News: Black Men In America

Gallup: Obama’s Approval Rating Drops Below 50% For First Time

The latest Gallup Daily tracking results show 49% of Americans approving of the job Barack Obama is doing as president, putting him below the majority approval level for the first time in his presidency (hat tip: Politico). Of the post-World War II presidents, Obama now is the fourth fastest to drop below the majority approval level, doing so in his 10th month on the job. Gerald Ford dropped below 50% approval during his third month in office, and Bill Clinton did so in his fourth month. Ronald Reagan, like Obama, also dropped below 50% in his 10th month in office, though Reagan's drop occurred a few days sooner in that month (Nov. 13-16, 1981) than did Obama's (Nov. 17-19, 2009).

Black Males Hit Extra Hard By Unemployment

This "he-cession," as it's sometimes called, has hit African-American men especially hard, increasing their unemployment rate to more than 17 percent last month. Herman Brewer, the acting CEO of Chicago's Urban League, says plenty of men, regardless of race, have lost jobs during this recession. But he says black men continue to face many challenges that have traditionally led to their disproportionately high rates of unemployment. They include the decline of high-paying manufacturing jobs, high rates of incarceration, limited schooling and discrimination. So, Brewer says, the rise in unemployment is particularly tough on black men, "because many have had to overcome so much just to get where they were in a particular job."

Ethics Committee Admonishes Burris

The Senate Ethics Committee today closed its investigation into the controversial appointment of Roland Burris to fill the Illinois Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama but admonished the liberal Democrat for “inappropriate” and “less than candid” statements about the circumstances that led up to his selection by now-indicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. In a letter to Sen. Burris, the panel said that it was issuing a “qualified admonition” but did not find evidence that supported any “actionable violations of the law.”

For instance, the committee criticized Sen. Burris for not telling state legislators in sworn testimony about his desire to fundraise for Blagojevich when he was seeking the appointment to now-President Obama’s old Senate seat, saying “these omissions are particularly noteworthy given their context” of a governor being accused of trying to sell the Senate seat. The committee said that Mr. Burris’s November 13, 2008 phone call with Robert Blagojevich — the governor’s brother — in which he discussed possibly fundraising for the governor was “inappropriate” but “not rising to the level of an explicit quid pro quo.” Sen. Burris hailed the decision, saying it cleared him of any wrongdoing, just as a state’s attorney in Sangamon County, Ill., did earlier this year when he decided not to pursue perjury charges.