Media's Anti-Obama Bias

Anyone reading the press over the past few years with the slightest interest in discerning the way in which the events and outcomes are framed cannot help but notice the hostility towards the current President of the United States. We can argue about the reasons why this may be the case, but that it's the case is beyond dispute.

An analysis focused on the tone of news coverage of the GOP primary for president examined the treatment of the different candidates, finding that Rick Perry received the most favorable treatment of the candidates, while Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty received the least favorable. (The study took place while Perry was the front runner.) For comparative purposes, the analysis included Barack Obama, and surprise, surprise:

One man running for president has suffered the most unrelentingly negative
treatment of all, the study found: Barack Obama. Though covered largely as president rather than a candidate, negative assessments of Obama have outweighed positive by a ratio of almost 4-1. Those assessments of the president have also been substantially more negative than positive every one of the 23 weeks studied. And in no week during these five months was more than 10% of the coverage about the president positive in tone.

At least someone noticed.

October 9/10 TIME Poll

Some highlights from the Oct. 9-10, 2011 TIME Poll Results

Do you feel things in the country are generally going in the right direction or do you feel things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track?
RIGHT DIRECTION 14%
WRONG TRACK 81%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 5%

In general, do you approve or disapprove of the way the President Obama is handling his job as President?
10/9/11 – 10/10/11: 44% approve, 50% disapprove, 6% no answer/don’t know
6/20/11 – 6/21/11: 48% approve, 46% disapprove, 6% no answer/don’t know
8/16/10 – 8/17/10: 46% approve, 45% disapprove, 9% no answer/don’t know
7/12/10 – 7/13/10: 49% approve, 45% disapprove, 6% no answer/don’t know
7/27/09 – 7/28/09: 56% approve, 38% disapprove, 6% no answer/don’t know

Would you say that Obama is tough enough to be President during these times or not?
YES 50%
NO 44%
NO ANSWER/ DON’T KNOW 5%

Would you say that Obama cares about people like yourself or not?
YES 59%
NO 37%
NO ANSWER/ DON’T KNOW 5%

In your opinion, who do you think has been a better president - Barack Obama or George W. Bush?
BARACK OBAMA 48%
GEORGE W. BUSH 37%
SAME/EQUAL 7%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 9%

Regardless of how you usually vote, overall, which party - the Democrats or the Republicans - do you trust to do a better job in dealing with the main problems the nation faces over the next few years?
DEMOCRATS 42%
REPUBLICANS 31%
BOTH 1%
NEITHER PARTY 18%
TEA PARTY *
OTHER 2%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 6%

In politics as today, are your views best represented by the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the Tea Party, another party, or do none of the parties really represent your views?
DEMOCRATIC PARTY 30%
REPUBLICAN PARTY 17%
TEA PARTY 12%
NONE 35%
OTHER 4%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 2%

Do you feel that the political debate in Washington and the media mostly represents the concerns your discuss and hear in your own community, or not?
MOSTLY REPRESENTS 36%
DO NOT REPRESENT 60%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 3%

On another note, is your opinion of the Tea Party movement very favorable, somewhat favorable, or don't you know enough about the Tea Party to have an opinion?
VERY FAVORABLE 8%
SOMEWHAT FAVORABLE 19%
SOMEWHAT UNFAVORABLE 9%
VERY UNFAVORABLE 24%
DON’T KNOW ENOUGH 39%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 1%

Has the Tea Party had a positive impact on American politics today, a negative impact, or has it had little impact?
POSITIVE IMPACT 34%
NEGATIVE IMPACT 40%
LITTLE IMPACT 25%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 2%

Do you consider yourself a member or follower of the Tea Party, or not?
YES 6%
NO 93%
NO ANSWER/ DON’T KNOW 1%

In the past few days, a group of protesters has been gathering on Wall Street in New York City and some other cities to protest policies which they say favor the rich, the government's bank bailout, and the influence of money in our political system.

Is your opinion of these protests very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, very unfavorable, or don't you know enough about the protests to have an opinion?
VERY FAVORABLE 25%
SOMEWHAT FAVORABLE 29%
SOMEWHAT UNFAVORABLE 10%
VERY UNFAVORABLE 13%
DON’T KNOW ENOUGH 23%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 1%

Do you agree or disagree?

