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Hey!! I resemble that remark!!

#MAGA

You do realize the difference between "wanting some wild pet project" and "funding government" is literally a matter of perspective and nothing more? To the conservatives, maybe ACA is the "wild pet project" and the wall is border security money that is being blocked? In the end, it's literally nothing more than a difference of opinion on where and how to spend money. The only variant here is that in 2011, Republicans wanted spending cuts to offset all the spending done in 2009-2010 that ran up the deficit, and Obama was insisting on unlimited debt ceiling hikes and more tax hikes instead so that he could continue to spend more. So you could effectively say he already got his pet projects when he controlled all 3 branches of govt. Then, he held the govt hostage in 2011 until the Republicans agreed to pay for it. "Compromise" and "reasonableness" is perspective only -- for instance, Obamacare will cost the taxpayers 1.34 trillion over the next decade per the CBO. Trump is asking for 5 billion, once, for a wall. Yet you seem to find it perfectly reasonable that Obama would hold the govt hostage to resist and all changes in ACA whereas Trump is not reasonable to defend his own campaign promise for far less cost to the people. And I might add the country was basically 50-50 on whether or not to include ACA mods in the 2011 budget (so it's not like Obama had overwhelming public support on his side either): http://www.people-press.org/20...

http://www.people-press.org/in... this trend needs to stop this movement by both parties to extreme left and right is not working. hopefully with some real pressure it will force these fools more towards the center and get some bloody work done.

America elected Trump

Actually, no. Fewer people voted for Trump than voted for Hillary, period. Even with a seemingly historic election we still had a rather appallingly low voter turnout in 2016 (less than 2/3 of eligible voters), hence more people who could have voted didn't bother voting than turned out to vote for Trump.

in part to fix immigration

As has been shown before, Trump has held almost every position on almost every issue at one time or another. Consistency is not his strength (one can debate what his strength actually is...).

72% of Americans believe illegal immigration is a problem.

Do you have a source for that? I found a study that basically said the opposite of that, where 72% said that illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay if certain conditions are met. That's a long ways from your claim.

globalists who want cheap slave labor

Considering the millions of dollars that Trump has refused to pay to people working for him over the years, it would seem that Trump himself should be in that camp. Or is it not "cheap slave labor" when it is money that is refused to American skilled workers?

leftists who want cheap votes

Going with that conspiracy again? Just because Trump says it is so doesn't make it the case.

If Mexican illegal immigrants voted majority Republican, they'd treat them the same way they treat Cuban refugees (who vote 80% Republican).

Keep peddling that conspiracy if you want...

You lost.

You do know there was an election in November 2018 as well, right?

America First

Tens of thousands of unpaid workers would like to challenge you on what that means.

Traitors get the rope.

Careful what you wish for there. The number of constitutional amendments that Trump has not openly spoken in opposition to grows shorter every month.

What a coincidence!! That 25% very closely approximates the percentage of the Californian population that are (R)epublican , or (R)ussian, if you will.

And when you look at education levels vs political ideology - well, let's just say that when you put two and two together, we can see who it lacking in their education.

Remember how America used to take pride in the slogan "Better dead, than red"? You know, "red" being a double-entendre for Russia, as well as the color of the (R)epublican - or, again, (R)ussian party.

Say, you wouldn't happen to be looking for any nuclear wessels, would you, Ivan?

Funny, and here I thought it was the democrats that are on the #walkaway train.

Unsurprisingly, like many GOP talking points, this one was projection, too. Pew and Gallup agree that D party id has remained relatively flat, while R party id dipped in 2017, although the Gallup numbers that go into 2018 suggest that R party id has recovered in recent months.

Furthermore, it discounts how religious and conservative a lot of latino immigrants actually are.

That's largely a myth, as far as I can tell. They are culturally religious, not evangelical, and generally not that conservative. I once thought this way too, but more and more I'm finding that it seems to be more of a stereotype than reality. If you come from a poor, sparsely educated country, you tend to be conservative and religious. But once you get some education and some wealth, that tends to get cured fast.

Religion doesn't mean shit when it comes to politics if one party has historically shit on your culture. Non-white voters are solidly ~70% democratic voters at the moment. And if you look at latinos, they're more religious than whites, but less religious than African-Americans. Not exactly good news if republicans think that somehow religious latinos will save them.

