Unless you're living in a cave - which, quite frankly, it may be better to not know the following numbers - an NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll from this past Tuesday, August 5th, 2014...basically says that the people of the United States are aggravated, frustrated, disgusted, unhappy and - in plain English - pissed off with our elected politicians.
If you're a regular reader of The Controversy, you know that I'm unofficially the "Cheerleader-in-Chief" of the President Barack Obama Fan Club. I am enthusiastically a great supporter of our 44th President. And if you've been reading my column throughout the last 21 months, you also can come to the conclusion that I go to bed every night and hope, wish and pray that 
But with President Hillary Clinton...we also get President Bill Clinton - the single greatest and best President in my lifetime...which is nearly 60 years. So let's face it - in case you haven't already figured out - I'm a Clinton-Clinton-Obama lover. I'm a Democrat. I'm a liberal. And I'm proud of all these labels - if you are one who wants to label me.All that being said...we've got more than two years to go with President Obama...and - depending on what happens this November with the mid-term elections - we may still have a Congress that doesn't want to work with him.
The NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll says President Obama's approval rating of 40 percent is his very lowest since the President took office on January 20th, 2009.
Republicans in Congress have said for nearly six years that they are against Barack Obama...and all they've done is oppose everything the President does. Americans do not want that. Americans do not want haters. And I'm truly sorry to say...that most Republicans who serve in the United States Senate and House of Representatives...are haters. And I want to believe...that Republican citizens across the U.S.A. are - for the most part - not haters...and they don't want the politicians who represent them...to be haters.
The NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll shows that Republicans in Congress have a paltry 19 percent favorable rating. Democrats who sit in the Senate and House are unfortunately not doing too much better, but at least they're at 31 percent.
Our nation's Constitution was created by our founding forefathers with a "checks and balances" mentality. But with the shockingly bad numbers of the NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll and the severe polarization of our country today..."checks and balances" are a thing of the past. It's plain to see that Republicans in Congress are not willing to work with Democrats - with those on Capitol Hill...or with he who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Republicans need to do more than criticize and complain about President Obama. Republicans in Congress need to do more than threaten...and then actively shut down the government. Republicans on Capitol Hill need to do more than file a lawsuit against the President of the United States. Republicans need to do more than investigate the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya...just to be able to try to hurt the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton...in case she does decide to seek the Democratic nomination for President in 2016. I can guarantee you that any such efforts by Republicans will be meaningless. All the Republicans in Congress want to do is bitch about anything and everything that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress want to do that could help our country.
Overall - according to the NBC News/ Wall Street Journal Poll - only 14 percent of Americans approve of Congress' job performance. That's the lowest approval rating for any Congress...ever. And a massive 79 percent of the people in our country...disapprove of the work our elected Members of Congress are doing. Amazingly...7 percent of Americans are unsure of their feelings about Congress. I'm always flabbergasted when someone has no opinion whatsoever...especially when an overwhelming majority has two thumbs down on Congress.
What is happening to the U.S.? What is happening...to us? The NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll says 71 percent of Americans believe our country is on the wrong track...while only 22 percent think we are headed in the right direction. Another 5 percent have mixed emotions and 2 percent don't know. These numbers are dismal. They are bleak. They are awful across the board.
How is Washington, D.C. going to turn all of this mess around? The Republican Party is broken. It's fractured. Republicans have no clue how to work with their Democratic counterparts in Congress and a Democratic President. Republicans in the House and Senate have no idea how...and no desire...to get the job done when they have to deal with Democrats.
One of the biggest concerns for Americans - even those of us who are employed - continues to be the economy. I lost my job five years ago - and although I now make a buck, so to speak, doing something else - it is not a position in the field for which I dedicated nearly 40 years of my life. Writing for this blog every week is - for now, at least - a passion without income. I am, therefore, barely surviving from my so-called "day job"...as most Americans are barely surviving. Those who made annual salaries of 40, 60, 80 or 100-thousand dollars or more ten, fifteen or twenty years ago...may now be earning only 20, 30, 40 or 50-thousand dollars. And with half their yearly income...getting through life is almost impossible. Others are still out of work...and not making one thin dime...not one red cent.
Now there is no question - no doubt - that the economy is better today than it was a year ago...or five and a half years ago when Barack Obama took office as President of the United States and inherited a disastrous recession that began as a result of some very bad choices made by President George W. Bush. But still - according to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll - 64 percent of Americans are still dissatisfied with the state of the economy in the United States...35 percent are satisfied...and a mere 1 percent is unsure. And 40 percent of Americans say at least one member of their household lost a job within the last five years. We, of course, can thank President Bush for that too. But what about the next generation of Americans? And the generation after that? How do most Americans feel our country will be in the next 20, 30 or 50 years? Well the NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll says 79 percent of Americans believe their children's future is not going to be better than what it is now. Americans are clearly not optimistic about the future of the United States.True...jobs have been created. And thanks to President Obama...more people are working today than they were several years ago. However...we are not where we were under President Clinton...and we should be. If President Bush didn't put our economy in the tank...we'd be in a better place.
