BloggeRhythms

Today’s most interesting because while a couple of items dispel the burgeoning anti-Trump frenzy with facts from the real world, another illustrates similar unexpected happenstances marring the plans of the revered Obama shortly after he took office.    

While leading Democrats, along with the MSM continue to hammer, rail and snipe in efforts to  prove Trump unworthy of the presidency, the “Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 55% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Forty-five percent (45%) disapprove.”

For comparison purposes, while Trump’s been in office for only three and a half weeks, according to Scott Clement and Emily Guskin @washingtonpost.com on January 17th: Obama’s “approval ratings were underwater in July 2015, when 45 percent approved and 50 percent disapproved of his performance. But his overall approval grew to a steady 50 percent by January 2016, and rose again to 56 percent in June, never falling below the mid-50s through the fall campaign. 

“The latest Post-ABC poll shows Obama hitting 60 percent approval, with 38 percent disapproving — his highest mark since June of his first year in office, when 65 percent approved of him.” 

Which means that Trump, who averaged slightly above 30% in approval within his own party during the Republican presidential campaign, seems to be doing a remarkable job approval-wise for a guy who just walked into the Oval Office without an iota of governing experience before in his life.  

As far as the current spy situation concerned Rasmussen found that: “Fifty-three percent (53%) of Republicans and 50% of voters not affiliated with either major political party feel U.S. spy agencies have their own political agenda. Just 39% of Democrats agree. “

At the same time: “Nearly half (48%) also believe most reporters are biased against the president. Only 12% think they are biased for Trump, while 31% feel most reporters try to be fair and balanced. Needless to say, Republicans and Democrats strongly disagree in their assessments of the media.”

Trump also comes out on the positive side in regard to the immigration issue whereas: “A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of Likely U.S. Voters believe increasing the number of refugees from Syria, Iraq and other suspect Middle Eastern and African countries poses an increased national security risk to the United States. Thirty-three percent (33%) disagree, while 12% are undecided.”

And then, in a different, and quite powerful kind of measure regarding perceptions of Trump’s performance, Bob Bryan writes about what investors and the stock-holding public currently think @businessinsider.com:

“Most recently, the Nasdaq composite index has set a record-high close seven days in a row, which is the longest streak since 1999. Additionally, the S&P 500, the Dow Jones industrial average, and the Nasdaq have all hit closing records at the same time for five straight days, the longest triple winning streak in 25 years. 

“The impressive statistics don't stop there. 

“Stocks have not seen a 1% decrease since October 11, the longest such streak since at least 2006, though that started before Trump's election in November. 

“Finally, stocks are in the midst of the second-longest bull market in history, beat out only by the run from 1987 to 2000.” 

Aside from the surging markets, yesterday another indicator of confidence came from retail sales performance which is a more "hard data" measure of how much consumers are actually spending. Expectations were beaten “across the board.” 

While there’s still a “gap between the survey-based expectations, or soft data, and the hard data that measures activity,” signs do “point to increased confidence.” 

After digesting the evidence of Trump’s delivering in area’s of great importance to the nation’s economy, although facing hurdles regarding his national security advisor pick, the thought occurred to research similar setbacks by others, particularly Obama.  
   
What was found was an article by Chris Stirewalt @FoxNews.com on Tuesday. 

Stirewalt began by noting that at the start: “President Obama was like FDR. No, wait. Like Lincoln. Hold on. He’s really Mr. Spock."

From there it was explained that former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was to coordinate the “centerpiece of his administration: a massive restructuring of the American health care system.”

“But revolutionizing American health care was just part of the transformation. The way government itself operated would change as well. Accordingly, the president ordered the creation of the position of “chief performance officer” and tapped management consultant extraordinaire Nancy Killefer to launch the office.”

“With a master’s in business from M.I.T. and a sterling record at mega-consultancy McKinsey & Co., Killefer was going to give the federal government the equivalent of a colonoscopy to root out waste, inefficiency and outmoded practices.”

While pushing a $775 billion spending package “that looked suspiciously like Washington business as usual,” Obama said “No,” vowing Killefer would take “unprecedented measures to ensure that taxpayers keep track of how this money is spent.” 

Allowing that his plan would cause the “deficit spending about which had been so bitterly complaining under his predecessor to further skyrocket.” Obama promised, that the best practices imposed by Killefer and her fellows would ensure that the tide of red ink would soon be turned back and balanced budgets would return”

“But then **poof** both she and Daschle were gone.”

“They had both failed to pay some of their taxes and having just pushed through Timothy Geithner’s nomination as treasury secretary despite his own tax foibles, the president and his administration had no appetite for further embarrassments of the same kind.

“And in one day, the narrative changed. The transformational technocratic president and his team became bumblers whose arrogance and lack of experience was putting everything at risk. By April, the health law was a mess and the stimulus was a “shovel-ready” joke.”

Stirewalt then presents the very astute, and certainly accurate premise that: “Now, we have no idea what twists and turns will follow Flynn’s late-night ejection from the Trump bubble. But we can know that this is one of those moments when the impossible expectations of a presidency come hurtling earthward.”

In conclusion, Stirewalt again puts the situation into the simplest of human terms, writing: “The good thing about the stumbles of presidential administrations is how they remind Americans of the real limits of practical power in our system. Remember that the best argument against conspiracy theories is the rank evidence of human incompetence everywhere.

“If the Nixon administration couldn’t cover up a botched burglary do you think it really faked the moon landing?”

So, Stirewalt’s timely article serves to prove today’s original objective, finding proofs that Trump’s far from alone in presidential early misstepping. What was unexpected, however, was discovering the magnitude of Obama’s original personnel errors, which ultimately involved the development stages of one of the biggest disasters in the nation’s lawmaking history, Obamacare.

And what's more, both participants turned out to be tax-evaders despite the pre-screening, background-checking and in-depth interviewing taking place prior to their hiring. Underlining Stirewalt’s point about “the real limits of practical power in our system “

That's it for today folks.

Adios