Pewpoll:65%ofblackssaypoliceresponse
Showing posts with label poll. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poll. Show all posts
Monday, August 18, 2014
Pew poll: 65% of blacks say police response in Ferguson has gone too far — versus 33% of whites
Pewpoll:65%ofblackssaypoliceresponse
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Fox poll: Is Obama rebounding?
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Fox poll: Is Obama rebounding?
posted at 10:41 am on August 14, 2014 by Ed Morrissey
Well, sort of. Barack Obama’s poll numbers have cratered of late, so any movement upward will look like a bounce — and as the Washington Post notes, there is a hook for that conclusion. According to the Fox poll, about two-thirds of Americans agree with Obama’s decision to order air strikes on ISIS to slow their roll toward the Kurdish autonomous zone:
The good news for President Obama: The American people are very much behind his decision to launch airstrikes against extremists in Iraq.
The bad news: They still think he’s really weak on foreign policy.
A new Fox News poll has a rare bit of praise for Obama’s conduct in world affairs, with Americans approving 65-23 of his decision to launch airstrikes in Iraq.
But the same poll shows that, when it comes to foreign policy in general and basically every major overseas conflict — including Iraq — Obama is still in pretty rough shape.
Actually, his job approval numbers did bounce back, at least a little. Obama gets a 42/49, still underwater, but his disapproval number is back below a majority for the first time since May, and only the second time in the past year. Two months ago, that number was 41/54, and in March it was 38/54.
However, on everything else Obama scores majority disapprovals, even while rebounding slightly in some categories. He gets a 43/51 on the economy, which is better than last month’s 40/57. On foreign policy, he scores an abysmal 35/53, but that beats 36/56 and 32/60 in Fox’s last two polls. Obama has edged up slightly on health care from 39/58 in early June to 42/53 today. Only on immigration and Israel does Obama remain mired at his nadir; he gets 33/57 on the former (from 34/58) and 30/54 on the latter (29/56 in June).
What to make of this small bounce? The airstrikes in Iraq show some spark of leadership from a President who mainly seems adrift and disengaged from events. That perception might be enough to have moved the needle and rebuilt a little confidence in Obama’s stewardship of the nation. However, this is the only poll thus far showing any kind of improvement, even as small as this is, and most of the changes are either within the margin of error or just outside of it.
Bottom line: Obama remains “in rough shape,” as the Post’s Aaron Blake concludes. He may, however, have established his floor of unpopularity, unless Obama boots another crisis.
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Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Marist poll shows Obama driving midterm vote to GOP
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Marist poll shows Obama driving midterm vote to GOP
posted at 12:01 pm on August 12, 2014 by Ed Morrissey
Midterm elections usually end up as referendums on the current President, and sixth-year midterms especially so. Will that be the case in November with Barack Obama? According to a new poll from Marist and McClatchy, yes — and Democrats will not like the outcome. By a ten-point spread, Obama incentivizes voters to go Republican more than Democratic:
President Barack Obama is dragging down his party and hurting the prospects of fellow Democrats as they head into midterm elections that will determine who controls Congress, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.
Obama is beset by problems at home and abroad. Just 40 percent of voters approve of the way he’s doing his job, tying his worst mark in three years and the second worst of his presidency.
Just 39 percent approve of the way he’s dealing with the economy and only 33 percent approve of how he’s dealing with foreign policy, the worst of his years in office.
By 42-32 percent, voters say their opinions of Obama make them more likely to vote this fall for a Republican than for a Democrat.
That’s actually twice the gap in the generic Congressional ballot, which stacks up 43/38 for Republicans — a very bad figure for Democrats. The GOP has gained 11 points in the gap since April, when Democrats led 48/42, which strongly suggests that the momentum has shifted in a big way as the general-election campaign season approaches. What’s more, it’s also pretty clear that no matter how poorly the GOP polls (only 22% approve of Republicans in Congress, as opposed to 32% for Democrats), the need to rebuke Barack Obama takes precedence for voters. Among independents, the GOP has a 14-point lead in the generic Congressional ballot, 40/26, and Obama makes independents likelier to vote for Republicans than Democrats by an almost 2:1 margin, 41/22.
So yes, this midterm will be all about Barack Obama, and not about income inequality or free contraception. Having an overall job approval rating of 40/52 is bad enough (worst since September 2011), but on issues that matter to voters, Obama may be doing worse than that topline figure suggests. His 39/58 on the economy is his worst showing since July 2013, and his 33/61 on foreign policy is Obama’s worst ever in the Marist series. He gets only a 30/55 on the Gaza war, and 32/51 on Ukraine. Even his personal favorability has plummeted; it’s now at 43/51, his worst showing in this series as well.
