Ten oz

@ iNow, of course media is a business and like all business it centers around money but if news media specifically has no obligation to be true what is the point of journalism credentials and various protections/support that come with? Why not just allow anyone with an audience a press pass and access? There are journalists out there who receive information and access based on the assumption that they are more than just advertising shills. Physicians make money too but there is still the hippocratic oath. Profit doesn't have to preclude ethics. @ Sato, there is a difference between opinions and facts. A difference between most reliable information and information one prefers. Those differences should be clear when receiving information from a credentialed professional who specifically makes a living off the premise that they distribute the truth. Obviously that doesn't apply to all forms of media. For example when I post on this forum it is understood that I am projecting my own thoughts and opinions. The average person on facebook, twitter, blogging, or on the street is free to speak their minds. Obviously not all media is the same. Howard Stern's radio show is not meant to be a source of news but rather a source of entertainment. I am not suggesting that should change. I am addressing those who claim braodcasting excellence, fair and balanced reporting, the ones embedded overseas with our military, in the press room with our presidents, and etc. If they are merely pandering for advertising dollars than perhaps there should be disclaimers when they report. Why do people still believe roving gangs were murdering people in the Superdome after Katrina? Why do people still connect Saddam Hussein with Al Quada? Why is does Climate Change share equal time with Climate Change Denial? How can people make informed decisions about elected a Gov't to represent them if they are so poorly informed?

@ Overtone, I am still not convinced Trump wins the nomination. I don't think he makes it to 1,237 and the way top GOP members like Linsey Graham and Paul Ryan are talking I don't think Trump wins a brokered convention. That is no compliment to the GOP. Whomever they nominated will be terrible.

Reagan ran for President 3 times before winning the nomination. It took a lot of time for Reagan to be taken serious.

There were a couple of key changes made in the 80' and was then finished off in the 90's: 1985 - Guidelines for minimal amounts of non-entertainment programming are abolished. FCC guidelines on how much advertising can be carried per hour are eliminated. 1987 - "Fairness Doctrine" eliminated. At its founding the FCC viewed the stations to which it granted licenses as "public trustee" — and required that they made every reasonable attempt to cover contrasting points of views. The Commission also required that stations perform public service in reporting on crucial issues in their communities. Soon after he became FCC Chairman under President Reagan, Michael Fowler stated his desire to do away with the Fairness Doctrine. His position was backed by a 1987 D.C. Circuit Court decision ruled that the doctrine was not mandated by Congress and the FCC no longer had to enforce it. 1996 - President Clinton signs the telecumication act of 96' It is generally regarded as the most important legislation regulating media ownership in over a decade. The radio industry experiences unprecedented consolidation after the 40-station ownership cap is lifted. Clear Channel Communications owns 1200 stations, in all 50 states, reaching, according to their Web site, more than 110 million listeners every week. Viacom's Infinity radio network holds more than 180 radio stations in 41 markets. Its holdings are concentrated in the 50 largest radio markets in the United States. In 1999 Infinity owned and operated six of the nation’s Top 10 radio stations http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/mediatimeline.html

Washington (AFP) - More than 22,000 people have signed a petition calling for Americans to be allowed to carry firearms at the Republican National Convention -- because the ban puts lives at risk. https://www.yahoo.com/news/thousands-call-guns-us-republican-convention-180751629.html Would not want to be the Bernie support attending this event!!

I am not suggesting we take away freedom of speech. However, and perhaps thanks to money being speech, certian narratives are drowning out the truth. From climate change to Trump the media is complicit in propagating that which is provably false. People are free to speak their minds on/in twitter, facebook, reddit, church, the public square, amongts family and friends, and etc. I am not saying that should change. Shouldn't there be some type of code of ethics that apply to the media (paid accredited journalism) though? It someone is in a position designed to inform people shouldn't that information be honest?

We live in a climate where trending, likes, re-teweets, viral, and so on decides what is news. While there is nothing new about the media running wild specific stories to quench the populations thirst (24/7 Princess Diana comes to mind) there is something different and more insidious happening lately. The death of print media and sinking viewership of cable media has created a death throes situation where everyone seems willing to say/print anything that will get shared. The result has been a media that hyper focuses on issues to an extent that their focus alters, influence, or becomes the story. In this political cycle the media has provided Donald Trump with billions of free publicity. Trump has enjoyed pure and utter media exposure and yet to date he has recieved less than 40% of the votes in his primary. What would Trump's numbers be without the media storm? Have they created a mass national delusion by legitimizing Trumpos with incredible amounts of coverage? With the terror attack in Brussels now spinning I am wondering what, if any, responsibility does the media have ensuring it isn't allowing itself to promote damaging or obvious propaganda? Is the Media culpable when Trump supporters clash with Sander's supporters or when Terror take social media because they now it will get picked up by major media networks and promoted? Are they created a false political atmosphere in the name of generating an audience?

