President Barack Obama’s weak leadership on the Afghanistan war, Guantanamo, and the Gulf oil spill has Democrats backing away from him in droves, political analyst Dick Morris tells Newsmax.TV.

“Obama is down to a new low of 43 percent job approval,” Morris says, citing a recent Rasmussen Reports poll. “It’s Democrats he’s losing. He’s about where he always was with Republicans and independents, but it’s the Democrats who are turning on him.”

Morris predicts that the erosion of Obama’s base will continue, making his defeat in 2012 increasingly evident.

The decrease is especially true among Hispanics, who have grown disillusioned with Obama’s immigration policies. A recent Associated Press-Univision survey of 1,500 Hispanics found only 43 percent believe the president has addressed their needs. This contrasts sharply with a Pew Research Center exit poll from the 2008 election that found 67 percent of Hispanics supported Obama.

Obama’s political liabilities could cost the Democrats in the November election regardless of what people such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., might say, Morris says.

Reid claims that healthcare reform will help Democrats even though a recent Rasmussen poll found that 58 percent of voters favor repealing the law.

“I think the Democrats can be dragged down by the healthcare bill,” Morris says. “It’s ridiculous to say that a bill that 58 percent of the country opposes long after it’s been enacted is going to help those who voted for it. That’s kind of fuzzy math, and I believe Harry Reid will be defeated, too.”

Extending the Bush tax cuts also could play into the fall elections, and Morris says it will create an opportunity for the world to see where the “phony” conservative Democrats stand on their extension.

“It’s going to take 60 votes to extend the any of the Bush tax cuts, and therefore only 40 to kill them,” Morris says. “So what all of the conservative Democrats are going to say is, ‘I don’t want to kill all of the Bush tax cuts; I don’t want anybody’s taxes to go up,’ but unfortunately it takes 60 votes extend the lower tax rates to the wealthy.”

Morris predicts these Democrats will posture, then throw in the towel, and Republicans will support extending the Bush tax cuts only if the wealthy are included in the extension.

Republicans “are going to hang tough, I hope, and vote against canceling the cuts on the middle class unless the cuts are also cut on the wealthy,” Morris says. “The whole point of that is it doesn’t make any difference whether the wealthy pay more in taxes . . . but it does make a difference to the economy because a third of all spending is done by those whose taxes are going to go up.”

Taxing the rich will kill the economy because they will stop spending, Morris says.

When asked whether Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., will survive allegations of ethical wrongdoing, Morris says they could make him vulnerable against his primary challenger, Adam Clayton Powell IV. Powell is the son of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., whom Rangel defeated for his seat in 1970 amid a similar ethics cloud.

“Adam Clayton Powell lost that seat because of ethics charges brought against him by the House of Representatives, charges which were largely phony and trumped up by the white conservative Southern majority, which was uncomfortable with a black committee chairman,” Morris says. “The charges against Rangel are completely real.”

Morris believes Rangel’s Harlem voters may do the Ethics Committee a favor and throw him out in his mid-September primary.

Also in the wide-ranging interview, Morris:

• Lambastes the National Rifle Association’s decision to back the Disclose Act, which would reverse the Supreme Court’s allowance of unlimited corporate and union campaign advertising.
• Alleges that the gun group’s rumored decision to back Reid’s re-election puts it in the same category with AARP and the American Medical Association, which he believes sold out their constituencies to back Obama’s healthcare plan.
• Predicts that the healthcare reform act will be repealed after the 2012 election, when a new president is in the White House.

No, seriously, he will, and he seems really geared up for it!

President Obama will sign into law Thursday the Improper Payment Elimination Act — an effort designed to slim down wasteful government programs and curb fraud in federal spending.

“The fact is, Washington is a place where tax dollars are often treated like Monopoly money, bartered and traded, divvied up among lobbyists and special interests,” Obama said in March when he announced the initiative. “And it has been a place where waste — even billions of dollars in waste — is accepted as the price of doing business.”

