See this non partisan, independent look at the media coverage for yourself ans tell me the media isn’t in the wrong!
Except FOX. They were down the line fair.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OymBXeaLp2g&feature=related
That clip was from a fox show. What do expect them to say? Why not call up Mercedes Benz for the latest surveys on the best car manufacturers?
I respect all people’s choice of opinions and political choices. One thing I notice in the media is stories like "GOP is mocking president for Nobel Prize" and opinionated talk shows like "Limbaugh, Beck" and wild assertions like "We are headed to communism, Obama is the anti-Christ, Death Panels" etc.
I know there are moderate and mature republicans and democrats out there because I talk to them off and on. They don’t go on a wild rampage that makes them look like extremists.
Do you think media is focusing too much on the wild extremists republicans rather than the moderate mature ones?
I’m an independent moderate that loves to dialogue about politics with everyone. But I rarely ever meet a person with such a extreme far far right or far far left mentality. Is media just sensationalizing this stuff?
Please provide your insight to this. Please be mature in your replies.
I went to a tea party with a minimum of 3500 people attending. (I think there were more like 5000)
Most were just normal people like myself objecting to things like voting for a $787,000,000,000 bill without reading it. Out of over 1000 signs, I saw only 2 that were extreme (asking for the birth certificate).
But what does the camera crew for the news focus on? A guy with paint on his face screaming at the camera!
There were no racist signs at the rally I went to. I suspect many rallies had no racist signs. But the national news put every racist sign up front and center on their news!
So – Yes. The media focuses on the nuts.
Back when I was Pro-life, I noticed this. The pro-lifers wearing the shrouds and lighting candles for the dead babies got the camera time, but if you beleived what you saw on the camera, you would have thought there were no nutty pro-choice people.
(I am now moderate on the abortion issue. I don’t fit into either camp)
I don’t know about you guys, but it seems as though the media is assuming that Hillary Clinton or another democrat is going to become the next president. They have given almost no time to anyone else; it’s Hillary this, Hillary that, over and over again. What about the rest of the candidates? Rarely do I hear them talk about a Republican candidate and definitely not an Independent candidate. What’s worse is that people are going to vote in a Democrat because that is all they are hearing about. To complicate matters, people are going to vote for a Democrat not because they think a Democrat is the best candidate, but because George Bush is a Republican, so they assume all Republicans will run the country like Mr. Bush. For those of you who are actually educated on the issues and decide that a Democratic candidate is the best, then by all means vote for one. But don’t do it because of the media or because of President Bush.
The media’s coverage of anything nowadays is sensationalism( The Old NY Daily News and Daily Mirror’s concepts) to sell papers. Hillary is the main topic of discussion so they print that. She is valueless as a Senator, they don’t print that. She has accomplished nothing as a senator, they don’t print that. They did print the fact she was in favor of licenses for immigrants but withdrew the support due to public uproar.
I was always wanting to know, even tho i will not be elligable to do so, but if im being generious and want to in my own will to give the indpendant contractor health coverage, will this also be a tax deduction for me or tax write off?
Thank you:
If you have a business and if you have a group health insurance policy, it is probably not practical to add an independent contractor to the policy because your insurance company will not allow it. – If you pay the premiums on the independent contractor’s health insurance policy, it could result in a deduction for you as a business expense, but it would be taxable compensation to the independent contractor. – It might be simpler to just pay the I.C. enough to buy his own insurance. Self employed independent contractors can’t write off the cost of health insurance for themselves on a Schedule C (The form that is used to report profit and loss from a sole proprietorship business) – but they can write off 100% of the premiums as an adjustment to income on the first page of form 1040. – This is not quite as good as being able to take the deduction on a Schedule C, because the net income shown on Schedule C is subject to social security tax as well as income tax.
I was always wanting to know, even tho i will not be elligable to do so, but if im being generious and want to in my own will to give the indpendant contractor health coverage, will this also be a tax deduction for me or tax write off?
Thank you:
If you have a business and if you have a group health insurance policy, it is probably not practical to add an independent contractor to the policy because your insurance company will not allow it. – If you pay the premiums on the independent contractor’s health insurance policy, it could result in a deduction for you as a business expense, but it would be taxable compensation to the independent contractor. – It might be simpler to just pay the I.C. enough to buy his own insurance. Self employed independent contractors can’t write off the cost of health insurance for themselves on a Schedule C (The form that is used to report profit and loss from a sole proprietorship business) – but they can write off 100% of the premiums as an adjustment to income on the first page of form 1040. – This is not quite as good as being able to take the deduction on a Schedule C, because the net income shown on Schedule C is subject to social security tax as well as income tax.
A few independents get through, but there’s never coverage of other national, regional or other real viable political parties if only poeple would educate themselves and participate.
(thanks again ‘dizneyland fan’ for the the link)
http://www.politics1.com/parties.htm
Rep & Dem are the popular and most people vote for them. If they put out a lot of the smaller parties, the Rep & Dem will lose out of votes…. there for the news coverage (controled ny reps & dems) don’t show them a lot.
One my voters card, it says "inderpendant" I vote for the views I agree most with.
Thanks for the help.
