The Pronk Pops Show 303, July 28, 2014, Story 2: On Election Day The American People Will Be Singing The KOKOMO Song — Knock Out King Obama Move On — Videos

POLLSTER	DATES	POP.	APPROVE	DISAPPROVE	UNDECIDED	MARGIN
Gallup NEW!	7/22 – 7/24	1,500 A	39	54	–	Disapprove +15
Rasmussen NEW!	7/22 – 7/24	500 LV	46	52	–	Disapprove +6
FOX	7/20 – 7/22	1,057 RV	42	52	6	Disapprove +10
Gallup	7/19 – 7/21	1,500 A	44	49	–	Disapprove +5
Rasmussen	7/19 – 7/21	500 LV	47	52	–	Disapprove +5
YouGov/Economist	7/19 – 7/21	1,000 A	45	52	4	Disapprove +7
CNN	7/18 – 7/20	1,012 A	42	55	3	Disapprove +13
ARG	7/17 – 7/20	1,100 A	42	56	2	Disapprove +14
Gallup	7/16 – 7/18	1,500 A	43	53	–	Disapprove +10
Rasmussen	7/16 – 7/18	500 LV	47	52	–	Disapprove +5

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Obama’s job performance. Fifty-two percent (52%) disapprove (see trends).

The latest figures include 23% who Strongly Approve of the way Obama is performing as president and 41% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18.

Results are updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update).

Georgia Republicans finally have a Senate candidate after Tuesday’s hard-fought runoff. We’ll see how winner David Perdue stacks up against Democrat Michelle Nunn at noon Eastern today.

Most Americans continue to believe crime is a serious problem in America. Are more cops the answer?

Baltimore is just about to institute one of the strictest youth nighttime curfew laws in the country. Are curfews the answer instead?

As for the nation’s overall security, the president continues to earn mediocre marks from voters.

We’ll tell you what voters think the president should do about Russia at 10:30 a.m. Eastern.

(More to come)

13-Nov-0809-Aug-0926-Apr-1013-Jan-1123-Sep-1109-Jun-1225-Feb-1305-Nov-1324-Jul-1430%40%50%60%70%80%www.RasmussenReports.comTotal Approve

Our first numbers out of the New Mexico governor’s race are quite a surprise.

Do Americans think it is still possible for just about anyone in this country to work hard and get rich?

Just 26% of voters think the United States is heading in the right direction.

(More below)

-1713-Nov-0809-Aug-0926-Apr-1013-Jan-1123-Sep-1109-Jun-1225-Feb-1305-Nov-1324-Jul-140%10%20%30%40%50%60%www.RasmussenReports.comStrongly DisapproveStrongly Approve

Some readers wonder how we come up with our job approval ratings for the president since they often don’t show as dramatic a change as some other pollsters do. It depends on how you ask the question and whom you ask.

To get a sense of longer-term job approval trends for the president, Rasmussen Reports compiles our tracking data on a full month-by-month basis.

Rasmussen Reports has been a pioneer in the use of automated telephone polling techniques, but many other firms still utilize their own operator-assisted technology (see methodology).

Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 500 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. To reach those who have abandoned traditional landline telephones, Rasmussen Reports uses an online survey tool to interview randomly selected participants from a demographically diverse panel. The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 1,500 Likely Voters is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Results are also compiled on a full-week basis and crosstabs for full-week results are available for Platinum Members.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

U.S. Considering Refugee Status for Hondurans

By FRANCES ROBLES and MICHAEL D. SHEAR

Hoping to stem the recent surge of migrants at the Southwest border, the Obama administration is considering whether to allow hundreds of minors and young adults from Honduras into the United States without making the dangerous trek through Mexico, according to a draft of the proposal.

If approved, the plan would direct the government to screen thousands of children and youths in Honduras to see if they can enter the United States as refugees or on emergency humanitarian grounds. It would be the first American refugee effort in a nation reachable by land to the United States, the White House said, putting the violence in Honduras on the level of humanitarian emergencies in Haiti and Vietnam, where such programs have been conducted in the past amid war and major crises.