Not that republicans can have any claim of being righteous, either. Their entire platform is essentially being the antichrist. It's actually mindblowing how many religious folks can map the republican platform onto their religion, when they two couldn't be further apart.

So, Russia placed misinformation on social networks, and who do we believe that swayed? I've yet to see a single study, or even anyone claiming, those ads and fake news reports actually had an effect on the election, i.e., convinced voters to choose one candidate over another.

Why is that your definition of an effect? Another effect, indeed the one mentioned in the summary, would be to sow discord. Do you consider "foreign power sowing discord" a possible concerning effect? How would you measure it?

My impression from http://www.people-press.org/20... is that discord has been growing steadily for decades. If I wanted to weaken America, I reckon that my starting point would be contributing to this tread. Personally I want to strengthen America, but I'm just an individual not a nation, so my approach is to express moderation and balance to everyone.

"Sharp Partisan Divisions in Views of National Institutions: Republicans increasingly say colleges have negative impact on U.S." (Pew Survey, July 10, 2017)

http://www.people-press.org/2017/07/10/sharp-partisan-divisions-in-views-of-national-institutions/

There is no need for fake news or misinformation. Very good results are obtained by just choosing what subjects are covered or not. This is what mainstream media do andit works very well.

I assume you're referring to the most mainstream news outlet ever - Faux-"News".

Yeah, gotta love the way they pick and choose minor stories that nobody really cares about, and try to hyper-inflate them in a sad attempt to support Trumps racist, fear-mongering, anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Ever notice the the vast majority of the most watched, or "mainstream" "news" outllets are conservative?

I wonder why conservatives so desperately need to be told what to think. Don't they know how to think for themselves? You'd think those tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists would object to such mind control, wouldn't you? Yet every bit of evidence says otherwise. Perhaps their education is lacking?

It doesn't filter out stupid little children like Donald Trump, either.

I'll tell you what should be a requirement for voting - having an education.

Only for stupid people who think these things are free, in the first place. Educated people seem to understand the benefits to society that taxation brings.

For reference, here is a comparison of stupid people vs. educated people.

If you haven't been living under a rock, you'd know that the House is also gerrymandered out the wazoo.

It was also gerrymandered up the wazoo when Democrats were in power. Gerrymandering simply strengthens whoever is currently more popular. If congressional districts were assigned rationally, Democrats wouldn't do very well anyway. The only way Democrats could do well if the US went to strict national popular majorities, but that is utterly unacceptable and incompatible with federalism.

In actual fact, liberals only make up about 17% of the US political spectrum and California is thoroughly unrepresentative of the country. The reason Republicans are so strong is because Democrats have fallen out of favor with the political center: moderates and independents.

I'm a good example of that: I used to be a registered Democrat but loathe what the Democratic party has become over the last decade. I won't vote for Democrats again until they clearly disavow people like Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, Corey Booker, and Elizabeth Warren.

I don't accept that there's a significant IQ gap between left and right . . .

I do.

Within an ideological homogeneous group you're probably going to see a strong correlation between education and IQ.

But Liberals and Conservatives are anything but ideologically homogeneous.

Given two equally intelligent individuals I'd expect the Liberal to be far more likely to seek additional education than the Conservative for the sole reason that Liberals place more value on education and educational institutions.

So I don't think those stats tell us anything about the IQ of Liberals vs Conservatives.

I don't accept that there's a significant IQ gap between left and right . . .

I do.

Six or eight.

I mean, does it make sense to you that there would be only two political theories in a country this big? I put "real" in quotes because I'm not really interested in getting into speculation on the matter, or worse, a semantic argument. That there are more than two can be evidenced by the fact that there are already more than two, but the way the system is set up, well, we wouldn't have the (pejorative) phrase "third party" if it weren't well known that they don't have a snowball's chance in hell.

The exact number doesn't matter, it just matters that we need more choices than we have.

as if their opinions are somehow more valid, important, or enlightened than the rest of us.

"The rest of us" being the minority of the population who votes right wing? Look at the right wing right now. Yes, they are more enlightened than you are.

