This has gotta hurt:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 27% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -15. This is the lowest Approval Index rating yet measured for President Obama.

Now, Obama is going to give his Afghan speech next Monday – that will be an interesting event. Provided he shows even the slightest bit of backbone, a lot of Americans – including me – will rally ’round him on the Afghan issue. I wonder, though, if such an event will translate in to any significant upswing in the President’s approval rating? I’m sure he’ll get a bump out of it – but will it be a large bump? Will it have any legs?

Time will tell – but if there is no bump, a small bump or a short bump, then Obama is in much worse trouble than anyone thinks.

The left is insistent that death be an integral part of Obamacare:

I’m getting a lot of constituent mail forwarded to me from family and friends in California. I thought I’d share this letter to a constituent from Rep. George Miller (D-CA), co-author of the House version of health care reform, and one of the most odious and dutiful representatives of the abortion industry in Congress.

The positive thing about this letter is that Rep. Miller is uncharacteristically polite about his enthusiasm for the legal killing of unborn children – the chief sacrament and concern of the Democratic Party’s California delegation. The politeness masks the fact that he’s basically telling the constituent that the Stupak Amendment is DOA if it returns to the House and he’ll help kill it…

…While I did not support the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, it was necessary to allow the amendment to be considered on the House floor in order for the overall health care bill to move forward. That was clear. But I do not believe the final health care bill that emerges from Congress should include language as restrictive as the Stupak-Pitts Amendment and I will work to find language that will guarantee no federal funds can be used for abortion but that protects the safety and rights of women who might need access to such services…

Without “Stupak”, NARAL and Planned Parenthood were ok with the abortion language in the bill – which means they knew that the federal funds would be flowing to the abortuaries. Miller, typical of culture-of-death stooges, is being dishonest.

We still have quite a battle on our hands – a battle for the basic humanity of protecting innocent, unborn life.

Pay attention, Democrats:

…Ensign refuses to bow out and step down and Doug Hampton has been unable to gain ground in forcing him out – especially with no one apparently pursuing the matter aggressively in any kind of official capacity.

It appears now that the only way for Hampton to bring Johnny Casino down is if his wife, Cindy Hampton, finally comes forward and speaks. If she validates her husband’s story and says she felt pressured in the situation in any way thanks to Ensign’s power and position….it’ll be lights out for Nevada’s self-righteous/self-absorbed Republican U.S. Senator.

Speaking of which, in response to the Nightline story last evening, Ensign released only a short statement, saying that Hampton’s allegations “are full of half-truths and untruths.”

Really, John?

In that case maybe you’d do your constituents the favor of appearing before the Nevada media and answering some legitimate questions, such as, “Exactly which allegations Doug Hampton made are half-truths and which ones are untruths and exactly why are they untrue?” Or are you just going to continue stonewalling us?

You can contrast this to the fact that after Barney Frank was found to have paid a prostitute for sex, hired him as a staffer, moved him in to his house and wrote letters on his behalf to the parole board he was re-elected with 66% of the vote in 1992 and has been continually re-elected since then by wide margins. Ensign: creepy guy who acted immorally. Frank: creepy guy who acted immorally. Ensign: roundly condemned by his fellow Republicans. Frank: lauded to the skies by his fellow Democrats. What is wrong with this picture?

This was the point of Caucus of Corruption – not that there isn’t corruption in the GOP, but that in contrast to the GOP, Democrats rarely call their own to account, and then only when their erring members risk losing an election. We really do have to fight corruption in politics – but we won’t get anywhere until Democrats get on board.

Well, it hasn’t worked – from Der Spiegel (for you liberals out there, that is a German – ie, foreign, ie better-than-America-in-your-view – magazine):

Obama’s Nice Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere on the World Stage

When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it’s not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming.

The Germans may wish for that bit of Bush-style bluntness (we do, too!), but I can assure all and sundry, it isn’t coming. Not from Obama – not unless his wife takes him for a spine transplant. I expect Obama to just go from Bad to Carter in foreign affairs…

Making nice/nice doesn’t cut it in the world – not in a world where wicked people plot evil. As long as there are tyrants in China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea and Syria, the key to peace and freedom will be the forceful use of raw, unapologetic, American power.

