For Breitbart.com,John Nolte reports: There has not been a majority party in Israel for decades. Israelis are as politically divided as Americans in many ways. There is no national consensus on anything. But the Israeli people have unified behind Prime Minister Netanyahu. A recent poll shows he is twice as popular in Israel as Barack Obama is in America.
The Jerusalem Post‘s Herb Keinonreports that a whopping 82% of Israelis “are satisfied with Netanyahu’s performance during [the Gaza] crisis.” According to the latest Gallup poll, Obama’s current American job approval rating, in the midst of numerous crises, is 40%, with 54% disapproving.
Israel firmly behind Netanyahu. Channel 2 poll: 82% are satisfied with Netanyahu’s performance during crisis, 10% not. (Last week 57%-35%)
Also of interest is where Israelis stand on the military action currently taking place in Gaza. Israelis might be split on when the action should end, but the split is way outside of the universe where Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are operating. Read the rest of this entry »
Perceived Widespread Corruption in U.S. Government on the Rise, Americans Less Satisfied With Freedom
WASHINGTON, D.C. — For Gallup.com, Jon Clifton reports: Fewer Americans are satisfied with the freedom to choose what they do with their lives compared with seven years ago — dropping 12 percentage points from 91% in 2006 to 79% in 2013. In that same period, the percentage of Americans dissatisfied with the freedom to choose what they do with their lives more than doubled, from 9% to 21%.
Gallup asks people in more than 120 countries each year whether they are satisfied or dissatisfied with the freedom to choose what they do with their lives. In 2006, the U.S. ranked among the highest in the world for people reporting satisfaction with their level of freedom. After seven years and a 12-point decline, the U.S. no longer makes the top quartile worldwide.
Of the countries where Gallup asked residents about satisfaction with their freedom in 2006 and 2013 (108 in total), only 10 countries had declines as large or larger than the decrease seen in the U.S. Read the rest of this entry »
Confidence hits six-year low for presidency; record lows for Supreme Court, Congress
WASHINGTON, D.C. — For gallup.com, Justin McCarthy reports: Americans’ confidence in all three branches of the U.S. government has fallen, reaching record lows for the Supreme Court (30%) and Congress (7%), and a six-year low for the presidency (29%). The presidency had the largest drop of the three branches this year, down seven percentage points from its previous rating of 36%.
These data come from a June 5-8 Gallup poll asking Americans about their confidence in 16 U.S. institutions — within government, business, and society — that they either read about or interact with.
While Gallup recently reported a historically low rating of Congress, Americans have always had less confidence in Congress than in the other two branches of government. The Supreme Court and the presidency have alternated being the most trusted branch of government since 1991, the first year Gallup began asking regularly about all three branches.
But on a relative basis, Americans’ confidence in all three is eroding. Since June 2013, confidence has fallen seven points for the presidency, four points for the Supreme Court, and three points for Congress. Confidence in each of the three branches of government had already fallen from 2012 to 2013.
Confidence in the presidency is now the lowest it has been under President Barack Obama, as is confidence in Congress and the Supreme Court, given their historical lows. When Obama first took office in 2009, each of the three branches saw a jump in confidence from their dismally low ratings in George W. Bush’s final two years in the White House.
The president in office is not mentioned by name when the presidential confidence question is asked, but how positively Americans evaluate the current president has a direct impact on how much confidence Americans place in the presidency as an institution.
Gallup began asking regularly about the presidency in March 1991, when George H.W. Bush was in office. At that time, 72% of Americans had confidence in the presidency — the highest confidence rating the institution has received. This was immediately following his leadership in the successful first Persian Gulf War, and at a time when his job approval rating hit the then all-time high of 89%. But the elder Bush also saw the largest drop in confidence for the institution that same year, when it fell to a still relatively high 50% in October 1991.
The three presidents who would succeed him would go on to be elected to two terms, with varying degrees of confidence in the executive branch of the U.S. government during those terms. Obama garnered the greatest first-year confidence rating, at 51% in 2009, but has held lower ratings than both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in each subsequent year of his presidency so far.
