Ouch.

I am not a big one for polling organizations like Gallup that generally only poll “adults” (which can mean literally anything as far as methodology goes), as compared to outfits like Zogby and Rasmussen that poll “registered voters” and “likely voters”, which is a much more accurate methodology.

On the other hand, when ANY poll shows these type of numbers, it is worth noting.

From Gallup:

A new low of 26% of Americans approve of President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy, down 11 percentage points since Gallup last measured it in mid-May and well below his previous low of 35% in November 2010.

Maybe more interesting and consequential is the continuing erosion of independent support for the president:

Obama earns scant support on the issues among Republicans, and does not do much better among independents. In contrast to Democrats’ majority approval of Obama on all seven issues tested, fewer than half of independents approve of the president’s handling of any of these.

As I first noted in 2009, general independent support for Democrats has been steadily eroding and that has also spilled over into Obama’s numbers, in particular. Since it is virtually impossible for a Democrat to win a national election without a very high percentage of the indie vote, this bodes quite ill for Obama at present. Granted, it is still a good 14.5 months until the election, but this cannot be very comforting for the White House.

Of course, I have long said that I do not really expect Obama to even be on the 2012 ticket, as I have long had a feeling that his own party will “Nixon” him out well before. Anyway, at the very least, I expect multiple primary challengers to him come early 2012. Ala Ted Kennedy in 1980 and just as serious. Polls with these type of results only help cement that belief.

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Well, I suppose we can chalk this one up next to Pelosi’s claim that unemployment benefits “create” jobs.

Video courtesy CNS News:

So, I suppose he is saying the non-food stamp dollar that I spend does not “generate” the same amount of economic “activity”? He seems to forget that the money being taken from the taxpayer in the first place, is a net loss for the economy, as it could have been used on the consumption, saving or investment side. Not to help someone buy a steak and bag of chips.

The seepage from Michelle’s lead-based veggie garden is obviously seeping into the D.C. Water system, as once someone enters the confines of the Beltway, they immediately park their brains at the Capitol’s door.

Doug Powers puts it correctly:

I can’t help but wonder though… if every dollar of food stamps puts $1.84 into the economy, instead of the $860 billion stimulus, why didn’t the administration just send every single American $2,800 worth of food stamps and thereby generate $1.58 trillion in economic activity?

This is what passes for “intelligence” in today’s world.

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For sure, there have been an endless stream of WTF moments that have come from the Obama administration since it took power 2.5 years ago. From a President who needs a teleprompter to speak with schoolkids, to a vice-president who says that more spending needed to reduce the deficit (and who also thinks JOBS is a three letter word), to a Treasury secretary who did not pay his own taxes, the litany is endless. Utterly and completely endless.

However, we now might finally have the most deranged statement to come forth from an administration staff member yet.

Jay Carney, White Press secretary (which has to be the easiest job in the world, since all you are doing is lying to a bunch of Cookie Cutter Yes Men who nod their heads like a bobbing bird water toy), showed he must have eaten some of Michelle’s lead based veggies as he uttered a whopper that would even embarrass Goebbels.

Via Real Clear Politics (Hat Tip: Doug Powers)

“Well, two things remain uncontestably true. The economy is vastly improved from what it was when Barack Obama was sworn into office as president. We were in economic free-fall. There were predictions that we were headed to the second Great Depression. We were losing up to, over 700,000 jobs a month, we were contracting at greater than 6 percent — our economy was. So, the economy has improved. It has not improved enough.

“Well, there’s no question that we face headwinds, and the president has been very direct about that. And we need to do everything we can, across the front, to ensure we’re doing what we can to spur growth, spur job creation.”

Powers notes the obvious:

When Obama took office the unemployment rate was 7.2 percent — today, two and a half years later, it’s 9.2 percent. Gas was about $1.79 a gallon when Obama took office. Today it’s $3.68. There are around 13 million more people on food stamps today than there were in January of 2009. Sure, almost anybody can find statistics to suit their own argument, but all finger pointing to cast blame aside, if Carney actually believes it’s “uncontestably true” that the economy has “vastly improved” since January of 2009, he needs an uncontested psych evaluation.

Not to mention, real un/underemployment is actually closer to 20%, the number of homes that are now underwater has increased early 600% in the same time frame and a tremendous amount of capital is locked up tight. By companies, large and small, waiting to see when the next shoe will drop, either from regulation, or from the latest Executive Order SWAT Team, that will swoop in, seize assets and fire the CEO. (Oh yeah, $7 trillion has been added to the debt in that time, as well)

Pretty bad when the “good old days” are only 3+ years old.

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Unlike the administration, the economic recovery is so transparent that no can see it. Least of all, the industries that power the economy in the first place.

From FOX Business News:

The Commerce Department
said new orders for manufactured goods dropped by 1.2% in June, on the heels of May’s 1.8% decline and worse than the 0.5% decrease economists were predicting.

New orders have now fallen for two consecutive months.

Shipments of manufactured durable goods, also down two months in a row now, eased 0.8% following May’s 1.8% decrease. Durable goods are big-ticket items that usually last at least three years.

In the new orders category, transportation equipment fell 2%, the largest falloff and now down in four of the last five months. Orders for construction machinery fell 23.2% from May.

On the other hand, the Dems can feel all fuzzy and warm that no one is “overspending” by actually buying a home.

From CNBC:

Contracts for pending sales of previously owned U.S. homes fell to a record low in June as buyers sat on the sidelines, a survey from the National Association of Realtors showed on Tuesday.