Even those of us who have a job are not making the money we should. Sure, 2 percent of the country may be...98 percent are not. We are not earning enough money to keep up with inflation. We cannot survive on the wages we're being paid when rents are increasing every year...food prices are skyrocketing every week...and the costs of all other products, goods and services have gone through the ceiling...through the roof...and in to the stratosphere.
The majority of Americans want the minimum wage increased...but Republicans in Congress continue to fight against it. President Obama wants the minimum wage to go up from seven dollars and twenty-five cents to ten dollars and ten cents an hour. I think the minimum wage should - at the very least - be doubled. But even at fourteen dollars and fifty cents an hour, it's not a living wage. At a 40-hour work week, that's still only a gross income of $30,160. Of course that's tremendously better than half that amount, but truly not enough to make ends meet and have money left over for savings and for fun.
And for those Americans who are still out of work...the Republican Party refuses to pass a bill for long-term unemployment insurance. Can't the Republicans in Congress be decent enough and compassionate enough towards people who can't find a job? And what about those Americans who bust their butts everyday at one job...at two jobs...or even three jobs...yet they are still living in poverty? No hard working American should be living in poverty.
The United States is crumbling before our eyes. And all the Republicans in Congress care about is destroying President Obama...even if he and the Democrats in the Senate and House will make things better in our country... and make life better for all Americans.
The NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll proves that our Congress today sucks. Our forefathers are certainly rolling over and spinning in their graves. From the first day of the Obama Administration...Republicans have said they would not work with the new Commander-in-Chief. Before the 2012 election... in an interview with the National Journal...the Senate Minority Leader...
Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky admitted that "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term President." McConnell and other Republicans then didn't seem to care about the country...and apparently now they still don't care. Their only concern is to see President Obama fail.How will President Obama - over the next two and a half years - be able to sit down with Republicans in Congress and compromise? How will the President and Members of the GOP agree on passing bills to help our country when the Republicans despise President Obama...and their sick sentiments
are similar towards Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. It's an obvious fact that most Republicans in the House and Senate just don't like President Obama...and because of that...they will do anything they can to prevent the President from any more success during his last couple of years in office.
And that's The Controversy for today.
I'm Gary B. Duglin.
"We'll talk again."
The Controversy is a publication of GBD Productions. Founder and Editor-In-Chief of The Controversy is Gary B. Duglin.
The Controversy will make an effort to publish a new commentary every Sunday. Unscheduled essays may appear, from time to time, on other days as well.
Please post The Controversy site on your own Facebook pages and on your Twitter accounts; and please pass a link to everyone in your e-mail directories.
Now, please express your opinions in the comment box below. You do not have to register your name and you can remain totally anonymous if you prefer. The Controversy wants to know your views on the editorial above and on any other commentary or essay written on this blog. Just click on the word "Comments" below and write your thoughts in the box that appears. Make sure please that when you finish your statement that you click on the word "Publish." Thank you for your thoughts and thank you for reading The Controversy.
Copyright 2014 Gary B. Duglin and TheControversy.net. All Rights Reserved.
Gary, here you go again with name calling. It is what the left does best. If someone disagrees with your policies, demonize them call them names, haters, racist, war against women, homophobes’ and it goes on and on. You and the left love to name call and you do it well. With your ally the left wing media you have done a good job convincing your base and many others that your lies are true, they are not. If there are any haters it is the left, they hate the US Constitution, they hate religious people, they hate the people that built this great country and they hate anyone who disagrees with them. They LOVE BIG Government! The Republicans as a group in Congress don’t hate President Obama they disagree with him, they may hate his policies but they don’t hate the man. It is you and the rest of the left doing what you do best “playing the race card“and name calling and of course LYING! The left and your ally (the media) have come up with the phrase “do nothing Congress” and convinced much of this nation that it is a fact, it is not, it is a LIE! Harry Reid has over 300 Bills passed by the House that he won’t even send to committee that is not doing nothing. You and the left believe if you’re not doing what you want them to do, it is doing nothing.