George W. Bush’s presidency commanded the highest first-term confidence ratings due to the post-9/11 surge in support for government leaders and institutions, marked by a record job approval rating of 90% for Bush in September 2001 and continued high ratings for him in the months thereafter. His second-term approval ratings plummeted, however, and so did confidence in the presidency, reaching anall-time low of 25% in 2007. Read the rest of this entry »
PRINCETON, NJ — While illegal immigration typically dominates debates over immigration policy, the issue of legal immigration came to the forefront in the recent Virginia Republican primary when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was soundly defeated by Tea Party favorite Dave Brat. Brat highlighted Cantor’s support for expanding visas for skilled immigrants in his blistering charge that Cantor is soft on immigration. Brat’s case may have been a fairly easy one to make, as new Gallup polling finds fewer than one in four Americans favor increased immigration.
The small amount of Americans who favor increased immigration include just 14% of Republicans. In fact, more Americans think immigration should be decreased than increased, and by a nearly two-to-one margin, 41% vs. 22%. A third in the U.S. are satisfied with the level as it is….(read more)
George Will writes: Democracy can be cruel because elections deprive the demos of the delight of alibis and the comfort of complaining. Illinois voters have used many elections to make theirs the worst-governed state, with about $100 billion in unfunded public pension promises and $6.7 billion in unpaid bills. The state is a stark illustration of the effect of prolonged one-party rule, conducted by politicians subservient to government employees unions.
The state’s strongest civic tradition is of governors going to jail. Four of the last nine have done so. Lt. Gov. Quinn ascended to the governorship in 2009 because Gov. Rod Blagojevich, of fragrant memory, tried to sell the Senate seat Barack Obama vacated. In 2010, Quinn defeated a downstate social conservative by 32,000 votes out of 3.7 million cast. Quinn’s job approval today is about 35 percent.
Rauner, born a few blocks from Wrigley Field, grew up in a Chicago suburb — his father was an electrical engineer at Motorola; his mother was a nurse. He attended Dartmouth, earned a Harvard MBA and joined the private-equity firm GTCR, where he made enough money to buy his nine homes. When a reporter asked him if he is among the 1 percent, he cheerfully replied, “Oh, I’m probably .01 percent,” an answer that was better arithmetic than politics. Read the rest of this entry »
If everybody in America had the opportunity to pack up and move to the state of their choice, Illinois, Connecticut, and Maryland would empty out, according to a new Gallup poll. Around half of residents in all three states said they would relocate to another state given the chance, with Illinois having the highest rate of people (50%) who want to get out; Connecticut clocked in at 49%, and Maryland at 47%. People in Montana, Hawaii, and Maine were the most inclined to stay put, with just 23% of residents of each state saying they would take the opportunity to move. Read the rest of this entry »
“This the second time in a week that former Republican candidates — ridiculed at the time for their foreign policy observations — have been proved right about Russia; Sarah Palin predicted in 2008 that under a weak Obama, Russia would be tempted to invade Ukraine…”
UPDATE: Now The New Republic is on record, saying “yeah, about that Romney thing…he was exactly right…” Question: Will any other left-leaning critics of Romney who trashed him during the campaign step up and revise their earlier (mocking) coverage? We’re not holding our breath…
Romney’s analysis was accurate. Who’s laughing now?
Mitt Romney’s clear-eyed assessment of Vladimir Putin’s Russia is looking more spot-on accurate than ever, yet it was greeted at the time with widespread ridicule. Barack Obama, in the final presidential debate:
“A few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia…the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
“…but not Mitt Romney. He’s even blurted out the preposterous notion that Russia is our ‘number one geopolitical foe.’ Folks: Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from Alaska; Mitt Romney talks like he’s only seen Russia by watching Rocky IV.”
…Gallup reported that 14% percent of adults between the ages of 24 and 34 – those in the post-college years when most young adults are trying to establish independence — report living at home with their parents. By contrast, roughly half of 18- to 23-year-olds, many of whom are still finishing their education, are currently living at home…
Tony Lee reports: Though Gallup’s economic confidence index is negative in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., also known as the nation’s preeminent “Boomtown,” is the clear outlier, with the only positive index. In fact, it’s not even close.