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Children at the Border

The number of children crossing the U.S. border alone has doubled since last year. Answers to key questions on the crisis.

OPEN GRAPHIC

By moving decisions on refugee claims to Honduras, the plan aims to slow the rush of minors crossing into the United States illegally from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, which has overwhelmed the border this year. More than 45,000 unaccompanied minors from those three nations have arrived since Oct. 1, straining federal resources to the point that some agencies will exhaust their budgets by next month, the secretary of Homeland Security has said.

Many of the children, particularly in Honduras, are believed to be fleeing dangerous street gangs, which forcibly recruit members and extort home and business owners. The United Nations estimates that 70,000 gang members operate in the three nations.

Administration officials stressed that no decision had been made to move forward, saying the idea was one of many being discussed by officials at the White House and the Departments of State, Homeland Security, Justice, and Health and Human Services.

Among the factors surrounding the decision are how many people in Honduras would be eligible to apply for the program, and how many would probably be approved.

The proposal, prepared by several federal agencies, says the pilot program under consideration would cost up to $47 million over two years, assuming 5,000 applied and about 1,750 people were accepted. If successful, it would be adopted in Guatemala and El Salvador as well.

It is unclear how the administration determined those estimates, given that since Oct. 1 more than 16,500 unaccompanied children traveled to the United States from Honduras alone.

Children would be interviewed by American immigration employees trained to deal with minors, and a resettlement center would be set up in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, with assistance from international organizations like the International Organization for Migration.

The plan would be similar to a recent bill introduced by Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona, who proposed increasing the number of refugee visas to the three Central American countries by 5,000 each.

According to the draft, the administration is considering opening the program to people under 21. It also suggested offering entry on emergency humanitarian grounds — known as humanitarian parole — to some of the applicants who did not qualify for refugee status.

A crime scene in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where a 7-year-old was found tortured and murdered.CreditMeridith Kohut for The New York Times

That would most likely cause an outcry among critics who believe President Obama has been too soft on immigration. But officials called it “highly unlikely” that people who were denied refugee status would be considered for parole, which is generally offered in isolated emergencies.

Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports tighter controls on immigration, said that the proposal would increase, not stem, the flood of migrants from Central America trying to get into the United States.

“It’s clearly a bad idea,” Mr. Krikorian said. “Orders of magnitude more people will apply for refugee status if they can just do it from their home countries.”

He added that the proposal would allow people to claim to be refugees from their countries with “nothing more than a bus ride to the consulate. We’re talking about, down the road, an enormous additional flow of people from those countries.”

The preliminary plan could create a thorny challenge for the administration because the definition of a refugee is legally specific, and children fleeing street gangs could have a hard time qualifying.

Under American law, refugees are people fleeing their country of origin based on fears of persecution by reason of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.

The only category that would seem to apply is “social group,” experts said, but there is disagreement on what that means. Some contend that children could count as a group, but others say the refugee requirements are stricter, and would not apply to people fleeing general crime and violence.

“What is a social group?” said Muzaffar Chishti, director of migration policies for the Migration Policy Institute’s New York office. “This is going to create a huge deal of debate. You will see a lot of law developing on it.”

Still, the draft of the plan noted that 64.7 percent of the unaccompanied minors who applied for asylum this year got it, which suggests that immigration officials have found their claims of imminent danger credible.

Migrants traveling north through Mexico toward the United States on a northbound freight train known as “The Beast,” because of rampant accidents and violent crime.CreditMeridith Kohut for The New York Times

With that in mind, the draft proposal suggested that 35 percent to 50 percent of the applicants in Honduras could be considered for relief, a figure the White House said was inflated. The early draft, the White House said, was the most generous and least likely of the options the administration is considering. How many people are accepted is critical, because refugees qualify for public assistance upon arrival in the United States.

One of the issues under debate is whether the program should be limited to children who have at least one relative in the United States, so that the government would not be saddled with custodial issues. Whether that relative would have to have legal residency is another issue that was addressed but not resolved.