It’s a disaster for Democrats, and it doesn’t appear that it will get better any time soon. Obama might have mitigated the damage with a renewed sense of mission and engagement in the face of multiple crises, but instead he opted to go on vacation. Normally I’d push back against those who gripe about presidential vacations, but as I argue in my column today at The Week, this time critics have a point:
Three years ago, he proudly declared that he had kept his promise to get all troops out of the country, and two years ago campaigned on the fact that Mitt Romney would have kept U.S. troops there had he been president. In January of this year, Obama infamously dismissed ISIS as “a jayvee team” to al Qaeda, and shrugged them off as “jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes.”
Meanwhile, two weeks ago, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency told an audience that the U.S. is less safe than it was “several years ago,” and that rather than being on the run, the al Qaeda ideology “sadly feels like it’s exponentially grown” during that time.
On Saturday, with Marine One in the background, standing by to whisk him away to Martha’s Vineyard, Obama announced that he had ordered the U.S. military to conduct airstrikes on ISIS to prevent a potential genocide. He then proceeded to claim that removing all troops from Iraq wasn’t his decision, but was a situation forced on him by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Needless to say, the dramatic cognitive disconnects in Obama’s narrative don’t do much to maintain even the current low confidence in his leadership, let alone repair the damage. While Obama can certainly run the American response from his vacation retreat to the genocide unfolding in real time, his insistence on doing so reinforces the conclusion that the president isn’t taking the ISIS threat seriously.
Most Americans would expect that the sudden epiphany about the genocidal threat posed by ISIS would have a president working overtime. This time, at least, the need to boost confidence in the president’s leadership should have outweighed his legitimate need for some downtime outside the Beltway bubble.
Americans are less and less impressed with Obama, and going absent in August isn’t likely to make them feel any better about him as Commander in Chief, either.
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Friday, August 1, 2014
Obama hits 40% approval in AP poll, loses ground on foreign policy
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Monday, July 28, 2014
CNN poll: Hillary doing better with white voters than any Democrat since Jimmy Carter
CNNpoll:Hillarydoingbetterwithwhitevoters
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Wisconsin gubernatorial poll: Mary Burke 47, Scott Walker 46
Wisconsingubernatorialpoll:MaryBurke47,ScottWalker
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Wisconsin gubernatorial poll: Mary Burke 47, Scott Walker 46
posted at 6:01 pm on July 23, 2014 by Allahpundit
Somewhere Chris Christie and Jeb Bush (and Paul Ryan?) are high-fiving.
Dude, I’m nervous:
Gov. Scott Walker and Democratic challenger Mary Burke are in a dead heat heading into the November election, with Walker leading 46%-45% among registered voters, according to the latest Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday.
Among likely voters, Burke led Walker, 47%-46%.
The results were all inside the margin of error.
I was nervous two months ago too, after the last Marquette poll dropped and showed Walker and Burke dead even at 46 among registered voters but Walker up 48/45 among likely voters. Today it’s Burke who leads ever so slightly among likelies. That’s within the margin of error, of course, so you can see this glass as half-full if you like — Walker might still be a tiny bit ahead! — but an incorrigible eeyore like me naturally sees it half-empty insofar as he hasn’t gained any ground since May. The slight shift among likely voters isn’t the only bad trend either:
Among independents: Walker 45%, Burke 44%. In May, among independents, it was Walker 49%, Burke 40%. #mulawpoll
— MULawPoll (@MULawPoll) July 23, 2014
9% say WI is creating jobs faster than other states, 42% say it’s about the same as other states, 43% say WI lags other state. #mulawpoll
— MULawPoll (@MULawPoll) July 23, 2014
In May, it was 13% saying faster, 38% saying the same, and 43% saying WI is lagging. #mulawpoll
— MULawPoll (@MULawPoll) July 23, 2014
His approval and favorable ratings have also dropped by a couple of points. That may be noise, but the bottom line is that he hasn’t established an edge on Burke yet. And needless to say, unlike lots of other state-level Democratic candidates, Burke can count on lots of dough from liberals down the stretch this fall in the name of knocking off Walker before he becomes a 2016 threat. He’s outraised her thus far, partly because he’s a conservative rock star and partly because he’s an incumbent, but Burke’s got a fair chance to catch up if Democratic Senate chances start to go sour and liberals begin focusing on her as their best chance for a big win. In fact, I wonder how much better Burke might be doing money-wise right now if not for Wendy Davis’s lame, futile campaign for governor in Texas. Burke raised $3.6 million in the first half of this year (Walker raised $8.2 million); since February, Davis has raised more than $11 million. Lots of that is due, of course, to the relative sizes of Texas’s and Wisconsin’s populations, but Davis has plenty of financial support from outside Texas too. If you’re a Democrat looking for the most bang for your political buck, you’re far better off trying to nuke a serious Republican presidential contender in a tight race in Wisconsin by sending your money to Burke than you are throwing it into the “yay, abortion!” sinkhole of Davis’s campaign. Let’s hope their stupidity keeps up throughout the fall. It might be the difference between President Walker and President Hillary in 2017.