And it continues. Right now, ideological consistency is all on the Left, and not near the center. If the GOP was as far right as you suggest, the ACA would have been repealed by now. If the Left was as centrist as you think, they wouldn't be talking about single-payer healthcare or sanctuary cities. Or look at the presidential primaries - Sanders is the farther to the left than any other Democrat politician, and the only Republican who approaches being as far to the right as Sanders is to the left would probably be Rand Paul. Paul got nowhere in the Primaries. Bernie did much better. The extreme far left candidate was doing so well that the centrist candidate cheated to get rid of him. The GOP picked the least ideological candidate since at least Eisenhower.

That said, I don't like what the FCC is doing (but I'm with the ideologically impure party), and I think this is a case where the standard GOP approach to regulation is inappropriate. Not corrupt or evil like you're suggesting, that's ridiculous. The GOP's default position is always that regulation and price controls can make things worse and thus should be kept to a minimum. Being wrong in this case is not a sin.

58% of Americans view drone warfare as positive even though they also feel that the US has failed to achieve its goals in Afghanistan. The US intelligence services continue to spy on all Americans. In comparisons the garbled tweets of the President are constantly analyzed by the 24 hour press.

I would avoid jumping onto the conclusions that Conservatives are less educated than Liberals.

That's because you fear reality's well-known liberal bias. Don't be scared, it's just a fact.

In light of the fact that conservatives are on the uneducated end of the scale, why in the world would this comment have been modded down? Are you trying to hide the truth?

There's a (IMHO) simple reason for the divide on gun control in the U.S. The issue mostly breaks down into urban (pro gun-control) vs rural (anti gun-control). And if you analyze it that way, I think the reason is obvious: Urban areas have faster police response times. If you live in a city, it makes sense to just call someone else with a gun (the police) and wait for them to arrive if a crime is in progress.

But in rural areas, waiting for police can often get you killed. So people there prefer to have their own gun for protection. The stats seem to bear them out too - violent crime rates are lower in rural areas despite the rate of gun ownership being 2x higher in rural areas.

Which brings us to what I think is the real problem with the gun control debate - too much emphasis on a uniform national law. When you have a strong geographically correlated trend like this, the solution is simple - allow different regions to enact different laws. The rural areas can have lax gun laws, the urban areas can have strict gun laws, and everyone is happy (well, happier than they are now). But no, we've got pro-gun people wanting easy access to guns for the entire country because anything less would diminish the 2nd Amenedment, and anti-gun people wanting to ban guns in the entire country because you can transport guns from rural areas to urban. Both arguments have merit, but I think we need to ask ourselves if our attempt to create one national law on this issue isn't doing more harm than geographically different laws would even with all the flaws.

Sorry if it is so easy to stereotype people who are lacking in education.

Fear can motivate people to the polls, actual rational "hey look at what's going to happen to laws XYZ" fear, not endless whinging about character flaws.

I would differ with your restricting it to rational, as the visceral, even irrational fear, also works. This is different from character flaws, whatever you may consider them to be.

Fear, especially the kind that the racist element engenders, has been quite effective for a while. Still is. It's only changed a bit over time.

That said, if you want a survey on the vote, they do exist.

http://www.people-press.org/20...

Source for the BS statistic: the arse of the bigot known as Pamela Gellar.

Ah, yes, I too wish, we had something more reliable. But we don't. Pew Research, for example, has very detailed information about world-wide Muslims' preference for Sharia. They cover many different countries but, for some reason, not the US — their detailed, 8-page collection of statistics about American Muslims does not contain the one particular bit, which they have for so many other countries.

It is almost as if Pew wished to hide something...

But, hey, if your only objection is to the source of data, which you suspect of bias, what is your ball-park estimate? Say, it is not 51%, but only 40%... Does that change anything I said above?

I'm not going to go back and dig up what you wrote before, but I'm pretty sure you claimed there were more Democrats much farther back than "over a decade".

I did. But I only could find hard data going back a decade.

And finally, it really doesn't matter what people claim to be; all that matters is how they vote.

That's right, and more Americans vote for Democratic candidates for Congress each election than for Republican candidates for Congress. And since 2000, there were more Democratic votes for President in 3 out of 4 elections (including the first Bush term).