Viscount Monckton lets ’em have it:

This is what they did — these climate “scientists” on whose unsupported word the world’s classe politique proposes to set up an unelected global government this December in Copenhagen, with vast and unprecedented powers to control all formerly free markets, to tax wealthy nations and all of their financial transactions, to regulate the economic and environmental affairs of all nations, and to confiscate and extinguish all patent and intellectual property rights.

The tiny, close-knit clique of climate scientists who invented and now drive the “global warming” fraud — for fraud is what we now know it to be — tampered with temperature data so assiduously that, on the recent admission of one of them, land temperatures since 1980 have risen twice as fast as ocean temperatures. One of the thousands of emails recently circulated by a whistleblower at the University of East Anglia, where one of the world’s four global-temperature datasets is compiled, reveals that data were altered so as to prevent a recent decline in temperature from showing in the record. In fact, there has been no statistically significant “global warming” for 15 years — and there has been rapid and significant cooling for nine years…

…these arrogant fraudsters — for fraudsters are what we now know them to be — have refused, for years and years and years, to reveal their data and their computer program listings. Now we know why: As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up…

People seriously need to go to jail over this – and, yes, Al Gore should head the list of defendants. We have been the victim of a vast, criminal conspiracy to defraud the taxpayers and destroy freedom. All in the name of a myth called “anthropogenic global warming”. This is something we’ve long suspected was entirely bogus, and now we have the proof – they were fixing the data. Or, to put it more bluntly, they were just making sh** up as they went along. And this is what the environmentalist movement has always done since the publication of the mendacious Silent Spring.

I’ve had it with these con artists – and it is time we put them firmly in their place: a jail cell!

From Hussman Funds via Mish‘s:

…Bloomberg reported last week that “Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. are hoarding cash as if another crisis were on the way.” Notably, a week after CIT and Advanta filed for bankruptcy, Citigroup has sent letters raising the finance charge on some of its credit cards to 23.99% annually – even for creditworthy customers who pay their balances in full on a monthly basis. This is a bit of deja vu, given that Advanta did virtually the same thing in August of 2008, raising rates to 25% on its cards. This is not the type of development that encourages debt-financed economic activity (which has historically been the primary driver of early economic expansions).

Since June of this year, outstanding bank credit (loans and leases) has plunged at the steepest rate observed in the available post-war history, while at the same time, bank cash reserves have soared. This surge in reserves is a mirror image of the Fed’s balance sheet, which has taken on over a trillion dollars in new assets – primarily mortgage backed securities. The problem here is that the underlying quality of agency paper continues to deteriorate, which means that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other agencies will likely sustain major additional losses – eventually footed by the public – because they accepted a negligible fee from mortgage lenders in return for slapping the government’s Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval on these garbage loans.

I’ve seen this in personal experience – and not just from Citigroup. And not only rate hikes, but large reductions in credit lines, in to the bargain. The banks know what is coming and are preparing for it.

Meanwhile, Obama and Co are still living in a Geithner-induced dream world. If you go to the linked article, you’ll note that Hussman is holding that the actions of the Fed and Treasury amount to an unconstitutional abuse of power – and I agree. The sad part is that Obama either doesn’t see it, or refuses to see it. Bottom line, we’re being taken for a ride where we, the people, get to bail out the bankers and bureaucrats who got us in to this mess – another crash is impending, where we’ll have to foot the bill, but the bankers have already ensured that their personal wealth is protected.

How’s that hope and change thing working out for you?

Yep:

Who appointed over 40 ambassadors on the sole basis of campaign contributions, or has as many lobbyists in government as did any President in memory? And who releases touchy news—whether increased unemployment or trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civil courts—on Friday nights, or wants his Democratically-controlled Congress to debate unpopular legislation on Saturday nights?

You see where this is going. Prophets fall harder than normal politicians. When you claim that seas recede and planets cool before your presence, and that Latin mottos, new presidential candidate seals, neo-classical victory trophies, and faux-Greek temple sets are the appropriate backdrops for Your speeches, then you raise the bar a bit high. Obama is not necessarily any more partisan than a Nixon or Reagan or Bush, only just as partisan—but when he claimed something quite different.

You’ve been had, liberals – We Republicans (a few week kneed members, aside) figured it out right away. Centrists started waking up to it a few months back. Where are you liberals? Still hoping your tin-plated, false god will pull the rabbit out of the hat?

At best, Obama is the blind tool of corrupt interests. At worst, he’s an active abettor of corrupt interests. No matter how you slice it, liberals, your only hope is to ditch him, fast.

