Congressional Approval

[canihavu]

According to an AP-Ipsos poll released last week, public approval for Congress is at its highest level in a year as Democrats mark 100 days in power and step up their confrontation with President Bush over his handling of the Iraq War.

[White_Male_Canada]

Overall approval for Congress is at 40 % .

[Quinn]

According to an AP-Ipsos poll released last week, public approval for Congress is at its highest level in a year as Democrats mark 100 days in power and step up their confrontation with President Bush over his handling of the Iraq War.

I'm not particularly happy with the way things are going so far. Still, it's a hell of a lot better than the Republican controlled fiasco that actually managed to screw things up so bad the approval rating for Congress was down to 23% (71% disapproval) by Oct. of 2006.

-Quinn

[White_Male_Canada]

A vast improvement/sarcoff.

Congressional junkets picking up steam

Congress is keeping Andrews Air Force base plenty busy this year ferrying lawmakers all over the globe at taxpayers’ expense. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi took his wife, nine Democrats and two Republicans - Reps. Dan Lungren of California and Mike Rogers of Alabama - on a whirlwind tour of the Caribbean last week. After stops in Honduras and Mexico, they stopped in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the delegation stayed at the five-star Caneel Bay resort.


In a separate trip to the Caribbean last week, Rep. Eliot Engel of New York squired his wife and four Democratic members to Grenada and Trinidad.

All told, the military flew at least 13 congressional delegations to various destinations during the Easter recess -- at an estimated rate of $10,000 or more per flying hour.

The congressional delegation trips, known as CODELs, are paid for by taxpayers.

“There was a good faith effort made to include Republican members,” a Pelosi spokesman said. “For one reason or another, that did not work.”

Thompson’s office said he toured the Caribbean because he now chairs the Homeland Security Committee and wanted to see vacation hot spots to “examine border security and port security.” Three other members of the delegation also brought along their spouses.

“They are going from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. everyday,” a committee spokeswoman told The Examiner. “They do not have down time.”

At the Caneel Bay resort, where room rates reach $1,100 per night, the spokeswoman said Thompson and his wife paid the “government rate.” But, according to the reservations department, Caneel Bay doesn’t “offer any government rates.”

After Caneel Bay, the group headed to Key West, Fla., for a “classified briefing on inter-jurisdictional agency task forces,” a Thompson spokeswoman said.

The Caribbean trip led by Engel, who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, explored the “best practices for emergency disaster relief” and energy policy, according to his office.

Traveling with Engel and his wife were Reps. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Tex., and Barbara Lee, D-Calif. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who went to Belgium in a delegation led by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., earlier in the week, also joined Engel’s Caribbean trip. She brought her husband with her.

Frank’s trip to Belgium and London was related to his work as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, according to his office. The trip, which also included Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., was designed “to further understand the interrelationship between various issues related to the financial services regulatory structures” of the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, according to Frank’s office.

Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., also led a trip to Belgium over the two-week Easter recess. In February, Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, took a delegation there.

“We’re at war with Iraq and Afghanistan, but apparently our members see Belgium as our most urgent international destination,” scoffed one Republican member of Congress.

http://www.examiner.com/a-675671~Congressional_junkets_picking_up_steam.html

[guyone]

Give it a couple of weeks. The bolshies can beat that score.

[Quinn]

Give it a couple of weeks. The bolshies can beat that score.

I think you should familiarize yourself with the history of Congress's approval ratings. It will help you to realize how incredibly difficult it actually is to get down to a 23% approval (71% disapproval) rating. It would take years of poor performance for the Dems to get to that point, not weeks.

Then again, if the NeoCon, far right types on this forum aren’t happy with that, they can always look to Bush’s record setting low ratings – numbers that put him down in the same area as Nixon and Carter. Guaranteed, by the end of his second term, he will surpass both.

-Quinn

[chefmike]

Worst president ever.

Case closed.

[Somedude21]

No, he's not the worst president ever. He didn't sit back and do nothing while our nation degraded into civil warfare. THAT qualifies you for being the worst president ever.

Bush however is damn near close.

[svenson]

Worst president ever.

Case closed.

is true. bush is worst president ever