I'm not saying there are more Republicans. Did you not actually read what I wrote? I said there were roughly equal numbers

Did you look at the data? There are not "roughly equal numbers" unless you're willing to round Republicans up and Democrats down in every single year for the past 10. Hell, if you're willing to round numbers far enough, the Chicago Bears have won as many games as the New England Patriots for the past 25 years.

If you want to believe there really are more Dems, go ahead.

It's not a belief if I have data. Would you like even more citations to the data? I can keep giving them. I've already given Gallup, so here's Pew:

http://www.people-press.org/to...

There are more if you'd like. You keep saying that these are allegations I'm making, and I show you data and you keep saying, "but there's no data".

Where'd you get this crazy idea?

There's been about a ten point lead in the number of Democrats/Lean Democratic for the past few decades. There have been more Democrats than Republicans since WWII.

http://www.people-press.org/20...

If this were true, then the Democrats would control Congress. And if you're going to pull the silly "gerrymandering!" card, you need to go study how Senatorial elections work.

First, there are two houses to Congress. In the past several House elections, there were more votes cast for Democratic candidates than for Republican candidates. Yet, Republicans control the House. If you have an explanation besides gerrymandering, I'd like to hear it. (Hint: the explanation is gerrymandering).

Republicans took back the Senate thanks to the cyclical nature of six year terms and elections every 2 years. Last time, there were a lot of Democrats in Republican-leaning states that had to defend their seats. This year, there are 24 Republican senators (many in Democratic states) that will have to defend their seats in a year with a guy with 70% disapproval ratings leading the party. The Democrats only have to pick up 4 seats to take back the Senate. Next January, there will be a Democratic president and a Democratic senate being sworn in. Why do you think there are so many Republicans, conservative ones at that that are puckering up their asses about having Trump as the candidate?

Just over half (51 percent) of registered voters say Apple should unlock the phone, while 33 percent say the company shouldn’t. Sixteen percent don’t know or care.

News about a federal court ordering Apple to unlock the suspect’s iPhone has registered widely with the public: 75% say they have heard either a lot (39%) or a little (36%) about the situation.

Not so good with teh Googles, eh? Here, LMGTFY:

"Most Americans still think Apple should comply with FBI orders, new poll shows "

"Poll: Apple Should Help FBI Unlock Terrorism Suspect's iPhone"

"More Support for Justice Department Than for Apple in Dispute Over Unlocking iPhone"

citation: http://www.people-press.org/20...

Considering that in 2012, only 9% of people were willing to answer the phone and cooperate with Pew Research-sponsored telephone surveys. Before that, it was 15% in 2009, and before that in 2006, it was 21%. Now, please forgive me, I am just a layman and I don't know statistics, but I would assume that in 2016, assuming the same downward trend, that number could easily have reached 3% to 5%.

So is this what we're talking about? We're talking about 3% to 5% of American households, careless enough to answer questions from a complete random stranger on the telephone, more than half of which are also careless about their own privacy when it comes to the government. Why is this even news!?!?!

Of course, people who don't care about their privacy with a perfect stranger, do not care about their privacy when it comes to their government. It's self-selection. It's perfectly normal. In fact, the only surprising fact here is that it's only 51% of that self-selected 3% to 5% that hold that view. Personally, considering the way the question was worded and considering the very biased self-selection happening there, I am actually quite surprised that the percentage wasn't closer to 90% of that same 3% to 5%.

If anything, the results of this survey gives me hope about the American people. If 49% of the 3% to 5% of our most trusting people are also getting paranoid about our own government, then it means that even they have been paying attention lately.

Considering that in 2012, only 9% of people were willing to answer the phone and cooperate with Pew Research-sponsored telephone surveys. Before that, it was 15% in 2009, and before that in 2006, it was 21%. Now, please forgive me, I am just a layman and I don't know statistics, but I would assume that in 2016, assuming the same downward trend, that number could easily have reached 3% to 5%.

So is this what we're talking about? We're talking about 3% to 5% of American households, careless enough to answer questions from a complete random stranger on the telephone, more than half of which are also careless about their own privacy when it comes to the government. Why is this even news!?!?!