Exit question: In a blue state, this can only be good news, right?
68% of registered voters say they are “absolutely certain” to vote in November. Before Nov. 2012, election, 89% said that. #mulawpoll
— MULawPoll (@MULawPoll) July 23, 2014
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CNN: Obama approval holding steady … at 42%
CNN:Obamaapprovalholdingsteady…at42%
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CNN: Obama approval holding steady … at 42%
posted at 5:21 pm on July 23, 2014 by Ed Morrissey
From the Lipstick on the Pig Department, CNN reports that its latest polling shows “no Katrina moment” for Barack Obama. That, however, is rather cold comfort, as even CNN allows, because the steady level of the President’s job approval rating puts him underwater by double digits. The only good news is that the approval-disapproval levels haven’t shifted southward in the wake of the VA scandal, ISIS’ expansion, and the escalations in Gaza and Ukraine:
President Barack Obama’s poll numbers are nothing to brag about, but there’s little evidence he has suffered so far this year a “Katrina moment” that caused his predecessor’s numbers to plummet.
A new CNN/ORC International survey indicates that public opinion of the President has barely budged in the wake of new challenges that Obama has faced this year.
According to the poll, which was released Wednesday, the President’s approval rating among Americans stands at 42%. That’s not great, but it’s basically unchanged since March.
Only 42% believe that Obama can manage the government effectively. Again, nothing to celebrate, but it’s virtually unchanged from the 43% who felt that way in March.
That may not mean that Obama hasn’t suffered a “Katrina moment,” though. It just changes when it may have occurred. From late 2011 to mid-2013, the CNN series on Obama’s job approval mostly put it at either a majority or plurality, with only a rare plurality for disapproval and never outside of the margin of error. As late as May 2013, Obama’s approval rating was 53/45 — in a survey taken right before the exposure of both the IRS and NSA scandals. One month later, it flipped to 45/54 and has been underwater outside of the MOE since, with majority disapproval every poll. The trend on leadership has much fewer data points, but exhibits a similar trend. Independents have his job approval at 34/62, and he’s even estranged women at 45/52 and young voters (18-34) narrowly at 45/49.
Interestingly, Obama’s other personal qualities seem to be holding up a little better, but still should have Democrats worried — especially on how voters relate to their party’s leader. On the question of whether Obama “generally agrees with you on issues you care about,” Obama dropped to 43/56, narrowly the worst rating ever (was 44/56 in the wake of the ObamaCare rollout debacle). In May of last year, it was 51/47. The relentless focus on issue non-sequiturs over the last several months seems to have taken its toll on Obama, and other Democrats still talking about a “war on women” and income inequality should take notice of that trend in particular. For women, that’s now 45/53, and among independents it’s an abysmal 35/63.
He’s also dropped to 46/53 on “shares your values,” the lowest rating ever and the first time Obama’s been underwater on this question when the entire sample was surveyed on it. Among women, it’s 46/52, and independents it’s 39/60, slightly better than the questions above but still horrid. He’s still carrying the youth vote at 52/46 but losing every other age demo decisively, and every income demo as well.
CNN suggests that ObamaCare may be gaining more support, but that’s a narrow reading of the data, too:
More than half the public says Obamacare has helped either their families or others across the country, although less than one in five Americans say they have personally benefited from the health care law, according to a new national poll.
A CNN/ORC International survey also indicates that a majority of Americans oppose the Affordable Care Act, but that some of that opposition is from people who don’t think the measure goes far enough.
Yes, and … that’s always been the case. As far as the trend goes, there isn’t one. Eighteen percent think their family is better off with the law, which is exactly what it was in September 2010 and one point off from September 2013 (17%). Thirty-five percent think their family is worse off, slightly down from 40% last September but almost within the MOE, and just two points off from September 2010′s 37%. That’s not improvement — it’s stasis. In fact, the only real trend seen in this series is a decline in perception of improvement for others — from 43% in March 2010 to 35% today, while “not help anyone” has gone from 29% when the ACA passed Congress to 44% today.
