Our Media In Action..

schuylaar

Well-Known Member
don't let them make your decision for you!

point #4 is the most sobering.

4 subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways the media undermines Bernie Sanders
Despite a surge in the polls and huge crowds for his speeches, the press still treats Sanders like a sideshow

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has been in the race for over a month, but to the casual media consumer you’d hardly notice. His candidacy has largely been dismissed by the mainstream media as a “protest” campaign or a means of “moving Clinton to the left” (whatever that means). It’s a stunted worldview that presumes it’s the media’s job to vet “serious” candidates before the voters get to have any say in the matter. And because fundraising precedes voting, it inevitably becomes a power-serving and harmful tautology: the media insists Sanders is not a “serious” challenger because Clinton has big money support; they then internalize this conventional wisdom, and before a single vote is cast, dismiss him. It’s a perverse feedback loop that puts undue influence in the hands of early power signifiers and bears little resemblance to a healthy democracy.

Here are four ways the media has embraced this toxic logic and how it manifests in their coverage of the Vermont senator.

1. Ignoring Sanders outright.


As liberal media watchdogs Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (disclosure: I occationally write for FAIR) and Media Matters have noticed on several occasions, Bernie Sanders is routinely ignored by the press despite drawing large crowds and ushering in impressive fundraising totals. Two recent examples are a May 26 5,000-strong rally that was barely covered by the mainstream media, and a nearly nine-month stint of not being mentioned by establishment Sunday morning gatekeeper Meet the Press. While the quantity of coverage of Sanders’ campaign has increased a bit, due largely to pushbackfrom the aforementioned organizations, the quality is still very much wanting.

2. Discussing his candidacy entirely in the context of Hillary Clinton.

One of the stranger tics our pundit classes and establishment journalists display is to think of Sanders only as bad cop to Clinton’s good cop; that his value matters only to the extent to which he can effect the Clinton machine. This was on full display in a New York Times piece two weeks ago that somehow interpreted Sanders’ large crowds as a manifestation of Hillary ambivalence, rather than support for Sanders: “Judging from Mr. Sanders’s trip here last week, there is real support for his message — though some Democrats also simply want to send a warning shot to Mrs. Clinton to get her to visit here more.”

In a piece ostensibly about Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s name was mentioned roughly as many times as Sanders’ was. Even his first major media appearance on ABC’s This Week after his announcement in May was framed by the host as “How will this affect Clinton?” After opening up with his case for being president, focusing on how the billionaire class owns our political process, the very first followup question by (former Clinton aide) George Stephanopoulos was, “Does this mean you think Clinton is part of the billionaire class?” Before he could even get out his reasons for why you should vote for Sanders, he’s already asked to explain why one shouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton. This also extends to the torrent of articles about whether Sanders will “hurt” or “help” Clinton, as if the Democratic primary has been foretold by scripture. None of these hot takes, however, posit whether Clinton is helping or hurting Sanders.


3. Six months before the first primary vote, insisting he can’t win despite rising poll numbers.
In one of the laziest sleights, the media has a terrible habit of asserting Sanders “can’t win” or is not a “realistic” candidate. Perhaps Sanders is a long shot, but the media shouldn’t play kingmaker and decide the veracity of candidates long before the public has had a chance to weigh in. The pollsconsistently show Sanders, at the least, gaining traction and eating into Clinton’s considerable lead. As FAIR noted last week, the New York Times has a strange fetish over the “is he electable” question, framing a Sanders rally as such:
[Clinton’s] mix of centrist and progressive Democratic views may yet prove more appealing to the broadest number of party voters as well, while some of Mr. Sanders’ policy prescriptions — including far higher taxes on the wealthy and deep military spending cuts — may eventually persuade Democrats that he is unelectable in a general election.
But as FAIR would point out, this is counter to everything we know:

It sounds like it’s the New York Times that’s hoping to persuade Democrats that Sanders is unelectable.

