americans are not becoming more accepting of EVERYTHING.

Americans have become less likely to say that two issues are morally acceptable: the death penalty and medical testing on animals. But Americans' decreased acceptance of these practices actually moves them in a more liberal direction.

This change may have much to do with the fact that fewer and fewer Americans self identify as religious and are no longer accepting the definitions of morality forced upon them by their local church, temple, or synagogue.

And in another recent study researchers found that one of the main driving forces behind this new morality, the millenials, are not simply embracing the left due to their age:

"Unlike previous studies, ours is able to show that millennials' lower religious involvement is due to cultural change, not to millennials being young and unsettled."

In other words Americans are becoming freethinkers, and with that comes a less judgmental attitude towards others, a more personal sense of morality, and far less shaming for what happens between two consenting adults in the bedroom.

Damn, it is a good time to be alive!