Under Senator McCain’s proposal, refugee applicants would be processed at home, and child migrants arriving in the United States illegally could be deported quickly.

Kevin Appleby, director of Migration and Refugee Services at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the plan would be welcome, as long as it did not substitute for protections Central American children currently receive under American law.

“This program would certainly be a formal acknowledgment by the administration that these children are refugees,” Mr. Appleby said. “That’s huge, because they have yet to utter that word.”

When a similar plan was adopted in Haiti, as a way to keep people from taking to the high seas, he said, it was ultimately criticized because Haitians already in the United States did not receive help. “It ended up being counterproductive to the goal,” Mr. Appleby said.

Stacie Blake, the director of government relations for the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, an advocacy group, said the processing of potential refugees in Central America could be handled by the United States or by the United Nations, which makes refugee determinations in many other countries. She said some of the people designated as refugees in Honduras could end up in countries other than the United States.

“It’s a way to help folks avoid life-threatening escapes and journeys,” Ms. Blake said. “It’s a good idea. It’s a tested idea.”

The Honduran Foreign Ministry referred requests for comment to its embassy in Washington, which said that, due to the president’s visit to Washington, its ambassador was not immediately available for comment.

On Friday, Mr. Obama is scheduled to meet with the presidents of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador at the White House in an effort to urge the Central American leaders to do more to help stem the flow of children fleeing their countries for the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/world/americas/administration-weighs-plan-to-move-processing-of-youths-seeking-entry-to-honduras-.html?_r=1

Obama will take executive action on immigration after summer, adviser says

The move could trigger impeachment proceedings against President Obama, said his senior adviser, Dan Pfeiffer. A spokesman for the House speaker called the impeachment comments ‘political games.’

By Francine Kiefer, Staff writer

President Obama will go ahead with a “very significant” executive action on immigration after the summer – a move that may well trigger impeachment proceedings against him, senior Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer told reporters at a Monitor breakfast Friday.

“The president acting on immigration reform will certainly up the likelihood that [Republicans] would contemplate impeachment at some point,” said Mr. Pfeiffer, who has been at the Obama White House since its inception.

A lot of people in Washington laughed off Sarah Palin’s call to impeach the president for executive overreach, Pfeiffer said, but “I would not discount that possibility.” Polling shows strong support for the idea among the GOP base, he said, adding that House Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio has opened the door to the possibility with his lawsuit against Obama.

Speaker Boehner has flatly denied an interest in impeachment, saying, “I disagree” with those who support it. Next week, the GOP-controlled House is expected to pass a resolution to sue the president for executive overreach on the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare.”

In 2012, Obama signed a memo authorizing deferred action on the deportation of certain children of illegal immigrants – the so-called “DREAMers.” Republicans cite it as an example of executive overreach and say it has encouraged the influx of unaccompanied minors from Central America. Tea party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz (R) of Texas has urged his colleagues to reject emergency funding for the current border crisis unless the Obama administration rolls back the deferred action.

But while some may have thought the child-migrant crisis might discourage the president from further executive action on immigration, it is having the opposite effect. It has raised awareness of immigration as an issue and increased “the urgency” that the public feels in fixing it, Pfeiffer said. That gives the administration “broad permission” to take action, he said.

Given the “broken Congress,” Pfeiffer said, Obama plans to move ahead with another action after he hears advice from the attorney general and the Homeland Security secretary. His criteria will be that any executive action be on “solid legal footing” and have maximum impact.

Immigrant groups want the president to use his “prosecutorial discretion” to extend temporary protection from deportation to the millions of illegal migrants who would have qualified for a “path to citizenship” under the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform, which has gone nowhere in the House. Politico reports he’s considering subsets of that group, based on criteria such as family ties, how long they have been in the country, and work history.

The White House, Pfeiffer said, is also considering what impact an action could have on the politics of reform going forward.

