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We've all seen reports that Barack Obama's job approval rating has recently fallen below 50 percent in the Gallup poll for the first time since the president took office in January. A look inside those numbers -- Gallup publishes a weekly breakdown of its results by demographic groups -- shows that there are a lot of other firsts in the polling: Among age groups: For the first time in the White House, Obama is below 50 percent with every age group of Americans except those between 18 and 29. He's at 48 percent with people in the 30-49 range; 46...

A USA Today/Gallup poll depicts Obama battling headwinds and sinking....

by Dana Blanton , FOXNews.com President Obama's approval rating has hit a new low of 46 percent, even as a majority of Americans says he is providing the kind of leadership they expected. print email share recommend (2) President Obama's approval rating has hit a new low of 46 percent, according to a FOX News poll released Thursday. An equal number -- 46 percent -- disapprove of the job he's doing. Breaking down the numbers by political party shows how sharply split American voters are over the president's job performance. While 85 percent of Democrats approve of their party leader,...

Moody’s: Pension Strains Put Pressure on Ratings By Yvette Shields, Bond Buyer November 6, 2009 The fiscal strain of deteriorating pension funding levels on local and state governments could contribute to downgrades in the next several years, especially among those governments that entered the recession with poor funding ratios or have little flexibility in their funding requirements, a new report from Moody’s Investors Service warns. In the near term, the impact of dwindling investment returns as a result of the market downturn is broad and adds yet another layer of fiscal stress on governments already faced with faltering tax revenues,...

In October, for the third straight month, 39% Strongly Disapproved of the president’s performance. The number who Strongly Approved fell two percentage points to 29%, the president’s lowest full-month total to date. That leads to a Presidential Approval Index rating of -10, also a new low for Obama. Also in October, the president’s total approval slipped a point to 48%. His total disapproval remained stable at 51%.

Gallup recorded an average daily approval rating of 53 per cent for Mr Obama for the third quarter of the year, a sharp drop from the 62 per cent he recorded from April. His current approval rating – hovering just above the level that would make re-election an uphill struggle – is close to the bottom for newly-elected president. Mr Obama entered the White House with a soaring 78 per cent approval rating.

Worth posting if only to lay down a marker about where her favorables were before the book was released. At 40/50, there’s nowhere to go but up. Hopefully. Palin became a bit of a sensation after John McCain tapped her as his running mate last August. But over the course of the campaign, her image suffered, going from a 53% favorable rating immediately after the 2008 Republican National Convention to 42% by the end of the campaign. Palin’s ratings have not recovered, and her current 40% favorable rating is the lowest for her since she became widely known after last...

tain "Within A Whisker Of losing Is Triple a Credit Rating" By Jeremy Warner September 22nd, 2009 Can Britain afford the massive increase in sovereign debt it is clocking up in paying for the structural deficit and the recession? Only just, assumptions used by the Treasury in drawing up its forecasts for the public finances reveal. It could swing either way. One of the most striking features of confidential Treasury papers leaked last week to the Tories was the projected growth in the numbers for debt interest. This is assumed to rise from “just” £27.2bn this financial year to a...

~ EXCERPT ~ ~ snip ~ President Barack Obama's job approval rating is down to 42%, with a decline in approval from Democrats the leading factor. The latest Zogby Interactive poll of 4,518 likely voters conducted from August 28-31 found 48% disapprove and 42% approve of the job Obama is doing. The poll found 75% of Democrats approve of Obama's performance, a drop of 13 points among Democrats from an interactive poll done July 21-24 of this year. That same poll found 48% of all likely voters approving of Obama's job performance, and 49% disapproving. ~snip~ In the time between...

When politicians first take office, they usually ride on a bubble of good will among their constituents. Consider it the triumph of hope over experience; after an election, most people hope they will do well even if they didn’t support the winner in the election. With that in mind, Eric Ostermeier looks at Al Franken’s initial job-approval ratings after a month in office, and finds that bubble missing entirely: A newly released SurveyUSA poll conducted only two weeks into Franken’s tenure finds Minnesotans unsurprisingly divided about how he is conducting himself as their Senator in Washington. The poll finds 43...

Moody's cuts Calif rating, budget talks press on By Jim Christie Tue Jul 14, 9:36 pm ET SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Moody's cut its rating on Tuesday on about $72 billion of California's debt to near junk status, citing the state's budget crisis, but a top lawmaker said a deal to close a $26.3 billion gap was near. Moody's Investors Service in a statement said it cut the state's general obligation debt by two notches to Baa1, or three notches above speculative "junk" status and the rating may suffer further downgrades because of a growing risk to the state's ability...

