Tag: trust

Why is the President talking about ISIS tonight?

This is why.

The Democrats are 18 points in the hole on foreign policy, 38 on defense. I’m trying to remember the last time I’ve seen the Democrats that far behind on those topics. Admittedly, I’m kind of loopy right now from the various cold remedies, so maybe it’s been like this for a while and I just don’t remember; still… those aren’t great numbers. To put it, as they say, mildly.

Has the Obama administration EARNED our trust on phone metadata harvesting?

Spoilers: no.

Let us imagine a world where the following occurred*:

  • 2008 – 2013: Barack Obama accepts public financing for the election, promptly closes Gitmo, and rigorously avoids raising taxes of any kind on the middle class.  Just to not-really-randomly pick three of his campaign promises.
  • 2009: Barack Obama secures the formal appointment of Inspector Generals at Defense, Homeland Security, Interior, Labor, State, and the Agency for International Development.
  • 2009 – 2013: President Barack Obama has regular, open press conferences, in the manner of his predecessors.
  • 2009 – 2010: A form of Obamacare passes that is acceptable to at least one Republican Senator.
  • 2009: A proposed loan to troubled Green energy company Solyndra is circular-filed when an advisor to Energy Secretary Steven Chu sits him down and explains to him that there was probably a good reason why the previous administration refused to sign off on the loan, and that the populace doesn’t really like having its money thrown away.
  • 2010: a particularly difficult worker at the IRS office in Cincinnati sends a series of terse emails to his supervisor, his supervisor’s supervisor, and the relevant officials in DC, indicating that written clarification of a new policy where conservative groups are to be under increased scrutiny will be needed before said worker would feel comfortable following that policy.  The written clarification is not given; the policy is not followed.
  • 2010: plans to tell a federal judge that Fox News reporter James Rosen was a co-conspirator in a criminal case, and thus a legitimate target for a search warrant, are derailed when a Justice Department staffer reads the draft, blanches, calls her supervisor, and asks him to ‘read that draft again, only this time in a Republican voice.’
  • 2010: the murder of US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry leads to an internal Justice Department investigation of the disastrous Operation Fast & Furious.  Attorney General Eric Holder responds by producing an unusually frank and open report on the fiasco, firing everyone responsible with prejudice, and takes ultimate responsibility for his department’s mistakes.  Holder then arranges with Congress to expedite a replacement Attorney General so that he can resign respectably.
  • 2012: the IRS engages in a full and public investigation over the allegation that IRS officials leaked the membership list of the National Organization for Marriage to Human Rights Campaign.  The investigation at a bare minimum wrecks several careers, and provides a salutary object lesson for the surviving bureaucrats.
  • 2012: the Department of Justice contemplates wholesale subpoenas of the Associated Press.  This goes nowhere, because the combination of the terms ‘wholesale,’ ‘subpoenas,’ and ‘Associated Press’ in one sentence produces a feeling of anticipatory dread that threatens to take tangible form and savagely beat everyone in the room.
  • 2012: the ambassador to Libya and three other Americans are killed as part of an organized, planned Islamist attack.  False initial reports that the attack was due to a supposed YouTube are later aggressively pushed back on by State Department officials; the President goes on the air and explains that the government is sometimes pulled in two directions by the populace’s expectation that it be simultaneously be both transparent and responsive.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton takes full responsibility for the deaths, and announces her retirement in the same press conference, after likewise working with Congress to expedite her replacement.
  • 2013: the personal assistant to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius coughs discreetly and points out to her that the legislative branch gets exceedingly shirty when the executive branch tries to fund its shenanigans outside of the standard appropriations process. A series of calls to various health care companies begging for/extorting (depending on who you ask) Obamacare implementation funds are thus not made.
  • 2013: Senator Rand Paul asks President Barack Obama, “Do you think that you have the right to order a drone strike on an American citizen on American soil?” Barack Obama says “No, unless we end up in some kind of nightmare Tom Clancy scenario and if that happens you’re probably going to be in the room with the rest of us anyway.”  Senator Paul says “Thank you” and the confirmation vote of John Brennan proceeds on schedule.

Continue reading Has the Obama administration EARNED our trust on phone metadata harvesting?

Crunching the July 2011 Rasmussen trust numbers.

I stopped doing this in the middle of 2010, once it became clear that the real question of 2010 was how many hits to the head with the snake the Democrats were going to take before it was all over.  As the answer was “a lot,” I feel that this was a wise prioritization of my time.

But it’s a new cycle, so let’s look at the numbers – both the latest ones, and May’s.  Short version: Republicans are scoring better in nine out of ten topics that Rasmussen charts, and there’s a ten point lead on the economy.  Which, not incidentally, is the most burning issue for Americans these days. Continue reading Crunching the July 2011 Rasmussen trust numbers.

The August Rasmussen Trust Numbers.

The latest Rasmussen trust numbers are out, after what was an odd formatting thing that made me decide to stop reporting them until things settled down.  Short version: Rasmussen has replaced Abortion with Afghanistan in the top ten category; the GOP won all ten, including that perennial heartbreaker Government Ethics; and the numbers nonetheless show a shift away from July’s numbers, mostly because July’s numbers were uniformly awful for the Democrats. Continue reading The August Rasmussen Trust Numbers.

The May Rasmussen trust numbers.

There’s no article up on them yet, but the raw numbers are available here.