Gallup conducted daily tracking interviews with 178,071 adults nationally from January through December 2013, and the polling organization said it interviewed “at least 500 residents in every state and interviewed 1,000 or more in 41 states. In the District of Columbia, 462 interviews were conducted.”
Another timely item from Brietbart.com that I almost missed. AWR Hawkins reports: A new poll finds the percentage of Americans who think gun control too strict is at its highest point since 2001 and triple what it was in 2013.
The Gallup poll shows that “55 percent of Americans… are dissatisfied overall with American gun laws and policies.” Among the dissatisfied, 16 percent are Americans who believe gun control laws should be rolled back.
New polling data from Gallup shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans do not think handling immigration reform is even close to a top priority for 2014.
Immigration places well behind other issues like healthcare, jobs, the economy, dissatisfaction with Washington politicians, the debt and deficit, lack of money, ethics and moral issues, poverty, the gap between the rich and the poor, education, foreign aid and others. In fact, only three percent of Americans think the issue is a priority that must be dealt with this year.
“Americans start the new year with a variety of national concerns on their minds,” Gallup’s Lydia Saad wrote on Wednesday. “Although none is dominant, the government, at 21%, leads the list of what Americans consider the most important problem facing the country. The economy closely follows at 18%, and then unemployment/jobs and healthcare, each at 16%. No other issue is mentioned by as much as 10% of the public; however, the federal budget deficit or debt comes close, at 8%.”
The House Republican leadership has been confronted by devilishly difficult tactical choices over the years. But what to do on the issue of immigration right now isn’t one of them. The correct course is easy and eminently achievable: Do nothing.
“Only 3 percent cited immigration as the biggest problem facing the country”
The old Reagan catchphrase calling for non-action — don’t just do something, stand there — has never been more apt. Yet the House leadership is about to roll out a set of immigration principles reportedly including an amnesty for illegal aliens, and presumably will follow up with a push to pass them through the House. This is legislative strategy as unforced error.
“…the president refuses to enforce key provisions of his own health-care law, let alone provisions of immigration law…”
In U.S., 65% Dissatisfied With How Government System Works
Justin McCarthy reports: Sixty-five percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the nation’s system of government and how well it works, the highest percentage in Gallup’s trend since 2001. Dissatisfaction is up five points since last year, and has edged above the previous high from 2012 (64%).
(Photo by Pete Souza/The White House via Getty Images)
Roger Clegg & Hans A. von Spakovsky write: Americans overwhelmingly agree that discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, or gender is wrong — whether it is the politically correct version that discriminates against whites, and often Asians (particularly in college admissions), by giving preferences to other racial or ethnic groups like blacks and Hispanics, or the old-fashioned, politically incorrect version that discriminates against African Americans and other ethnic minorities, which the civil-rights movement fought in the 1960s. Americans today still want to “live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” to quote the man we honor this weekend.
For example, a Washington Post/ABC News poll released in June 2013 showed that three-quarters of Americans (76 percent) “oppose race-based college admissions.” That includes “eight in 10 whites and African Americans and almost seven in 10 Hispanics,” as well as “at least two-thirds of Democrats, Republicans, and independents.” A similar Gallup poll found that two-thirds of Americans “believe that college applicants should be admitted solely based on merit” and that their racial background should not be taken into account.
Matthew Boyle reports: New polling data from Gallup shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans do not think handling immigration reform is even close to a top priority for 2014.
Immigration places well behind other issues like healthcare, jobs, the economy, dissatisfaction with Washington politicians, the debt and deficit, lack of money, ethics and moral issues, poverty, the gap between the rich and the poor, education, foreign aid and others. In fact, only three percent of Americans think the issue is a priority that must be dealt with this year.
Peter Wehner reports: A new Gallup poll finds President Obama’s approval rating at 39 percent and his disapproval rating at 54 percent. But it’s not just that the public is increasingly displeased with the job Mr. Obama is doing; they are growing weary of the whole packaged deal. They are frustrated with the president, his style, his attitude, his approach to the job.