Of course, people who don't care about their privacy with a perfect stranger, do not care about their privacy when it comes to their government. It's self-selection. It's perfectly normal. In fact, the only surprising fact here is that it's only 51% of that self-selected 3% to 5% that hold that view. Personally, considering the way the question was worded and considering the very biased self-selection happening there, I am actually quite surprised that the percentage wasn't closer to 90% of that same 3% to 5%.

If anything, the results of this survey gives me hope about the American people. If 49% of the 3% to 5% of our most trusting people are also getting paranoid about our own government, then it means that even they have been paying attention lately.

I can't find any link to the actual question(s) used and I suspect those first and above ANYTHING else for causing the responses that were given.

http://www.people-press.org/fi...

I can't find any link to the actual question(s) used

Really? The Pew Research Center publishes their findings for all to see. Here is the report. Page 7 of the report lists the actual questions used.

Again from the Counterpunch article:

The NSA probably doesn’t want to give its bypass tool to the FBI and blow its operational advantage. After all, the NSA is well versed in the art of firmware-level manipulation. Experts have opined that for a few million (a drop in the bucket for a spy outfit like the NSA or CIA) this capability could be implemented. NSA whistleblower William Binney tends to agree. When asked what users could do to protect themselves from the Deep State’s prying eyes Binney replied:

"Use smoke signals! With NSA’s budget of over $10bill a year, they have more resources to acquire your data than you can ever hope to defend against."

From the linked Bloomberg article in the Counterpunch story:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-19/secret-memo-details-u-s-s-broader-strategy-to-crack-phones

“My guess is you could spend a few million dollars and get a capability against Android, spend a little more and get a capability against the iPhone. For under $10 million, you might have capabilities that will work across the board,” said Jason Syversen, a former manager of advanced cyber security programs at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and now the CEO and co-founder of Siege Technologies in Manchester, New Hampshire.

“Apple has two options now: They can go back to the judge and say this isn’t possible. Or they can service the warrant,” said James Lewis, a senior cyber security fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “I don’t think they can say it’s not possible, because it looks like it is.”

The state has too much of a compelling an interest to allow encryption to thwart the interests of the nation with respect to national security and law enforcement. Apparently most of the public agrees
More Support for Justice Department Than for Apple in Dispute Over Unlocking iPhone

Guns are out there. Accept it. The notion of "but if the guns weren't there" is meaningless. They're there. They're not going away.

In the short term, yes. In the long term they are definitely going away, if you look down the road far enough. The mechanism of gun ownership demise won't be political though. It will be accomplished via evolution.

Having a gun in your home significantly increases your risk of death â" and that of your spouse and children.

And it doesnâ(TM)t matter how the guns are stored or what type or how many guns you own.

If you have a gun, everybody in your home is more likely than your non-gun-owning neighbors and their families to die in a gun-related accident, suicide or homicide.

Ergo, people who own guns are gradually removing themselves from the gene pool.

The General Social Survey (GSS), conducted roughly every two years by the independent research organization NORC at the University of Chicago, with principal funding from the National Science Foundation, provides a widely-used look at the rate of gun ownership over time. The GSS data show a substantial decline in the shares of both households and individuals with guns.

You can ban guns fitting other criteria. e.g. "using gun powder".

Except that tiny problem where you've just raped the shit out of any reasonable interpretation of the Second Amendment. You may want to re-read it if you've forgotten what it says. If you don't like it, get it changed. We've done it before. Don't resort to sneaky back door tactics to circumvent the Constitution. BTW, you may also want to work on your definition of the word minority.

Posting as AC means you likely won't get my response. But here goes:

ICM Poll: 20% of British Muslims sympathize with 7/7 bombers
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

NOP Research: 1 in 4 British Muslims say 7/7 bombings were justified
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories...
http://www.webcitation.org/5xk...

I call BS. I specifically do work in my community in de-radicalisation efforts, and also liaise with other efforts internationally. I seek out people like this, and I have to tell you, they're pretty hard to find. Admittedly, I'm in Australia, but if there are anything like double digit percentage chunks of our community who sympathize with bombers, I'd know about it. I'd be surprised of the number of Muslims who condone terrorism is above 1%.