As we’ve noted (FAIR Blog, 4/20/15), the idea of raising the taxes of the rich is quite popular with the US public. Gallup has been askingfolks since 1992 how they feel about how much “upper-income people” pay in taxes, and 18 times in a row a solid majority has said the rich pay too little. For the past four years, either 61 or 62 percent have said the wealthy don’t pay enough; it’s hard to figure why Iowans would conclude that Sanders is “unelectable” because he takes the same position on tax hikes for the wealthy as three out of every five Americans.

This brings us to the last, and most frustrating entry.

4. Presenting Sander’s entirely mainstream views as fringe.

Despite years of corporate media arguing otherwise, Americans really aren’t conservative. They self-identify as “conservative,” but when asked about major progressive policy issues, from taxation to war to marriage equality, they are overwhelmingly in sync with Senator Sanders. Yet the media consistently claims Sanders is somehow to the left of mainstream opinion when he manifestly is not. Sanders is a sitting U.S. senator who has repeatedly won as a progressive independent with 60%+ of the vote in a state that, while generally liberal, had a Republican governor from 2003-2011. Even setting aside ideology, there’s little empirical evidence Sanders’ positions are in any way outside the mainstream. Vermont may lean slightly to the left, but it’s not any more liberal than the Illinois Obama represented in 2007.
 
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UncleBuck

Well-Known Member
#3 is fairly accurate though, the guy is 50 points behind hillary nationally. only catching up in NH so far.
 

Wavels

Well-Known Member
This is absolutely nothing new, the MSM has been doing the very same thing to any and all viable Republican candidates for many decades now.
'twas ever thus baby!

The establishment wants what it wants, and they will try to get what they want by any means necessary.
 

schuylaar

Well-Known Member
This is absolutely nothing new, the MSM has been doing the very same thing to any and all viable Republican candidates for many decades now.
'twas ever thus baby!

The establishment wants what it wants, and they will try to get what they want by any means necessary.
try.:mrgreen:
 

schuylaar

Well-Known Member
You're complaining because the media is treating the colonel the way they treated Ron Paul?
ron paul was a fringe candidate. rand paul is..well, rand paul. hmmm let's see what rendy is up to these days:

Desperate-for-Attention Rand Paul Unveils Flat Tax
Keeping your place at the radical cutting edge of the Republican Party is a challenging task in a world where a “mainstream” candidate like Marco Rubio proposes to eliminate all taxes on investment income. Rand Paul places his bid by unveiling his trademark plan today: a 14.5 percent flat tax.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/06/desperate-for-attention-rand-unveils-flat-tax.html

i wonder where his crowds are?..he is on the campaign trail, isn't he?:lol:
 

ginwilly

Well-Known Member

schuylaar

Well-Known Member
He wants to blow up our 70,000 page IRS tax code? Monster!!

No income tax under 50K while keeping earned income credits? Burn him at the stake!!!
fail. EITC..earned income tax credit would have to have taxes paid into to qualify; however, you could have a refund coming and still get EITC.

i sure hope you are better at nursing than you are at payroll tax law..don't quit your day job.

incidentally, does anyone see how rightie gets it wrongie all the time..you omit stuff..get your facts straight!!!!
 

ginwilly

Well-Known Member
fail. EITC..earned income tax credit would have to have taxes paid into to qualify; however, you could have a refund coming and still get EITC.

i sure hope you are better at nursing than you are at payroll tax law..don't quit your day job.

incidentally, does anyone see how rightie gets it wrongie all the time..you omit stuff..get your facts straight!!!!
I will freely admit i don't understand the 70K page tax law. I bet you don't either as most of us are not ashamed to admit this, that's why it needs fixing. He states in his plan that he will keep EIC for low income working families, how is that going to work? I don't know either, but your explanation would be quite welcome.

Adding another 20K pages would not be fixing things imo, replacing it with something everyone can understand would.

I guess I need to spell it out again, but I'm not the nurse here, that's Alex. Remember when you told me I was clueless about medical in regards to my position on circumcision? Is that an example of righties getting it wrong? Or maybe, you have this habit of calling people names while getting things consistently wrong more than anyone else here...
 

schuylaar

Well-Known Member
I will freely admit i don't understand the 70K page tax law. I bet you don't either as most of us are not ashamed to admit this, that's why it needs fixing. He states in his plan that he will keep EIC for low income working families, how is that going to work? I don't know either, but your explanation would be quite welcome.