President Obama’s tanking approval rating in newly released polls shows Americans are tired of his whining, according to some experts, who also see a fighting chance for Republicans to rack up coast-to-coast victories in the 2014 midterm congressional races.
“We think of presidents as being morale leaders … and he goes out and complains,” according to Richard Benedetto, a retired White House correspondent and a journalism professor at American University. “He complains about the fact that he doesn’t get enough cooperation from the other side. ‘It’s not my fault, it’s the Republicans’ fault.’ And that message gets old for the American public. … It’s not a good sign for Democrats in Congress going into next year.”
Seventy-two percent of Americans say big government is a greater threat to the U.S. in the future than is big business or big labor, a record high in the nearly 50-year history of this question. The prior high for big government was 65% in 1999 and 2000. Big government has always topped big business and big labor, including in the initial asking in 1965, but just 35% named it at that time.
It wasn’t so very long ago — as in, 2009, hem hem — when Americans’ primary concern for big government as a threat to the country’s future rested at around 55 percent, before hitting 64 percent near the end of 2011 and finally 72 percent today. Whatever do we suppose might have prompted such a thing, I wonder? Gigantic corporate bailouts, Scandalabra, NSA spying, ObamaCare… I don’t even know where to begin.
Tony Lee reports: Though Republicans and Democrats in favor of comprehensive immigration reform are ready to make a final push next year, a new national Gallup poll released on Thursday found that only 3% of the country believes immigration reform is the most important issue that needs to be addressed.
The top concern of Americans who were surveyed was “dissatisfaction with the government” (21%). That was followed by the economy (19%), healthcare (17%), unemployment (12), the budget deficit (9%), moral/ethical decline (7%), poverty/hunger/homelessness (5%), and education (4%).
Immigration also does not register among the top-five most important issues to Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.
Robert W. Merry writes: Of all of Abraham Lincoln’s profound observations about politics and life, one in particular, uttered on September 2, 1858, in Clinton, Illinois, captures the essence of representative democracy: “You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” This sprightly aphorism distills to its essence Lincoln’s belief that the collective judgment of the electorate is essentially sound—perhaps not in every instance or in whole, but over time it is sufficiently sound to protect the foundations of the nation. Democracy works because it is in the hands of the people.
Less well known is the statement uttered by Lincoln to introduce his famous dictum: “If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.” Put the two together, as Lincoln did, and you get a sense not only of the futility of trying to fool the American people but also the danger posed to any politician who tries it.
Which brings us to Barack Obama. His presidency is in freefall, and there is strong evidence that the freefall is related to the ever-dangerous issue of trust. In June 2012, a Gallup poll suggested that 60 percent of the American people considered Obama “honest and trustworthy.” A Quinnipiac University poll asking the same question last month showed that only 44 percent viewed him as honest and trustworthy. Fully 52 percent said he wasn’t.
Danielle Thomsen is a doctoral candidate at Cornell University and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network. She will begin a post-doctoral fellowship at Duke University in January. This piece was published in partnership with the Scholars Strategy Network.
Danielle Thomsen writes: According to a new Gallup poll, Americans are more frustrated with Congress than ever before. In the aftermath of the government shutdown in October, who can blame them? Here is one solution for all those who are fed up with the dysfunction of Congress: Elect more Republicans.
Well, not just any Republicans. Elect more Republican women.
This may sound surprising to those who blame the GOP for the government shutdown. Yet as you may recall, a group of female senators led by Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has been credited for moving beyond obstructionist politics and compromising to reach a deal to reopen the government.
But it isn’t that simple. To maximize the effectiveness of women in office, we must focus on recruiting, training, supporting and electing more Republican women to Congress. While there is a dearth of females in Congress, Democratic congresswomen now outnumber Republican congresswomen more than three to one in the House and four to one in the Senate. Read the rest of this entry »
One of the fastest-growing segments of society taking gun safety classes: Women
Michael Barone writes: Economist Bryan Caplan notes that support for gun control — specifically, banning handguns or pistols — has decreased dramatically since the 1950s and 1960s. Back in 1959 Gallup reported that 60% of Americans favored banning possession of “pistols and revolvers,” while now 74% oppose banning “the possession of handguns,” except by police.