Using violence to stop violence has seldom been successful. Wars and conflicts just transform into other problems. We stopped Hilter in WW2 but that then transformed into the Cold War and from the Korean war, Vietnam War, Soviet-Aghan war, and etc millions continued to die. Collateral damage from those wars transformed into other problems like Islamic Terror and North Korea. It is myopic vision to just look at a handful of years in isolation and label tem as tolerant or whatever. Much of the foundation for what we are experiencing was land long before any of us were born; an immediate cause and effect tit for tat response will only perpetuate the problem. Since Sept.11th 2001 the western world has been very tough on terrorism. From Iraq & Afghanistan, Libya & Syria, and our drone attacks in Pakistan millions have been killed and yet it hasn't seemed to improve anything!!! Yet every time a terror group acts their are always voices demanding we need to get tougher. How much tougher can we get? Iraq, Afghanastan, Pakistan, and Syria are shadows of what they once were. The whole region destablized. We have flipped over and drone bombed beneath every rock, twice! Time to start trying something else in my opinion.

In 1966, 28.5% of Americans ages 65 and over were poor; by 2012 just 9.1% were. There were 1.2 million fewer elderly poor in 2012 than in 1966, despite the doubling of the total elderly population. In 1966, two years after Johnson’s speech, four-in-ten (41.8%) of African-Americans were poor; blacks constituted nearly a third (31.1%) of all poor Americans. By 2012, poverty among African-Americans had fallen to 27.2% http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/13/whos-poor-in-america-50-years-into-the-war-on-poverty-a-data-portrait/ The above numbers seem significant to me. Add to that aid the govt has provided during recessions and I think the benefits are obvious.

The two thirds of the the U.S. population can not name a single Supreme Court Justice. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/08/20/most-americans-cant-name-a-u-s-supreme-court-justice-survey-says/ Most people do not follow politics. They vote for one party over another based on various cultural relationships. So to say that nearly half the country is Republican is not accurate. Large portions of the country doesn't even know the deference between our two marjor parties. Insisting that nearly half of the population is Republican is akin to the overblown estimates that claim the overwhelming majority of the country is Christian. In truth many call themselves christian as a cultural identifier yet don't attend church, pray, or read the bible. They just have some vague concept of Jesus. When Overtone and Phi comment on Republicans I assume they are commenting on actual Republicans.

Trump to date has still only won 37% of the popular vote in the GOP primary. No candidate since Nixon in 1968 has become president after receiving less than 40% support within the primary. Nixon recieved 37% in 1968 but that election saw RFK killed and the Democrats hold a contested convention. In 1976 Carter only received 41% in the primary but was running against Ford who had never been elected president in the first place. Despite a media drum beat that insists that Trump is wildly popular and a force that demands to be taken seriously he is actually not doing very well. Since Nixon in 1968 all Republicans who have won the general election won their primaries with 60% or greater support: Reagan 60%, H.W. Bush 67%, and W Bush 62%. Trump needs to increase his support to be a viable threat. Another dead canary in the coal mine for Trump is whose turning out: "So far, according to exit polls posted on CNN.com, whites have cast at least 90 percent of the votes in every Republican primary except Florida (83 percent) and Arizona (89 percent). In every other state except Michigan (92 percent) and Nevada (90 percent) whites have comprised at least 94 percent of the GOP vote this year. That includes Georgia (94), Virginia (94), Ohio (96), Oklahoma (96), Tennessee (97), South Carolina (98), Massachusetts (98), Iowa (99), New Hampshire (99), and Vermont (99). By comparison in the 2008 general election, whites cast only 74 percent of the total vote." http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/3/9/1072522/-Republican-primary-voters-older-over-90-white Trump is only managing 37% in an all white Republican primary? Minority turnout for the GOP, which was already very low, has gone down. Trump is also doing poorly with with women: "in Florida, exit polls conducted by Edison Research showed that Trump's support among Republican women voters was 40 percent, versus 52 percent among males. In Ohio, where Trump came in second to the state's governor, John Kasich, 33 percent of women voters backed Trump, compared with 40 percent of men. If the GOP frontrunner were to run against Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton in the general election, likely women voters would support Clinton over Trump by nearly 14 percentage points, according to the March polling data. Among men, Clinton would win by about 5 percentage points." http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-women-idUSKCN0WJ155

So what happens when you hyper focus on treating everyone fairly (killer and killed equally) and don't take an objective look at what has happened? By definition being objective doesn't inculde a caveat for treating anyone a certian way.

