WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans’ confidence in Congress has sunk to a new low. Seven percent of Americans say they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in Congress as an American institution, down from the previous low of 10% in 2013. This confidence is starkly different from the 42% in 1973, the first year Gallup began asking the question.

Confidence in Congress since 1973

These results come from a June 5-8 Gallup poll that updated Americans’ confidence in 17 U.S. institutions that Americans either read about or interact with in government, business, and society.

Americans’ current confidence in Congress is not only the lowest on record, but also the lowest Gallup has recorded for any institution in the 41-year trend. This is also the first time Gallup has ever measured confidence in a major U.S. institution in the single digits. Currently, 4% of Americans say they have a great deal of confidence in Congress, and 3% have quite a lot of confidence. About one-third of Americans report having “some” confidence, while half have “very little,” and another 7% volunteer that they have “none.”

Confidence in Congress has varied over the years, with the highest levels in the low 40% range recorded […]

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Overview

In many ways, 2013 and early 2014 brought a level of energy to the news industry not seen for a long time. Even as challenges of the past several years continue and new ones emerge, the activities this year have created a new sense of optimism – or perhaps hope – for the future of American journalism.

Digital players have exploded onto the news scene, bringing technological knowhow and new money and luring top talent. BuzzFeed, once scoffed at for content viewed as ‘click bait,” now has a news staff of 170, including top names like Pulitzer Prize-winner Mark Schoofs, and is the kind of place that ProPublica’s Paul Steiger says he would want to work at if he were young again. Mashable now has a news staff of 70 and enticed former New York Times assistant managing editor Jim Roberts to become its chief content officer. And in January of this year, Ezra Klein left the Washington Post for Vox media, which will become the new home for his explanatory journalism concept. Many of these companies are already successful digital brands – built around an innate understanding of technology – and are using revenues from other parts of the operation […]

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Many Americans are aware that the United States spends much more on health care than any other country in the world. But fewer people know that the health of Americans-by many different measures-is actually worse than the health of citizens in other wealthy countries.

Two major reports, both released last year, provide further elaboration of this apparent paradox. The first, ‘The State of US Health, 1990-2010,” documented trends in mortality and morbidity across the thirty-four member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (O.E.C.D.). The study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (to which I am a contributing writer), showed that both life expectancy and healthy-life expectancy improved in the United States over two decades. But the pace of those improvements was considerably slower in the United States: in 1990, the U.S. ranked twentieth among O.E.C.D. countries for life expectancy, and fourteenth for healthy-life expectancy; by 2010, it had fallen to twenty-seventh and twenty-sixth, respectively. The other charts and tables in the report-about heart, lung, and kidney disease; diabetes; injuries and homicides; depression; and drug abuse-all show Americans suffering poorer health.

The second report, commissioned by the National Institutes of Health, and conducted by the National Research […]

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Earlier this week, Bloomberg View columnist Barry Ritholtz took Art Laffer to task for a piece of economic analysis the former Reagan adviser penned in 2009 that proved drastically wrong. Ritholtz used the column to ask : Why aren’t pundits held accountable?

It’s an important question, and one that warrants consideration, particularly as unrepentant architects of the Iraq War enter the public sphere to opine on the deteriorating situation in that country.

Following President Obama’s speech on the increasing violence in Iraq, Ari Fleischer weighed in on Twitter:

Regardless of what anyone thinks of going into Iraq in 2002, it’s a tragedy that the successes of the 2007 surge have been lost & abandoned.
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) June 13, 2014

As critics were quick to point out, it’s impossible to have a credible discussion about the situation in Iraq without consideration of how we got there in the first place (also, we actually invaded Iraq in 2003). And it’s certainly convenient for Fleischer to wave away questions about the initial invasion given that he helped to sell it as President Bush’s press secretary.

Here are some quotes from the former Bush flak that Think […]

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The health of a democracy is dependent on an educated citizenry. Political illiteracy is the manure for the flourishing of political appeals based on sheer ignorance.

So let me introduce you to House Majority Speaker Eric Cantor’s Republican Party vanquisher David Brat (R-VA). First thing you need to know about this far right-wing political upstart is he’s a university professor, which means it’s highly probable he’s not an idiot. He also identifies with the Tea Party strain of conservatism, which, paradoxically, means it’s likely he is, indeed, an idiot. And by idiot, I mean wholly ignorant of U.S. history and constitutionality.

In fact, in his victory speech delivered last week to his supporters, Brat demonstrated that he sits among the majority of Americans when it comes to political and cultural illiteracy.

‘I wish to restore America to its Judeo-Christian roots,” declared Brat. “God acted through people on my behalf.”

Ignoring the self-delusion of the latter part of the above text, Brat now joins no less than 200 million Americans, according to a number of polls, who believe the U.S. Constitution and our laws are based on Judeo-Christian values. On any given Sunday you will hear Christian-right politicians claim absurdly that U.S. laws are […]

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