Got that? It’s not idiot elected officials, including Obama, wasting tax dollars, it’s those pesky lobbyists and special interests. You know, special interests which somehow got Obama to spend $23 million on Kenya’s constitution vote. And all the lobbyists who were awarded tons of breaks and perks in the ObamaCare, Stimulus, and finance bills. But, Barry is pumped

The act will use something known as payments recapture audits, which will pay auditors financial incentives to find improper payments. The White House said it could save $2 billion in taxpayer money over the next three years.

Oooooooooh, $2 billion over 3 years! That’s pocket change in Washington. Heck, I can think of a way we could have saved $862 billion. And we can certainly save some more if Obama would stop having all those parties at the White House. Granted, this is something that needs to be done, yet, you just know it is going to be done in a way that will have little impact.

“Well, I don’t accept business as usual,” the president said in March. “And the American people don’t accept it either, especially when one of the most pressing challenges we face is reining in long-term deficits which threaten to leave our children a mountain of debt.”

I’m speechless on that one.

There is no evidence that Barack Obama willfully precipitated the Nashville floods, but almost all of the other gloomy, intractable quagmires that feed the country’s pessimism are of his creation. But unlike crises of past administrations that seemed to get resolved in some fashion, his simply fester. Every day we read the same headlines, except that the crises deepen, become more insoluble, and grow less amenable to the standard cures of government policy.

Even with a corrupt, compliant liberal media in the role of constant Obama booster, 62% of the country senses that we are headed in the wrong direction. The country has been driven to this opinion by Obama’s flagrant ideological radicalism, which might have been forgiven had it not led to our most pernicious crisis, that of worsening joblessness. Only Obama and Joe Biden believe that the job trajectory in America is positive. Everyone else — those who actually look at data or look for work — are scared witless.

Each job opening has five to six applicants. The average unemployment period now extends to 35 weeks, the highest since the end of WWII. Last month, more than six hundred thousand Americans gave up looking for work. The same report revealed that average hourly earnings for those lucky enough to be working have fallen. Average hours worked also dropped. These figures simply get worse from month to month.

But somehow, all of this deteriorating evidence leads the smartest man who ever held the office of president (according to historian Michael Beschloss) to proclaim that we’re on the right track. Christine Romer and Jared Bernstein, who form the bulwark of his crack economic team, assured us with almost mathematical certainty in 2009 that Obama’s near-trillion-dollar economic stimulus would guarantee unemployment rates that never rose above 7.3%. And since the stimulus has burdened us with trillion-dollar deficits as far as we look, economic and job recoveries grow ever more distant and unlikely. As unemployment, debt, uncertainly, and pessimism grow unabated, so too does our sense of hopelessness and crisis. Israel might fear Obama because his middle name is Hussein, but many others fear him because his first name is “president.”

The sense of crisis is palpable in the Gulf as well, where along with 60,000 barrels of light crude and thousands of cubic feet of natural gas, a potentially toxic and carcinogenic stew of benzene, toluene, and hydrogen sulfide also constantly spew. Our only hope of salvation lies with the ingenuity and resources of BP. BP has brought the Discoverer Enterprise on site to collect some of the effluent a mile above the geyser. Only BP had the infrastructure, skill, and operation scale to bring two relief wells into play should their latest gambit to cap the open Macondo wellhead fail. At the same time, Obama’s Coast Guard offers America spokesmen to assure us that they approve of all BP actions and occasionally verify that crew members of assisting ships are wearing their life jackets.

There are two executives who own the crisis in the Gulf: Tony Hayward of BP and Barack Obama from Washington, D.C. Hayward was relieved of all operational Gulf rescue duties and will probably be fired when the discharge is contained. Obama, because of a quirk of constitutional government, remains in charge of the unending polluting crisis. His government awarded BP kudos for safety, accepted the highest level of funding from the firm’s PAC, and forced BP to accept a terribly flawed flow model to calculate the probability of oil reaching shore after a major underwater breach. Obama is at least as culpable for the deaths of pelicans, sea turtles, and marshlands, and for the loss of fishing and tourist revenue, as is Hayward. The difference is that BP acted after their malfeasance, while the government reaction was and is almost comic in its bureaucratic lethargy.

War in Afghanistan is the final crisis about to engulf Obama. The man, who once accused American troopers of killing innocent Afghan civilians, is now in charge of America’s longest war. He has fired its most recent field commander and, in a cruel irony, replaced him with George Bush’s most successful general, whose Iraqi success Obama once ridiculed as illusory.