The battles draw today between Democrats and Republicans do come from the civil rights and vietnam war era. Republicans use racism and patriotic rhetoric to divide our voting base. We see it today with Trump. The fact that I referred to both sides as entrenched was not an evaluation where I was calling them equal. Rather I was just pointing out the origin while saying that millennials are past it. It isn't going to work anymore. Or in other words progressive Baby Boomers won and millennials rather than Gen X are the inheritors of the victory.

I said "Treating whomever fairly is secondary to getting to the bottom of what happened. Ensuring it never happens again trumps all else". Applying guilt or innocences is not the goal or point. Ensuring it doesn't happen again doesn't equal someone having to suffer. Perhaps it means body cameras, more police hired from within a community, changes in various laws, more de-escalation training, or etc. Why do you assume it means innocent people would suffer?

Moderate appeals always seem fair. Bothsides are have a point so bothsides deserve a voice is a position that is hard to argue against. However in this case the call clouds reality. No one was unduly sentenced or charged in the Brown case. As mentioned the protests and demands had no influence. So the obviously time was spent to treat the police fairly. So you are making an appeal to for something that is already well established. We have talked for 30 pages because it is a bit insane that unarmed citizens can be killed by police and nothing happen. Why is investigating someone being killed a political hot potato? Killing someone is a really big F'ing deal and we have gotten to this strange place where it is treated as a formality; we error on the side of killers. Obviouly in all cases like Brown's the police are not guilty of wrong doing but we (sociaty) should still investigate. If a jet crashes whether by pilot error or not an investigation happens and looks at everything. Treating whomever fairly is secondary to getting to the bottom of what happened. Ensuring it never happens again trumps all else. Same should apply to people being killed on our streets.

I think there is a bit of a collision of generations. Baby Boomers had a impactful youth movement where they fought over civil rights, war, women's rights, and etc. They held political power for decades after as both major parties became increasingly entrenched in the battle lines Baby Boomers had defined. Fast Foward and Gen X should be the natural inheritors of our political landscape but they're not; there has been a leap frog of sorts. Millennials are larger than Gen X and already out number Gen X in the labor force. Millennials are more diverse, higher educated, and socially cooperative than Gen X. Millennials are not hyper focused of the old battle lines. They won't candidates that speak to them and treat them as the force they are; not as the youth vote but as the new dominate generation. Bernie Sanders has done a good job speaking the language. Rather than carrying on about Syria he speak about education. Rather than carrying on about individual success and responsibility he speaks to Millennials sense of cooperation. What Sanders is talking about is a prototype for the future. What Sanders has tapped into is only growing.

The Democratic party rejected that wing of the party. Today bigots supports Republicans. What is what today can't just be ignored. You are connecting the KKK with democrats as a way to point out how bad democrats are while totally ignoring who the KKK is inline TODAY. Washington (CNN)David Duke, the anti-Semitic former Ku Klux Klan leader, praised Republican front-runner Donald Trump for his immigration policy proposals and said Trump is "the best of the lot." http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/25/politics/david-duke-donald-trump-immigration/

I don't think uniformed or misinformed explains it. Any adult with average intelligence and a general concept of governement knows that building a wall and demanding Mexico to pay is silly. Trump supports are just angery and enjoy the slander.

I agree with your post personally but feel the majority of the country wouldn't. Bernie is absolutely a step in the right direction but by our standards here in the United States today Bernie is left. Electing Bernie would be a much bigger move toward progressive policies than Obama or Bill Clinton were. I am a liberal but I also understand everyone else is not. Electing Bernie would be as big a success for the progressive movement as electing Trump would be for the far right. In no way is that meant to imply they are equals but rather to point out that in this election people are pushing hard for what they want and moderates (who tend to dominate) are having a tougher time. I think it is healthly. We finally are getting some honest contrast in political ideas. That contrast is making things more clear. Only a truly disturbed individuals could look at Bernie and Trump and decide perhaps Trump is the better option. Where as the differences between Kasich and Hillary are less clear and that helps perpetuate apathy.

