Nate Silver: The Liberal-Conservative
Happiness Gap is Real
Posted By: Dreadnought, 6/19/2025 7:26:19 PM
We've talked about this topic before but as Nate Silver points out today, it probably gets less attention than it should. Let's just start with the chart so you can refer back to it. As the legend indicates, this is a 0-100 point scale where 100 is "excellent" and 0 is "poor." As you can see, conservatives are significantly happier than liberals in every subcategory of gender, race, age and education. And the chart keeps going with a look at income, religion, marriage, sexual orientation and political activity. Here's a bit of what Silver has to say about these results which come from a large survey with 60,000 respondents.
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SAN FRANCISCO — An appeals court on Thursday allowed President Donald Trump to keep control of National Guard troops he deployed to Los Angeles following protests over immigration raids.
The decision halts a ruling from a lower court judge who found Trump acted illegally when he activated the soldiers over opposition from California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The deployment was the first by a president of a state National Guard without the governor’s permission since 1965.
The court case could have wider implications on the president’s power to deploy soldiers within the United States
President Donald Trump has set a two-week deadline to decide if the United States will strike Iran.
“Based on the fact that there is a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place in the near future, I will make my decision of whether or not to go within the next two weeks,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday, reading a statement from the president to reporters.
Leavitt said Trump would prefer a diplomatic solution, but the president — in consultation with the National Security Council — is weighing U.S. military intervention to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,
As President Trump is contemplating potential U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, law enforcement officials have stepped up surveillance of Iran-backed operatives in the United States, multiple sources told CBS News.
FBI Director Kash Patel has increased efforts to monitor possible domestic sleeper cells linked to Hezbollah — a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization backed by Iran — since Israel's Operation Rising Lion offensive began earlier this month, U.S. officials said.
Both the White House and FBI declined to comment.
The threat from Iranian operatives has worried current and former administration officials since Iranian General Qasem Soleimani was assassinated on Mr. Trump's orders in January 2020.
A SpaceX Starship exploded at the company's Starbase launch site in Texas Wednesday night, bursting into a massive fireball. Video shows the explosion, which SpaceX said occurred as the Starship was preparing for an engine test firing.
The Starship "experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase," the company said in a post on X.
"A safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted for," SpaceX said.
We've talked about this topic before but as Nate Silver points out today, it probably gets less attention than it should. Let's just start with the chart so you can refer back to it. As the legend indicates, this is a 0-100 point scale where 100 is "excellent" and 0 is "poor." As you can see, conservatives are significantly happier than liberals in every subcategory of gender, race, age and education. And the chart keeps going with a look at income, religion, marriage, sexual orientation and political activity. Here's a bit of what Silver has to say about these results which come from a large survey with 60,000 respondents.
President Donald Trump is further delaying the executive branch’s enforcement of the TikTok ban after Congress passed legislation last year requiring the Chinese company that owns the platform to sell it or face a ban.
Trump signed an executive order Thursday postponing the TikTok ban until September 17, 2025, preventing the enforcement of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act for a third time since taking office.
“I’ve just signed the Executive Order extending the Deadline for the TikTok
Israel Destroys Iran's Arak Nuclear Reactor
14 replies
Wowza.
It's no surprise that Israel has destroyed Iran's Arak nuclear reactor. After all, it was a key element of Iran's program to build nuclear weaponry, and a very vulnerable target.
The only strategic reason not to attack it was the fact that it could have contained highly radioactive material, and Israel had to balance the benefit of denying its use to Iran against the consequences of releasing dangerous and long-lived radioactive material if the supposedly inactive reactor held fissionable material.
Israeli Defense Minister Says Ayatollah
‘Should Not Continue to Exist’ After
Iran Strikes Hospital 9 replies
‘Should Not Continue to Exist’ After
Iran Strikes Hospital 9 replies
Israel is promising to respond forcefully to Iran’s latest missile barrage after Tehran struck the largest hospital in southern Israel as the war between the two countries escalates.
An Iranian missile hit the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba on Thursday, causing significant damage to the hospital, one of numerous Iranian strikes on Israel that wounded an estimated 89 people across the country.