Bush and Petraeus succeeded in Iraq because Petraeus had a splendid counterinsurgency strategy and knew he would never be betrayed by his commander in chief, no matter how intense the political pressure against the war became. Obama can promise no such allegiance to Petraeus, who must grasp victory in an environment where the Taliban knows that Obama’s patience is finite. Still Obama, must attempt to succeed because he has held up the Afghan war as true and just, in contrast to Bush’s so-called war of choice in Iraq.

At some point, the left will revolt against Obama’s halfhearted Afghan war prosecution as they did against LBJ’s endless enterprise in Vietnam. Last month was the deadliest for American soldiers, and many Australians, along with the British and the Dutch, are beginning to say they’ve had enough. We might know that a true moment of crisis has arrived when the radical fringe openly references the recent stories of Afghanistan’s mineral riches and pens protest signs that read: “Obama, No Blood for Lithium!”

The Obama presidency will irreversibly collapse once his kook antiwar base abandons him. Since that moment will come only after the country has been traumatized by depression-level unemployment and unending images of Gulf coast filth, the worry is that we might not even notice it.

Remember that guy you went to high school with? You know, the one with the rich parents. The one who drove a Porsche to school and wore the slickest clothing. The one with a pool in the backyard and the Xbox and the tennis court.

You thought he was a jerk then. He’s still a jerk now.

Only now, he’s president of the United States. His parents didn’t buy him the SUV and the tickets to the concerts and the jet rides to New York. You did.

As the rest of the country suffers through a real unemployment rate of about 20 percent according to certain estimates, President Obama takes jaunts to Maine with his family — and he makes sure to fly his dog, Bo, into town on a separate jet. He holds concerts at the White House, where he and Michelle get to watch Nathan Lane make gay jokes and Elaine Stritch croak out her signature tunes while averring, “I’d love to get drunk with the president.” In case you didn’t catch President Obama’s last White House concert, make sure to tune into PBS on July 28 for a replay of his June 2 event featuring Sir Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello, the Jonas Brothers, Herbie Hancock and Faith Hill, among others.

According to press reports, President Obama has played 41 rounds of golf since his accession to office. He’s played seven of those rounds since April 20, when the Gulf oil spill occurred. How many rounds of golf have you played since the beginning of the recession in July 2008?

Probably not many. Because you work for a living. President Obama, by contrast, perks for a living. And he’s constantly shocked that those of us who do work expect others to work for a living, too.

That’s why he sees no problem whatsoever in feasting on ice cream and lobster in Bar Harbor, while lecturing Republicans about their cruelty in holding up yet another extension of “unemployment benefits” (that phrase gets scare quotes once you’ve been on the unemployment rolls for two years). That’s why Obama makes conspicuous consumption his lifestyle, even as he scoffs at the exploding national debt. He’s enjoying the good life; why shouldn’t you? He’s not working; why should you? Let those benighted conservative businesspeople sweat it out — President Obama is inviting you to a free taxpayer-funded vacation.

That’s just the kind of Man Of The People he is. He never had to do a thing of value for his $5 million per year earnings, his Tony Rezko-brokered property in Illinois, and his current Oval Office gratuities. Why should you have to do something simply to pay your rent? Stick with him, kid, and you’ll never go hungry again.

That’s why it’s great to be Obama’s buddy — a union member, a liberal African-American, a pro-illegal immigration Hispanic, a Wall Street crony. You know that Obama will lend you a buck or two. He’s just like that high school kid with the Rolex: If you hang out with him long enough, kiss his posterior and talk about what a terrific guy he is, you’re bound to enter his clique. And once you do, the benefits flow forth from daddy’s checkbook.

But at least the high school sleazeball had to answer to Daddy; if Daddy saw the depleting bank account, he’d take away the credit card. Obama has no daddy. He’s the teenage kid with no credit limit — and all the responsible adults have been shipped out of town on a rail.

