Wednesday, April 30, 2025
About 6 Out Of 10 Adults Say Trump Has Made The Economy Worse
The chart above is from the CNN / SSRS Poll -- done between April 17th and 24th of a nationwide sample of 1,678 adults, with a 3.3 point margin of error.
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Two More Polls Show Trump Approval Dropping Like a Rock
The chart above reflects the results of the CNN / SSRS Poll -- done between April 17th and 24th of a nationwide sample of 1,678 adults, with a 2.9 point margin of error.
The chart above is from the New York Times / Siena College Poll -- done between April 21st and 24th of a nationwide sample of 913 registered voters, with a 3.8 point margin of error.
Musk/DOGE May Be Costing As Much As It Saves
The following is part of an article by Zeeshan Aleem at MSNBC:
We’ve watched as DOGE chief Elon Musk’s promised pot of savings from his “efficiency” operation has shrunk from $2 trillion to $1 trillion to what he now claims is $150 billion, or 7.5% the amount initially promised. Now new estimates suggest that the way Musk has gone about his cost-cutting crusade might cost nearly as much as — if not more — than what he claims to have saved taxpayers.
As The New York Times reports, DOGE hasn’t been cheap for the federal government:
The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that studies the federal work force, has used budget figures to produce a rough estimate that firings, re-hirings, lost productivity, and paid leave of thousands of workers will cost upward of $135 billion this fiscal year. At the Internal Revenue Service, a DOGE-driven exodus of 22,000 employees would cost about $8.5 billion in revenue in 2026 alone, according to figures from the Budget Lab at Yale University.
Put those two figures together and you’re approaching $145 billion in costs. And that’s not counting, as the Times notes, the legal fees the federal government is incurring to defend against dozens of lawsuits contesting DOGE’s authority. . . .
The estimates raise serious questions about DOGE's net savings — and that’s assuming Musk’s quoted savings numbers are reliable, which they often haven’t been. Moreover, the estimated lost revenue from the IRS cuts would be a recurring phenomenon. Musk’s degrading of the administrative state and social services while potentially saving nothing helps underscore how scammy the DOGE enterprise, and sheds light on how this whole operation is at its core not about fiscal discipline.
Musk and his team were perversely creative in devising ways to fire workers en masse. But as a group of cocky political outsiders who confused speed with efficiency, they weren’t equipped to anticipate the legal restrictions on what they could do. Their rash approach has resulted in lots of rehiring and back pay for people wrongly fired — and lost productivity along the way. Musk and his team put their faith in a kind of “shoot first, ask questions later” strategy, but that resulted in administrative whiplash. “Accidentally” canceled programs have had to be re-assembled. And blanket firings of “probationary workers” resulted in the squandering of expensive hiring and training processes for hyperspecialized positions that could cost up to $1 million for positions like spies, the Times notes.There is a possibility that Musk is delivering the opposite of taxpayer savings — a worse government at roughly the same cost.Social Security is under siege, foreign aid has been eviscerated, and the IRS is less equipped to stop tax cheats (which in turn means less government revenue). But, according to the estimates reported by the Times, no significant sum of money is being saved, and there’s no way the “savings” from what we’ve seen so far will net out to massive “DOGE checks” for the American public.
Monday, April 28, 2025
New AP/NORC Poll Has Trump Job Approval At Only 39%
The chart above reflects the results of the AP / NORC Poll -- done between April 17th and 21st of a nationwide sample of 1,260 adults, with a 3.9 point margin of error.
Trump's First 100 Days Has Most Voters Discouraged About The Next 4 Years
The chart above reflects the results of the Fox News Poll -- done between April 18th and 21st of a nationwide sample of 1,104 registered voters, with a 3 point margin of error.
Republicans Want U.S. Women To Have More (White) Children
Last year the average number of births to women in the United States was about 1.62. That was a slight increase of about 1%. But no one expects the rate to continue increasing, and that rate is still far below the number needed just to maintain the current population (2.1 per woman). And it has been many years since the U.S. had a 2.1 or better rate.
So, how has the U.S. population kept increasing? Immigration!
But Republicans don't want immigrants entering this country. Most immigrants are non-white, and Republicans want to keep the country with a white majority. That's why they are allowing Trump to conduct his war on (mainly non-white) immigrants.
Republicans think if they cut off immigration and convince American women to have more children, they can delay (or eliminate) the time when the U.S. becomes a majority non-white population. And they are trying to come up with ideas to induce American women to have more babies.
