Poll Watch: Recent Rasmussen Reports Surveys

I get daily survey updates from the folks at Rasmussen Reports, the polling company. It's kind of fun to read their surveys, as they can be all over the map with their questions.

By that, I mean sometimes their questions are a little out there (you'll see some of that below) but they also ask some reasonable questions that I don't normally see from other outlets.

Here's a sampling of some of their recent survey outcomes, excluding those related to Black Lives Matter, changes in police funding, and racism-related questions. I'll look at those together with other survey outlets in an upcoming post.

Supporters of immigration often say immigrants take the jobs that Americans don't want, but most voters don't agree
54% of likely US voters believe Americans would take jobs typically filled by immigrants if the pay and working conditions were improved (emphasis added). 33% say there aren't enough Americans willing to do that work (construction, technology, hospitality and other service positions); 13% are not sure. Younger voters are more likely to think this; those with lower incomes are more likely to say they'd take these jobs if wages and benefits were better.  (1500 likely voters, 6/23, 6/25, and 6/28.)

Immigration supporters are correct in saying that Americans won't take these jobs now, because some of it is back-breaking work, some of it is considered beneath us by many people, and certainly because the pay and benefits are horrible. To suggest that people disagree with that, while at the same time changing the circumstances under which Americans would do the work is really pretty sloppy.

Nearly 4-in-10 voters think Joe Biden has dementia; most think he needs to publicly address it.
38% of likely voters, including 20% of Dems, 60% of Republicans and 30% of not major party affiliateds, think Papa Joe has some form of dementia; 48% disagree, and 14% are not sure. 61% of all voters say it's important for him to address it, with 41% saying it's very important, while 36% say it's not important, with 19% saying it's not at all important.

A search on the Rasmussen website does not turn up any survey asking a similar question about the president, who frequently misspeaks, has problems saying words, rambles off on bizarre tangents in the middle of his remarks, speaks unintelligently on a host of issues, and flat out makes stuff up. (1000 likely voters, 6/25 and 6/28.)

Voters worry about their safety more these days, and have more confidence in Biden than in Trump to make things better.
52% of likely voters, including 64% of Dems and 53% of not major party affiliateds, but only 39% of Republicans, feel personally less safe than they did four years ago, 19% feel more safe, and 26% say things are about the same.

Dementia aside, 49% of all voters, and 70% of those who think they are less safe now than four years ago, think Biden will make America a safer place to live; 42% think Trump will, and only 22% of those feeling less safe believe Trump's the one to make it better. (1000 likely voters, 6/23-6/24.)

One more, and then we're done.

Voters don't trust political news;they think it remains biased against Trump; they're following it more closely than before
53% of likely voters don't trust the political news they receive; 30% do trust it. A year ago? 54% didn't trust it, while 32% did. 17% are steadfastly undecided. A mere 10% of voters think 'most reporters" are trying to help the president pass his agenda, 44% think reporters are trying to block him, and 38% think reporters are just trying to report the news in an unbiased fashion. Last August, 51% thought reporters were trying to block the Trump agenda. Back in 2010, 48% thought most reporters were trying to help get Barack Obama's agenda passed.

And even though it's apparently not trustworthy, 44% of likely voters are following political news more closely, 16% are following it less closely, and 38% are paying about the same attention as they did a year ago. (1000 likely voters, 6/15-6/16.)

What's your opinion? Drop a note in the comments.

The Update Desk: Random Thoughts

Earlier this week, I posted some Random Thoughts on how we convolute logic when it comes to who (or what) gets blamed when things go wrong. The solution I proposed was extreme, to say the least, but it seemed to make sense in context..

The driver of the random thoughts was the most recent school shooting, the one at Santa Fe High School in Texas, and the reactions from both sides on a 'solution' to the problem. I realized, as I wandered through my most recent Sunday School post, that generally when we have a choice between blaming people or blaming inanimate objects, our logic is based on how much we like or dislike the inanimate object.

You know, guns don't kill people, people do. Plastic bags don't pollute, people do. In those examples, we like the inanimate object, its usefulness, its convenience, its  je ne sais quoi  - and so we'll blame the people.

In other examples in the post, such as solar panels or 'smart' assistants  and 'smart' appliances, we are more apt to blame the objects than we are to blame the people who use them. I could have included Facebook as another inanimate object we're more than happy to blame, rather than blaming the people who don't understand how (or refuse) to take control of their own privacy settings. Where we are to blame, it seems, we blame the object.

Yesterday, another example reared its ugly head, one that confirms the logic: seat belts on school buses.

As you probably heard, there was a horrible, tragic accident in New Jersey last week involving a school bus and a dump truck; a ten-year-old child and a 51-year-old teacher were killed, and it's simply heartbreaking, as it is anytime anyone loses a child or any family member under such totally random circumstances.

This is not the first tragic school bus accident, and it will likely not be the last - we know that. As the investigation into the recent crash continues, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released some recommendations stemming from their investigation of two previous accidents.

The investigative panel issued the recommendations at a Washington hearing during which staff presented the findings of their probes of two school bus crashes that occurred in 2016, killing 12 and injuring 37. One was in Baltimore and the other in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The NTSB's recommendations certainly won't prevent accidents like the one that happened last week. And we're learning more about the bus driver, as noted below:

The bus driver, Hudy Muldrow, 77, of Paterson, has had his license suspended 14 times since he began driving in 1975, said Mairin Bellack, a (NJ Motor Vehicle) Commission spokeswoman. Muldrow has eight speeding tickets on his record, as well as one careless driving ticket and a summons for unsafe operation of a motor vehicle, from 2003 Bellack said. 