"The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 30% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –8. The President’s Approval Index rating has fallen six points since release of a disappointing jobs report last week."

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 32% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-seven percent (37%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –5. The number who strongly disapprove inched up another point to the highest level measured to date and the overall Approval Index is at the lowest level yet for Obama  

Public approval of President Obama's job performance has dropped slightly this spring as Americans have grown increasingly concerned about unemployment and the federal budget deficit (NBC News/WSJ poll). The poll shows that 56 percent of Americans give Obama a thumbs-up on his performance as president, down from 61 percent percent in April. The proportion expressing disapproval rose to 34 percent from 30 percent. The telephone survey of 1,008 adults, conducted June 12-15, carries a margin for error of 3.1 percentage points. The shift, five months after Obama took office as president, follows continued bad news on the unemployment rate, which...

Long before the current financial crisis, nearly two years ago, a little-noticed cloud darkened the horizon for the US government. It was ignored. But now that shadow, in the form of a warning from a top credit rating agency that the nation risked losing its triple A rating if it did not start putting its finances in order, is coming back to haunt us. That warning from Moody’s focused on the exploding healthcare and Social Security costs that threaten to engulf the federal government in debt over coming decades. The facts show we’re in even worse shape now, and there...

With Rivals Ahead, Doubts for CNN’s Middle Road By BILL CARTER The election of Barack Obama does not seem to have ushered in a kinder, less-polarized environment in politics — or television. And that’s not a good break for CNN, a network whose strategy is to steer the middle course in its news coverage. CNN’s competitors have been finding more success pounding away at those poles — at least during prime time. Since the beginning of March, CNN has fallen behind both the longtime ratings leader, Fox News Channel, which, as the voice of disaffected conservatives, again has an imposing...

Ireland was stripped of its top AAA credit ranking and downgraded to AA+ by Standard & Poor’s(S&P) yesterday while being warned that it could drop further if Dublin fails to get its public finances under control. The former “Celtic Tiger” economy is the second eurozone country after Spain in January to lose its top ranking since the onslaught of the global downturn.Such a downgrade will increase Ireland’s borrowing costs. S&P said the Irish Government had underestimated the scale of its fiscal problems and the agency dismissed the possibility of a solution emerging at an emergency budget next week. “The downgrade...

Fitch Cuts Russia's Sovereign Debt Rating 05 February 2009 By Nadia Popova / Staff Writer Fitch downgraded Russia's sovereign rating on Wednesday, prompting scorn from Russian investors over whether international agencies could offer credible ratings in view of their apparent miscalculations before the global crisis. Fitch lowered Russia's foreign and local currency ratings by a notch to BBB -- two rankings above junk -- over concerns about dwindling foreign exchange reserves, falling oil prices and corporate debt refinancing. It was the first time that Fitch has cut the country's rating since 1998, when Russia devalued the ruble and defaulted on...

S&P cuts Russian corporate ratings after sovereign downgrade 14:36 | 09/ 12/ 2008 MOSCOW, December 9 (RIA Novosti) - Standard & Poor's said on Tuesday it had lowered long- and short-term counterparty credit ratings for a number of Russian-based banks to BBB/A-3 from BBB+/A2 with negative outlook. The institutions involved are Russia-based VTB Bank, Bank VTB 24, VTB-Leasing, Raiffeisenbank and UniCredit Bank The international rating agency said the move followed its decision on Monday to downgrade Russia's long and short-term sovereign foreign currency credit ratings from BBB+/A-2 to BBB/A-3 with a negative outlook over a plunge in Russia's international reserves...

Motorola Debt Downgraded to Junk Status ­Debt ratings agency, Standard and Poors (S&P) has dropped Motorola's long-term corporate credit rating to 'BB+' from 'BBB' - which is basically junk status - on the outlook for its mobile phone division. "The current rating action reflects continual operational challenges in the Mobile Devices unit, which are not likely to be reversed over the intermediate term, leading to depressed profitability and returns, adjusted debt leverage over 4x, and substantially diminished free cash flows." S&P also assigned a recovery rating of '3' to this debt, indicating the expectation for meaningful (50% to 70%) recovery...