People-Press: 31% of Turks support suicide attacks against Westerners in Iraq.
http://people-press.org/report...

The mosque I usually attend is mainly a Turkish community. My wife is Turkish, and I've spent time there specifically discussing global politics with them. Once again, there's no way almost 1 in 3 support suicide attacks in any form against anyone. Suicide attacks are, in any Islam 101 class, specifically ruled out, and the fact that brainwashed youngsters are conned into it doesn't change that fact. No mainstream Muslim who has had a modicum of Islamic education would condone a prohibited act. ...

Looking down the rest of these "surveys", I can only speculate that they are the result of very skewed research, or perhaps loose interpretation of the answers to leading questions. Also, looking into the actual paper referenced in the one that states "World Public Opinion: 61% of Egyptians approve of attacks on Americans" I found that the actual research results showed that only 8% of Egyptians approved of attacks on Americans in America, and 7% approved of attacks on Americans working abroad (I'd have thought it'd go the other way, but meh). I was not able to find 61% approval of attacks anywhere.

At this point, I shall terminate evaluating that site, it's clearly (and I'm being charitable with my wording here) badly mistaken in the facts it is presenting.

I cited many examples of people talking about poll inaccuracy.

I don't give the smallest fuck over your many irrelevant citations. I'm simply telling you that your claim about how election polls "very rarely match up with the actual election" is complete horseshit.

Election polls in the US have a long track record of accuracy going back DECADES. The fact that you refuse to recognize this - even when you're pimp-slapped with actual data - just shows how utterly out of touch you are with reality.

As to opinion polls, actually the topic is about Pew Opinion poll.

No you pinhead, the topic at hand is your statement:

...look election polls prior to the election. They very rarely match up with the actual election. Why is that?

Why do you have to constantly be reminded of your dimwitted remark? I guess if I were you, I would want to forget about it too. After all, the only thing dumber than saying it would be defending it...oh wait.

Kill yourself. No really. Put down the keyboard. Get up. And stop wasting oxygen.

What a childish little twat you are.

As to ignorance regarding poll participation... You really did zero research in your short life didn't you?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Yes, poll response rates are falling. Yes, declining rates can introduce selection bias. I guess it's a good thing I didn't claim otherwise.

But declining response rates don't automatically cause a poll to be inaccurate. How do I know that? Because the SECOND FUCKING PARAGRAPH of your huffpo article reads:

"Yet the study also finds evidence that on most of the wide variety of measures tested, the declining response rates alone are not causing surveys to yield inaccurate results."

Talk about doing ZERO research. Protip: read through an article BEFORE claiming it supports your position.

What a pitiful display. Your ability to embarrass yourself with a constant flow of ignorant, self-contradictory statements is simply breathtaking. And your multiple sorry ass attempts to move the discussion away from your original statement isn't going well for you. Apparently you are oblivious to that fact.

The world is better place now that you're gone. There is one less moron. :D

I'm not going anywhere, nimrod. I've got lots of free time to help you continue to humiliate yourself.

...look election polls prior to the election. They very rarely match up with the actual election. Why is that?

Why is that? Because you made it up, you fucking retard.

The truth is polls are rarely wrong. for national elections.

You constantly pepper your arguments with made up shit. I guess you think that you think your long bullshit posts won't be examined by anyone. Well, this is the internet, and you're not the only one with no life who can spend all day posting on /.

> People believe the Tea Party was all white, because the media edited out the black people from the pictures

Oh puhlease. So it isn't 100% white, just 89%. Big deal. Just 1% of tea party supporters are black.

> People believe the elderly fools in the GOP represent the mainstream (every party has its embarrassments), because that's the only view the media will give.

Like Michelle Bachman, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry? Or maybe Huckabee and Cruz? They aren't podunk polliticians from some backwater with backwater ideas - all republican nominees for president serious enough to be invited to the debates by the party itself.

> Did you know that the average GOP congresscritter is actually a few years younger than the average Democrat?

Don't make mountains out of molehills. Republicans in congress average 55 years versus democrats at 60 years. They are both still old. What matters is the age of the voters and there is a big age gap there and it started in 2004.

