Monday, June 30, 2025
Most Say Trump Is Definitely/Probably A Criminal (But Won't Be Punished)
These charts are from a YouGov Poll -- done between May 28th and 30th of a nationwide sample of 1,129 adults, with a 3.9 point margin of error.
Can We Trust The Data Published By Government Agencies?
Government agencies publish reams of data every month. This data is used to track how well the economy is doing, and how our justice system, environment, and other parts of our democracy are faring, Politicians use the information to write laws, businesses use it to plan for the future, and voters use it to pick candidates.
This information is vital to the well-being of the country. But can we trust it these days?
In Donald Trump's first term, he told over 30,000 lies - and even most of what came out of the mouths of his aides was laughable. But this is not what I am talking about. The data published by the government did not come from the fantasists at the top of Trump's first administration. It came from the millions of hard-working, honest, career government employees - the ones who diligently do their jobs regardless of which party is in power. So, it could be trusted.
But things have changed in Trump's second term. Instead of just changing leadership at the top of government agencies (as all presidents do), Trump has gone further. He used DOGE to decimate most government agencies - firing many thousands of workers. This was a tactic to instill fear among government workers. Then agency heads made examples of some employees - firing anyone who publicly disagreed with Trump actions or published information Trump didn't like.
The message is very clear. Agree with Trump or else lose your job.
The sad fact is that the career government jobs are no longer safe. And agencies are not peopled by those who are afraid of Trump or those who are Trump sycophants.
What happens if the data does not agree with what Trump claims is true or what he wants to be true? Do they change the info (or shade it to be more in line with Trump's lies)? I would like to think that is not true and brave employees would publish the truth - but truth is not valued in the Trump administration, and anyone publishing truthful data could easily be fired and replaced with someone willing to spread lies.
I think we must treat data coming out of the executive branch agencies with suspicion.
Musk Again Attacks Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill"
“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country! Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.”
Elon Musk
Sunday, June 29, 2025
RFK, Jr's Vaccine Panel (Two Versions)
Saturday, June 28, 2025
Most Voters Disapprove Of The Job Trump Is Doing
Democrats Should Embrace Young Progressives Who Fight And Have New Ideas
The recent New York Democratic primary shocked the political world. Young progressive Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for NYC mayor in spite of support from establishment Democrats and monied interests supporting Andrew Cuomo.
Republicans were quick to label Mamdani a "communist" and say he was the new leader of the Democratic Party. That's no surprise. They do the same to any liberal or progressive that shows ballot strength.
More disappointing was the reaction of the media - including some mainstream media outlets. They were quick to label Mamdani as a socialist and claim the party has a huge split among its ranks.
Even more disappointing was the reaction of some moderate Democrats, who still think the same old policies that didn't work in the 2024 election would somehow magically take them to victory in 2026 and 2028. They are wrong.
Anyone who has been reading the polls would know that. Poll after poll has shown the voters are not happy with the Democrat (or the Republicans). Most of these polls have Democratic favorability below 40%.
The moderate establishment Democrats seem to think there is nothing wrong with the economy except the actions of Trump (which have made it even worse). That is not true. Even before Trump, while the economy was great for the billionaires and corporations, it was NOT so great for most Americans.
Half of families in the U.S. are just a paycheck away from poverty. Millions work for poverty-level wages. Child care is so expensive that it doesn't pay for many to work. Groceries and consumer goods are too expensive. Wages for most have virtually remained flat while inflation eats away at it. Millions remain with our any kind of health insurance. Rural hospitals are disappearing. Interest rates are too high. Houses are too expensive - and many people can no longer accomplish the dream of home ownership. The climate is getting worse and disasters are increasing.
All of these problems have answers, but the current politicians don't seem to have any answers - including many Democratic leaders. They seem to be happy with the status quo (Democrats) or want to make it worse (Republicans). It's no wonder the voters are disgusted with both parties.
