Trump ends his first year with just 45% of likely US voters thinking he's doing a good job in the Oval Office (compared to Obama's 68% approval rating after one year)

Yes...and we all know how Barry turned out. He almost doubled the national debt. Created BLM, ISIS, and gift-wrapped a nuke to Iran. 

This article from The Daily Mail. The CNN of Great Britain headed by Piers Morgan who once worked for them.

(Need I say more?)

Barry didn't get the negative coverage from the biased MSM cheerleaders like Trump does as this article clearly indicates.

Byron York: Harvard study: CNN, NBC Trump coverage 93 percent negative

Trump's persistent tweets have decidedly shown just how biased they really are. Twenty 20 years from now history will record who was truly a great president and my money ain't on Barry. Oh...and speaking of polls didn't they tell us Trump didn't have a snowball's chance in hell against Hillary?

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Just 45 per cent of likely U.S. voters approve of President Donald Trump's job performance, an end-of-the-year poll has showed.

The figures, presented by the Rasmussen Reports, show that 53 per cent disapprove or strongly disapprove of his performance, as the White House is readying itself to take stock of Trump's first year as President.

This can be compared to his predecessor Barack Obama, who had 68 per cent approving of his job performance at the end of his first year in office. 

Real news: Just 45 percent of U.S. voters approve of President Trump's job performance at the end of his first year, a recent poll shows

A small joy for the president is that 29 percent of those polled said they 'strongly approve' of his work done as president, however, this is dwarfed by the 44 percent who 'strongly disapprove'. 

According to the Rasmussen reports' data collected throughout Trump's first year in office, his support was strongest in the beginning of his presidency with a peak of 59 percent approval on January 26.

However, by March, numbers dipped below 50 percent, and come early August they had plummeted to just 38 percent.

March saw President Trump accuse former President Obama of wiretapping him during the election campaign - a claim found to be baseless. 

August was President Trump's low point, with his failure to condemn white supremacists and Nazis in Charlottesville - the unforgettable 'bad people on both sides' speech - and his late July announcement that he was banning transgender men and women from serving in the military (which has since been blocked). 

Sad! Some 44 percent strongly disapprove of Trump's job performance and a total of 53 percent disapprove to some extent

August also saw him pardon Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio who had been convicted of repeatedly violating court orders to stop racial profiling.

Towards the end of the year, the figures improved slightly, potentially boosted by his latest tax reform, voted through in recent weeks. 

Trump's predecessor enjoyed much higher approval ratings, even towards the end of his second term, according to the same data.

Barack Obama's December 2008 figures - ending his first year in office - showed a 68 percent approval.

Even at the end of his final year as President, in December 2016, 55 percent of the US population approved of his job performance. 

However, the Rasmussen Reports' figures are still a lot more positive than the CNN presidential approval rating poll, which found that just 35 percent thinks Trump is doing a good job.

This is the lowest ever of a modern-day president at the end of his first year in office.

Even the 'runner-up', Ronald Reagan, had a 49 per cent approval in 1981.

This can be compared to George W Bush whose end-of-year approval was at 86 per cent in 2001 and Nixon in 1969 at 59 per cent. 

Big hands, big figures: Trump's approval rating can be compared to his Barack Obama, who had a 68 per cent approval rating at the end of his first year in office

But President Trump is seemingly unphased by his low approval rating and just yesterday he boasted that his wins against ISIS are bigger than President Obama's. 

Citing Department of Defense statistics and quoting the Washington Examiner's Jamie McIntyre, Trump said as of last week there are just 1,000 ISIS fighters left occupying a mere 1,900 square miles.

That's down from 35,000 ISIS fighters occupying 17,500 square miles that existed when President Trump was sworn in last January. 

Trump ends his first year with just 45% of likely US voters thinking he's doing a good job in the Oval Office (compared to Obama's 68% approval rating after one year)

Trump will fail against Iran as did 'smarter' Reagan: Khamenei

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday U.S. President Donald Trump would fail in his hardened stance towards Iran, saying Tehran was stronger than during the time of the “more powerful and smarter” Ronald Reagan. 