Surprising. McCain-Obama drew less than Kerry-Bush. 2008: McCain-Obama: 33.2 2004: Kerry-Bush: 39.4 2000: Bush-Gore: 31.7 1996: Clinton-Dole: 31.6 1992: Clinton-Bush-Perot: 38.3 1988: Bush-Dukakis: 36.8 1984: Reagan-Mondale: 45.3 1980: Carter-Reagan: 58.9 1976: Ford-Carter: 53.5

Ex-SEC Official Blames Agency for Blow-Up of Broker-Dealers 'They constructed a mechanism that simply didn't work' By JULIE SATOW, Staff Reporter of the Sun | September 18, 2008 http://www.nysun.com/business/ex-sec-official-blames-agency-for-blow-up/86130/ The Securities and Exchange Commission can blame itself for the current crisis. That is the allegation being made by a former SEC official, Lee Pickard, who says a rule change in 2004 led to the failure of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and Merrill Lynch. The SEC allowed five firms — the three that have collapsed plus Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — to more than double the leverage they were allowed...

AIG shares slump, says 'everything on the table' Insurer may sell Transatlantic stake, other businesses to raise capital By Alistair Barr & John Spence, MarketWatch Last update: 5:42 p.m. EDT Sept. 12, 2008 SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Insurance giant American International Group, beset by a record stock slump and a possible cut from ratings agency Standard & Poor's, said Friday it was reviewing its businesses and that "everything was on the table," suggesting it might sell assets to raise capital and avoid a crippling downgrade. The company had been preparing for a major reorganization announcement on Sept. 25, but on...

Fitch cuts financial strength rating of bond insurer MBIA to "AA" from "AAA" Fri Apr 4, 4:33 PM By Stephen Bernard, The Associated Press NEW YORK - Credit rating agency Fitch Ratings said Friday it cut the critical financial strength rating of MBIA Inc. because the bond insurer does not have enough spare capital to warrant a top-notch rating. Fitch cut the rating to "AA" from "AAA." The downgrade could make it difficult for MBIA to book new business, as bond insurers typically need the top-tier rating to attract customers. MBIA's rating was placed on negative outlook, which is a...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Standard & Poor's Ratings Services on Friday revised its status on Financial Guaranty Insurance Co. and holding company FGIC Corp. to CreditWatch with negative implications from CreditWatch with developing implications. PMI Group (PMI: 5.92, 0.00, 0.0%) , Financial Guaranty Insurance's principal owner, said recently that it no longer views the company as a strategic investment and will not be participating in any recapitalization plan.

They say geography is destiny, but perhaps it is damnation as well. We have unveiled the American city that has fallen the farthest from grace in each of the seven deadly sins ( lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, wrath, envy and pride). For each sin we stretched our imagination to find a workable proxy--murder rates for wrath, per capita billionaires for avarice--then culled the available data sources to rank the cities. Some of the results were surprising: Salt Lake City as America's Vainest City. Some were not: Detroit as America's Most Murderous. To view them on our interactive map, simply click...

Monolines given five days to find funds By Aline Van Duyn in Washington and Michael Mackenzie in New York Published: February 14 2008 14:54 | Last updated: February 14 2008 21:47 Eliot Spitzer, New York governor, on Thursday gave bond insurers three to five business days to find fresh capital, or face a potential break-up by state regulators who want to safeguard the municipal bond markets. Mr Spitzer’s warning came shortly before Moody’s Investors Service highlighted the concerns about the bond insurers by withdrawing its triple-A credit rating for privately held Financial Guaranty Insurance Company. However, the sting of Moody’s...

For the record...Right Wing News conducted their annual survey documenting the right's least favorite righties. Most interesting news of it is that Ron Paul came in as most hated. This oughtta get the Paul-lites fired up. Here's the list: 18) Ted Stevens (4) 18) Olympia Snowe (4) 18) Mel Martinez (4) 18) Sean Hannity (4) 18) Lincoln Chafee (4) 17) Bill O'Reilly (5) 14) Lindsey Graham (6) 14) George W. Bush (6) 14) Mitt Romney (6) 12) Arnold Schwarzenegger (9) 12) Rudy Giuliani (9) 8) Andrew Sullivan (11) 8) Chuck Hagel (11) 8) James Dobson (11) 8) Ann Coulter (11)...

FREEP This Site. A news source evaluation site called NewsTrust has been set-up to allow people to evaluate the "trust" level of various news sources. It has been largely been used by Liberals so far. "A non-profit initiative called Newstrust is developing a system for rating news from a very broad array of sources. And unlike previous efforts that employed teams of paid reviewers (a model that proved economically unviable), this one is a social network model which uses the intellect of the masses to rate all manner of news content and news sources" "If you look at Newstrust during...