New York voters chose the candidate with new ideas, the candidate willing to listen to their problems, and the candidate willing to fight for them. And it's not just New Yorkers. I think voters across the country would respond to young progressives not tied to the past, but have new ideas about how to solve problems and the passion to fight for ordinary Americans.
If the Democratic establishment was smart, they wouldn't turn their backs on these candidates. They would embrace them. The party needs more people like Zohran Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, David Hogg, and other young progressives. They will revitalize the party and make voters beige in Democrats again.
Friday, June 27, 2025
Most Don't Trust Trump On Decision About Use Of Nuclear Weapons
About 236,000 Workers Filed For Unemployment Last Week
The Labor Department released its weekly unemployment report on Thursday. It showed about 236,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending on June 21st. Here is the official Labor Department statement:
In the week ending June 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 236,000, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 245,000 to 246,000. The 4-week moving average was 245,000, a decrease of 750 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 245,500 to 245,750.
How Can Anyone Deal With A Compulsive Deal Breaker Like Trump?
With Trump's record on deals and contracts, would you trust him?
The following post is by Jennifer Rubin at The Contrarian:
There is no agreement, pledge, or promise Donald Trump won’t break. His unwillingness to constrain his whims, impulses, and narcissism produces moral outrages and an ongoing threat to our democracy. However, it also creates an insoluble problem in our foreign policy: Who would ever make a deal with him?
Trump has been a world-class deal breaker for his entire adult life:
· He broke deals with contractors and lawyers, cheating them out of payment.
· He cheated students who foolishly gave him money to attend Trump U, resulting in a multi-million-dollar settlement.
· He violated his fiduciary duty (ponder the insanity of “Trump” and “fiduciary” in the same sentence), forcing New York to shut down his foundation and exact other penalties.
· He violated his marriage vows, as Stormy Daniels testified under oath.
· He violated his presidential oath of office in allegedly attempting to extort Ukrainefor personal gain and again for leading an insurrection.
· He has comically made serial promises (apparently with no intention of fulfilling them) to produce all sorts of decisions and plans in “two weeks.”
· He tore up the Iran deal.
· He flips and flops on whether he will abide by Art. V, the core provision of our most important treaty, NATO.
· He likely invented a pretext (Iran is on the verge of weaponization) to break the War Powers Resolution (requiring congressional consultation at a bare minimum) and then lied about the results (Iran program “obliterated”!).
Constant reversals, betrayals, lies, and bullying risk isolating us from valuable allies and incentivizing our enemies to resort to hard power. In Iran, Trump’s 2018 decision to tear up the Iran nuclear deal, followed by resorting to brute force, gives Iran an incentive to regard negotiations as useless and to instead race to make a bomb to ensure survival.
Our allies are watching as well. They see a reckless president ready to shred agreements, lie to the public, and resort to force that are more garish displays of strength than effective instruments of U.S. policy. Our European allies have learned the hard way not to trust Trump, so they are now rushing to beef up their own defenses, making them that much less likely to cooperate with the U.S. or, as they did in Afghanistan, to rush to the defense of the U.S.
As Kori Shake wrote, “When it comes to burning bridges... nothing matches the speed and destructiveness of Trump’s policies in the past few months. According to a recent survey conducted by the opinion-research firm Cluster 17 and the journal Le Grand Continent, 51 percent of Europeans ‘consider Trump to be an enemy of Europe.’”
When the U.S. president is so fundamentally untrustworthy, other parties find it challenging (if not impossible) to reach agreements, which rely on good faith. With allies, any deal comes with an asterisk—legitimate doubt as to whether Trump will live up to his end of the bargain. That makes them less likely to compromise on their interests and more wary of ceding their freedom of action. Ukraine, for example, cannot possibly rely on any promise from Trump to enforce the terms of a ceasefire; the only rational choice is to keep fighting.