> That the Citizens United ruling did not say that corporations are people (but instead that tightly-held corporations are effectively partnerships)?

That is like complaining Palin didn't actually say she can see russia from her house. Literalism isn't necessarily the best way to communicate truth.

> Indiana's recent Religious Freedom Restoration Act was effectively the same as the one Clinton signed into law in the 90s amid no controversy?

Times change. Are you trying to argue that times shouldn't change? I guess that would be a conservative viewpoint.

> That the frequency of rape on college campus is actually lower than in America as a whole?

That is probably true, I couldn't find confirmation. I am pretty sure that practically all violent crime is less on college campuses than it is in America as a whole. You know, because colleges don't matriculate many violent criminals. It is weird you think that is meaningful.

> That polls of right-wings voters show the leading issues right now are economic, foreign policy, and immigration, and that social issues like gay marriage and abortion aren't important enough to make the short-list?

And yet prominent republican politicians put that stuff on their short list. For example, all the GOP contenders for president this year defended that Indiana law you mentioned. The 'media' didn't make them do that.

But you keep right one believing the problem is the media misrepresenting the republicans, it is a conspiracy!

Millennials know who Snowden is because they watch the Daily Show.

Except polling data from shortly after Snowden blew the cover disagrees. Millennials were least likely to be following news reports of government monitoring people's private communications. Heck, the very first sentence in TFS eliminates what you're saying as a factor: "according to KRC Research about 64 percent of Americans familiar with Snowden hold a negative opinion of him."

Here's the 2014 polling data on the same issue. Interestingly, the biggest shift from 2006-2014 was along Republican and Democrat lines. Republicans wildly supported government monitoring programs in 2006 while Democrats opposed it. But in 2013/2014 this was reversed. Kinda sad that people's stance on such an important issue appears to be based so much on whether or not "their guy" is in office.

(Incidentally, I'm in my 40s and think Snowden's revelations were important enough to warrant a pardon. I'm uncomfortable at times with how much info he has revealed about our capabilities, but assign blame for that mostly on the people who decided to mis-use those capabilities to monitor the population at large. We're supposed to be the country of innocent until proven guilty, where the government keeps its nose out of what we're doing until it suspects we're doing something illegal.)

Millennials know who Snowden is because they watch the Daily Show.

Except polling data from shortly after Snowden blew the cover disagrees. Millennials were least likely to be following news reports of government monitoring people's private communications. Heck, the very first sentence in TFS eliminates what you're saying as a factor: "according to KRC Research about 64 percent of Americans familiar with Snowden hold a negative opinion of him."

Here's the 2014 polling data on the same issue. Interestingly, the biggest shift from 2006-2014 was along Republican and Democrat lines. Republicans wildly supported government monitoring programs in 2006 while Democrats opposed it. But in 2013/2014 this was reversed. Kinda sad that people's stance on such an important issue appears to be based so much on whether or not "their guy" is in office.

(Incidentally, I'm in my 40s and think Snowden's revelations were important enough to warrant a pardon. I'm uncomfortable at times with how much info he has revealed about our capabilities, but assign blame for that mostly on the people who decided to mis-use those capabilities to monitor the population at large. We're supposed to be the country of innocent until proven guilty, where the government keeps its nose out of what we're doing until it suspects we're doing something illegal.)

It's called push-polling depending on how the question was phrased .. A more relevant question would be - why does the government need to spy on its own people in order to protect then from the 'terrorists'?

"Overall, do you approve or disapprove of the government’s collection of telephone and internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts?" Poll Data

"the use of leading questions to skew an opinion survey"

...that which can be explained by pandering.
Mainly by Slashdot.

From TFA.

Favorability ratings for the National Security Agency (NSA) have changed little since the fall of 2013

Except...
Back then unfavorable/favorable/don't know ratio was 35/54/11.

Now it is 37/51/12.
With a +/- 2.9 percentage points error, sample-wise. Or +/- 4.1 form-wise.
Going all the way up to +/- 8.8 for "Form 1" republicans.

Which tells us that in those year and a half, unfavorable/favorable ratio has shifted towards unfavorable.
And it may be up to 5 percentage points. That's 1 in 20.