Who supports Congress? Who are the people who comprise the 14% of Americans that still have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the Democratic Congress? Last month, Gallup reported that Congressional job approval was at 14%, “…the lowest in Gallup’s history of this measure and the lowest of any of the 16 institutions tested…” Last week, a Zogby poll said that Congress was still languishing at that incredibly low approval rating (14% said they were "excellent" or "good;" 83% said they were "fair" or "poor.") They’re doing even worse than the Republicans were just before being...

How would you rate Cheney's performance overall? Excellent Good Fair Poor

Narrow focus draws 'PG' rating for Baptist-backed film By TERRY MATTINGLY Scripps Howard News Service 07-JUN-06 The Motion Picture Association of America is crystal clear when it describes why its "PG" rating exists _ it's a warning flag. "The theme of a PG-rated film may itself call for parental guidance," states the online explanation of the rating system. "There may be some profanity in these films. There may be some violence or brief nudity. ... The PG rating, suggesting parental guidance, is thus an alert for examination of a film by parents before deciding on its viewing by their children....

This past Monday, CBS, otherwise known as See? BS!, Al-Jazeera West, and the Corrupt Broadcasting System, proved once again that it is nothing but a shameless propaganda tool of the Democrat party, by releasing the results of a poll it rigged... uh... conducted recently showing that President Bush's popularity rating has plummeted to an all-time low of 34 percent. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/27/opinion/polls/main1350874.shtml

Bush's Approval Rating Revives As President Goes On Offensive BY JED GRAHAM INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted 12/19/2005 In taking the offensive to buck up support for the U.S. effort in Iraq, President Bush has revived his sagging political fortunes. He kept up the public-relations campaign Monday with a news conference that followed Sunday night's address to the nation.

PARIS -- President John F. Kennedy was considered a historian because of his book "Profiles in Courage," so he received periodic requests to rate the presidents, those lists that usually begin "1. Lincoln, 2. Washington ..." But after he actually became president himself, he stopped filling them out. "No one knows what it's like in this office," he said after being in the job. "Even with poor James Buchanan, you can't understand what he did and why without sitting in his place, looking at the papers that passed on his desk, knowing the people he talked with." Poor James Buchanan,...

Forty-three percent (43%) of American adults now approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. That matches the lowest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports. Fifty-six percent (56%) Disapprove. The President's performance in office earns Approval from 74% of Republicans. Through most of his Administration, the President' has enjoyed solid support from his own party with Approval Ratings among Republicans in the high 80s or low 90s. Eighteen percent (18%) of Democrats, and 35% of those not affiliated with either major political party also give the President their Approval. In New Jersey, the race for...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - A third poll in less than 10 days held bad news for New York's governor, finding Tuesday that George Pataki's approval rating was down and giving him poor odds of winning a fourth term against a potential Democratic contender. A New York Times poll found that Pataki's approval rating had dipped to 43 percent, the lowest since the 33 percent approval rating the Republican scored during his first year in office in 1995. Pataki, who easily won re-election in 2002, has not yet said if he will seek a fourth term. In all three polls, Pataki...

What's wrong with this picture? This month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called the state's pension system "another financial train on another track to disaster" and proposed replacing the state's defined-benefit plans with a defined contribution for state employees hired after June 30, 2006. He also proposed a carrot and stick to entice current employees to opt out of the system starting next year. Yet last week, Moody's Investors Service gave the California Public Employees' Retirement System its highest, Aaa credit rating for a new business CalPERS is entering: Using its pension-fund assets to guarantee municipal bonds issued by states, counties and...

Saturday November 13, 2004--Fifty-six percent (56%) of American voters Approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. This is highest approval rating for the President since January. On Election Day, the President's Job Approval was at 52%. Forty-four percent (44%) of voters continue to disapprove of the President's performance. During all of 2004, the President's Job Approval has ranged from a high of 57% in early January to a low of 48% on May 17

August 13, 2004 Bush Approval at 51% Presidential contest remains tight by David W. Moore Page: 1, 2, 3 Next GALLUP NEWS SERVICE PRINCETON, NJ -- A new Gallup Poll shows a slight improvement in President George W. Bush's overall job approval rating

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's sky-high popularity dropped as division deepened over a budget stalemate dominated by partisan politics, according to a poll released Thursday. Schwarzenegger, who enjoyed near-record performance ratings two months ago, received approval from 57 percent of Californians in a survey from the Public Policy Institute - a fall of 7 percentage points since the group's poll in taken in May. While his approval numbers remained high, the survey found most of the drop came among Democrats and independent voters - two groups that had been most enthusiastic about Schwarzenegger's efforts to remain above the partisan...