It’s not that the president of the United States isn’t allowed a little down time. It’s that he finds it so easy to slack off using our money, while the rest of us bear down. But that’s the story of his life: he’s always lived on our dime. There’s only one problem: all leeches need a live body to suck dry. If we’re all leeches, we all die.

But Obama’s not worried about that. That’s thinking long term, which has apparently been banned along with trans fats and affordable ammunition. Instead, Obama wants increased focus on those who are suffering now. Specifically, Obama wants increased focus on how they, too, can become permanent barnacles on the buttocks of society.

We should have seen it coming. Obama’s not just the first mixed-race president. He’s the First Moocher. And he’s all for equality of opportunity when it comes to mooching.

It’s no secret that President Obama has a golf addiction and that Michelle Obama can officially be called a “golf widow.”  But the media silence and the left’s defense is rather humorous as golf tends to be an elitist sport—exactly the image the left does not want to portray.

Remember during the campaign, Obama called it “country club economics” while using a picture/video of John McCain and former president George H.W. Bush (Bush 41) arriving at a press conference via golf cart.  Oh, the hypocrisy—after Obama arrived at the G8 at Deerhurst Resort—guess what he traveled in—you guessed it, a golf cart. Country club economics, indeed.

The left taking that photo and video out of context (imagine that) is quite offensive (imagine that), while their defense of Obama’s golfing is laughable by any double standards.  And Americans bought the perception hook, line, and sinker—even when Bush, McCain, and the two others weren’t in golf garb, and the media knew they were headed to the press conference.

To that end, let’s examine Obama’s golf and former president George W. Bush’s (Bush 43) golf outings.  According to this report by Keith Koffler:

The former community organizer’s 41 trips around the links – a standard of recreational activity well beyond the budgets of most Americans – compares to only 24 total outings for former President George W. Bush, according to statistics compiled by White House chronicler Mark Knoller of CBS News.

Bush’s last round of golf was on October 13, 2003 and he commented to Politico some time later:

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

Americans have every right to be critical of Obama at this point as he is so disconnected and apathetic from Afghanistan and most factors plaguing Americans, including unemployment, the Gulf oil spill, the non-recovering economy, and suffering small businesses.  The media was ever so critical of Bush and the Republicans as country clubbers that they ignore Obama consistently playing at some of the most prestigious courses in the country during these troubled times where we have Obama nationalizing several segments of the US economy and a record number of people on food stamps, in addition to a record number of foreclosures, bank closings, and national debt.

Moreover, golf is most definitely not a poor-man’s sport as average greens fees hover around $60 per person for 18 holes with a cart.  It also takes about five hours to shoot 18 holes as Koffler notes:

With the excursions lasting on average at least five hours, the president has devoted a total of more than 200 hours to golf, not counting time spent on the White House putting green. That’s the equivalent of twenty five eight-hour work days, or five work weeks spent smacking golf balls.

There aren’t many middle class Americans who can afford to take that time off in this economy—especially the self-employed.

There is also another aspect to Obama’s golf outings–what about Michelle and the girls, Sasha and Malia.  They appear to be an afterthought on so many weekends and even on Father’s Day and the morning of July 4—Malia’s 12^th birthday—both of which Obama played golf.

Obama’s narcissism shows his blatant insensitivity for his wife, his daughters, the plight of the American people, and the fallen.  Finally, Obama’s apathy, his dependency on teleprompters, and country club play time truly makes one wonder, who really is in charge because he’s on a permanent holiday and it’s always party time at the White House.  Seriously, he just got back from vacation, shouldn’t he get to work?

I had a little fun in this space recently with Obama’s Saturday Radio Address, during which he suggested Republicans actually WANT people to suffer in order to gain a political edge. That the Democrats have made this approach to governance a cornerstone of their success should not be lost on anyone here; Democrats get elected when they have more handouts to promise to potential voters than Republicans. Then, they go about the business of keeping their constituents down so they can up the ante come the next election cycle.

This is a terribly cynical approach to life, and a wholly unproductive way to move America forward. It is also the best way to lose an election at a time when the country has finally been awakened to the class wars this Administration has been quietly waging across America. Republicans might be the party of “NO” but Democrats have been busying themselves with the business of becoming the party of “LOSE” and it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people.