Of course, I don’t expect you to do so – servile as you are, you’ll just keep swallowing whatever Obama feeds y ou.

To the public option:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, speaking in that trademark sonorous baritone, utters a simple statement that translates into real trouble for Democratic leaders: “I’m going to be stubborn on this.”

Stubborn, he means, in opposing any health-care overhaul that includes a “public option,” or government-run health-insurance plan, as the current bill does. His opposition is strong enough that Mr. Lieberman says he won’t vote to let a bill come to a final vote if a public option is included.

We’ll have to see how firm he stands – after all, the left has been after his scalp for a while and might force Reid to threaten Lieberman’s committee assignments if he doesn’t toe the line. On the other hand, Lieberman just might figure that any loss of committee will be temporary – either the Democrats will win a reduced, need-Lieberman-majority after 2010, or the GOP will have won a narrow, better-make-sure-of-Lieberman majority. We’ll have to see – but, meanwhile, this does bode well for our ability to prevent the liberals from forging the shackles of slavery for us…

Politico reports on the recent Republican Governors Association meeting:

While Republicans posted two hard-fought gubernatorial victories on Nov. 3, McDonnell’s path to victory is the one that most encourages the GOP, a remarkable case of a social conservative who made his name in politics as an abortion opponent yet managed to reverse a Democratic trend in Virginia and shellack his opponent by nearly 18 percent while largely steering clear of cultural issues.

As rejuvenated GOP governors gathered at a resort outside Austin for their annual strategy session there was little doubt who they wanted to spotlight. McDonnell was shown off at nearly every public event, paraded before the reporters, consultants and lobbyists here as the example of how Republicans can find swing state success in the Obama era.

There are two lessons we can take out of the McDonnell victory:

1. Run away from social issues and talk up the economy.

2. Remain firm on social issues but also hammer the Democrats on the economy and government reform.

If we take “1”, we’ll lose. While some people of RINOish tendencies might want to pretend they can win without social conservative support, the plain fact of the matter is that McDonnell won his crushing victory because he had on board social conservatives, economic conservatives and independents who don’t feel strongly either way, but who like to vote for people who appear trustworthy – had McDonnell abandoned his social conservatism, he might not have won at all, and if he did win, it would have been by a narrow margin.

So, there is a “McDonnell Path” to victory for the GOP – but it requires courage; the courage to stand fast for what one believes is right while also working hard to appeal to people who might not be with you on all issues, but are open to supporting you because of the plans you bring to the table.

Gee, I wonder if anyone out there saw this?

The other big story for the week could be the revision to third-quarter growth figures. Last month, the Commerce Department said real gross domestic product grew at a 3.5% annualized rate, the first gain in a year. On Tuesday, that figure is likely to be revised to about 2.8%.

The revision comes from more complete data. In the first go-around, the government statisticians must estimate many of the key inputs for September, including foreign trade, inventories and construction spending. Now that those data have been released, it’s clear the first estimates were too big.

I’ll bet it eventually goes down even further than that. Its all smoke and mirrors, good people. And, liberals, don’t think I’m just blaming Obama – the whole world went off on a case of the stupids. If you think we’ve been purblind idiots, well we’ve got nothing on the Chinese! They have been printing up a storm and forcing banks to make bad loans and generally doing everything they can to make believe that they aren’t in a complete economic collapse. They are aided and abetted by non-Chinese investors who are running around the world talking up how great the Chinese are doing and how wealth is switching from West to East and that China is the engine of global growth (they have a per-capita GDP in line with such economic powerhouses as Albania and Turkmenistan).

So, there is plenty of blame to go around – but, people, we need to wake up here. We’ve been taken for a ride by bankers and bureaucrats and their hope is that things will recover by magic before the majority figures it out and gets the tar and feathers ready. We are still – by far – the richest and most powerful nation on earth. We have the labor, skills and materials to entirely dominate the global economy as we have from 1945 until now. All we have to do is get to work – making, mining and growing our own things; we do that, and we’ll simply leave the rest of the world in the dust…but, even so, benefiting the world because an America growing richer is an America with markets for foreign goods and wealth to invest in foreign enterprises (as opposed to now, when we invest make-believe money in return for phony-baloney profits to propel mythical GDP growth).

Its our choice – as Lincoln said a century and a half ago, the only people who can destroy the United States are we Americans. We can either revive ourselves or be the author of our own destruction.