Caplan seems puzzled by this substantial change in opinion. I think it’s explainable by two developments.
(1) Violent crime roughly tripled between 1965 and 1975. As Caplan’s graph of Gallup’s results shows, majorities came to oppose handgun bans during this period. Americans saw more need to protect themselves.
(2) The success of laws permitting citizens to carry concealed weapons, starting with the Florida law in 1987 (thanks, Gov. Bob Martinez). Many, including me, predicted that this would lead to gunfights on the street and over traffic altercations. Those predictions have proved wrong. It turns out that ordinary citizens who can demonstrate that they know how to handle guns do so responsibly — just as they handle cars (potential weapons, after all) responsibly as well. The very few exceptions make news.
Bloomberg Editor Reveals Liberal Contempt for America
Flavelle’s obnoxiously insulting article got nearly 1000 comments from readers who drove a parade through his error-ridden logic and condescending jackassery. Below are just a few examples:
Christopher Flavelle: New Gallup poll numbers show Americans increasingly dispute the idea that government has a responsibility to make sure everybody can get health insurance. It’s tempting to see that as an indictment against Obamacare, but it might just mean more Americans are becoming jerks.
What’s clear is that the shifting views on health care predate the Affordable Care Act. The number of Americans who think health care is the government’s responsibility hovered around two-thirds for the first half of the 2000s, peaking at 69 percent in 2006. Then those numbers started falling, hitting 50 percent in 2010 and 42 percent this year.
So far so good. Just reporting poll figures.
The shrinkage of American generosity during that period wasn’t just about health care. The onset of the recession corresponded with a change in public opinion on a range of issues, and in most cases the effect was to make Americans less caring about others.
American “generosity” is measured by how passively they surrender (by force, not voluntarily) their hard-earned income to IRS agents and unaccountable government bureaucrats for experts to ‘manage’? How is there any virtue, or ‘caring’, in person A. taking money from person B. to give to C.?
Many of the reaction in the comments section are (more pungent, more hostile) variations of this obvious problem. Flavelle‘s outlook–if it represents mainstream liberalism–is a problem, as we go into the 21st century. It’s emblematic of the great divide between competing ideologies: statists and secularists (social justice liberals) and conservatives and libertarians (classical liberals) as well as the divide between ordinary, self-reliant, generous Americans, and coercive, ill-tempered elitist jackasses.
Starting in 2007, the portion of Americans who said the government should guarantee every person enough to eat and a place to sleep started falling, from 69 percent to 59 percent last year. People who said the government should help the needy, even if it means going deeper into debt, fell from 54 percent to 43 percent over the same period.
Exactly. “The government”, in Flavelle’s warped understanding, is the vehicle–the delivery system–of concern, care, and generosity, not the people. Like many liberals and statists, “government” is misunderstood to be the same thing as “society”.
Question: Is it society’s obligation to help the needy? If the question was framed that way, you can guarantee the poll would have gotten much different results.
I needn’t point out that Americans are the most generous people on earth, in giving money. and goods, medical aid, and care during global disasters. No other nation comes even close. Where’s China? Where’s Europe, when disaster-relief aid is needed? America’s record of generosity–direct, personal, real generosity–overwhelmingly contradicts everything and everybody Flavelle‘s article aims to smear.
Liberals: Don’t go near open windows in tall buildings, avoid being alone with sharp objects nearby, renew your script for antidepressants. And for god’s sakes please, quietly surrender your doomed romantic illusions of a progressive-socialist-democratic permanent majority in America. Adjust your expectations. Keep your head down. Carry extra Kleenex. The dream is over.