Adding another 20K pages would not be fixing things imo, replacing it with something everyone can understand would.

I guess I need to spell it out again, but I'm not the nurse here, that's Alex. Remember when you told me I was clueless about medical in regards to my position on circumcision? Is that an example of righties getting it wrong? Or maybe, you have this habit of calling people names while getting things consistently wrong more than anyone else here...

how much do you want to make a bet that he (rendy) doesn't even know?

now on the other hand, bernie will raise inheritance to 80% (weren't those the reagan years?) and tax derivitaves..much more sound plan..what's that you say? the 1% won't go for it? exactly.
 

ginwilly

Well-Known Member
how much do you want to make a bet that he (rendy) doesn't even know?
My guess is it's political posturing for those who scream regressive everytime they hear flat tax, yet don't see that there are so many built in deductions of the rich, for the rich and by the rich that a flat tax would be more fair than the present incarnation.

now on the other hand, bernie will raise inheritance to 80% (weren't those the reagan years?) and tax derivitaves..much more sound plan..what's that you say? the 1% won't go for it? exactly.
lol at 80% estate taxes during reagan years, he even raised the exemption from about 175k to 600k that wasn't even taxed.

Bernie wants to add to our convoluted tax code with more convolution. Pretty sure it's not just the 1% that doesn't want that.

I actually like the way Bill Gates has it planned, give each kid a million and give the rest to charities that will be more efficient (maybe...) than government. Of course he will have bought each a mansion and cushy positions in MS, but still.

I refuse to look at another families money as my own that I deserve to take from them. I'm just not wired that way. We should be encouraging saving in this country, not discouraging it.
 

schuylaar

Well-Known Member
My guess is it's political posturing for those who scream regressive everytime they hear flat tax, yet don't see that there are so many built in deductions of the rich, for the rich and by the rich that a flat tax would be more fair than the present incarnation.


lol at 80% estate taxes during reagan years, he even raised the exemption from about 175k to 600k that wasn't even taxed.

Bernie wants to add to our convoluted tax code with more convolution. Pretty sure it's not just the 1% that doesn't want that.

I actually like the way Bill Gates has it planned, give each kid a million and give the rest to charities that will be more efficient (maybe...) than government. Of course he will have bought each a mansion and cushy positions in MS, but still.

I refuse to look at another families money as my own that I deserve to take from them. I'm just not wired that way. We should be encouraging saving in this country, not discouraging it.
income inequality (it's been explained a million times here) via 1% have been writing their own tax law..it's not taking money from others..one group is artificially becoming wealthier as a result, all the while not adding to the job pool as 'job creators'..not wanting to raise the minimum wage to a living wage therefore, keeping the worker (who is also the 1%'s consumer) at poverty level.
 

ginwilly

Well-Known Member
income inequality (it's been explained a million times here) via 1% have been writing their own tax law..it's not taking money from others..one group is artificially becoming wealthier as a result, all the while not adding to the job pool as 'job creators'..not wanting to raise the minimum wage to a living wage therefore, keeping the worker (who is also the 1%'s consumer) at poverty level.
Yes, but be careful about falling into the talking points of 1%. It's actually the .05% that own the politicians. Doctors, Lawyers and many other working professionals are part of that 1% crowd and I don't consider anyone who works for their money to be part of the problem.

Yes, we need more job creation to spur increased demand for labor in this country that will help drive wages up for the unskilled. Not sure how raising taxes accomplishes this.

Instead of trying to milk more out of the general practitioner, let's stop allowing things like private jets to Hawaii resorts be deductible.

The wealth concentration in this country (world even) IS becoming a serious issue, we agree totally on that. Funny thing is, if you compare today to the days of the Vanderbilts, Carnegies and Rothchilds, the Buffets and Gates of the world are not near as rich.

The total amount of billionaires have doubled since the financial meltdown of 08. We are doing it wrong. Wealth disparity has increased more under Obama than any other president in our lifetime. Does he deserve any blame for this
 
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