ReplyDeleteYou make the statement “It's plain to see that Republicans in Congress are not willing to work with Democrats - with those on Capitol Hill...or with he who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” the fact is that the Democrats and Obama are not willing to work with the Republicans. You had Nancy Pelosi lock them out of the ACA, you have Harry Reid changing the rules in the Senate, you have the Administration lying to the House Oversight Committee time after time, we have a President who keeps over stepping his power in violation of the Constitution , the left doesn’t care it’s only a piece of paper. We have King Obama now just waiting for Queen Hillary! The woman without any outstanding accomplishments, except standing by her man when he cheated on her again and again! This is the one you and the left want as President. The one you still cannot give a single accomplishment of, you say there are too many to list all I asked for is ONE. I’ll try and help you, how about the Russian Reset (the reset or overcharge button) since Hillary, Putin has backed Iran against us, taken over Crimea, backed the rebels in Ukraine and helped keep Syrian President Assad in power, good job Secretary Clinton. How about Benghazi, 4 Americans dead and more lies then we know what to do with, once again good job. How about getting rid of an American ally in President Mubarak of Egypt and letting the Muslim Brotherhood take over the country, another great job by Hillary, how many more should I list Hillary Care, that was a good one, what about travel-gate? This is who you want as our President?
Continued from my last post:
ReplyDeleteI know you and the left want to blame President Bush for everything so you makeup lies and get the media to call them facts. I know if it rained on your birthday it was Bush’s fault, if dinner was cold it was Bush’s fault everything was Bush’s fault ,now I won’t say everything President Bush did was right, but it was all done in the best interest of the United States Of America. If you want to say anything, how about thanking him for keeping America safe for 7 years after 9/11 that was his first and foremost job! And he did it well!!!
As for your lovefest with Bill Clinton he was not a bad president, he had the luck of serving after the greatest president in the second half of the 20th century maybe the greatest one of the 20th century Ronald Reagan and then Bush 41, most of the economic boom of the 1990’s was set in motion by Reagan and Bush, a little fact the left likes to forget. As I said Clinton wasn’t a bad president, he learned how to work with congress and get many things done. It is too bad he is such a low life of a human being.
The Obama administration has had the most disregard for the law of any administration since Nixon and maybe if this continues even worse. Lies to Congress, an AG who is in contempt of congress and refuses to investigate the IRS or any other Administration official , no investigation on who started the lie about the video and Benghazi, fast and furious, I could go on. The most disregard comes from the President himself who believes he has the right to decide what laws he will follow and enforce and even can make laws on his own in direct violation of Article One of the US Constitution! Article. I.Section. 1.All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. It says ALL not some but ALL legislative power is in the Congress none to the President. I guess we need to remember King Barack is above that little piece of paper and as you said "checks and balances" are a thing of the past. King Obama says it so it is now the law. I feel we I’m watching Yule Brenner as Ramses “so let it be written, so let it be done”. That’s not America but it is what we are stuck with for 2 ½ more years.
You want us to "thank" President George W. Bush for - as you say - "keeping America safe for 7 years after 9/11 that was his first and foremost job! And he did it well!!!" Are you for real? The United States of America suffered the worst attack in history during President Bush's watch. And that WAS 9/11. If Mr. Bush's then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice had done her job and paid attention to a memo dated July 5th, 2001 - more than two months before September 11th 2001 - by President Bush's Chief Counter-Terrorism Adviser on the National Security Council, Richard A. Clarke then 9/11 may never would have happened. Clarke's memo "urgently" requested a high-level National Security Council review on al-Qaeda. In his book...Against All Enemies...Clarke wrote that in the summer of 2001 the intelligence community was convinced of an imminent attack by al-Qaeda. In addition to the memo to Rice, on July 5th, 2001 at a gathering at The White House, Clarke told members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Coast Guard and the Federal Aviation Administration that "something really spectacular is going to happen here...and it's going to happen soon." If you think President Bush knew nothing of Clarke's memo or of his warning and advice, that's impossible given the amount of people in his Administration who knew. So you say President Bush "kept us safe?" I don't think so. And you talk about President Ronald Reagan being "the greatest president in the second half of the 20th Century - maybe the greatest one of the 20th Century." Again - are you for real? Mr. Reagan is another Republican President who was warned security was lacking and did nothing. The year was 1983 and the attack was in Lebanon where 241 U.S. servicemen were killed at the barracks of American troops who were stationed at the Beirut Airport. The 241 dead included 220 U.S. Marines, 18 U.S. Navy sailors and 3 U.S. Army soldiers plus 60 other Americans were injured. It was the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima of World War II. It was the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States military since the first day of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. And it was the deadliest single attack on Americans overseas since World War II. Many years later, the man who served as President Reagan's Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger stated that he had "implored" Mr. Reagan to move Marines serving in Beirut to a safer location. Weinberg had said, "I was not persuasive enough to persuade the President that the Marines were there on an impossible mission." Weinberger went on to say,"They had no mission but to sit at the airport, which is just like sitting in a bull's-eye. I begged the President at least to pull them back and put them back on their transports as a more defensible position." You say President Reagan was "great." I don't think so. Two Republican Presidents who were given warnings about attacks that killed Americans...and who did nothing. And you want to pay them compliments and gratitude? I don't think so. GBD