“The Iranian regime targeted Soroka Hospital in Beersheba with a ballistic missile—hitting a major medical center. We will not stand by.
Israel's remarkable early success in its campaign against Iran has clearly won over President Trump, who has now taken to using the term “we” when discussing the operation. This has increased the debate over whether — and to what extent — the U.S. should join the effort.
In under a week, Israel has achieved complete air supremacy, allowing its pilots to hit targets in Iran without fear of harassment. Though the conflict has taken a toll (Iran’s indiscriminate ballistic missile attacks have killed dozens of Israelis and injured hundreds more), the Iranian counterstrikes have not destroyed any significant strategic targets.
For political junkies who cut their teeth on “60 Minutes,” “Meet the Press,” CNN, and Fox News, longform podcasts were a godsend. Finally freed of commercial restraints and surface-level superficialities, longform podcasts took you beyond the talking points, treating audiences to a deep dive of a topic’s intricacies. Even when the podcast host had limited knowledge of the subject matter (Joe Rogan, I’m looking at you), the benefit of the longform platform was that it facilitated an open-ended, free-floating conversation where both sides learned more about the other.
But there was an important catch: It only worked when both sides were acting in good faith.
Democratic strategist James Carville said Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “The Will Cain Show” that the “Democratic Party has been the most effective political party in the history of the world.”
Host Will Cain said, “I think you’ve got a deeper problem in the way that the left is talking about America.”
Carville said, “If I take everything that they all said, it wouldn’t amount to what Mike Lee said, who’s actually a United States Senator who actually said something very harmful and very hurtful and is not apologize for it. So, I mean, we can go on. I mean, I’m not here to defend Whoopi Goldberg.
No MAGA Schism On Iran
7 replies
I wrote here that I didn’t expect the Iran-Israel war to seriously divide MAGA, and that I thought the “anti-Israel/pacifist wing of the right” would prove to be “barely discernible.” This survey by J.L. Partners supports that view:
* 58% of Republicans back U.S. military strikes on Iran, compared to just
25% opposed.
* Among MAGA Republicans, support jumps to 65%, with just 19% against. This is higher than among self-described Traditional Republicans (51% support).
Two striking things about these findings: 1) Most Republicans say they support U.S. military strikes on Iran, which so far are not on the table. And 2) MAGA Republicans are more likely to support
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The Earth could be doomed to breach the symbolic 1.5C warming limit in as little as three years at current levels of carbon dioxide emissions. That's the stark warning from more than 60 of the world's leading climate scientists in the most up-to-date assessment of the state of global warming. Nearly 200 countries agreed to try to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above levels of the late 1800s in a landmark agreement in 2015, with the aim of avoiding some of the worst impacts of climate change.
Democratic strategist James Carville said Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “The Will Cain Show” that the “Democratic Party has been the most effective political party in the history of the world.”
Host Will Cain said, “I think you’ve got a deeper problem in the way that the left is talking about America.”
Carville said, “If I take everything that they all said, it wouldn’t amount to what Mike Lee said, who’s actually a United States Senator who actually said something very harmful and very hurtful and is not apologize for it. So, I mean, we can go on. I mean, I’m not here to defend Whoopi Goldberg.
For political junkies who cut their teeth on “60 Minutes,” “Meet the Press,” CNN, and Fox News, longform podcasts were a godsend. Finally freed of commercial restraints and surface-level superficialities, longform podcasts took you beyond the talking points, treating audiences to a deep dive of a topic’s intricacies. Even when the podcast host had limited knowledge of the subject matter (Joe Rogan, I’m looking at you), the benefit of the longform platform was that it facilitated an open-ended, free-floating conversation where both sides learned more about the other.
But there was an important catch: It only worked when both sides were acting in good faith.
Remember back when Bill Clinton was President and Hillary was his co-president?
Back then the ever-slavish media regularly referred to her as “the smartest woman in the room"?
That was never true. Not even close.
She was never a feminist heroine because she “was no Tammy Wynette” and did not “stay home and bake cookies and stand by her man.”
She was always just a mean, bitter, unattractive woman with narcissistic delusions of her own abilities.
