Wednesday Open Thread [12.10.14]

A new Rasmussensurvey finds that most voters for the first time want Congress to fix the new national health care law rather than repeal it. While 30% of likely voters still think Congress should repeal it entirely and start over again, 52% prefer instead that Congress go through the law piece by piece and improve it. Just 13% want to leave the law as is.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY–CNN/ORC International: Mitt Romney 20, Ben Carson 10, Jeb Bush 9, Chris Christie 9, Mike Huckabee 7.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY–CNN/ORC International: Hillary Clinton 65, Vice President Joe Biden 10, Sen. Elizabeth Warren 9.

Meanwhille, Gallup has found that that President Obama’s approval rate among Hispanic voters has surged from 49% to 68% since he took executive action on immigration. That in turn, has lowered his disapproval rating down to 50 percent.

https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/screen-shot-2014-12-01-at-2-56-18-pm.png?w=580&h=229

That is a remarkably stable graph.

Rick Klein: “Less than a month after suffering an electoral drubbing, President Obama has succeeded in placing the majority of the internal party angst back in the other camp. The president’s move on immigration has made that the overriding issue as Republicans face down a government funding deadline of next Friday. In fact, it now looks likely to become the overriding issue when Republicans try to do much of anything, in the current Congress and the new Congress, for the next few months at least. GOP leaders’ early plans of avoiding shutdown talk have already been forced into rewrite. It’s now clear that Republicans will have to work through their internal party discord – yes, again – even as they reconvene in Washington in substantially greater numbers.”

Al Hunt notes that polling shows that “on two controversial issues, the budget deficit and deporting illegal immigrants, the public believes Obama’s critics — even though reality favors the president.” LOL. Reality favors facts. The President deals in facts. The News Media does not. Thus, a public reliant on the News Media will likewise not be informed as to facts.

“By 73 percent to 21 percent, the public says the federal budget deficit has gotten bigger during the Obama presidency. Here are the facts: In fiscal 2009, during the first year of Obama’s presidency, the deficit was $1.413 trillion. In the current fiscal year, the congressional budget office projects the deficit will be $469 billion, down from $483 billion in the budget year that ended Sept. 30. The deficit has been cut by two-thirds during Obama’s six years.”

“By 53 percent to 29 percent, Americans believe that Obama has sent fewer undocumented immigrants home than were deported a decade earlier. That’s a constant refrain of Obama’s immigration critics. It also isn’t true. Immigration agents removed 315,943 people in the last fiscal year. That’s down from 438,421 the year before but up 31 percent from the 240,665 deported in fiscal 2004.”