ObamaCare fares similarly when asked as approval/disapproval, too. It gets a 40/59, about mid-range for the series and almost identical to March’s 39/57. Women oppose it 42/57, as do 18-34 year olds, and independents rate it at 34/63. Those earning under $50,000 a year, who should be the target demo for the bill, oppose it by 20 points, 39/59.
If this poll result from ObamaCare is the Great Democratic Hope for the midterms, they’d better start investing in crying towels now while they’re cheap.
Update: Guy Benson offers his own take on the poll, especially on the idea that this is in any way positive about ObamaCare.
Update: Fixed careless subject-verb error in final sentence.
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Friday, July 11, 2014
Gallup’s clickbait: Obama’s still pretty popular among …
Gallup’sclickbait:Obama’sstillprettypopularamong…
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Gallup’s clickbait: Obama’s still pretty popular among …
posted at 2:01 pm on July 11, 2014 by Ed Morrissey
If the White House still looks like it needs remedial training on social media, someone at Gallup apparently has a post-grad degree in clickbait. Based on a data dive on its daily tracking poll on presidential approval ratings, Gallup has produced trend lines on approval by religious identification — a handy way to look at Barack Obama’s relative strength among faith-based groups. The big news is the sharp decline across all religious demos over his presidency and even since the first of the year, but the headline is … well, let’s just say this caught some attention on Twitter:
U.S. Muslims Most Approving of Obama, Mormons Least
But …
Relative rank order of religious groups stable throughout his presidency
That’s because Muslims have been a strong Democratic demo since at least early in the Bush administration. Almost two-thirds of Muslim voters identify as Democrats, according to a Pew poll in 2007. Most polls put Republican identification at nearly nil among Muslims in America. It’s not terribly surprising, then, that they tend to be very favorable to Obama:
Seventy-two percent of U.S. Muslims approved of the job President Barack Obama was doing as president during the first six months of 2014, higher than any other U.S. religious group Gallup tracks. Mormons were least approving, at 18%. In general, majorities of those in non-Christian religions — including those who do not affiliate with any religion — approved of Obama, while less than a majority of those in the three major Christian religious groups did.
By the way, this has been true all along, so it’s not exactly news:
The relative rank order of the religious groups on job approval has been consistent throughout Obama’s presidency. In fact, the current rank order, with Muslims most approving and Mormons least, exactly matches the order seen over the more than five years he has been in office since January 2009.
The next paragraph, though, is actually significant:
Moreover, current job approval among each religious subgroup is between five and seven percentage points lower than the full 2009-2014 average for each. Obama’s current 43% overall job approval average is five points lower than his 48% average so far in his presidency.
Gallup includes two charts, one for approval in Christian religion demos over Obama’s presidency, and the other for non-Christians, including unaffiliated voters. The trendlines in both charts are downward, although sharper among Christian religions than non-Christian. There isn’t a single demo where Obama hasn’t dropped in 2014 by a margin larger than the five-plus year average’s MOE. That’s true even among Mormons, where Obama’s average approval levels in his presidency were already atrocious.
Besides, the Muslim demo is tiny and not dispositive in elections at all. That’s very much not the case for the Christian demos, with tens of millions of voters in each, and the decline has been significant over the last five-plus years. In 2009, Obama got 67% approval among Catholics and 58% among Protestants, and his presidential averages among each are 50% and 43%. The 2014 averages are 44% and 37%. Jewish voters, another traditional Democratic demo, are a smaller group but the situation is worse there. Obama started off with a 77% approval rating among Jewish voters, and has a presidential average of 62% — but that’s dropped to 55% in 2014, an arguably dangerous nadir among a traditional voting bloc that Democrats will need in the midterms. Even atheists have fallen off the pace, dropping six points in 2014 from the overall presidential average, 54% from 60%.
Gallup buries the lede here. There’s no surprise in the ranking of religious demos when it comes to Obama approval ratings, but what is a surprise is how much approval has fallen off this year, and how it has done so almost identically in all religious demos.