And after all the intervening years, when she was Obama’s Secretary of State (a pity appointment because she lost the election to him – better to keep her inside the tent),
FRESNO, Calif. -- A new COVID-19 subvariant known as NB.1.8.1, or "Nimbus," is spreading across the United States and gaining traction in California, prompting health officials to urge the public to stay up to date on vaccinations. (Snip) One of the most talked-about symptoms of the new strain is what patients are calling "razor blade throat", a severe sore throat that some describe as feeling like swallowing shards of glass. "With this variant, we are seeing patients presenting with a very painful sore throat, cough, headache, and nasal congestion," said Dr. Trinidad Solis with the Fresno County Department of Public Health.
Washington — Former President Joe Biden will be in Galveston, Texas, on Thursday to join a Juneteenth Celebration Service at a historic African Methodist Episcopal Church. The event will be held at the Reedy Chapel AME Church, one of the locations where an order announcing the end of slavery in Texas was read on June 19, 1865, two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, according to the church. In 2021, Biden signed into law a measure that made June 19, or Juneteenth, a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the U.S. Called the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act
Israel's remarkable early success in its campaign against Iran has clearly won over President Trump, who has now taken to using the term “we” when discussing the operation. This has increased the debate over whether — and to what extent — the U.S. should join the effort.
In under a week, Israel has achieved complete air supremacy, allowing its pilots to hit targets in Iran without fear of harassment. Though the conflict has taken a toll (Iran’s indiscriminate ballistic missile attacks have killed dozens of Israelis and injured hundreds more), the Iranian counterstrikes have not destroyed any significant strategic targets.
Israel Destroys Iran's Arak Nuclear Reactor
14 replies
Wowza.
It's no surprise that Israel has destroyed Iran's Arak nuclear reactor. After all, it was a key element of Iran's program to build nuclear weaponry, and a very vulnerable target.
The only strategic reason not to attack it was the fact that it could have contained highly radioactive material, and Israel had to balance the benefit of denying its use to Iran against the consequences of releasing dangerous and long-lived radioactive material if the supposedly inactive reactor held fissionable material.
Ilhan is ill
13 replies
There’s a saying, “I won’t dignify that with a response.” Much of what Ilhan Omar says qualifies; however, it is requisite on U.S. patriots to address her putdown of the U.S. turning into “one of the worst countries.”
It’s tempting to be vindictive toward such preposterous ingratitude, but that’s up to her voters (more on her district in a moment). But there’s some schadenfreude to relish: she’s very unhappy, and is not even a friend to herself. In fact, her warped thinking induces such negative emotions that she feels comfortable being mired in the squalid SQUAD — misery loves company.
It would be preferable if she returned to Somalia,
Memo To Tucker: This Is Not Iraq War II
13 replies
Tucker Carlson, the TV personality who currently enjoys an enormous gap between the size of his audience and his intellectual abilities, has decided to declare war on the Trump administration for the sin of taking Iran’s nuclear ambitions seriously.
President Donald Trump hit back with a post on Truth Social saying “Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that, ‘IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene jumped in with Carlson saying, “Anyone slobbering for the U.S. to become fully involved in the Israel/Iran war is not America First/MAGA.”
The mainstream media is loving all this
If there is one thing we should never assume, it’s that Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) can’t get any more clueless.
Remember, Crockett was the one who emphatically argued that former President Joe Biden was in full control of his faculties and was not at all suffering from cognitive decline. Now, during a recent interview with journalist Katie Couric, she is trying to gaslight the public once again.
During the conversation, Crockett complained that American voters would have rather jumped into a pool full of bloodthirsty piranhas than vote for former Vice President Kamala Harris.
“When you think about it, Kamala Harris, light years ahead of Donald Trump as it relates to qualifications,
As we've been chronicling here at Hot Air for weeks, things have not been running very smoothly behind the scenes at the DNC. First there was the blowup over David Hogg's plan to primary some moderate Democrats. That eventually led to Hogg being unelected in a do-over vote (they claimed the initial vote violated the rules) but not before someone leaked an embarrassing tape of DNC Chair Ken Martin saying he was considering giving up on his job because of the conflict with Hogg.
Not long after all of that drama made news, we learned that two union bigwigs, Randi Weingarten and Lee Saunders, were leaving their positions over disagreements