Barely 2 days after suggesting that Republicans were intent on making “their stand on the backs of the unemployed,” Obama once again ups the ante:

President Obama Monday called on Congress to pass an extension of benefits for out-of-work Americans, accusing Senate Republicans of a “lack of faith in the American people” for repeatedly blocking passage of a bill.

After introducing three Americans whose benefits are expiring, the president complained that “after years of championing policies that turned a record surplus into a massive deficit,” Republicans “who didn’t have any problems spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are now saying we shouldn’t offer relief to middle-class Americans like Jim or Leslie or Denise who really need help.”
[snip]
“That attitude, I think, reflects a lack of faith in the American people,” said Mr. Obama. “Because the Americans I hear from, in letters and town hall meetings, Americans like Leslie and Jim and Denise — they’re not looking for a handout. They desperately want to work. It’s just, right now, they can’t find a job.”

I’ll not bother re-arguing Obama’s outright lie about the surplus, I’ll ignore his willful ignorance about the extent to which he is directly and personally responsible for why Leslie and Jim and Denise can’t find a job…hell, I’ll even let go that little flash of stupidity about tax cuts for the rich (refusing to point out how much Fed revenues actually increased after them)…but I can’t give Obama a pass on his suggestion that Republicans somehow have a “lack of faith in the American people.”

The lack of faith in the American people is based on Obama’s belief that “we, the People” are not capable of making our own decisions about what might be best for us without the constant drumbeat of Legislative intervention(s) in the daily dealings of the private sector (Erick Erickson sums this up quite nicely, by the way). These things are Democrat perversions of Liberty and Freedom, not Republican ones. Further, Obama’s suggestion later in this piece that this is a time in our nation when elections should be put aside in the interest of taking care of the people is stunning, if not hysterically funny:

“These are honest, decent, hardworking folks who have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own and who have nowhere else to turn except unemployment benefits and who need emergency relief to help them weather this economic storm,” he said.

“It’s time to stop holding workers laid off in this recession hostage to Washington politics,” said the president. “It’s time to do what’s right, not for the next election, but for the middle class.”

“I know it’s getting close to an election, but there are times where you put elections aside,” he added. “This is one of those times.”

It’s getting close to an election, and Democrats know they are about to lose it…specifically because of what they’ve done to this country. Note, for the record, that Obama is NOT campaigning on what he HAS done but rather he wants us to focus on what the Minority has not allowed him to do. The problem here, however, is that the Democrats have been in the Majority in Congress for the past two legislative sessions. Democrats have held both gavels of Leadership and have done what…exactly…about the hostages they’ve been holding? When Obama says “people have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own” just where does he want us to lay blame? At the feet of the minority in Congress, through sessions of Congress where bill after bill has been shoved down the throats of the minority with no time to even read them, let alone be allowed to offer amendments?

Really?

How stupid Democrats must think we are, that we would allow their Leader to tell us not only how to live, where to go for our entitlement checks, what healthcare coverage to get, and whether or not we’re too fat? How naive they must also be to presume we need them to tell us who to blame for not getting MORE than they insist they have already given us?

So long as Obama and the Democrats are allowed by us to get away with praising themselves for what they’ve accomplished, are given a pass on the fact that takeovers on a massive scale of the private sector have destroyed it, and that they have made these things more of a priority than easing the struggles of the American people…they will get re-elected.

More and more, people are beginning to realize that just can not be allowed to happen.

The Obama administration, re-energized by the apparently successful test-capping of the BP oil spill in the Gulf, and its landmark legislative victory on financial reform, is marshalling its forces for one last push to squeeze a cap-and-trade energy bill through Congress.

The president took a cautiously optimistic approach to his comments about the latest efforts to contain the oil spill. Speaking from the Rose Garden Friday morning he acknowledged the outcome remains uncertain.

“But we are making steady progress,” he said, “and I think the American people should take some heart in the fact that we’re making progress on this front.”

The House has already passed a version of cap-and-trade legislation. Sources say a less ambitious Senate version could come to the floor within two weeks.

“If not now, when?” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told The New York Times. “We have to move to do something about our dependence on foreign oil. That’s what this legislation is all about.”

