Recent polls show how Americans think about important issues

July 8, 2025

Those of us who have been around for a while — seasoned citizens — realize that the level of disagreement has grown greatly in the last decade or so.

With the sharp divide between the left and the right in our country about how it is doing and what needs to be done, it is interesting to see what the concerns are, and how each side views the situation.

A recent poll by Newsmax magazine showed the results of how all voters view the Republican and Democratic parties’ position on important issues. Republicans topped the Democrats on ten issues, while the Democrats won on three. There were five ways voters expressed their opinion: For Republicans, Democrats, Both, Neither, and Not Sure.

The top issues for Republicans were: 
Immigration & border - Rep 47%, Dem 28%
Government spending - Rep 42%, Dem 28%
Terrorism/national security - Rep 41%, Dem 30%
China-U.S. relations - Rep 38%, Dem 29%
Mideast/Hamas/Iran - Rep 38%, Dem 29%
Russia/Ukraine situation - Rep 39%, Dem 31%
Reducing violence and crime - Rep 38%, Dem 31%
Restoring our core values - Rep 40%, Dem 32%
Growing the economy - Rep 40%, Dem 33%
Gun policy - Rep 37%, Dem 34%

The Democrats led on these:
Lowering healthcare costs - Dem 39%, Rep 32%
Addressing Climate Change - Dem 40%, Rep 27%

Increasing home affordability - Dem 34%, Rep 33%

Another poll asked about the Budget and the National Debt, and the poll showed that overall, 75% of voters were very concerned or somewhat concerned. There were four categories of voters: Overall, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. 

Those results were fairly close among the groups: 
Overall - Very concerned 40%, Somewhat 35%
Democrats - Very concerned 42%, Somewhat 36%
Republicans - Very concerned 41%, Somewhat 34%
Independents - Very concerned 40%, Somewhat 37%

In looking at the leading cause of the National Debt — far and away the leading cause in each voting group — Excessive Government Spending won. Overall, 47% chose it, and 54% of Republicans, 48% of Independents, and 40% of Democrats chose it.

A distant second place went to Tax Cuts That Reduced Revenue, with only 16% Overall, Democrats at 17%, Republicans at 14%, and Independents at 13%. Coming in third was Not Sure, with slightly lower numbers.

Other causes coming in at less than 10% each were Military and Defense Costs, Social Programs (like Medicare and Social Security), and COVID-19 Pandemic Relief Spending.

Newsmax also showed how the sources of electricity production have changed since 1950. Data from 2024 provided by the U.S. Energy Information Agency show that while their numbers have changed, fossil fuels — coal, crude oil and dry natural gas — still lead by a wide margin.

Over that period coal usage has dropped by about 25% while crude oil has more than doubled, and dry natural gas has increased by more than 600%. There have been significant increases in biomass, wet natural gas and nuclear. But even so, they make up just less than 25% of all sources. Solar, wind and hydro provide roughly 3.5% of all sources.

It seems a majority sees problems with federal law enforcement having become politicized. Another Newsmax poll illustrated the degree to which Americans consider this to be a problem, and focused on the FBI.

On whether the agency needs to undergo reform by the Trump administration, 55% said “yes,” 30% said “no,” and 15% were “not sure.” 

On whether the FBI has become politicized in recent years, 51% said “yes,” 25% said “no,” and 24% were “not sure.”

Asking voters from the Democratic and Republican parties how they viewed FBI Director Kash Patel’s leadership, Democrats said: Favorable - 24%, Unfavorable - 44%, Not Sure - 32%. Republicans said: Favorable - 62%, Unfavorable - 11%, and Not Sure - 27%.

And for FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, the results were, Democrats: Favorable - 26%, Unfavorable - 37%, and Not Sure - 37%. Republicans said: Favorable - 57%, Unfavorable - 13%, and Not Sure - 30%. Both leaders received a favorable opinion from a plurality of those polled.

On another subject, there is a majority of those polled who agree on three elements. That subject is China, our most threatening adversary. China has purchased thousands of acres of American farm land, much of it near military bases. It has also purchased some American businesses, and has stolen many good ideas from us. It is also the source for many goods that once were produced here.