Trump’s untrustworthiness also sends potential allies into the arms of our enemies. When countries in Africa, for example, see Trump renege on foreign aid, they are that much more likely to ally themselves with China, which has been seeking a toe hold in Africa for decades.
Americans understand what is going on. Even before the Iran war, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that 59% of Americans believed that Trump had lost the U.S. credibility on the international stage. They are smart enough to realize, as one academic put it, that “[t]he US under Trump is fast becoming untrustworthy. American reliability must now be broadly questioned, from collective security to the rule of law.” The result of “this widespread loss of trust...will be the neutering of US soft power.”
When it comes to adversaries such as China and Russia, we wind up with a comic metaphysical puzzle: How does an untrustworthy actor who does not intend to honor the deal strike a deal with another untrustworthy partner—when both sides know the other is not going to keep the agreement? Diplomacy becomes a farce. Parties have strong reasons to resort to military power.
Trump’s dishonesty also manifests itself in claiming credit for things in which he played little or no part. “Even India, a country with which Trump has often claimed warm relations, has publicly contradicted his assertion several times that US trade policy played a role in diffusing tensions with Pakistan,” the Economic Times reported. “India’s rebuttal underscores a broader shift: traditional US allies are no longer willing to play along with Trump's tactics. This loss of diplomatic credibility suggests a weakening of America’s global standing under Trump’s renewed leadership.”
Trump’s utter lack of credibility, highlighted in his serial lies about Iran, will have long-term implications for America, far beyond this episode and even beyond the Middle East. “Trump and his team are destroying everything that makes the United States an attractive partner,” Schake points out. “If it stays on the path Trump has started down, the United States risks becoming too brutal to love but too irrelevant to fear”—and too untrustworthy to bargain with.
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Trump Job Approval Falls To Only 40%
The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between June 20th and 23rd of a nationwide sample of 1,590 adults (including 1,455 registered voters). The margin of error is 3.5 points for adults and 3.1 points for registered voters.
U.S. Businesses Are NOT Optimistic About The Trump Economy
Donald Trump claims the economy is great, but most businesses aren't buying it. Their confidence in the economy has dropped sharply.
The following is part of an article by Hugh Cameron in Newsweek:
Business leaders' confidence in the U.S. economy has halved since the beginning of the year, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co., as companies grapple with the impact of President Donald Trump's tariffs and broader geopolitical uncertainties.
The financial services firm's latest Business Leaders Outlook Survey, released Wednesday, found that optimism for the economy fell to 32 percent in June from 65 percent in January. Additionally, 25 percent of respondents said they expect a recession to occur at some point this year, up from only 8 percent in January. . . .
JPMorgan's survey was conducted between June 4 and June 18, drawing responses from over 700 owners and executives representing middle-market businesses, defined as those with annual revenues ranging from $20 million to $500 million.
Four in 10 (44 percent) reported delaying their business plans to some extent this year, with 74 percent citing "policy uncertainty" as the reason for this decision. Of this group, 37 percent cited market volatility and shifts in customer demand, while 35 percent listed geopolitical events as a contributing factor.
Overall, the challenges highlighted by business leaders included uncertain economic conditions (55 percent), tariffs (41 percent), and revenue and sales growth (41 percent). . . .
The New York-based think tank noted that this was the steepest quarterly decline in the survey's 48-year history.
Multiple Polls Show Public Is Opposed To The Trump/GOP Budget Bill
The chart above uses figures from an NBC News article. It shows that poll after poll shows the American public opposed to the "Big Beautiful Bill" being considered currently by Congress. Trump is urging passage of the bill.
The public has not been fooled by Republican lies. They know the bill will toss millions of health insurance rolls, deny food aid to millions more, and add trillions to the national debt - all to give the richest Americans a tax break (which they do not need).
The Latest poll (shown below) verifies this. It is the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between June 20th and 23rd of a nationwide sample of 1,590 adults (including 1,455 registered voters). The margin of error is 3.5 points for adults and 3.1 points for registered voters.
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