George W. Bush's job approval rating drops to 25 percent: I found this America Research Group poll through Americablog, and I find it rather interesting. From The America Research Group;
George W. Bush's overall job approval rating has dropped to 25% as nearly seven in ten Americans say the national economy is getting worse according to the latest survey from the American Research Group. This matches the lowest approval rating for Bush recorded by the American Research Group.
Among all Americans, 25% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 67% disapprove. When it comes to Bush's handling of the economy, 23% approve and 67% disapprove.
Among Americans registered to vote, 26% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 67% disapprove. When it comes to the way Bush is handling the economy, 25% of registered voters approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 67% disapprove.
Approval among Republicans has dropped back to 67%. In September, 80% of Republicans approved of the way Bush was handling his job. In August, 66% of Republicans approved of the way Bush was handling his job.
The results presented here are based on 1,100 completed telephone interviews conducted among a nationwide random sample of adults 18 years and older. The interviews were completed October 18 through 21, 2007. The theoretical margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points, 95% of the time, on questions where opinion is evenly split.
Overall, 25% of Americans say that they approve of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president, 67% disapprove, and 8% are undecided.
When you consider that the current Zogby poll rates President Bush's job approval rating at 24 percent, I'm thinking that we are finally getting down to Bush's base of support of around 25 percent approval rating, with a margin of error at around +- 3 percent. I'm not sure that President Bush's poll results will get any lower than this, but considering the incompetence of this administration, it wouldn't be too surprising.
Bush wants $46 billion more to fund the Iraq war: And President Bush vetoed the $30 billion S-CHIP children's health insurance bill. I guess we know where the president's priorities are--kill more Iraqis, while denying poor American children health insurance. From MSNBC News;
WASHINGTON - President Bush asked Congress on Monday for another $46 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and finance other national security needs.
"We must provide our troops with the help and support they need to get the job done," Bush said in comments a month after his Pentagon chief made the same appeal before lawmakers.
The figure brings to $196.4 billion the total requested by the administration for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere for the budget year that started Oct. 1. It includes $189.3 billion for the Defense Department, $6.9 billion for the State Department and $200 million for other agencies.
To date, Congress has already provided more than $455 billion for the Iraq war, with stepped-up military operations running about $10 billion a month. The war has claimed the lives of more than 3,830 members of the U.S. military and more than 73,000 Iraqi civilians.
What can I say? President Bush prefers war over the health of American children.
NASA sits on air safety survey: I found this off Boston.com;
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. --An unprecedented national survey of pilots by the U.S. government has found that safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than previously recognized. But the government is withholding the information, fearful it would upset air travelers and hurt airline profits.
NASA gathered the information under an $8.5 million federal safety project, through telephone interviews with roughly 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots over nearly four years. Since shutting down the project more than one year ago, the space agency has refused to divulge its survey data publicly.
After The Associated Press disclosed details Monday about the survey and efforts to keep its results secret, NASA's chief said he will reconsider how much of the survey findings can be made public.
"NASA should focus on how we can provide information to the public, not on how we can withhold it," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said in a statement. He said the agency's research and data "should be widely available and subject to review and scrutiny."
Last week, NASA ordered the contractor that conducted the survey to purge all related data from its computers. Congress on Monday announced a formal investigation of the pilot survey and instructed NASA to halt any destruction of records. Griffin said he already was ordering that all survey data be preserved.
The AP learned about the NASA results from one person familiar with the survey who spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to discuss them.
A senior NASA official, associate administrator Thomas S. Luedtke, said earlier that revealing the findings could damage the public's confidence in airlines and affect airline profits. Luedtke acknowledged that the survey results "present a comprehensive picture of certain aspects of the U.S. commercial aviation industry."
The AP sought to obtain the survey data over 14 months under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.
"Release of the requested data, which are sensitive and safety-related, could materially affect the public confidence in, and the commercial welfare of, the air carriers and general aviation companies whose pilots participated in the survey," Luedtke wrote in a final denial letter to the AP. NASA also cited pilot confidentiality as a reason, although no airlines were identified in the survey, nor were the identities of pilots, all of whom were promised anonymity.
Reread this story again. NASA conducts an $8.5 million dollar safety survey of the airlines, and now that NASA doesn't like the results of the safety survey, they destroy the data so that the American public will not lose confidence in the airlines. In other words, NASA is placing the airlines' greed for profits above the safety of American citizens.
Disgusting. But what do you expect with a Bush-politicized NASA?
I thought you’d be interested in our findings in the new “Confidence in Foreign Policy Index.” In short, our Foreign Policy Anxiety Indicator measures American attitudes toward current foreign policy and the nation’s place in the world, while providing policy makers, journalists, bloggers and ordinary citizens with the public's overall comfort level with America's place in the world and current foreign policy. Here is a snapshot:
ReplyDelete- The number of Americans who say they worry at least “somewhat” about a terrorist attack has increased seven points in six months.
- More than eight in 10 people give the government a grade of C or worse on controlling immigration – a finding that has increased nine points since 2005
- Nearly six in 10 say we have a moral obligation to the Iraqi people, while only one-third say the United States should act in its own interest without regard to how it affects the Iraqis
- When asked if U.S. troops should stay in Iraq to control the violence even if it means more American casualties or withdraw even if it means more Iraqi casualties, 55 percent said the United States should still withdraw
Of course, these are only a few of the issues mentioned in Public Agenda’s new report. Check it out at http://www.publicagenda.org/foreignpolicy/index.cfm. Feel free to get back to me with any questions or comments!