The Realtors said its Pending Home Sales Index, based on contracts signed in June, fell to a record low 75.7 from a revised 77.7 in May. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a rise of 0.6 percent.

“We really need to see stronger job creation to have a meaningful recovery in the housing markets,” said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun, adding “there could be a couple of additional months of slow home-sales activity before picking up later in the year” if the job market improves.

Job creation? Outside of being an ACORN/SEUI strongman or federal paper pusher, good luck even finding a job flipping hamburgers.

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Forget those giant income, capital gains, MengeleCare and death tax rate increases that are scheduled to kick in on January 1, 2011. Here is something to really get your dander up.

And just like those millions of jobs, soda machines in San Francisco and salt shakers in New York City that are going the way of the Dodo bird, those unprecedented, historic and massive Obama “tax cuts” might just disappear as well!

Oh the humanity! What next…(oh wait, I better not give them any more ideas)

From CNN:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Get ready for a smaller paycheck.

At least that’s what could happen if Congress doesn’t approve President Obama’s proposal to extend the Making Work Pay tax credit soon.

The credit, introduced last year as part of the government’s stimulus package, boosts paychecks by up to $400 for single filers and up to $800 for joint filers, by reducing the amount of tax withheld from each paycheck.

And that extra $15 bump you’re used to getting each bi-weekly pay period is slated to expire at the end of the year unless Congress votes to extend the credit, much like the Bush tax cuts…

…

And because of the steep cost of keeping the Making Work Pay tax break around — about $60 billion to extend it one year — Marr said he wouldn’t be surprised if Congress doesn’t end up passing the extension.

What is most ironic about all of this is that the money that was “credited” back to you will be taxable income. So you get screwed both ways. First a phony tax cut that could not even pay for a Democrat’s latte at Starbucks and then being penalized for taking it in the first place. In the retail world, that is called “bait and switch”.

From Sweetness and Light:

Don’t worry. At the very last minute Mr. Obama will step in and demand that this ‘middle class tax’ cut must be saved at all costs. And a heroic Congress will dramatically vote to extend it into perpetuity. – Without paying for it, of course.

Then Mr. Obama and the Democrats will trumpet this ‘middle class tax cut’ as their great gift to the economy and job creation. Meanwhile, they will let the Bush tax cuts lapse. Tax cuts which actually could make a real difference to people and to the economy.

This is such an easy call, a child of 26 could predict it.

Even a 26 year old with an economic illiteracy pre-existing condition.

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Well, we knew for awhile that the phony employment numbers for May would show a “spike” in the number of jobs gained, even though about 90% of them would be temporary, government make-work.

The numbers bear that train of thought out:

From the BLS: (Hat Tip: Hot Air)

Total nonfarm payroll employment grew by 431,000 in May, reflecting the hiring of 411,000 temporary employees to work on Census 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Private-sector employment changed little (+41,000). Manufacturing, temporary help services, and mining added jobs, while construction employment declined.

The unemployment rate edged down to 9.7 percent.

Now, you might be wondering how the actual rate went from 9.9% to 9.7% even both total and private sector employment numbers were much lower then what was forecast. As has been the case for well over a year, the reason is people dropping out of the labor force.

From Ed Morrisey:

The problem of marginally-attached workers grew, and is reflected in the A-16 table. Comparing May 2009 to May 2010, the number of discouraged workers rose from 792,000 to 1,083,000, while the number of discouraged workers remained steady at 2.2 million. The number of people not in the labor force but who want work — including the “discouraged” workers — rose from 5.865 million to 6.381 million in the past month (not seasonally adjusted — BLS does not provide historical data with seasonal adjustments).

Rob Port from Say Anything:

Those are superficially good numbers, but as I pointed out yesterday hiring of temporary Census workers was projected to run at about 500,000 employees. And, indeed, that hiring figure ended up at 411,000. That means 95.5% of the new payroll growth was…government hiring. For temp jobs, no less.

Wow, that “stimulus” is really working and has really pulled this country of a depression. Well, that is actually true if you are a federal government worker. Even if only for a few months.

Oh by the way, even those census numbers are bogus. Everytime one of the is hired, then let go and then hired again? Well, the BLS counts that as a “new” job. So in reality, even those nearly 400K census jobs are probably closer to 200K. Or maybe less. Who really knows?

But, that is what you get from an administration that repeatedly pulls numbers of all sorts out of it’s ass.

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Now THIS is how you govern.

Sorry NEA, but you either start tightening your belts along with everyone else, or just go the way of the Edsel. There is no more money. Not in state coffers. Not in federal coffers. Period.

From the New York Post via Free Conservatives:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — speaking at The Plaza hotel about his plan to cap property-tax increases at 2.5 percent — ripped into his state’s teachers association yesterday, blasting it as an “an absolutely out-of-control union that is used to getting everything it wants.”

And the poor, poor NEA heads are whining over a 1.5% tax on their salaries to cover their massive and bloated bennies, when the average private sector worker has to cough up upwards of 30%?

The opposing sides have butted heads over Christie’s proposal to force teachers to pay 1.5 percent of their salary to cover their medical, dental and vision benefits.

“In the private sector, this is a deal that employees would run each other over for,” he said. “The response from the teachers union? This is the greatest attack on public education in the history of the world.”

Indeed.

As for the media, well Christie is a breath of fresh air from the long-standing stink of corruption, union handouts and media apathy.

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