A. Wall Street and its lobbyists have too much influence in Washington.
AGREE 86%
DISAGREE 11%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 4%

B. The gap between rich and poor in the United States has grown too large.
AGREE 79%
DISAGREE 17%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 3%

C. Executives of financial institutions responsible for the financial meltdown in 2008 should be prosecuted.
AGREE 71%
DISAGREE 23%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 6%

D. The rich should pay more taxes.
AGREE 68%
DISAGREE 28%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 4%

In your view, will this protest movement have a positive impact on American politics today, a negative impact, or will it have little impact on American politics today?
POSITIVE IMPACT 30%
NEGATIVE IMPACT 9%
LITTLE IMPACT 56%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 6%

In politics today, is it better for Republicans and Democrats to work together, or is it better for party members to stick to their positions and refuse to compromise with the other side?
BETTER TO WORK TOGETHER 89%
BETTER FOR PARTY MEMBERS TO STICK TO POSITIONS 8%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 4%

In the past few years, would you say that America's position in the world is growing, declining, or has remained about the same as before?
GROWING 7%
DECLINING 71%
ABOUT THE SAME 21%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 1%

Thinking about your own feelings about the state of the country today, which of the following describes best how you feel?
ANGRY 25%
UPSET BUT NOT ANGRY 25%
CONCERNED BUT NOT UPSET 45%
NOT CONCERNED 1%
FEELING POSITIVE 4%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 1%

Overall, what do you think is the best way to reduce the federal budget deficit - by cutting federal spending, by raising taxes, or by a combination of both?
CUTTING FEDERAL SPENDING 29%
INCREASING TAXES 4%
COMBINATION 65%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 3%

Would you favor or oppose raising taxes on people with annual incomes of a million dollars or more to help cut the federal deficit?
FAVOR 73%
OPPOSE 23%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 4%

If the government did raise taxes on people earning a million dollars a year or more, would this hurt the economic recovery, or not?
WOULD HURT THE ECONOMIC RECOVERY 21%
WOULD NOT 74%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 5%

Would you favor or oppose giving upper income people a reduce retirement benefit, with lower income people getting the full retirement benefit, sometimes called "means testing"?
FAVOR 55%
OPPOSE 38%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 7%

Would you favor or oppose increasing social security payroll withholding beyond the current $106,000 of income?
FAVOR 54%
OPPOSE 36%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 10%

Would you favor or oppose some combination of all these proposals?
FAVOR 70%
OPPOSE 23%
NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 7%

At this point, would you say you'll definitely not vote in the Presidential Election, probably not vote, may or may not vote depending on how you feel at the time, probably vote, or definitely vote in the Presidential Election?
DEFINITELY NOT VOTE 2%
PROBABLY NOT VOTE 1%
MAY OR MAY NOT VOTE 7%
PROBABLY VOTE 6%
DEFINITELY VOTE 84%
DON’T KNOW/NO ANSWER *

If the Presidential Election were held today, and the candidates were Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and you had to choose, for whom would you vote?
BARACK OBAMA 46%
MITT ROMNEY 43%
OTHER/NEITHER 3%
WOULD NOT VOTE 1%
UNDECIDED/DON’T KNOW/NO ANSWER 7%

If the Presidential Election were held today, and the candidates were Barack Obama and Rick Perry, and you had to choose, for whom would you vote?
BARACK OBAMA 50%
RICK PERRY 38%
OTHER/NEITHER 4%
WOULD NOT VOTE 1%
UNDECIDED/DON’T KNOW/NO ANSWER 7%

If the Presidential Election were held today, and the candidates were Barack Obama and Herman Cain, and you had to choose, for whom would you vote?
BARACK OBAMA 49%
HERMAN CAIN 37%
OTHER/NEITHER 4%
WOULD NOT VOTE 1%
UNDECIDED/DON’T KNOW/NO ANSWER 9%

The Mormon Question - Again

(Click on the image above to see it enlarged and easier to read.)

Mitt Romney’s crawl towards the 2012 Republican nomination for president has generated initial salvos across the bow of Romney’s Mormon background. Two fundamental assertions have emerged: 1) A Perry backer has asserted that the Mormons are a cult, and 2) several conservative Christians have declared that Mormons are not Christians.

Back in 2006 when Romney was running for president, I wrote a piece on Mormonism and the idea of a Mormon president. In response to the recent hoopla, Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Theological Seminary, points out (correctly) that Mormonism doesn’t really fit the fundamental components of a cult. Certainly, it gathers believers together into an organization promoting the notion that they possess a superior truth and a higher status with God than those with other beliefs. That applies to most organized western religions.