The strategy for getting a new bill through the Senate is to pare it down, so that instead of targeting all carbon emissions it would seek to restrict only the carbon pollution coming from power plants.

To help sell the bill to skeptical senators, President Barack Obama will likely try to leverage ongoing public concern about the oil spill in the Gulf.

He took this approach in his June 15 speech from the Oval Office, when he cited the oil spill as urgent proof that Congress must act quickly and overcome what he called “a lack of political courage and candor.”

“Today, as we look to the Gulf, we see an entire way of life being threatened by a menacing cloud of black crude,” Obama said. “We cannot consign our children to this future. The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now.”

If the administration can get even a modest energy bill through the Senate, it would then head to a conference committee where it would be blended with the much stronger version of the legislation already passed by the House.

As long as millions of gallons of oil were bleeding into the Gulf, pivoting to climate-change legislation carried heavy political risks. But analysts expect carbon-pollution legislation to now emerge phoenix-like from the clearing plumes of oil near the Horizon Deepwater wellhead.

The crisis caused by the Gulf oil spill, in other words, is one the administration does not intend to waste.

“I think that’s exactly the plan, especially if they’re pairing this bill with some sort of penalty for the oil industry in the bill, whether stricter regulation or higher liability caps,” Nick Loris, researcher in energy and environmental issues for the Heritage Foundation, tells Newsmax. “If they see members of Congress aren’t supporting this bill, they’re going to say they’re front men for the oil groups.”

Democrats are also presenting the new energy bill as somehow relevant to job creation.

“This, as I’ve indicated, is a huge jobs bill,” Reid has said.

Obama has begun to link jobs and green energy with two energy-themed tours in as many weeks. On Thursday he visited a Holland, Mich., firm that makes electric-car batteries. Last week, he gave a speech at Smith Electric Vehicles, located in Kansas City, Mo. He used both trips to tout the economic advantages of renewable energy.

Rather than focus on all sources of carbon pollution, the bill to be submitted now that the BP oil spill appears to be coming under control will seek to limit carbon emissions from power plants only. Electric utilities are responsible for approximately one-third of carbon emissions produced in the United States.

The question is whether the administration can muster support for even a reduced carbon-tax bill in the waning months before the midterm elections.

Although three Republican senators – Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine – broke ranks with the GOP over financial regulatory reform Thursday, but sources tell Newsmax Republican senators have religiously stuck to the party line over carbon taxes due to their impact on the economy.

“They’ve been very united when it comes to energy regulation,” Loris says. “This is an energy tax, and they know that with the November elections coming up, they know that rushing this legislation through Congress is not going to happen.”

It is also an open question how many Democrats will support the Senate proposal. Democrats from coal-producing states, many of which have already been hit hard by the struggling economy, have joined together under the “Brown Dog Democrats” banner to defend their states’ interests.

Politico.com has identified the following Democratic senators who are reluctant to vote for any legislation that would diminish the demand for coal:

Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Blanche Lincoln and Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jim Webb of Virginia and John D. Rockefeller of West Virginia.

Senators from coal producing regions, especially those up for re-election in November, will be very skittish about putting their names to any legislation that could reduce the demand for coal or hurt their local economies.

Also, Republicans plan to question whether the benefit of restricting power-plant emissions would be worth the spike in the cost of all forms of energy that some analysts believe would result.

“We’re talking huge economic costs for very little, if any, gain,” Loris tells Newsmax.

The Heritage Foundation has cited studies showing that an across-the-board carbon-tax on all emissions would only reduce global temperatures by one-tenth of one degree Celsius by the end of the century.

Democrats are expected to introduce their more modest energy bill in the Senate the week of July 26.

“It’s going to raise the price of energy across the board,” Loris adds. “It’s going to raise gasoline prices, and worst of all it’s not going to make a lick of difference in terms of climate effects.”

It’s encouraging to see the American people finally wake up to Obama’s true intentions of his fundamental transformation of America, and November can’t get here fast enough to retake the Congress or at minimum, the House.   Two polls being reported today include one from CBS:

Mr. Obama’s approval rating on the economy has tumbled five percentage points from last month, according to a new CBS News poll, with just 40 percent of those polled expressing full confidence in his actions.