DeleteYou really must hate Republicans, you totally blow off the basis for my comments that it is the Democrats that won’t work with the Republicans. Also you made no comment on Hillary! As for your comment about President Bush you are the one who doesn’t know the facts. As for Richard Clarke who is a bitter disgruntled former employee his and other intelligence was acted on: July 5, 2001 - The FAA issues another warning, specifically the threat of "using explosives in an airport terminal." July 5, 2001 - President George W. Bush requests more information about the recent upswing in terrorist threats and "chatter" from National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. July 2001 - The CIA warns the White House of possible attacks against President George W. Bush during the July G8 Summit in Genoa, Italy. July 18, 2001 - The FAA issues another warning to airlines concerning possible terrorist attacks. July 31, 2001 - The FAA issues another warning to airlines advising that "terror groups are known to be planning and training for hijackings." August 6, 2001 - President George W. Bush receives a CIA report about al Qaeda and the possibility of airline hijackings. The warning is passed on to embassies and other overseas facilities. August 16, 2001 - The FAA issues an alert about "disguised weapons." Airlines are alerted the terrorists might use common objects such as cell phones or clothespins as weapons. August 23, 2001 - CIA director George Tenet, concerned that an al Qaeda attack is imminent, orders the CIA to search their files for leads. An urgent cable is sent to the FBI, State Department, Customs and INS, alerting them to the CIA's concerns about Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar. After the INS reports that Almihdhar re-entered the country on July 4, the FBI begins searching for them. September 4, 2001 - The national security advisers to President George W. Bush approve a draft version of a plan to combat al Qaeda. It includes provisions for $200 million to arm the enemies of the Taliban. The advisers plan to present the draft to President Bush on September 10, however the president is traveling and does not see it. September 10, 2001 - The National Security Agency intercepts two communications from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia. One says, "Tomorrow is zero hour," and the other says "The match begins tomorrow." The messages are not translated until September 12. What more should he have done!! Only a Bush haters like yourself would think the way you do!! Even if you believe he should have done more, what I said was how his actions kept the homeland safe over the next seven years!!!!!!
DeleteAs for President Reagan, no president is perfect, but his policies and action brought us into the longest period of economic growth in our history, his action brought down the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War the end of the USSR and more. Much of which has been turned back by Secretary Clinton and President Obama. President Reagan rebuilt our military and put America on top again. You talk about Regan and Lebanon and then talk how great President Clinton was, should we go through the attacks on America and Americans in his years : World Trade Bombing 1993, 1995 bombing in Saudia Arabia (killed 5 US Military) 1996 Khobar Towers (killed 19 and injured 200 US military) 1998 bombing of US embassies in Africa killed 257 injured over 5000, in 2000 the bombing of the USS Cole killing 17, by your way of thinking Clinton really sucked as a president!
You really need to start answering the questions and or comments put to you not just go back and be a hater on republicans.
I in no way "hate Republicans" - as you so vehemently state. But it sure does sound as if you hate Democrats. My information above is 100% factual. I have nothing else to say. GBD
ReplyDeleteI don’t hate Democrats, I disagree with and in some cases hate what they do and what they stand for but I don’t hate the people. I don’t name call large groups of people like you do and many other left wingers do. Of course you have nothing else to say, you can’t give any accomplishments for Hillary Clinton because there aren’t any, what you implied about President Reagan was incorrect, President Bush did keep the Homeland safe for seven plus years and President Obama has basically been a failure in all he has done. I didn’t question all of your so called facts, just some of them and I question your interpretation of those facts. You didn’t question my FACTS on President Clinton, President Bush or President Reagan because you know they are the real FACTS!
ReplyDeleteThere is no sense replying to you again. Obviously you're not going to admit that you are wrong and I certainly know that the facts I quoted are correct. I will always respect someone's OPINIONS within reason...but when facts are confirmed and you argue them...well...! But I will say one more thing. I am not "name call(ing) large groups of people" as you accuse me of doing. I am giving a credible opinion that certain Republicans in Congress - NOT ALL REPUBLICANS - are haters who simply want President Obama to fail. As the old saying goes - "If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck... well...it must be a duck." GBD
Delete