However, the three areas of the Newsmax polls show that more than 50% of Americans want China to be held accountable.

On the topic of tariffs, 52% strongly or somewhat support them. Those who strongly or somewhat oppose tariffs are only 33%.

Those wanting China to pay reparations for the COVID pandemic are 52%, with 31% opposing. And the third category, reducing the reliance on China, regardless of the costs, are 45% to 29%.

While most of the pro/con numbers are not as far apart as we might expect, given the extreme political divide we see daily, there is still a majority of opinion supporting the Republican position on these issues.

A big Supreme Court decision, and crazy things in blue cities

July 1, 2025

The United States Supreme Court has at long last ruled on an important issue. After months of federal district court judges issuing rulings opposing and halting actions by President Donald Trump, the Court ruled 6-3 that Trump's efforts to end "birthright" citizenship are legal and constitutional.

Not only was it found that the decision on birthright citizenship was valid, it also tells these judges to stop issuing these universal injunctions.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in the majority opinion, stated: "Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts. The Court grants the Government's applications for a partial stay of the injunctions entered below, but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue."

“When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too,” she continued. “The Court today puts an end to the ‘increasingly common’ practice of federal courts issuing universal injunctions.”

Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson commented in a dissenting opinion: “Make no mistake: Today’s ruling allows the Executive to deny people rights that the Founders plainly wrote into our Constitution, so long as those individuals have not found a lawyer or asked a court in a particular manner to have their rights protected,” she wrote. “This perverse burden shifting cannot coexist with the rule of law.”

However, Barrett promptly and properly corrected Jackson’s flawed reasoning. "We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary."

She further clarified that when these judges issue injunctions to block Trump’s actions, they cannot apply the injunction to more than those parties involved in the case, classifying these nationwide injunctions as judicial overreach.

There are 677 authorized judgeships for these federal courts, with each of those judges having authority over a tiny sliver of the United States of America’s judicial system.  

One has to wonder exactly what these judges, supposedly trained in the law and our Constitution, were thinking when issuing these injunctions. Did they forget their extensive training in the law? Or, did they stuff their judicial integrity under the courtroom bench, and replace legal elements with political preferences?

Does this un-judicial behavior warrant some disciplinary action for those guilty judges.

“GIANT WIN in the United States Supreme Court! Even the Birthright Citizenship Hoax has been, indirectly, hit hard. It had to do with the babies of slaves … not the SCAMMING of our Immigration process,” Trump commented. “Congratulations to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Solicitor General John Sauer, and the entire DOJ.”

Elsewhere, in San Francisco and New York City, we find the “progressives” hard at it.

Recently, the California Senate reportedly passed a law making it illegal for store employees to confront shoplifters.

Old Navy, which is headquartered in San Francisco, announced that it will close its flagship store there. When asked why, an Old Navy store manager said that his store is hit by shoplifters at least 12 or 14 times a day.

Other name brands have also left the city, including Walgreens, T-Mobile, Whole Foods, Amazon Go, and Nordstroms.

Other downtown stores are merely waiting for their leases to run out, and then they will also leave.

The City of San Francisco just released a $6 million tourism campaign, and the next day the two largest hotels in the city shut down, blaming street conditions, and apparently not believing the tourism campaign would make a difference.

State Farm Insurance has announced that it will no longer provide business and property insurance in California, following Allstate, which left six months ago, due to policies that encourage lawbreaking.

These foolish leftist policies are producing exactly the results that their critics predicted.

And in New York City, a 33-year-old state assemblyman, Zohran Mamdani, is the Democratic candidate for New York City Mayor, defeating former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, the first Muslim nominee, and a supporter of radical policies.

Predictably, he has an extremely radical plan for New York, should he win the election. 

"This is a city where one in four of its people are living in poverty, a city where 500,000 kids go to sleep hungry every night," he said recently. "And ultimately, it's a city that is in danger of losing that which it makes it so special."

He has proposed the following radical ideas to cure New York’s problems: Free bus service citywide, rent freezes and stricter accountability for negligent landlords, a chain of city-owned grocery stores, and universal childcare for children aged six weeks to five years.