More than half of those questioned (54 percent) said they disapproved of Mr. Obama’s handling of the economy. Last month, 45 percent approved. The drop in approval has been seen mostly among independents, just 35 percent of whom now say they approve.

The other poll is from ABC/WaPo, which has Obama at a 43% approval rating, and as Ed Morrissey over at HotAir notes is not an outlier and is confirmation that Rasmussen has been right all along.

Even with America voicing serious concerns with Obama and his radical administration, he does still get his legislation passed–which is alarming, destructive, and disturbing.  The cronyism in DC, coupled with the bribes, back-scratching, and deceptive branding of bills, is further evidence that Washington needs a political enema to, er, flush itself of the waste.

Let’s recap what Obama has bullied Congress into passing against the consent of the governed:

1. “Stimulus” bill passes

2.) Cap and trade passes House

3.) Health care passes

4.) Financial regulation expected to pass

5.) Global warming, climate change, clean energy being pushed through under an emergency

6.) Immigration fight ensuing

7.) Donald Berwick recess appointment

Throw in some unpopular executive orders along with the bullying from Pelosi and Reid, and the result is Congress has rendered itself irrelevant and obsolete and Obama has basically completed his transformation within the first two years of his administration.  All foundations and centralization in place.  All systems go.

Exit questions:  If Obama passes his agenda now, will he run in 2012?  Can he win again?

The mask is off the progressive/Democrat agenda and the majority of America wants no part of it.  It will be worth watching how this unfolds, but know this Hillary is Obama lite–and from the Alinsky school of thought–which destroys the “haves” and takes it away and gives it back to the “have-nots” who had it stolen from them in the view of the left.

One final thought:  most of this legislation is to take effect after the 2010 elections and the 2012 presidential election.  So, if the Republicans win and take back Congress and the presidency and all of this progressive and oppressive legislation takes effect, will the Democrats take the blame or the Republicans if they are control.  The Republicans were the “party of no.”  That political brand may be hard to change.

But, that’s a Democrat–must have it both ways as we have seen over and over.  Democrats ”help” the people, while effectively enslaving them with handouts.  I wonder if the African-American community even realizes that it was the Republicans (read the entire post) who championed civil rights and the Democrats who denied them and enslaved them again through permanent welfare and government handouts.

More from 73wire.com:

Obama Losing Faith Of The American People

I’ve long believed Barack Obama was in over his head; qualifications for being President of the most powerful country on earth extend well beyond community organizer and State/US Senator that likes voting “present” because it’s the safe way to avoid having his positions on the issues clearly defined. There might be a time and a place for non-committal vagaries and ambiguity, but it is certainly not at this point in American history…nor is it acceptable to be coming from the leader of the free world.

Apparently, almost 60% of Americans agree:

On the question of Obama’s leadership, 42 percent of registered voters now say they have confidence that he will make the right decisions for the country, with 58 saying they do not. At the start of his presidency, about six in 10 expressed confidence in his decision-making.

Obama’s overall job-approval rating stands at 50 percent, equaling his low point in Post-ABC polling; 47 percent disapprove of the job he is doing. For the first time in his presidency, those who strongly disapprove now significantly outnumber those who strongly approve.

Among those who say they definitely will vote in November, 53 percent disapprove of the way he is handling his responsibilities.

The president’s approval ratings reached a new low among whites, at 40 percent, with his positive marks dipping under 50 percent for the first time among white college-educated women.

Is it any wonder that support is slipping among white voters when Obama has stood aside and allowed racial tensions to worsen? His calculated silence on his own Department of Justice’s policy to wink at those who would terrorize their own neighbors at polling places, or establish an unwritten policy in which they will NOT pursue black on white crime, does nothing to ease the tensions between the races. Or, stand by in selective ignorance as a member of the New Black Panther party calls for the killing of white babies…or their fearless leader suggests they are ready to rumble with the Tea party. Or single out (seeking to favor) Muslims in his NASA program (telling Al Jazeera about if BEFORE telling his own Congress). Or allow the NAACP to approve a resolution calling the Tea Party a bunch of racists without speaking out against the anti-white hatred being spewed directly from the mouths of members of the Black community…why is there any surprise?