Conservatives: Wipe that smile off your face. Take a deep breath. Loosen your tie. Or women, slip off your shoes. Pour yourself a scotch. Or bourbon. Go to your stereo, and put on some music. Rock & Roll, Jazz, Classical, whatever. Crank it up to full volume. Now, laugh as hard as you want. Now, call your friends. Go out and share war stories. Order Champagne. Mock the Left with impunity. Drunk-dial depressed Democrats at 2:00 a.m., and laugh at them. You earned it.
Rarely outside of polls about gay marriage or marijuana legalization do you see a trend line like this. Good work, O.
How much of that is a reaction to Obama and his pet boondoggle specifically and how much is a product of other forces? The first thing that jumps out is the fact that most of the gains here were made before O was sworn in. The number who say UHC isn’t a federal responsibility bounces from a 13-year low in 2006 to rough parity with traditional levels in 2007 to a new high in 2008 and then actually overtakes the number who say it is a federal responsibility in very late 2008, on the eve of the inauguration. But that doesn’t mean it has nothing to do with O. On the contrary, I think the reason interest picked up in 2007 was because Obama and Hillary were slugging it out over health-care reform in debate after debate, which showed Republicans that the long-dormant liberal initiative to remake the system was coming back with a vengeance in 2009 if the Democratic nominee won the election. What you’re seeing here, in other words, is conservative alarm rising over the prospect of a looming battle — with good reason, as it turned out.
A new Gallup poll brings more terrible news for President Obama and his signature health plan, showing that only 22% of uninsured Americans who plan to buy insurance have visited the ObamaCare exchanges.
One of the major selling points for using ObamaCare to disrupt our health care system (that polls showed up to 80% of Americans were satisfied with) was to insure the uninsured. But according to this poll, only a very small minority of that small minority is even interested in obtaining insurance.
Even more troubling is the realization that a month ago, only 44% of the uninsured said they would purchase insurance though the exchanges.
President Bush’s approval ratings are in a steep decline, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Center. The survey found that only 38 percent of Americans think the president is doing a good job, down from 50 percent in January. For the first time in his presidency, the numbers show most people think Bush will be judged as an unsuccessful president.
Fast forward the tape to this week. Gallup has President Obama at a 39 percent approval (NPR reports the number is “around 40 percent,” a rounding-up that they almost certainly wouldn’t have seen fit to give Bush). Here’s NPR’s headline: “Why Obama Shouldn’t Worry About His Lousy Poll Numbers”:
Don’t let it get to you buddy. And be careful what you say, there might be a hot mic.
Eric Pfeiffer reports: When President Obama first ran for the White House in 2008, it was with the promise to turn the page on the presidency of George W. Bush. But for all their political differences, it turns out the American public pretty much view the two men in the same light, according to new polling data.
In the first week of November in the fifth year of their presidencies, Obama and Bush have nearly identical approval numbers, according to the latest Gallup polling.
In fact, Bush comes out one point ahead, 40 percent to 30 percent, respectively.
Nick Gillespie writes: Last year, residents of Colorado and the state of Washington voted overwhelmingly to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes. Now, according to a new Gallup Poll, fully 58 percent of Americans believe that pot should be available in a way that’s similar to tobacco, beer, wine, and alcohol, which arguably cause more harm than marijuana. That’s a 10-point increase over last year and the latest indicator that the federal war on weed, which officially began in 1937, is finally drawing to a close. Given the directions things are headed in this country, here are eight things nobody will miss when pot is finally legal everywhere in the U.S.
1. Vapid anti-drug commercials like the famous “I learned it by watching you!” public-service announcement, in which a son tells an outraged father how he became familiar with pot. The dad seems to be successful and they’re in a nice house so….what’s the problem again?
2. Ritual apologies by world-class athletes such as swimmer Michael Phelps for smoking dope at a private party. Despite winning 14 Olympic gold medals and completely rewriting his sport’s record books, in 2009 Phelps promised his “fans and the public it will not happen again.”
3. Breath-taking personal hypocrisy by politicians such as Barack Obama who laugh about their own pot smoking (he’s not the only one, the last three presidents have tried it) while increasing funding for the Office of National Drug Control Policy and other drug-war operations. As a presidential candidate, he joked to a gathering of fawning journalists, “When I was a kid, I inhaled….That was the point.”