Six license suspensions were due to unpaid parking tickets, including Muldrow's most recent which lasted from December 20, 2017 to January 3, 2018. The state also once suspended his license for administrative reasons, Bellack said.

So, did the NTSB recommend that people who have sketchy driving records over a forty year period not be allowed to drive school buses? That 77-year-olds shouldn't be driving school buses? Nope - instead of addressing their recommendations to the person, they addressed the inanimate object.

• all new school buses in the US should be equipped with lap and shoulder belts
• automatic emergency braking systems should be mandated, to help prevent or mitigate frontal collisions if the driver doesn't apply the brakes.
• NY, FL, LA, and NY should upgrade their requirements to lap and shoulder belts from the current lap belt requirement.

Now, these are just recommendations, meaning that absent legislation at the local, state or federal level, school districts are going to have to decide whether to follow the recommendations when they put new bus proposals up for discussion. And, district voters or school boards will have to decide whether they're willing to pay the extra $10,000 per bus cost, or if they're willing to play the odds.

After all, from 2007 - 2016, only 58 school-age occupants of buses and other 'school transportation vehicles' were killed - so the odds are pretty good that it's not going to happen to anyone from their school, right?

Yeah. Just like another school shooting isn't going to happen.

Random Thoughts: The Time is Now

Random thoughts, sitting on the porch listening to a gentle rain falling, watching the dust wash away from the garden, smiling at reflections in the puddles on the street (until a car comes through and ripples the heck out of everything):

We had another school shooting a couple of days ago. Ho hum, right? We sent out compassion, our "we're with you forever" messages right on schedule. And while our "thoughts and prayers" are floating over a small Texas town, just like they've floated over a small Florida town, a small Connecticut town, a small Colorado town, a small Pennsylvania Amish town, and more, our real thoughts and prayers focus on what to do about it, or what not to do about it.

Because guns don't kill people, people kill people. Guns don't bully people, people bully people. And guns don't wear black trench coats in the heat of a spring Texas day, people wear trench coats in the heat of a spring Texas day. Guns don't get overly upset when someone shuns their advances, people do...  You know the drill.

Similar vein, different subject: plastic bags.

There's a movement to ban the plastic bags we get when we pick up groceries, or clothes, or plant food or convenience items, or prescriptions - they're ubiquitous, the darn things. (And without them, we'd not have a convenient way to get our cat litter into the trash - unless of course we start leaving it on the yards of people who don't pick up after their dogs on our yard, maybe?)

The big blue states of California (which saw a 72% drop in plastic bag waste on a cleanup day the year after the bill was passed) and New York, where the governor is being forced to the left by an actress, are in the thick of it.

Retailers say it's unnecessary, expensive, paper bags aren't viable replacements, yadda yadda yadda...
And this morning on a news report, I heard the ultimate shutdown of these attempts at protecting the environment: plastic bags don't cause pollution, people do.

Another story I heard talked about a requirement, also in California, that soon new home construction will have to include solar panels.  Locally, builders are not excited about that, concerned that the added costs of installing the panels could price people out of the new home market.

So, builders don't price people out of the market, solar panels do?  That doesn't make any sense: solar panels, which are inanimate objects, cannot price anyone out of the housing market, that would have to be the builders, right?

I'm sure I could find many more examples of this stuff, where no 'things' are bad, only people are bad.
Except - -think about it:

• autonomous cars, where there's a driver who fails to take control of the car and allows it to crash? We don't blame the person, we still blame the car...
• technological assistants that spy on us, track us, all that stuff:  we don't blame the person who bought the darn things, we blame the devices... 
• failing airbags? They're supposed to protect us if we get into a crash, but we don't blame the driver who has the accident...
• costs of prescriptions, costs of  air ambulance trips, other health care costs? Blame the companies who make the items, operate the items, sell the insurance, but not the people who are getting sick...

So, then, what is the logic?  Are we supposed to blame the thing when it costs people money, but we blame the people when it takes the lives of others?  Well, no, that's inconsistent - because guns. 

Do we blame the thing when it harms people in some way, outside their control? That works on air ambulance and health care stuff, but it doesn't work on guns when children get shot in schools, people get shot in churches, and movie theaters or medical offices or on Army bases or college campuses or in Walmart parking lots... 

Do we blame people when they're stupid, such as with pollution?  Well, that doesn't work either - because isn't a person who blindly trusts an electronic spy in their homes and then is shocked when something goes wrong also stupid? Or when the autonomous car fails to do what it's supposed to, and so does the person?

I think it's clear. No matter what, there's a person behind everything that's either good, bad or indifferent. And the stuff that we think is good or indifferent can turn out to be bad when put in the hands of the wrong person. And of course, something that can be bad, if used differently, can turn into something good.

But that relies on people to identify the options, understand the implications, and make good decisions, with the best of intentions. And we've seen how that goes, right?

I think we have to protect ourselves from all of those people, and there's really only one solution.

We're stuck with the people we have, kind of like we're stuck with school shootings and environmental issues and science deniers and sexual harassers and religious zealots of any faith who can not just Joe Biden literally but actually literally justify anything and everything by finding a verse in their religious book of choice, and terrorists of any stripe and unethical politicians and and and...

So we have to ban more people.

And we have to start right now.