As with so much of the liberal/socialist/progressive mantra, these things sound pretty good. But they don’t work as imagined. Ideas like defunding police, not enforcing some laws, rental price freezes, having the City own and control the grocery stores, and some of his former “solutions” are a recipe for disaster.

Just ask the businesses and residents in San Francisco.

Coal and the other fossil fuels are still very important

June 25, 2025

Anyone who has lived in, or spent much time in this region knows and understands the importance of the coal industry to its development. Without coal, so much that occurred and that we enjoyed would not have happened.

Tens of thousands of jobs and who knows how much money passed through the region due to the mining, sale and transportation of coal mined here to other places.

Over the next several years, Bluefield became the center of activity resulting from the coal boom that occurred several decades ago. It was the finance and shopping center for the southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia coal fields. People came here from towns miles away because of Bluefield’s role in the coal industry, and the things it offered to them.

How many of us remember driving along Bluefield/Princeton Avenue and seeing dozens or hundreds of coal cars on the railroad tracks loaded with coal moving out of the railyard, and dozens more empty cars on their way back to be refilled?

This lasted for many years, and the area prospered during that time.

However, as life evolves, things change. New and better ways of doing things come to be, and the old ways gradually fade away. 

This process is slow, gradual and not very painful. The other side of that story occurs when some factions start pushing for change before its time, and with things other than the natural replacements.

Unfortunately, the latter process has been the catalyst for what has occurred in the southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia region’s coal industry.

The idea that burning fossil fuels like coal and oil was damaging to the environment took hold and resulted in what some have called “a war on coal,” which produced the closing of coal burning power plants, and the large decline in the need for coal. At least in the United States.

But science does not agree with the idea that we have too much CO2 in the atmosphere, and that it is harmful. In fact, quite a few scientists say that we need more, as much as two times the amount of CO2. They say that would be a great benefit to plant life. Plants and trees consume CO2 and emit oxygen. Having more plants and trees is a good thing.

During President Donald Trump’s first term the U.S. became energy independent and provided energy sources to other countries. This highly robust level of production was so strong that it lasted well into the Biden administration, despite Biden’s efforts to stifle it. The U.S. produced a record amount of energy in 2023, and out-performed that the following year. 

Eventually, the Biden administration’s efforts did cripple the energy industry. Other countries were still burning coal, and needing coal, oil and gasoline, but they were getting it from other countries, resulting in an economic punch in the gut to U.S. businesses.

The problem with the green energy solution that so many prefer is that while using green energy does not burn fossil fuels or add CO2 to the atmosphere, producing the elements that gather wind and solar power do. All of the materials that must be mined, then transported, and put into production use great amounts of gas and oil.

Now that Trump has been re-elected to the presidency, his administration is working to reinstate the previous philosophy on fossil fuels.

A West Virginia organization — Friends of Coal — based in Charleston, is excited about this change. “The recent decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to roll back burdensome greenhouse gas and toxic emissions regulations marks a pivotal moment for America’s energy future — and a long-overdue reprieve for the coal, natural gas and oil industries that power our nation,” it said.

In its June 20 email, Friends of Coal included a couple of other bright spots:

“The Trump administration on Wednesday formally reinstated the National Coal Council, an advisory group focused on fossil fuels that existed for more than three decades before lapsing under the Biden administration. The Department of Energy in a Federal Register notice restored the group.”

“President Trump took two major steps this week to end the 14-year old ...Democrat war against the coal industry and cheap electricity. Although greens have promised to sue, they are unlikely to succeed as the moves have pretty much been pre-approved by the Supreme Court.”

Some other states, even some that are not coal producers, understand how important it is.

In South Carolina, the state legislature is considering the new S.C. Energy Bill. The bill provides for “all of the above forms of energy for electricity 

generation.” One of the bill’s supporters noted that “the lowest cost, most reliable power that the Low Country has had delivered for over 80 years is from Santee-Cooper with over 60% of that low-cost electricity coming from the primary energy of coal.”

While it is very unlikely that these changes will spur a recovery in the coal industry that puts it back where it once was, things should improve locally, at least some.

And, like other changes the Trump administration supports, these changes will take some time to emerge as is the case with gasoline prices.