Thursday, June 29, 2017

BloggeRhythms

Today’s one in which statistics tell a quite interesting story about citizen’s views of what transpires around them.

Frank Newport reported on new survey results @gallup.com that illustrate opinions on several key subjects.

Newspapers gained 7% over last years performance, up from 20% to 27%, However, that means three quarters of the public still doesn’t have much confidence in them. 

Public schools rose in acceptance too, to 36% from 30%.leaving two-thirds unpleased. 

The U.S. Supreme Court rose to 40% approval from 36%, surprising in view of the balance turning toward the conservative side.

Congress is not surprisingly still greatly disliked, sinking to 9% from 12% while television news isn’t much better at 21%, down from last year’s 24%

As usual small business still gets very high marks at 68%, compared to last years 70%.

The military remains a public favorite at 73%, up one point from 72%, while the presidency gained 4% for a total of 36% compared to last year’s 32%.

And then, not extraordinary considering it’s newness,  news on the internet attained only a 16% viewership. 

Newport summarized the findings, writing: “Overall, U.S. adults say they have the most confidence in the military, as has typically been the case since the mid-1980s. Americans have almost as much confidence in small business as they do in the military. Confidence levels drop off substantially after these two, with only one other institution -- the police -- getting a combined "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence rating over 50%.”

 “At the other end of the spectrum, two institutions have confidence ratings below 20% -- Congress, last on the list with a confidence rating of 12%, and news on the internet, at 16%.”

As to be expected: “Republicans and Democrats essentially flipped their confidence ratings of the presidency this year. Republicans' confidence surged 46 points compared with 2016, while Democrats' confidence fell by 49 points. Last year, with a Democrat in the White House, Democrats were much more confident in the presidency than were Republicans. This year, Republicans' confidence in the presidency is 50 points higher than that of Democrats.”

And then, some particular statistics were compiled by the Trump administration at his request. 

Results were posted by Neil Munro @breitbart.com who wrote that “Trump told his deputies on March 6 to reveal government data about immigration which was largely hidden by former President Barack Obama.

“Trump’s first quarterly report has now been posted by the Department of Homeland Security, and it contains a flood of jargon-tangled data.”

Some specifics revealed that there  are now “one new immigrant for every four Americans who turn 18.”

There are also “two new foreign workers for every four Americans who enter the workforce,” which is the most important statistic in the report.

“Half of the arriving temporary workers are white-collar workers, not farm hands or blue-collar workers. Each month, the temporary worker inflows include 35,000 white-collar workers, 6,707 agricultural workers and roughly 25,000 blue-collar and mid-skill workers. 

"Which makes sense because “businesses save more money by importing low-wage, high-skill engineers, nurses, doctors, professors, accountants, and designers to take the place of many expensive American graduates and skilled technicians who are trying to pay off college debts, to buy houses, get married and raise families.” 

“So, 50 percent of foreign temporary workers are white-collar professionals.”

Important details include the following: “The unskilled legal immigrants included 375,000 sisters and brothers, or sons, daughters or parents of recent immigrants who got their green cards via so-called “chain immigration,” not via their skills or accomplishments. The remaining 90,000 arrivals consisted of refugees, asylum-seekers, miscellaneous and “diversity” people who were selected because they have no connection to the United States. 

“Despite their lack of skills, business is fine with this huge inflow of unskilled people. The inflow pressures blue-collar wages, and it also grows the consumer economy because poor people have to eat, drive, and find shelter just like everyone else. Moreover, federal, state and local government financial support for these imported consumers also converts middle-class taxes into an economic stimulus for retailers worth at least $56 billion per year.”

According to Munro, “So the important statistic here is that only one-in-eight legal immigrants have worked their way into the country — the rest were pulled in by relatives, regardless of education or health or age or productivity or ability to integrate into American society.

“Trump’s data shows that 264,553 legal immigrants got citizenship during the six months in the first report, at a rate of roughly 45,000 a month. These new citizens come from 164 countries, speak more than 164 languages, and few have the skills to pay more in taxes than they receive in welfare or aid, and most vote Democratic.”

In summary, a huge cost to the public arises because the flood of foreign labor “spikes profits and stock values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, and sidelines marginalized Americans and their families.”

Thus, much in keeping with the Obama administration’s practice of hiding relevant details concerning questionable policies and programs, it was always expected by them that the following president would be a Democrat. And therefore, little chance existed for information, such as the true costs of immigration, would be exposed to the public.

However, that obviously isn’t what transpired. Which means that future disclosures are a practical certainty.    

On another subject, Trump-bashing took another step backward yesterday, as reported by Tony Lee @breitbart.com that “NBC’s Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly got walloped by a fresh episode of 60 Minutes and lost yet again to a rerun of America’s Funniest Home Videos. In fact, as Variety pointed out, Kelly’s show slipped to “a new low in both the key demo and total viewers.”

“Kelly’s much-hyped interview with Alex Jones that aired last week was her lowest-rated program to date until last night’s show, which “averaged a 0.4 rating in adults 18-49 and 3.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen data. That is down from a 0.5 and 3.6 million viewers [for] last week’s episode.” 60 Minutes had 7.2 million viewers while the rerun of America’s Funniest Home Videos got 3.9 million.”

FoxNews.com also reported that: “The program took a nosedive in comparison to Kelly’s debut on June 4, which featured an interview with Russian president Vladimir Putin. That interview drew 6.2 million viewers.

“And Kelly didn’t just lose viewers. Forbes reported JPMorgan, along with several local advertisers, dropped spots from the show or, in the case of the financial company, the entirety of NBC News, until after the interview aired.”

But it was Mark Taylor who, according to Kyle Mantyla @rightwingwatch.org on Monday, “is a former firefighter who now presents himself as a prophet based on his claim that God told him back in 2011 that Donald Trump would become president, appeared on a local Virginia radio program last week to promote his forthcoming book, “The Trump Prophecies: The Astonishing True Story of the Man Who Saw Tomorrow… and What He Says Is Coming Next.”

“During the interview, Taylor told host Rob Schilling that former Fox News host Megyn Kelly fell ill before the first Republican primary debate in 2015 because God had sent her a “warning shot” to let her know that she should not to try to harm His anointed candidate, Donald Trump.

“She did it anyway,” Taylor said, “and, if you notice, her life has never been the same and neither has Fox’s; they’ve had lawsuits, chaos. So that is a sign from God that he is chosen by God and anointed by God for such a time as this.”

Thus, it looks as if when Kelly decided to take on Trump, she wound up facing far more than she ever expected. And when it comes to divine intervention, she’s no longer on the side of the angels which her declining ratings certainly indicate.

That’s it for today folks.

Adios

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