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New Economist/YouGov poll shows Hobby Lobby impact on Supreme Court approval
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Thursday, July 10, 2014
Libertarian poll: Millennials are … pretty liberal, actually
Libertarianpoll:Millennialsare…prettyliberal,actually
Monday, July 7, 2014
Poll: Jesus would support stricter gun laws, higher taxes on the rich, reducing carbon emissions, and universal health care
Poll:Jesuswouldsupportstrictergunlaws,higher
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Q-poll: Obama worst president since WWII
Q-poll:ObamaworstpresidentsinceWWII posted
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Q-poll: Obama worst president since WWII
posted at 8:41 am on July 2, 2014 by Ed Morrissey
It’s no secret that Barack Obama’s popularity has plunged over the past 18 months of his second term, but just how bad has it gotten? According to a new poll from Quinnipiac, Americans pick him as the worst post-WWII president of all. A third of respondents choose Obama for that dubious honor, while 28% pick George W. Bush:
President Barack Obama is the worst president since World War II, 33 percent of American voters say in a Quinnipiac University National Poll released today. Another 28 percent pick President George W. Bush. …
Obama has been a better president than George W. Bush, 39 percent of voters say, while 40 percent say he is worse. Men say 43 – 36 percent that Obama is worse than Bush while women say 42 – 38 percent he is better. Obama is worse, Republicans say 79 – 7 percent and independent voters say 41 – 31 percent. Democrats say 78 – 4 percent that he is better.
Obama beats up George Bush on the economy any time he can in order to distract attention from the fact that his own economic policies have produced the worst recovery since WWII — not exactly a coincidence in regard to this poll. That tactic isn’t working as well as it used to work, though:
Voters say by a narrow 37 – 34 percent that Obama is better for the economy than Bush.
That’s within the MOE, but that’s the good news on Bush comparisons. He’s now at 39/40 against Bush as to which was the better President, down from 46/30 in January 2011 when the question was last asked. Among independents, Obama scores 31/41 and barely holds serve with women at 42/38.
Obama got a little bit of good news in his overall approval ratings, but that just shows how bad the rest of the news is from this poll. His job approval improved to 40/53, up from 38/57 in December … but not by much. Among independents, it’s 31/59, and among women — a critical demographic for Democrats this fall — it’s 42/49. He’s dead even on trustworthiness overall (48/48) but 42/53 among independents, and underwater on leadership at 47/51 overall and 41/57 among independents.
Perhaps even more embarrassing — and potentially more dangerous for other Democrats — is the rise of buyer’s remorse from the election of 2012:
America would be better off if Republican Mitt Romney had won the 2012 presidential election, 45 percent of voters say, while 38 percent say the country would be worse off.
Missing Mitt are Republicans 84 – 5 percent and independent voters 47 – 33 percent, while Democrats say 74 – 10 percent that the U.S. would be worse off with Romney.
If independents have double-digit buyer’s remorse from 2012, that suggests a strong desire to make up for their earlier mistake. The economy is driving that remorse. Respondents rate the economy as their highest priority by far in the midterms. Obama only gets a 40/55 on the economy, and 34/61 among independents. At the very least, it shows that independents won’t be too motivated to vote for Obama’s allies, while Republicans will be very motivated to turn out in November.
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Friday, June 27, 2014
Poll: Only 40% of “solid liberals” say they often feel proud to be American
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Monday, June 23, 2014
Poll: 52% of Republicans think Obama should be doing more in Iraq
Poll:52%ofRepublicansthinkObamashouldbe
Friday, June 13, 2014
Hillary Clinton drops 18 points in 18 months in Bloomberg poll
HillaryClintondrops18pointsin18months
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Hillary Clinton drops 18 points in 18 months in Bloomberg poll
posted at 8:01 am on June 13, 2014 by Ed Morrissey
Call this a capper to Hillary Clinton’s terrible, no-good, very bad week. A new Bloomberg poll shows that America is so excited about the prospect of a Hillary candidacy in 2016 that her approval figure has dropped 18 points in as many months, from a peak of 70% when she left the State Department to just 52% now. This cannot be what Team Hillary had in mind a week ago, as she prepared her national rollout of Hard Choices and instead demonstrated that she still has no answers for her record or her ambitions:
Hillary Clinton’s popularity continues to slide as she takes on a more political posture and Republicans raise questions about the deadly 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Libya on her watch.
Fifty-two percent of Americans view the former secretary of state favorably, down from 56 percent in March and 70 percent in December 2012, according to the Bloomberg National Poll.
The decline means Clinton wouldn’t enter a possible 2016 race as a prohibitive favorite over key Republican rivals. While she still bests them in head-to-head matchups, she doesn’t have majority support against any of them.
This sounds a lot like 2006, when Hillary was a formidable candidate … as long as she didn’t actually run. In fact, that was her strategy in the 2008 cycle — to approach it as a coronation rather than a competition, and it ended up backfiring on her. One might have thought that the experience would have taught her something about campaigning; John Heileman said this week that she had vastly improved by the end of that primary fight, but too late to win. Either Hillary has forgotten those lessons, or her improvement in the spring of 2008 was an illusion.