4. Long federal prison sentences for legitimate business owners like Aaron Sandusky. He ran a medical marijuana dispensary in California that was in full compliance with state laws, but he still got busted by the Obama administration’s Justice Department and is now serving a 10-year stint. Read the rest of this entry »
Of all the bitter fruit of the Barack Obama disaster, the most bitter may be the sense of hopelessness that has descended on Americans, especially the young. Has there ever been anything like it in our history? Even on the eve of the Civil War, was there this much pessimism about our future? Gallup wasn’t around in those days, but I wonder.
For a simple measure of how the Obama administration has crushed any sense of hopefulness in the American people, take a look at the survey that Rasmussen Reports does periodically on whether America’s best days are behind her, or still in the future. It’s a great question that tells a lot about how Americans are feeling.
Rasmussen last asked the question before Barack Obama took office in August 2008, while the presidential campaign that resulted in Obama’s election was in progress. The result:
45% of voters think America’s best days lie ahead, while 37% think they have come and gone.
That was after nearly eight years of the supposedly disastrous Bush administration–which, by the way, looks more like a golden age every day, compared with what has followed. Read the rest of this entry »
1995 battle didn’t affect views of Clinton, Gingrich, nor U.S. in the long term
WASHINGTON, DC —Elizabeth Mendes reports: As the federal government prepares to shut down for the first time since 1995/1996, historical Gallup data reveal that the repercussions of that past conflict ranged from none to short-lived, in terms of Americans’ concerns about the U.S. and the political players involved. The 1995/1996 closure, which occurred when — just like today — Republican leaders in Congress and a Democratic president failed to agree on the budget, did little to impact Americans’ views of President Bill Clinton, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Congress itself, the U.S. economy, and the country in general in the months after the shutdown began.
Before the U.S. government shutdown on Nov. 14, 1995, President Clinton’s job approval stood at 52%. It dipped to 42% in an early January Gallup survey, but bounced back up to 52% by mid-March. His favorable rating took even less of a hit, falling just five percentage points to 54% in mid-January 1996 — after the second shutdown ended — from 59% in early November. And, his favorability climbed back up to 58% in mid-March 1996. Read the rest of this entry »
PRINCETON, NJ — Six in 10 Americans (60%) believe the federal government has too much power, one percentage point above the previous high recorded in September 2010. At least half of Americans since 2005 have said the government has too much power. Thirty-two percent now say the government has the right amount of power. Few say it has too little power.
These most recent data come from Gallup’s Governance survey, conducted Sept. 5-8. The 7% who feel the government has too little power has been mostly steady since Gallup started tracking the measure regularly in 2002. Read the rest of this entry »
Elizabeth Sheild writes: In a rebuke to the gun-obsessed main stream media, Gallup released a new poll showing that most Americans blame a failing mental health system for mass shootings in the United States. What is notable is that there is a drop of 6% among adults who blame “easy access to weapons.”
Almost half (48%) say the “failure of the mental health system to identify individuals who are are a danger to others” is a “great deal” to blame for mass shootings. Forty percent say it is “easy access to guns.” This is a drop from 2011, when the survey was taken after the shooting in Tucson, Arizona. Read the rest of this entry »
`Outside of the federal government’s Bureau of Labor statistics, the Gallup polling organization also tracks the nation’s unemployment rate. While the BLS and Gallup findings might not always perfectly align, the trends almost always do and the small statistical differences just haven’t been worthy of note. But now Gallup is showing a sizable 30 day jump in the unemployment rate, from 7.7% on July 21 to 8.9% today.
This is an 18-month high.
At the end of July, the BLS showed a 7.4% unemployment rate, compared to Gallup’s 7.8%. Again, a difference not worthy of note. But Gallup’s upward trend to almost 9% in just the last three weeks is alarming, especially because this is not a poll with a history of wild swings due to statistical anomalies. Gallup’s sample size is a massive 30,000 adults and the rolling average is taken over a full 30 day period.