“Reagan was more powerful and smarter than Trump, and he was a better actor in making threats, and he also moved against us and they shot down our plane,” Khamenei said in a speech carried on state television. 

In 1988, a U.S. warship shot down an Iranian passenger plane over the Gulf, killing all 290 aboard, in an incident which Washington said was a mistake. Tehran said it was a deliberate attack on Iran, then at war with neighboring Iraq. 

“But Reagan is gone and, according to our beliefs, he now faces God’s retribution ... while Iran has made great advances in all areas since Reagan’s time,” Khamenei added. 

(I'll give him his due here. Barry said go ahead a build a nuke. Then added...allow us to pay for it) 

“This trend will continue under the current American president and any hopes on their part that the Islamic Republic would back off or weaken is futile.” 

Trump refused in October to certify that Tehran is complying with its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and warned he might ultimately terminate the agreement. 

He announced the shift in U.S. policy in a speech in which he detailed a more aggressive approach to Iran over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and its support for militant groups in the Middle East. 

Under the nuclear deal, sanctions on Iran were lifted in return for Tehran rolling back technologies with nuclear bomb-making potential. 

Trump will fail against Iran as did 'smarter' Reagan: Khamenei

Barack Obama Warns Against the Divisive Nature of Social Media in Interview with Prince Harry

Barack Obama Social Media BBC Interview With Prince Harry

This is so typical of him. The limp-wristed vagina is distressed over the

 'divisive nature of social media'. 

When it comes to Barry Guess Col. Ralph Peters put it best.

Video 388

Meanwhile... outside the whimpering world of Barry: 

Through Trump's tenure, ISIS has lost 98% of its territory. The stock market is going through the roof. Check your 401K lately? The unemployment rate is the lowest in 17 years. Because of the new tax bill, Americans are keeping more of their hard earned money while companies like AT&T, Comcast, Wells Fargo, etc announced $1,000 bonuses to hundreds of thousands of employees. 

Thank God we now have a president who knows how to get things done. 

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Former President Barack Obama has warned against some of the perils of social media — in particular, its potential to create social divisions and spread misinformation — in a highly anticipated interview with the U.K’s Prince Harry.

Speaking with the prince, who guest edited Wednesday’s episode of BBC Radio 4’s Today show, the former President expressed concern about how social media can reinforce people’s prejudices and expose users to dubious information, the BBC reports.

“One of the dangers of the Internet is that people can have entirely different realities. They can be cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases,” he said. Obama did not name his successor, President Donald Trump, whose hostility to traditional news media has been a common feature of his presidency.

“The question has to do with how do we harness this technology in a way that allows a multiplicity of voices, allows a diversity of views, but doesn’t lead to a Balkanisation of society and allows ways of finding common ground,” Obama said.

The interview, which was conducted in Toronto in September during the Invictus Games, which Obama attended along with former Vice President Joe Biden, also touched on the military, mental health, and climate change.

When the newly-engaged prince asked him how he felt about leaving the White House, Obama said there was a sense of “completion.”

“That was mixed with all the work that was still undone and concerns about how the country moves forward. But overall there was a serenity there, more than I would have expected.”

As part of his guest editorial spot, Harry also interviewed his father, Prince Charles. Other guest editors on the Today Show over the holiday week include a robot, Bletchley Park code-breaker Baroness Trumpington, English National Ballet artistic director Tamara Rojo, and Nigerian writer Benjamin Okri, according to the BBC.

Barack Obama Warns Against the Divisive Nature of Social Media in Interview with Prince Harry

Food for thought in 2018

Food for thought in 2018

Venezuelans scramble to survive as merchants demand dollars

Maduro should put a call in to Sean Penn. He idolized Chavez and the Venezuelan way of life even now after Maduro ordained himself Présidente for life. I'm sure Sean's got the fix for the country's steady decline. 

He could do for Venezuela what he did for Haiti. 

