Daily Political Wire

George Wenschhof

Obama Approval Drops to 45% - A majority of Americans disapprove of the job President Barack Obama is doing and his approval rating has slipped eight points in the last month, according to the latest CNN/ORC International poll released Monday morning, a sign that the recent swirl of controversies has taken a toll on his public standing.
 
Fifty-four percent of respondents said they disapprove of Obama's job performance, while 45 percent said they approve. It's the lowest approval rating for Obama in more than a year and a half, according to CNN, and a significant drop in the span of a month. In the previous CNN/ORC survey just a month ago, Obama boasted a 53 percent approval rating while 45 percent said they disapproved of his job performance at that time.  You can read the poll results here.
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Hillary Clinton To Address Michigan Business Group Today - Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday will address an annual dinner of a Michigan-based business group that has attracted high-profile guests in the past.
 
Clinton will be the guest of honor at the Economic Club of Grand Rapids' annual dinner. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, as well as former President George W. Bush have each spoken at the event.  TPM.com has more here.

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Britain/U.S. Spied at International Summits - British and U.S. spy agencies monitored the e-mails and phone calls of foreign dignitaries at two international summits in London in 2009, the Guardian newspaper reported Monday, citing documents it received from former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden.

The disclosure follows reports in The Washington Post and the Guardian two weeks ago, also based on documents provided by Snowden, that disclosed widespread U.S. surveillance of phone and Internet use by ordinary citizens in order to detect patterns that could indicate terrorist activity.

The description of high-stakes summit espionage leaves the British government in a diplomatically awkward position, with heads of state — including President Obama — already arriving in Northern Ireland on Monday for the start of the Group of Eight summit.  The Washington Post has more here. 

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Markey Leads Gomez By 11 Points in Massachusetts Senate Race - With about a week remaining before Massachusetts voters head to the polls for a special U.S. Senate election, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) appears to have the wind fully at his back, according to the latest Boston Globe poll released Sunday.

The poll showed Markey claiming the support of 54 percent of likely Bay State voters, while Republican businessman Gabriel Gomez trailed with 43 percent support. Those numbers include undecided voters who indicated that they are leaning toward one of the two candidates. Excluding leaners, Markey's lead in the poll is even larger, 54 percent to 41 percent.

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Bloomberg Wants To Require Food Composting - Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has tried to curb soda consumption, ban smoking in parks and encourage bike riding, is taking on a new cause: requiring New Yorkers to separate their food scraps for composting.

Dozens of smaller cities, including San Francisco and Seattle, have adopted rules that mandate recycling of food waste from homes, but sanitation officials in New York had long considered the city too dense and vertically structured for such a policy to succeed.
       

Recent pilot programs in the city, though, have shown an unexpectedly high level of participation, officials said. As a result, the Bloomberg administration is rolling out an ambitious plan to begin collecting food scraps across the city, according to Caswell F. Holloway IV, a deputy mayor.   The NY Times has more here.

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