The Mormon Church does rigorously commandeer 10% of one’s income and reviews individual tax returns, but they do NOT have the flock surrender all possessions or pay enormous sums for church activities. The indoctrinations do foster an “us and them” mindset, but Mormons are not isolated from society. Charismatic leaders don’t seduce pretty wives and daughters. They're no Jones camp in a jungle or Heaven’s Gate preparing for a comet. They are not Scientology slaves in Sea Org.

Mormonism is not a cult.

The second assertion is more complex depending on the semantics of "Christian," and Mouw refuses to touch it. Still, barring a severe twist on the meaning of "Christian," it is correct. Mormons are not Christians.

They do believe Jesus Christ is the direct son of God, but crucial components of the Christian faith are utterly contradicted by the key cornerstones of Mormon belief. Perhaps most notable is the Mormon conviction that God was once a man, a human being, and that men (good Mormon men) have the potential to become what God is now, with their own universe over which they have dominion (and often more than a few wives). God has a physical body just like a man.

Mormon founder Joseph Smith wrote:

God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens...I say, if you were to see him to-day, you would see him like a man in form -- like yourselves, in all the person, image, and very form as a man....it is necessary that we should understand the character and being of God, and how he came to be so; for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity, I will refute that idea, and will take away and do away the veil, so that you may see....and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did. - (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 6, p. 3).

LDS church writings have some troubling remarks likely to see daylight should Romney become the nominee. Some have been exaggerated or twisted by those hostile to Mormonism, but consider this publication posted at Brigham Young University's site by the Mormons themselves. The ideas there are not slanted or distorted or those of an extreme fringe. They are fundamental.

In what has some slant but says a lot in eight minutes, this "Banned" Video on Mormonism (8:42) provides a taste of some of what's going on.

Who's Funding Whom?

BARACK OBAMA CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS ($46.3 M)

The New York Times notes the following in its coverage of the latest FEC reports for the 2012 presidential election.

Mitt Romney's $18.4 million dwarfs all of his primary challengers, with the next closest candidates (Paul and Pawlenty) at $4.5 M. All fall short of Obama's $46 M war chest, but more far more interesting than the total funds raised are the nature of the contributions themselves.

MITT ROMNEY CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS ($18.4 M)

We've been treated to ample assertions about class warfare, which is probably a good thing, since most metrics (take your pick) show it's been happening since the 1980s and started in earnest with Bush's election in 2000.

Half of the contributions for President Obama are less than $200. For those contributing to Mitt Romney, 70% are the maximum legal limit.

The reader does realize that this is small change compared to the now unregulated billions in PAC electioneering unleashed by the Supreme Court, but it's enough to make it all too clear who is behind whom.

Occupy Why?

It's Personal: Corporate profits are at an all-time high, but corporations are paying lower taxes than ever before. Some aren't paying any at all...Executive pay is now about five times higher than it was in 1980, adjusted for inflation. The average salary for the rank-and-file American worker, however, is about the same as it was in 1980.

Increased Support: Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told CBS News, "They are basically sending us a message that says, 'Don't create a society where one percent basically has all the wealth.'"

Occupy Wall St Quiz: Who said each of the following? (Answers at the link.)

1. I for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country.
2. I think it expresses the frustration the American people feel.
3. They blame, with some justification, the problems in the financial sector for getting us into this mess, and they’re dissatisfied with the policy response here in Washington. And at some level, I can’t blame them.
4. Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself!
5. We are the 1 percent.
6. God bless them for their spontaneity. It’s young, it’s spontaneous, it’s focused and it’s going to be effective.
7. This is like the Tea Party — only it’s real. By the time this is over, it will make the Tea Party look like … a tea party.
8. I think it’s dangerous, this class warfare.
9. What they’re trying to do is take away the jobs of people working in the city, take away the tax base that we have.
10. I’m very, very understanding of where they’re coming from.

By the way, care to venture a guess as to the income and net worth of those voicing criticisms of this "mob"?

Consider that this is just beginning and will get interesting.

Cantor's Hypocrisy Chokes God

(In 2009, Rep. Eric Cantor, R-VA, had very different views about Tea Party anger) Eric Cantor, the 2nd ranking Republican in Congress, voiced concerns about the Occupy Wall Street protests that have now spread to over 50 cities nationwide and bear an uncanny resemblance to the nature of the protests that emerged in the Arab Spring of the Middle East. Here and elsewhere the notion of an American Spring is developing, and like the early stages of what occurred in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, people didn't quite know what to think.