Gallup also shows an alarming increase in the number of underemployed (those with some work seeking more). During the same 30-day period, that number has jumped from 17.1% to 17.9%.
After delivering a number of “economic growth” speeches this summer, President Obama has failed to inspire any confidence, falling all the way back to square one in a recent Gallup poll. Actually, make that less than square one. Gallup reported that Obama’s approval rating on the economy has sunk to 35 percent in August from 42 percent in early June.
Why should we be surprised?
The actual economy shows real GDP falling well below 2 percent. This so-called recovery remains the worst in modern history dating back to 1947.
And as far as solutions go, Obama keeps giving us the same old, same old: End the spending-cut sequester, lower tax deductions, and raise taxes on the rich, all to free up money for infrastructure, green energy, “manufacturing innovation initiatives,” and the teachers’ unions.
Of course, this would all come on top of Obamacare, which if it doesn’t fall of its own weight, will add so many new taxes and regulations that it will sink the economy even more.
The Gallup poll also reflected voter fatigue over Obama’s stale class-warfare act. It’s a leftover from his first term. He talks about a “winner-take-all economy where a few do better and better while everyone else just treads water.” It’s a bore. It’s unproven. It’s like his new phrase of “an economy that grows from the middle out.” No one knows what this means because it doesn’t mean anything.
Benghazi has damaged voters’ willingness to believe in Barack Obama
Less than 14 days before the vote, Gallup has Mitt Romney leading the president by three points and in Rasmussen he’s up four. This paper’s poll brought Mr. Romney from chronically behind to even. Yes, 270 Electoral College votes will decide the race, but with the whole nation watching the same events, one has to ask whether what we’re seeing is Mitt Romney’s rise or Barack Obama’s decline.
It is conventional wisdom that incumbency breeds advantages. But incumbency also brings burdens, and the Obama candidacy looks like it’s buckling beneath one: Of the two candidates, the president is held to a higher standard of behavior.
There have been only two events that could be said to have caused significant movement by voters in the campaign. One was the Oct. 3 Denver debate in which Mitt Romney disinterred political skills that stunned the incumbent and woke up a sleeping electorate. Race on.
AFP/Getty Images — Vehicle inside the U.S. Consulate compound in Benghazi, Libya, Sept. 11.
The other is Benghazi. The damage done to the Obama campaign by the Sept. 11 death in Benghazi of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American colleagues has been more gradual than the sensation of the Denver debate, but its effect may have been deeper.
If youve ever observed a group of libertarians at a bar — perhaps discussing objectivism, the Second Amendment, or marijuana, all with reverence — then you know that they are a species of political being unlike the rest of us.
But they are an important group to understand this election cycle, as topics such as the economy, the size of government and entitlements take center stage and “Atlas Shrugged: Part II” opens in movie theaters nationwide. According to Gallup, libertarians make up about 20 percent of the electorate — and they are a vocal and influential minority, as the tea party movement has shown.
The ascent of the “Atlas Shrugged”-loving Paul Ryan to the Republican ticket is another indication that the libertarian movement may be in the midst of its political moment.
But what exactly do libertarians believe?
Psychologists Ravi Iyer, Spassena Koleva, Jesse Graham, Peter Ditto and Jonathan Haidt set out to answer this very question in the largest study of libertarians to date, “Understanding Libertarian Morality,” published recently in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.
After surveying nearly 12,000 self-identified libertarians, the researchers determined that libertarians have a set of moral values that are distinct from those held by ordinary conservatives and liberals…
We’re just inviting you to take a timeout into the rhythmic ambiance of our breakfast, brunch and/or coffee selections. We are happy whenever you stop by.
Robert W. Merry
Danielle Thomsen is a doctoral candidate at Cornell University and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network. She will begin a post-doctoral fellowship at Duke University in January. This piece was published in partnership with the Scholars Strategy Network.
A 
Doug Powers 
The ascent of the “Atlas Shrugged”-loving Paul Ryan to the Republican ticket is another indication that the libertarian movement may be in the midst of its political moment.
pundit from another planet 