In the final days of Governor Gray Davis' tenure, it seemed like the sun had set on California once and for all. After his 2002 reelection, Davis had announced that California was confronted with a deficit of $35 billion -- caused in large part by a gargantuan spending increase of 36% during his years in office, and an explosion of hiring in the public sector, whose unions were among Davis' most reliable supporters. Among the people of California, there was an increasing sense that perhaps the state's problems were insurmountable and that the state itself, controlled by Davis and a...

Web site lets students rate teachers By Christopher Nagy DAILY PRESS & ARGUS The (book)worm has turned. Instead of teachers having a monopoly on handing out assessments of their students, students now have the chance to raise their heads out of their textbooks and give the teacher a grade. And students in Livingston County are taking advantage of the opportunity. All five school districts in Livingston County have postings on www.ratemyteachers.com. As the title suggests, the Web site allows visitors to anonymously rate a teacher's performance in the classroom, ranking them as poor, average, good or cool, as well as...

S&P confirms Israel rating Finance Minister Netanyahu: S&P's decision is a vote of confidence in the government's economic policy. Globes' correspondent 24 Nov 03 17:28Credit rating company Standard & Poor's (S&P) has left its rating for Israel unchanged. The rating will remain at A- for short-term foreign currency debt, and A-1 for long-term foreign currency debt. For local currency debt, the rating is A+ for short-term, and A-1 for long-term. The outlook for Israel's rating remains negative. Minister of Finance Benjamin Netanyahu, who held meeting with the ratings companies in New York two weeks ago, said that S&P's decision was...

SafeSurf - Heterosexuals are Dangerous to ChildrenDate: Saturday, November 15 @ 20:00:19 Topic Opinions SafeSurf Considers Heterosexuals dangerous to ChildrenSafeSurf Rating Since 1975 - Safe Surf - Creating a Child Safe Internet - dedicated to both advancing the process of classifying information on the Internet. "Our first goal is to classify material which may be harmful to children. Responsible choices can then be easily made and systems can be put into place that will screen adult material, restricting the access to minors." The SafeSurf SS~~ Rating Standard Designed with input from thousands of parents and Net citizens to empower...

PRINCETON, NJ -- President Bush's job rating has settled down into the high 50s and low 60s as the rally effect that resulted from the Iraq war has faded. Bush's most recent job rating of 59% is slightly above Gallup's historical average approval rating of 56% for all presidents since Harry Truman, but is also below Bush's term average of 68%. For most of his presidency, Bush has been rated much more highly for his handling of foreign affairs than for his handling of domestic issues such as the economy, and a recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows the trend continuing....

[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Bush: Job Ratings ] [ Bush: Favorability ] <![if lt IE 4]> <![endif]> President Bush: Job RatingsAll data are from nationwide surveys of Americans 18 & older. Polls listed chronologically. Gallup Poll and CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll . "Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?" Approve Disap- prove Don't Know % % % N 8/25-26/03 59 37 4 1,009 8/4-6/03 60 36 4 1,003 7/25-27/03 58 38 4 1,006 7/18-20/03 59 38 3 1,003 7/7-9/03 62 34 4 1,006 6/27-29/03 61 36 3 1,003 6/12-15/03 63 33 4 1,006 6/9-10/03 62 34 4 1,029...

As many of you know, Ann Coulter has published a terrific work called "Treason" which, among other things, documents the complicitness of Democrats with Soviet espionage in America during the 1940's and 1950's. I bought it and I recommend it to everyone- it's an eye-opener which contradicts the liberal rendition of history that we've been handed down about Truman, Joe McCarthy, FDR, and Alger Hiss. The reason I write: many lowlife liberals are giving the book 1 star on Amazon.com to drive down its rating. The book is down to 3 stars out of 5 which is near the bottom...

Please rate President Bush's performance as this web site is under attack from that "other board". Thanks! http://www.industrialjobs.us/message/georgew/message_board.asp -------------------------

<p>Californians think Gov. Gray Davis and the Legislature are doing a lousy job of dealing with the state budget crisis, a new poll shows. And based on what's been happening in the Capitol -- or not happening, more accurately -- the negative attitudes are well justified.</p>