May 2010 April 2010
Issue Dem GOP Diff Dem GOP Diff Shift
Health Care 41% 48% (7) 41% 48% (7) –
Education 40% 43% (3) 43% 39% 4 (7)
Social Security 40% 42% (2) 40% 42% (2) –
Abortion 40% 42% (2) 40% 42% (2) –
Economy 39% 48% (9) 39% 43% (4) (5)
Taxes 36% 51% (15) 36% 51% (15) –
Iraq 36% 45% (9) 41% 44% (3) (6)
Nat’l Security 34% 51% (17) 40% 42% (2) (15)
Gov’t Ethics 33% 29% 4 34% 30% 4 –
Immigration 32% 47% (15) 38% 41% (3) (12)

Short version: 9 out of 10, and public trust in the Democrats to craft a proper immigration policy went through the floor. Continue reading The May Rasmussen trust numbers.

The April Rasmussen Trust numbers.

I’ve been trying to do this post for a few days (Rasmussen usually puts these numbers up before it does a formal article). Short version: eight out of ten for the GOP, but the Democrats made up lost territory across the board.

Apr-10 Mar-10
Issue Dem GOP Diff Dem GOP Diff Shift
Health Care 41% 48% (7) 37% 53% (16) 9
Education 43% 39% 4 40% 43% (3) 7
Social Security 40% 42% (2) 36% 48% (12) 10
Abortion 40% 42% (2) 32% 47% (15) 13
Economy 39% 43% (4) 37% 49% (12) 8
Taxes 36% 51% (15) 34% 52% (18) 3
Iraq 41% 44% (3) 39% 47% (8) 5
Nat’l Security 40% 42% (2) 36% 51% (15) 13
Gov’t Ethics 34% 30% 4 35% 33% 2 2
Immigration 38% 41% (3) 34% 47% (13) 10

Continue reading The April Rasmussen Trust numbers.

#rsrh 22%? That high?

So says David Harsanyi, who admittedly is more interested in accentuating the positive:

Trust: placing confidence in, or depending on, someone or something.

According to a new Pew Research Center poll, 22 percent of Americans would use this word to express their view of federal government.

Then there are those 4 out of 5 Americans — free of any ailments that inhibit rational thinking — who trust government “some of the time or never.” This distrust is at a near a historic low — or historic high, depending on how a person views such things.

Historic high.  The real question is what the current ruling party does about it, particularly since the opposition has every intention of running as outsiders – which even incumbent Republicans can legitimately do at this point, thanks to the aforementioned current ruling party’s decision to shut us out of regular Congressional business*.  Well, it’s a serious problem that can be fixed by concentrating on the issues where most Americans feel that the government has been negligent – economy/job creation – so, based on their track record to date, the Democrats will spend the next three months obsessively focusing on what will turn out to be a deeply unpopular immigration reform policy that addresses neither**.

Moe Lane

*Um. Thanks?

**Um.  Thanks?

The March Rasmussen Trust Numbers.

Short version: nine out of ten, and the word ‘Pyrrhic’ seems ever-more appropriate when discussing the Democrats’ health care monstrosity.

Mar-10 Feb-10
Issue Dem GOP Diff Dem GOP Diff Shift
Health Care 37% 53% (16) 42% 45% (3) (13)
Education 40% 43% (3) 41% 38% 3 (6)
Social Security 36% 48% (12) 39% 42% (3) (9)
Abortion 32% 47% (15) 38% 42% (4) (11)
Economy 37% 49% (12) 41% 46% (5) (7)
Taxes 34% 52% (18) 37% 48% (11) (7)
Iraq 39% 47% (8) 38% 42% (4) (4)
Nat’l Security 36% 51% (15) 37% 47% (10) (5)
Gov’t Ethics 35% 33% 2 35% 28% 7 (5)
Immigration 34% 47% (13) 34% 39% (5) (8)

Continue reading The March Rasmussen Trust Numbers.

The February Rasmussen Trust Numbers.

I missed this when it came out last week, not that anybody was waiting for this with bated breath. Short version: eight for ten, and the Democrats made up a good bit of lost ground more or less across the board.

Feb-10 Jan-10
Issue Dem GOP Diff Dem GOP Diff Shift
Health Care 42% 45% (3) 37% 49% (12) 9
Education 41% 38% 3 36% 40% (4) 7
Social Security 39% 42% (3) 35% 45% (10) 7
Abortion 38% 42% (4) 32% 46% (14) 10
Economy 41% 46% (5) 42% 46% (4) (1)
Taxes 37% 48% (11) 34% 50% (16) 5
Iraq 38% 42% (4) 38% 46% (8) 4
Nat’l Security 37% 47% (10) 40% 49% (9) (1)
Gov’t Ethics 35% 28% 7 33% 30% 3 4
Immigration 34% 39% (5) 36% 43% (7) 2

Continue reading The February Rasmussen Trust Numbers.

The January Rasmussen Trust Numbers.

These I still see the point of putting up.  It’s not like the USSC is about to rule to strike down restrictions… OK, that joke is simply not going to work this early in the (snowed-in) day.  Short version: nine of ten, the Democrats managed to make up some of their deficit in the economy category (hey, that joke worked!), and I conclude that Government Ethics requires more in the way of prolonged scandals on the Democratic side in order to move public perceptions off of its current default.

Jan-10 Dec-09
Issue Dem GOP Diff Dem GOP Diff Shift
Health Care 37% 49% (12) 42% 44% (2) (10)
Education 36% 40% (4) 41% 39% 2 (6)
Social Security 35% 45% (10) 41% 41% – (10)
Abortion 32% 46% (14) 38% 43% (5) (9)
Economy 42% 46% (4) 36% 48% (12) 8
Taxes 34% 50% (16) 36% 47% (11) (5)
Iraq 38% 46% (8) 38% 45% (7) (1)
Nat’l Security 40% 49% (9) 37% 50% (13) 4
Gov’t Ethics 33% 30% 3 31% 34% (3) 6
Immigration 36% 43% (7) 33% 45% (12) 5

More after the fold. Continue reading The January Rasmussen Trust Numbers.