One of the ideas is to give women a $5,000 check for each baby born. Evidently, they think American women are stupid. That $5,000 is only a tiny fraction of what it takes to raise a child in the United States - around $200,000.
Another idea is to give women who have at least six children a medal. Does anyone (except a brain dead Republican) really think any woman would have six children just to get a medal?
These ludicrous ideas wouldn't work anyway. Note the chart above. White women have a lower child birth rate than any other racial group (about 50 per 1,000 women). Even if immigration was completely eliminated, the white population would continue to diminish with each passing year.
If they were smart, Republicans would alter their policies to help all races flourish in this country - and help all families to meet societal needs. I doubt that will happen - too many Republicans cling to the racist dream of a continuing white majority.
Whether Republicans want to admit it or not, we need immigration. Immigrants keep our population stable, do jobs Americans don't want, pay billions in taxes, and contribute to this country in many other ways.
We are a nation built on immigration - and cutting off new immigrant arrivals is a stupid idea that will never work!
Canada Votes Today (And Canadians Really Don't Like Trump)
The charts above are from a Politico / Focaldata Poll -- done between April 18th and 23rd of 2,826 Canadian adults.
Sunday, April 27, 2025
Americans Are Not Happy With Either Of The Major Political Parties
The charts above are from the NBC News Poll -- done between April 11th and 20th of a nationwide sample of 19,682 adults, with a 2.2 point margin of error.
Americans Don't Want Trump To Defy The Courts
The charts above are from the Fox News Poll -- done between April 18th and 21st of a nationwide sample of 1,104 registered voters, with a 3 point margin of errors.
Saturday, April 26, 2025
Donald Trump's Job Approval Is Still Dropping
The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between April 19th and 22nd of a nationwide sample of 1,625 adults (including 1,446 registered voters). The margin of error 9s 3.3 points.
Most Say Abrego Garcia Should Be Returned To The U.S.
The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between April 19th and 22nd of a nationwide sample of 1,625 adults (including 1,446 registered voters). The margin of error for both groups is 3.3 points.
The chart above is from the Washington Post / ABC News Poll -- done between April 18th and 22nd of a nationwide sample of 2,464 adults, with a 2 point margin of error.
Friday, April 25, 2025
Three New Polls Show Trump Approval Has Dropped Significantly
The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between April 19th and 22nd of a nationwide sample of 1,625 adults (including 1.445 registered voters). The margin of error was 3.3 points for both groups.
The chart above reflects the results of the Fox News Poll -- done between April 18th and 21st of a nationwide sample of 1,104 registered voters, with a 3 point margin of error.
The chart above is from the Pew Research Center survey -- done between April 7th and 13th of a nationwide sample of 3,589 adults, with a 1.8 point margin of error.
About 222,000 Workers Filed For Unemployment Last Week
The Labor Department released its weekly unemployment report on Thursday. It showed about 222,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending on April 19th. Here is the official Labor Department statement:
In the week ending April 19, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 222,000, an increase of 6,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 215,000 to 216,000. The 4-week moving average was 220,250, a decrease of 750 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 220,750 to 221,000.
The Trump Administration Is Devastating Programs That Help Children
The clear-cutting across the federal government under President Donald Trump has been dramatic, with mass terminations, the suspension of decades-old programs and the neutering of entire agencies. But this spectacle has obscured a series of moves by the administration that could profoundly harm some of the most vulnerable people in the U.S.: children.
Consider: The staff of a program that helps millions of poor families keep the electricity on, in part so that babies don’t die from extreme heat or cold, have all been fired. The federal office that oversees the enforcement of child support payments has been hollowed out. Head Start preschools, which teach toddlers their ABCs and feed them healthy meals, will likely be forced to shut down en masse,some as soon as May 1. And funding for investigating child sexual abuse and internet crimes against children; responding to reports of missing children; and preventing youth violence has been withdrawn indefinitely.
The administration has laid off thousands of workers from coast to coast who had supervised education, child care, child support and child protective services systems, and it has blocked or delayed billions of dollars in funding for things like school meals and school safety.
These stark reductions have been centered in little-known children’s services offices housed within behemoth agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice, offices with names like the Children’s Bureau, the Office of Family Assistance and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. In part because of their obscurity, the slashing has gone relatively overlooked.
“Everyone’s been talking about what the Trump administration and DOGE have been doing, but no one seems to be talking about how, in a lot of ways, it’s been an assault on kids,” said Bruce Lesley, president of advocacy group First Focus on Children.
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