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CARACAS/CIUDAD GUAYANA, Venezuela (Reuters) - There was no way Jose Ramon Garcia, a food transporter in Venezuela, could afford new tires for his van at $350 each. Ma

Whether he opted to pay in U.S. currency or in the devalued local bolivar currency at the equivalent black market price, Garcia would have had to save up for years. 

Though used to expensive repairs, this one was too much and put him out of business. “Repairs cost an arm and a leg in Venezuela,” said the now-unemployed 42-year-old Garcia, who has a wife and two children to support in the southern city of Guayana. 

“There’s no point keeping bolivars.” 

For a decade and a half, strict exchange controls have severely limited access to dollars. A black market in hard currency has spread in response, and as once-sky-high oil revenue runs dry, Venezuela’s economy is in free-fall. 

The practice adopted by gourmet and design stores in Caracas over the last couple of years to charge in dollars to a select group of expatriates or Venezuelans with access to greenbacks is fast spreading. 

Food sellers, dental and medical clinics, and others are starting to charge in dollars or their black market equivalent - putting many basic goods and services out of reach for a large number of Venezuelans. 

According to the opposition-led National Assembly, November’s rise in prices topped academics’ traditional benchmark for hyperinflation of more than 50 percent a month - and could end the year at 2,000 percent. The government has not published inflation data for more than a year. 

“I can’t think in bolivars anymore because you have to give a different price every hour,” said Yoselin Aguirre, 27, who makes and sells jewelry in the Paraguana peninsula and has recently pegged prices to the dollar. “To survive, you have to dollarize.” 

The socialist government of the late president Hugo Chavez in 2003 brought in the strict controls in order to curb capital flight, as the wealthy sought to move money out of Venezuela after a coup attempt and major oil strike the previous year. 

Oil revenue was initially able to bolster artificial exchange rates, though the black market grew and now is becoming unmanageable for the government. 

TRIM THE TREE WITH BOLIVARS 

 In one grim festive joke, a Christmas tree in Maracaibo, the country’s oil capital, and second city was decorated with virtually worthless low-denomination bolivar bills. 

This is what 80 cents (US) looks like in Venezuelan currency. At the moment, one dollar is worth $127,000 bolívares 

President Nicolas Maduro has maintained his predecessor’s policies on capital controls. Yet, the spread between the strongest official rate, of some 10 bolivars per dollar, and the black market rate, of around 110,000 per dollar, is now huge. 

While sellers see a shift to hard currency as necessary, buyers sometimes blame them for speculating. 

Rafael Vetencourt, 55, a steelworker in Ciudad Guayana, needed a prostate operation priced at $250. 

“We don’t earn in dollars. It’s abusive to charge in dollars!” said Vetencourt, who had to decimate his savings to pay for the surgery. 

In just one year, Venezuela’s currency has weakened 97.5 percent against the greenback, meaning $1,000 of local currency purchased than would be worth just $25 now. 

Maduro blames black market rate-publishing websites such as DolarToday for inflating the numbers, part of an “economic war” he says is designed by the opposition and Washington to topple him. 

On Venezuela’s borders with Brazil and Colombia, the prices of imported oil, eggs, and wheat flour vary daily in line with the black market price for bolivars. 

In an upscale Caracas market, cheese-filled arepas, the traditional breakfast made with corn flour, increased 65 percent in price in just two weeks, according to tracking by Reuters reporters. In the same period, a kilogram of ham jumped a whopping 171 percent. 

The runaway prices have dampened Christmas celebrations, which this season was characterized by shortages of pine trees and toys, as well as meat, chicken, and cornmeal for the preparation of typical dishes. 

In one grim festive joke, a Christmas tree in Maracaibo, the country’s oil capital, and second city was decorated with virtually worthless low-denomination bolivar bills. 

Most Venezuelans, earning just $5 a month at the black market rate, are nowhere near being able to save hard currency. 

“How do I do it? I earn in bolivars and have no way to buy foreign currency,” said Cristina Centeno, a 31-year-old teacher who, like many, was seeking remote work online before Christmas in order to bring in some hard currency. 

Venezuelans scramble to survive as merchants demand dollars