After the announcement of an action, he said, Republicans will have a choice: “Are they going to go back and try to pass comprehensive immigration reform – [after] which the president will rip up whatever executive action he does the day they pass that? Or are they basically going to set themselves up for the next two and a half years here to be arguing to elect a Republican in order to deport all these people?”

On the child-migrant crisis, Pfeiffer said Obama still supports changing a 2008 child-trafficking law that has become a sticking point in his request to Congress for $3.7 billion in emergency funding. That law has had the unintended effect of creating a huge backlog of immigration cases for unaccompanied minors in the courts. Republicans and some Democrats in Congress support changing the law to expedite the cases and deportations, but many Democrats say changing the law would deprive endangered children of their due process.

The administration is talking with members of Congress about a change. But that issue, Pfeiffer said, should not hold up funding.

On a related issue, he neither denied nor confirmed a New York Times account that the White House is considering a plan to accept refugees from Honduras whose applications are processed in that country.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/monitor_breakfast/2014/0725/Obama-will-take-executive-action-on-immigration-after-summer-adviser-says

Obama Announces Plans For Executive Action On Immigration

resident Barack Obama announced Monday he’s done waiting for the House of Representatives to pass an immigration bill, and plans to take executive action to change deportation policies.

In remarks from the White House, Obama said that given the House’s decision not to move forward with a bill, he will act on his own, refocusing resources to border enforcement and looking into changes he can make to deportation policy.

“If Congress will not do their jobs, at least we can do ours,” he said.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told Obama last week that his chamber would not vote this year on immigration reform, Obama said. The Senate passed a comprehensive bill one year ago, but Boehner quickly said he would not allow a vote on that legislation. He did, however, say the House would work to address immigration reform in its own way.

Meanwhile, Democrats and immigration reform advocates urged Obama to slow deportations, which hit a record high in the 2012 fiscal year. Although the high numbers have also come with an increased focus on priorities set by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (such as convicted criminals and repeat border-crossers), advocates say there’s plenty to be done that would make the process more humane for people with longstanding ties to the country.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson had been working on a review of deportation policies, but it was put on hold in May at the president’s request, to give the House time to pass its own bill — to no avail.

Boehner said in a statement that he told Obama last week it would be tough for the House to move forward given distrust of the president. They spoke last week at a reception celebrating American golf players.

“Until that changes, it is going to be difficult to make progress on this issue,” he said. “The crisis at our southern border reminds us all of the critical importance of fixing our broken immigration system. It is sad and disappointing that –- faced with this challenge –- President Obama won’t work with us, but is instead intent on going it alone with executive orders that can’t and won’t fix these problems.”

Republicans have been critical of Obama’s previous executive actions on immigration, claiming he subverted the law by giving relief to undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. Boehner is currently planning a lawsuit against Obama for executive overreach, which may include that immigration action.

Obama said that if House Republicans don’t want him to take executive action, they should pass legislation.

“If House Republicans are really concerned about me taking too many executive actions, the best solution to that is to passing bills,” he said. “Pass a bill. Solve a problem. Don’t just say no on something that everybody agrees needs to be done.”

The president announced he will send more resources to the border to detain and deport undocumented immigrants, although interior enforcement will continue as well. The border has increasingly become a point of contention given the current influx of unaccompanied minors crossing illegally. The White House requested $2 billion from Congress to deal with the crisis, and for the authority to “fast track” screenings and deportations of unaccompanied minors.

Obama criticized Republicans who say they can’t do anything on immigration because of the crisis, and said they’re using it as “their newest excuse.”

“Their argument seems to be that because the system is broken, we shouldn’t make an effort to fix it,” he said. “It makes no sense. It’s not on the level. It’s just politics, plain and simple.”

Raymond T. Pronk

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Story 2: On Election Day The American People Will Be Singing The KOKOMO Song — Knock Out King Obama Move On — Videos

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Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

U.S. Considering Refugee Status for Hondurans

By FRANCES ROBLES and MICHAEL D. SHEAR

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Children at the Border

Obama will take executive action on immigration after summer, adviser says

By Francine Kiefer, Staff writer

Obama Announces Plans For Executive Action On Immigration

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