Hillary’s not the only one getting bad news in this poll, either. Regardless of who gets the nomination, Democrats need Barack Obama to end his term on a high note for any hope of hanging onto the White House. Instead, Obama’s numbers have begun to slide like George Bush’s approval levels did at the same point in his second term. Obama gets a 43/53 on overall job approval, but that’s the highest approval level he gets:
- Economy: 38/57
- Health care: 38/58
- Budget deficit: 28/63
Those are the highest priority issues for voters in the Bloomberg poll, by the way. Combining “unemployment and jobs” with “declining real income” into the economy (as the approval question gets asked), 44% of respondents choose the economy as their top priority for the country at the moment. The two big messaging topics for the White House, immigration and climate change, get 6% and 5% respectively. The “war on women” and “income inequality” don’t even appear on this list.
The generic Congressional ballot is tied up at 39/39, with 4% leaning to both parties, and was asked of a subset of likely voters. That shouldn’t cheer up Democrats, however — the generic ballot questions in media polls usually underestimates Republican strength. With Obama’s numbers cratering, expect the turnout to be in the GOP’s favor.
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Thursday, June 12, 2014
FBI opening up criminal probe of VA
FBIopeningupcriminalprobeofVA
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FBI opening up criminal probe of VA
posted at 2:31 pm on June 12, 2014 by Ed Morrissey
The pressure brought by Congress to get to the bottom of the massive wait-list fraud at the Department of Veterans Affairs has prompted the FBI to open a criminal probe, at least of the offices in Phoenix which were the epicenter of the scandal. FBI Director James Comey revealed that the agency has begun working with the VA’s Inspector General on its probe, sharing data and collecting evidence to determine whether prosecution will take place. Whether that FBI probe extends beyond Phoenix depends on what the IG finds elsewhere, Comey told a House panel:
The FBI says it has opened a criminal investigation of the Veterans Affairs Department, which is grappling with a scandal over long waiting lists to provide care and allegations that paperwork was faked to make delays appear shorter.
FBI Director James Comey told a House hearing on Wednesday the bureau’s Phoenix office has joined an ongoing review by the VA inspector general.
The move at least partly satisfies requests from key members of Congress from both parties who have pressed for a full probe by the Justice Department as the scandal accelerated in recent weeks and led to the resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki in May.
The number of facilities now under investigation by the IG has increased to 69, so the FBI may be very busy indeed. The indications from the VA’s own internal investigation is that the fraud was endemic, and that’s just not going to be possible without some direction from the main office. Anderson Cooper got an update from Drew Griffin last night after the hearing concluded:
Also, Jake Tapper reports that two members of Congress now accuse the VA of obstructing their own probe into the VA scandal:
After stories emerged of long waiting lists for veterans trying to get appointments for health care within the VA system, on May 28, Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pennsylvania, received an unusual phone call from Pittsburgh VA director and CEO Terry Gerigk Wolf and deputy director David Cord, sources tell CNN.
Cord told Murphy, the congressman says, that an internal audit indicated that the Pittsburgh VA “passed with flying colors,” with the exception of those veterans seeking appointments in podiatry.
“I don’t believe that,” Murphy said, according to people on the call.
Murphy says he was taken off guard by the phone call. Officials with the Pittsburgh VA – which has had significant problems in the past, with an outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease in 2011 and 2012 that left at least six veterans dead – never independently picks up the phone to call him, his staffers say.
“It is my belief the purpose of the unannounced call was not to provide me the facts on patient wait times at the Pittsburgh VA, but was a smokescreen to prevent me from understanding what exactly was going on there,” Murphy told CNN. “I’ve heard the ‘all is okay’ message in midst of management failures too many times from the VA to believe it on face value ever again.”
The congressman compared notes with his fellow western Pennsylvanian, Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle.
Doyle said that Wolf had told him something quite different – that Pittsburgh had up to 700 patients on this wait list, called the NEAR (New Enrollee Appointment Request) List, for veterans enrolling for the first time. Some of these veterans had been waiting years for their first appointment.
Doyle and Murphy say they called Wolf, who told them she knew about the list three weeks before, but was told not to inform the congressional delegation about it for fear she would be fired for disclosing the information.
As the FBI formally enters the scandal for the first time, the Senate passed the Sanders-McCain reform act by a 93-3 vote. The House has passed a similar bill unanimously, and the normal means to reconcile the two will be a conference committee. How formal that process will need to be remains to be seen:
Some differences will have to be reconciled, but lawmakers and aides expect that can be done without a lengthy formal conference and predicted that each chamber will simply moderately alter their bills to clear both the House and Senate. Both chambers have taken slightly different paths on how to fire incompetent VA executives, for example, with the Senate concerned the House is removing due process from firing decisions.