If Bernie were to win the primary I would happily vote for him. I like Bernie. My comments are not a slight against Bernie. However how the world views socialism isn't the context of my post. By (USA) standards Bernie is very progressive.

@ Overtone, Rush, Hannity, and etc have a message that is only heard by specific groups. The majority of the country doesn't follow politics or even fewer listen to AM radio. Trump's rhetoric is new to the uninitiated. By the time Replublican candidates are doing the rounds and actually being seen and heard by the masses their talking points have normally been bleached. Trump's racism and call for international bullying is new to the 10's of millions who spend their evenings watching the AGT and the Voice rather than Foxnews. it is to those people that the message is sobering. Those who only vaguely understand what the differences between Democrats and Republicans are. On the flip side to Trump we do have Bernie Sanders (socialist) doing very well. Sanders is doing well as anyone with his level of progressive message has done in my life lifetime. I am not saying that everyone is chanting "socialism"; rather I was contrasting. Trump says to build a wall and make Mexico pay. Bernie says to provide free college and that we all should pay.

Muslims and Latinos exist. The world gets more connected everday than it has ever been. The delusion is to believe we can simple tune out the world. Build a gaint wall and keep USA isolated from everything conservatives have convinced themselves go bump in the night.

I think we are witnessness a shift in society akin to the civil rights movement. White flight as a solution to protect heritage/tradition and ensure quality outcome has failed. The Republican party has spent the last 50yrs creating villians and claiming protection from those villians would equal prosparity. Pointing the finger at welfare queens, illegal immigrants, gangs, and etc since the civil rights movement has not been a true success. Our public schools still lag behind, our infastructure is still aging, and many have become restless with the status qou. For some that restlessness have taken the shape of a death throes approach of tripling down on the rhetoric that has failed them. On the other side it has popped to a socialism now chant where we get a lot of what we want all at once. End of the day change is tough and change is slow. For the first time in a long time I think we have a political atmosphere that is fairly honest. People I lining up and saying they don't trust or particulary like immigrants, they feel negatively about blacks as a community in broad terms, that the USA is superior to other countries and deserves the right to dictate terms on a slew of issues, and so on. The language is not coded. Trump says he'll build a wall and Mexico will pay for it because we say so! China will start do as we want becasue we say so! Muslim refugees has no place in our country, and blah blah, blah. I think this is healthy. I think the first step to resolving an issue and ending argument is for people to come clean about what they want. Drop all the pretense and surperfluous issues and be honest. Hearing stupid ideas out loud sobers most up to how truly stupid those idea are. Trump is in line with the Republican talking points on most issues he just dropped the coded language. As result many Republicans are jumping ship. People like Mitt Romney who pandered to the same group of voters just 4yrs ago is now out there running around the country soberly pointing out how crazy the rhetoric is. Bush, Graham, Ryan, Rubio, Dole, McCain, and many establishment Republicans and pulling back hard against a message they all previously were willing to support before the light were turned on. This is a place were a real conversation can start. I think in the big picture it is healthy.

To clarify; I have posted various levels of doubt about Trump winning the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination and would like to note that I have no fears or concerns with Trump as the nominee. As I speak with more people I have noticed that my doubts keep getting confused as being objections. Nothing would please me more than Trump as the Republcan nominee. Trump hit his ceiling amongst Conservative voters months ago. He he leading in the primary but only doing so with support that is stuck in the mid 30's. If Trump can not even crest above 50% support within his own party it is very unlikely, imo, he could steal or flip democratic votes. If Trump becomes the nominee he will lose badly in the general election.

Ted Cruz had a good Saturday. However his wins were in caucus states with closed races. Not sure Cruz can replicate that success in open primaries. However those are not the type of details that headlines and tweets delve into. To on the surface Ted Cruz will get a lot of good press these next couple days. On the 8th we will see ID, HI, MS, and MI. Hi is a caucus and Cruz has spent a lot of time in ID so he will probably win those. Trump will win MI and MS. If Cruz can make MI close (lots of delegates there) the 8th could be another really good night for him. Trump is leading overall but continues to underperform. Trump was polling to win everywhere last night and then lost 2 of 4 barely winning KY and getting crushed in ME. His support simply isn't growing even as his odds of being to nominee have grown. Trump needs to turn that around if he is going to win the needed delegates to take the nomination. Because if he continues to lose a third or more of states he is projected to win he will not make it to 1,237 delegates and there will be a brokered convention.