Clearly, the Republicans don't know what to think. GOP candidate for President Herman Cain remarked of the Occupy Wall St protesters, "Don’t blame Wall Street."

Cain said, "Don’t blame the big banks. If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself!"

Only most rarely does the Supreme Being comment on American politics, but even the Lord God gasped when Cantor had the hypocrisy, after years of embracing Tea Party lynchings of Obama and Pelosi effigies, vandalism of representative offices, and death threats, to denounce the Occupy Wall St participants as "pitting Americans against Americans."

Closer to reality, Vice President Biden recognized the parallels between the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement, "The Tea Party started why? TARP. They thought it was unfair, we're bailing out the big guys. What are the people up on the other side of the spectrum saying? The same thing."

In the same statement where he condemned the new movement, Eric Cantor, as America faces the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, two unfunded wars, crushing unemployment, 50 million Americans without health insurance, crumbling transportation infrastructure, and a collapsing education system, promised that if the Republicans win both houses and the presidency in 2012, they will defund Planned Parenthood.

The Lord heaved, "Well, that will fix everything."

Fox News Distorts Occupy Wall St. Information

Fox News and others have jumped on an individual's Proposed List of Demands posted at the Occupy Wall Street Website as if it were the finalized, official document of an organization. It is not.

They are ideas submitted by a single individual, Lloyd J Hart, whose name and phone number appear at the bottom of his list. Another individual has also posted a Demand and Action List for Congress to be considered by others associating themselves with the movement.

Of course the corporate controlled media will subtly or not so subtly place its slant on the events as they unfold. We can anticipate that Fox News, which has no problem doctoring photographs and editing videos to mislead its viewers, will present the most glaring distortions.

I have already encountered individuals who think Occupy Wall St. is calling for completely open borders, a mandatory minimum wage of $20, and the forgiveness of all debt.

This is going to get ugly.

99 and 1

The 99% and 1% distinction currently deployed by the escalating Occupy Wall Street demonstrations offers a compelling and easily understood concept that has the makings to gain considerable traction.

First, let's note that the 99% and the 1% can refer to two separate financial measures, wealth and income. One could argue that the two are so closely related that either measure points to the same realities.

Starting with income distribution, to get straight with some of the figures, the Wealth and Want Website has sound statistics regarding the facts of income distribution in the United States including links to additional references allowing one to dive as deep as desired into the data.

As they list there, summarizing for the key 8 groups:

P0-89 (bottom 90%)
9/10 households — income below $104,696

P90-100 (top 10%)
1/10 households — income above $104,696

P90-95 (next 5%)
1/20 households — income between $104,696 and $148,423

P95-99 (next 4%)
4/100 households — income between $148,423 and $382,593

P99-100 (top 1%)
1/100 households — income above $382,593

P99.5-100 (top 0.5%)
1/200 households — income above $597,584

P99.9-100 (top 0.1%)
1/1,000 households — income above $1,898,200

P99.99-100 (top .01%)
1/10,000 households — income above $10,659,283

Putting the above into some simple sentences, you are in the 1% club for income if you gross over $382,593 per year in 2006 dollars, or $430,000 in 2011 dollars.

Make less than $430,000 / year, and you are in the 99% group.

When examining wealth, the inequality is far worse, with the richest 20% owning over 4/5 (84%) of EVERYTHING. The richest 1% own almost half the country, and we wonder why they control everything, including our media, and virtually run the country to serve their own interests.

One of the ways they do this is to dramatically understate and effectively obfuscate the reality of poverty and its existence in the United States. The national psyche simply does not get how poor we are. Andrew Price at Good Politics wrote Americans Are Horribly Misinformed About Who Has Money last month.

Helping illuminate the situation is an excellent paper, Building a Better America One Quintile at a Time [PDF], by Michael I. Norton (Harvard Business School) and Dan Ariely (Duke University).

Price in his post notes that the nation is becoming a a plutocracy.

Becoming?

We're already there.

American Spring

This was unanimously voted on by all members of Occupy Wall Street last night, around 8pm, Sept 29. It is our first official document for release. We have three more underway, that will likely be released in the upcoming days: 1) A declaration of demands. 2) Principles of Solidarity 3) Documentation on how to form your own Direct Democracy Occupation Group. This is a living document. you can receive an official press copy of the latest version by emailing c2anycga@gmail.com.

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!