But on health care, there is not much daylight between the two proposals. The Senate’s bill boosts hiring of doctors and nurses, authorizes the leasing of 27 new VA medical facilities and allow veterans to seek private health care outside the VA system if necessary — provisions mostly in line with the House-passed bill. Adding to the VA momentum, the White House issued a statement on Wednesday supporting the Senate’s bill.
Even small differences might be easier to bridge in conference, rather than have amendments go through normal order to bring the language into concordance in each chamber. The point, though, is that this is moving fast — and that speed puts pressure on the VA and the FBI to move with haste as well.
Speaking of pressure, Barack Obama’s certainly getting some for his handling of the scandal too:
As the situation continues to unfold at the VA, 29% of all Americans say they approve of the way Obama is handling the situation involving veterans at VA hospitals, with 63% disapproving. When asked to rate the president on a variety of issues, more Americans approve of his handling of other issues, including the environment (47%), terrorism (42%), and the release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl (38%). While approval is not high on any of these matters, the rather low rating of Obama’s handling of the VA scandal is significant, especially paired with how closely Americans are following the issue.
Gallup notes that it’s not impacting his overall approval rating … yet. It’s certainly not helping it, though.
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Tuesday, June 10, 2014
CBS poll shows 55% of veterans disapprove of Taliban 5 swap
CBSpollshows55%ofveteransdisapproveof
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CBS poll shows 55% of veterans disapprove of Taliban 5 swap
posted at 8:01 am on June 10, 2014 by Ed Morrissey
Ten days after staging a splashy Rose Garden announcement of the prisoner swap that sent five high-ranking Taliban commanders to freedom in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl, it’s safe to say that the attempt to garner good PR has flopped. A new CBS poll on the subject finds a plurality of Americans disapprove of the deal, 45/37, which rises to a majority among the veterans Obama clearly hoped to impress:
Just over a week after U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was freed by the Taliban, a CBS News Poll shows 45% of Americans disapprove of the deal that saw him released in exchange for five Taliban militants, while 37% approve of it. About one in five do not have an opinion.
Views differ by political party: most Republicans disapprove of the deal, while just over half of Democrats approve. Among those who have served in the military, 55% disapprove of the prisoner swap.
Most Americans — 56% — say the U.S. paid too high a price to secure Bergdahl’s release. Among veterans, that figure rises to 65%.
CBS has not yet released the full polling data, but not much about what they have released can make the White House happy. The only support Obama gets for the deal is from fellow Democrats, and even that’s rather soft. Only a bare plurality thinks Obama got reasonable terms for the swap, 42/39. Among all Americans, a near-majority of 49% believe it will increase the threat of terrorism against the US, and 40% think it will have no effect. The number of people who believe it will lower the threat of terrorism against the US comes to a whopping three percent.
On the question of informing Congress, the news gets much worse for the President. Despite insisting that the speed of the deal made notification and consultation impossible, 72% of respondents think Obama should have complied with the law. On this question, Obama doesn’t even get support from fellow Democrats, 55% of whom think he should have worked with Congress on the issue.
In that context, it’s not difficult to see why the House has decided to look into Obama’s refusal to comply with the law:
If Obama conceived the Rose Garden event as a way to ingratiate himself with veterans after the VA scandal, it’s backfired in a big way. The same can be said about doing this trade as a means to advance his goal of shutting down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, because this release of the biggest non-AQ detainees has made that goal radioactive all over again — especially in the arrogant manner in which it was handled.
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Friday, June 6, 2014
Poll: 50% say Equal Protection Clause of U.S. Constitution gives gays the right to marry
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Wednesday, June 4, 2014
CNN: Obama doesn’t get to 50% approval … on anything
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CNN: Obama doesn’t get to 50% approval … on anything
posted at 10:01 am on June 4, 2014 by Ed Morrissey
That analysis comes from CNN’s John King, who notes that Barack Obama has had some, er, problems connecting with the public in his second term. In the poll released yesterday, CNN asked respondents for opinions on twelve issues, and Obama didn’t get to 50% on a single one — but had majority disapproval for all but two:
In fact, his overall approval rating in the CNN series has barely budged from the announcement over a year ago that the IRS had targeted Obama’s political opponents in Tea Party organizations. It’s also about the same time that whistleblowers emerged to dispute the White House/State Department narrative on Benghazi, too. At that point, CNN had Obama’s job approval rating at 53/45, roughly where it had been since his re-election. It hasn’t been above 45% since.