Why isn’t there any outrage?

Obama has made race more of an issue than any President in the last 20 years (save for a little “I am the first black President” nonsense from Bill Clinton). And with his performance in the areas of health care, the economy, jobs…the Federal takeover of increasingly larger chunks of the private sector…his approval numbers are not a surprise; Americans have caught on to Obama’s true intentions, and they don’t approve. The poll cited above only bears out what we already knew…Obama and Democrat control of America will not last much longer.

Michelle Obama visited the Gulf coast today, and suggested that Americans who are planning vacations this summer consider taking them in the Gulf region as a sign of economic solidarity with those impacted by the oil spill.

From ABC’s Jake Tapper:

On her first trip to the Gulf Coast since the BP oil spill, First Lady Michelle Obama encouraged Americans to consider vacationing on the region’s beaches that have not been directly impacted by oil.

“It is vacation time. Folks are looking for things to do with their kids, and this would be a great opportunity to do a few things — help this community, send a different message about the extent of the spill, and also think long term about how the rest of the country can help this economy and the folks down here,” Mrs. Obama said at the Panama City Welcome Center.

If you want to ask the Obamas why it’s so important that you take your vacation this year in the Gulf region, feel free to track them down this weekend while they’re on vacation… in Maine:

President Obama and the first family are planning a short vacation in Maine this weekend, traveling Down East on Friday for three days on Mt. Desert Island, the home of Acadia National Park, according to the office of U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, Democrat of Maine.

The Obamas will arrive Friday and stay through Sunday, Pingree said in a statement.

“What an honor that the Obama family has chosen Maine for vacation when they could have gone anywhere in the country,” said Pingree.

Well, not anywhere — it’s just that in Maine there aren’t any tar balls for a thousand miles so daddy can safely brag that he has in fact plugged the hole.

If the First Lady is actually interested in helping the Gulf economy, forget about where they’re vacationing — she might consider convincing her husband to stop pursuing a drilling moratorium that is driving oil rigs, and the direct and ancillary jobs they provide, to other countries.

President Obama has wasted little time in using his executive branch power to give the country a leftward shove. In just the past few weeks, the administration has ramped up programs intended to reshape conceptions of the family. When it comes to moral values, it is clear that radical leftists are driving the agenda.

On June 10, the State Department unveiled new “transgender” passports that will be issued to anyone who finds the question of “are you male or female?” difficult to answer. To qualify, one must produce a doctor’s note confirming the gender confusion. Bearers will be treated with special care, as U.S. officials have been instructed to “only ask appropriate questions to obtain information necessary to determine citizenship and identity,” according to a State Department news release. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health helped re-write the rules to ensure the primary goal at the border is acceptance of those offended by the concept of “man” or “woman.”

Even hardened criminals can enjoy the special treatment. The Department of Justice last month posted the availability of a $75,000 grant to pay for the creation of guidelines for prison workers who might deal with “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) offenders.” The goal of the taxpayer-funded program is the “identification of policy and practice with unintended consequences that can negatively affect LGBTI offenders.” Prison, apparently, is a place where respecting the feelings of inmates should be a top priority.

Mr. Obama expressed his support for such priorities by using his Father’s Day proclamation to elevate the status of homosexual “families” as if they could rear our youth just as well as a traditional family consisting of a mom (female) and dad (male). “Nurturing families come in many forms, and children may be raised by a father and mother, a single father, two fathers, a stepfather, a grandfather or caring guardian,” he wrote.

Kids with two mommies and two daddies happens to be the goal of the Labor Department‘s latest policy. The department is using the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to force companies to accept up to 12 weeks of leave every year for homosexual couples that adopt children. The Obama administration issued a ruling that modified the definition of “son or daughter” so that homosexual couples could take extra time off to “bond with that child.” The change is designed to appeal to fringe, left-wing activists. “The Labor Department‘s action today sends a clear message to workers and employers alike: All families, including LGBT families, are protected by the FMLA,” Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis explained in a June 22 statement.

Mr. Obama‘s policies are undermining the foundation of the family itself. For the long-term good of the country, members of Congress should take note of what’s happening and act to undo the radical social agenda.