Also, comparison of data shows that U/F ratio has slipped across the board towards unfavorable.
NASA, VA and CDC have dropped by 2, 13 and 9 points.
Department of Veterans Affairs has dropped by 13 points.

Distrust towards federal government has risen across the board.

The other thing is, survey was AIMED at younger people.

Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest adult male or female who is now at home. Interviews in the cell sample were conducted with the person who answered the phone, if that person was an adult 18 years of age or older.

Add to that how

Among those with less education, favorable opinions of the NSA outnumber unfavorable views.

And you get results of a pole where few older, better educated or simply suspicious about the federal government in general, shift the ratio towards unfavorable on their end.
While a greater majority (about the third of surveyed population was deliberately chosen among the younger adults) of younger population is picked from the less educated.

Causing the 65+ group to be deliberately a LOT smaller, more extremist and opinionated, get-off-my-lawn group, than the artificially inflated 18-29 group.

And it is kinda important to keep that artificial inflation in mind, as "unfavorable" opinion of NSA rises with the level of education.

Favorable / Unfavorable / Other/Don't Know
Post-grad: 45 / 43 / 12
College grad: 53 / 39 / 8
Some college: 53 / 37 / 11
HS or less: 51 / 36 / 13

Post-grads have almost exactly the same opinion of NSA as 50-64-year-olds - i.e. 45 / 45 / 10.

It ain't the stupidity, disinterest NOR shrewdness of the youth.
It's the EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE.
"If well informed" is simply another way of saying educated.

The problem is that they interviewed a self-selected group of security-unaware idiots.

Only idiots, and old people who don't know any better, answer telephone surveys from perfect strangers anymore.

These days, it's either marketing people using the excuse of a survey to speak to you, and reselling that information they gather from you to others, or it's "You're windows PC is infected" social engineering scammers, or identity theft criminals trying to get personal identifiable information from you. You don't want to say anything to them, because the next time they call you (or an accomplice of theirs calls you), they'll use whatever previous information you told them to try and make you fall for a new scam (you or anyone else living in your household).

The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted January 7-11, 2015 among a national sample of 1,504 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (528 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 976 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 563 who had no landline telephone). The survey was conducted by interviewers at Princeton Data Source under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. A combination of landline and cell phone random digit dial samples were used; both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest adult male or female who is now at home. Interviews in the cell sample were conducted with the person who answered the phone, if that person was an adult 18 years of age or older. For detailed information about our survey methodology, see http://people-press.org/method...

No, and no. Tyson has been trolling religious nutbars for decades. He didn't give in to criticism, he just twisted the knife when people demanded clarification. Make no mistake -- religion is more of threat to our species than global warming and nuclear winter combined. More than three-quarters of the population of the planet's last existing superpower are religious, and nearly half of them believes their messiah is going to return to them in their life time. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that these nutbars have exactly zero interest in solving the problems confronting our species because they truly believe that they aren't going to be around to have to deal with them.

But at least I based it off something you actually said/did, rather than invent something.

Simple question - did he or did he not write the following?

I don't believe that the universe was created ...

He did write it. The rest of that sentence doesn't really alter that statement, but discusses a new topic. So, I didn't actually "invent something," did I?

Do you work for Fox News?

It's a pity you didn't rise to the level of Fox News, at least they generally manage to get simple matters like identifying quotes right.

Don't worry though, this article discusses a resource to help you become better informed as noted in this survey.

Oh you want precise data? Like large support across muslim countries, where terrorism is supported. 20% of muslims support the 7/7 bombings 1:4 muslims in the UK say the bombings were justified 31% of muslims in turkey support suicide bombings against westerners 32% of palestinians support the murder of jews, including children. 55% of muslims support hezbollah 26% of young muslims in america believe suicide attacks are justified 26% of egyptian muslims believe that suicide attacks are justified

You're now enlightened to this "tiny minority." Which is roughly 25% having extremist views, out of 1.6 billion that would be a "mere" 400,000,000 individuals. You know, I could keep going and posting, so again--there is something fundamentally broken with islam and muslims. And I haven't even gotten to the stuff on specific groups, which vary between 6% as a low to 51% support across muslims. Or the 50-75% that believing that killing apostates is a good idea. I guess none of that is large swaths.