Only on environmental policy did Obama register a positive reaction, but it’s mighty thin at 49/45. He scored 49/49 on terrorism, but most of the poll was conducted before Americans found out that Obama released five of the most dangerous Taliban figures from Guantanamo Bay — and did so illegally. Don’t expect that number to remain balanced for long, in other words. On issues closer to the midterm focus, Obama performs abysmally:
- Economy – 38/61, down from 43/56 in September
- Health care – 36/63, was 42/55
- Foreign affairs – 40/57, same
- Helping the middle class – 40/58, was not asked in September
- The VA – 37/58 (new)
- Ukraine – 38/53 (new)
The economy will be the real danger area for Democrats in the midterms, especially those running in red and purple states, and so will health care. Those are the top two issues respondents named for the most important issue in the country, 40% and 19% respectively — and they used to be Democratic Party strengths. The White House wants to talk about the environment and immigration, but neither of them even reach double digits on the priority list CNN gets from its survey.
This is the price of incompetence, and this was before the Bergdahl disaster. It’s left the White House and its Democrat allies no room to pivot anywhere. As King and his panel conclude, it’s not so much disagreement on the issues as it is a vote of no confidence in the man who’s implementing them.
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Thursday, May 22, 2014
CBS poll: Voters blame Shinseki, Obama for VA scandal
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CBS poll: Voters blame Shinseki, Obama for VA scandal
posted at 12:01 pm on May 22, 2014 by Ed Morrissey
Who deserves the blame for the wait-list fraud and lack of medical care for veterans at the VA? According to a new CBS poll, a third of Americans blame the man who has been in charge of the VA for more than five years. And another 17% blame his boss:
Americans are split in their thoughts over who they think is most to blame for the problems at Veterans Affairs department medical facilities, which involve allegations that VA hospitals kept delays in treatment off the books and that patients may have died waiting for care.
But Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki and the VA (33 percent) receive more blame than either local VA hospitals (28 percent) or President Obama (17 percent). About a quarter doesn’t have an opinion.
Partisan differences emerge: While 31 percent of Republicans blame Shinseki and the VA for the problems, nearly as many blame Mr. Obama (30 percent). Fewer Democrats and independents say the president is at fault; they are more likely to blame Shinseki and the VA and local VA hospitals.
The poll does suffer in one respect in the way that the question was framed. Those were the only choices offered to respondents. Had they offered an option to blame Congress, it would be interesting to see how many would have opted for that choice, and that number may be represented in the relatively high number (23%) who didn’t make a choice at all.
The next question on the poll also hints at that impulse. Respondents ended up in a virtual split (42/41) over whether long waits are caused by inadequate resources or poor management of resources. Interestingly, each of the three political demographics have 42% blaming inadequate resources. A plurality of Republicans (47%) blame poor management, while Democrats (39%) and independents (40%) are less focused on that explanation. Perhaps the media should be exploring the massive increases in resources given to Shinseki by Congress over the last five years, as the OMB data clearly shows.
Obama’s defenders have begun mumbling about “Green Lanternism” again in response to his executive management failures. Ron Fournier blasts that argument into orbit:
The inconvenient truth is that Klein’s kind of thinking lets the president off the hook, unaccountable for promises broken and opportunities lost. Rather than change Washington’s culture of polarization, zero-sum game politics, and spin, Obama surrendered to it almost immediately. On health insurance reform, government debt, and loosening immigration laws, Obama shares blame with obstinate House Republicans for fumbling potential compromise. On climate change and gun control, Obama knew (or should have known) his rhetoric was setting up voters for disappointment. Rather than roll back Bush-era terrorism programs that curb civil liberties, Obama deepened them.
The launch of the Affordable Care Act and the worsening of conditions at the Veterans Affairs Department are emblematic of Obama’s inattention to the hard work of governing. He is slow to fire poor-serving Cabinet members and quick to dismiss controversies as “phony scandals.” To the Obama administration, transparency is a mere talking point. The great irony of his progressive presidency: Democrats privately admit that Obama has done as much to undermine the public’s faith in government as his GOP predecessor. The Green Lantern Theory is an excuse for failure.
Let’s recap on this. Candidate Obama campaigned on this issue, and president-elect Obama and Shinseki were briefed on it during the transition, and VA officials had been warned as early as 2010 that wait-list fraud was still occurring. Congress has increased Shinseki’s budget by 78% since the 2009 inauguration as demanded by Obama. Yet the White House claims to be shocked, shocked that this problem exists — and that the man to deal with it is the same man who let it fester for five-plus years while Congress poured money into his organization.
You don’t have to be Green Lantern to address that issue. You just need to be a competent executive. Right now, we don’t have that at the VA, nor at the White House either — and voters are starting to notice.
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