1. Which is true concerning John Locke�s ideas about government:
a. They suggest they we would be better off if we lived in the �state of nature�.
b. They form the basis of what is known as �classical liberalism�.
c. They were considered completely wrong by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence.
d. They emphasize that governments should provide basic services for the poor.
2. Aristotle�s notion of political freedom suggests that:
a. Humans were not meant to be free.
b. Freedom means having to take action and participate in self-rule
c. As long as the government leaders don�t do things you oppose, you are free.
d. Having a voice in the decision making process is less important than being free from
4. American tolerance for economic inequality in the United States is fostered most directly by the belief in:
a.. individualism and social mobility. b. a strong national government.
c. democracy and federalism. d. redistributive public policies
5. Which of the following is true of the relationship between political and economic systems:
a. Command economies such as communism are usually democratic.
b. Capitalism is always associated with democracy.
c. Socialist countries can be democratic.
d. The U.S. is based on laissez faire economy and direct democracy
6. A person who wanted to measure the degree of substantive democracy in a country would most likely examine ____________.
a. whom the policies of the government serve
b. the frequency of elections
c. checks and balances
d. the number political parties
7. Compared to a pure direct democracy, a republic ____________.
a. gives less power to the majority
b. relies less on electing government policy makers
c. rejects the concept of that some people are more capable of others
d. must be smaller in size
8. Which is considered a basic principle of western liberal democracy:
a. majority rule
b. minority rights
c. freedom of speech
d. right to organize in opposition to the government
e. all of the above
9. Which best describes major American media:
a. ownership tends to be more politically liberal than the journalists
b. it is mostly owned by small independent companies
c. news coverage tends to steer towards the middle
d. ownership is becoming more diverse
40. Which is true of the ideological spectrum:
a. historically liberals associated authority more with God and scripture while conservatives emphasized secularism and human reason
b. liberals tend to emphasize economic equality while conservatives emphasize economic freedom
c. it is not possible to be socially liberal but economically conservative
d. all of the above
41. A difference between 19th century classical liberalism and modern liberalism is that:
a. today�s liberals want a smaller role for government than did 19th century liberals
b. today�s liberals see change as inherently bad
c. today�s liberals are more likely to support the regulation of big business
d. today�s liberals are associated with the �right wing�
45. The "watchdog" role of the media is one in which the press should
a. help the president achieve his policy agenda.
b. uncover as much information as possible about the private lives of candidates for public office.
c. dig up facts and warn the public when officials are doing something wrong.
d. take sides on controversial issues.
46. How does corporate ownership of the media influence the type of news gathered?
a. it encourages the network news shows to have a decidedly conservative bias
b. it keeps reporters attuned to sensational sources, rather than those
that are most important
c. it encourages reporters to provide detailed stories that emphasizes facts over images
d. it makes journalists fearful of covering scandals.
47. Which best describes major American media:
a. ownership tends to be more politically liberal than the journalists
b. it is mostly owned by small independent companies
c. news coverage tends to steer towards the middle
d. ownership is becoming more diverse
1. A
2. B
4. A
5. C+D
6 A+C
7. B
8. E
9. B
40.C
41.B
45.C
46.A
47.C
Thank you for posting your answers to these questions. I am much more likely to help someone if they show that they tried to answer the question, even if they’re on the wrong track, than if they just demand that someone answer for them. You’re on the right track with some of these, but you need to look at a few again.
The first questions deals with the views of John Locke. You said the correct answer is that “they suggest they we would be better off if we lived in the ‘state of nature’.” Not true. Locke is sympathetic to a natural state, because he believed in natural law, a principle that governs our actions. Locke saw, though, would make choices that benefited them, even if it violated the principles of natural law. This would lead to the state of war. So, Locke decided that a system of government had to be developed to guarantee life, liberty, and property rights (Jefferson changed the last to “pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence). This is a positive view of government: it is not a force to suppress natural law and the rights of individuals, but to guarantee that an individual’s rights, and those of his neighbor, are upheld. Locke did not talk about social welfare; he saw the role of government as guaranteeing rights by creating a system wherein contracts and agreements are enforced. What he created was the basis of classic liberalism, with an emphasis on natural rights, which is answer B.
For question 5, you picked C and D as being correct. Answer D says, “The U.S. is based on laissez faire economy and direct democracy.” This is not true. The US is a representative democracy, not a direct one: we elect officials to make governing decisions, rather than voting on them ourselves. The US is also not a laissez faire economy: our government does regulate business (although, perhaps, not as well as it should). Laissez faire means, roughly, “hands-off”, and the US government has not been hand-off when it comes to the economy since early in the twentieth century, when the first President Roosevelt began breaking up monopolies. Answer C, “Socialist countries can be democratic,” is true. To one extent or another, most democracies in Western Europe are socialist, with partial state ownership of some industries, and extensive social welfare policies (health care, pensions, etc.) to protect the citizens against economic failure.
Question 6, “A person who wanted to measure the degree of substantive democracy in a country would most likely examine…” is a bad question. A really good answer (“the transparency of its electoral system”) does not make the list. Of the choices given, A is a good choice, but C is probably a better one. If checks and balances function properly, then a government will be generally responsive to the needs of its citizens, and its policies will reflect that.
Question 7 asks, “Compared to a pure direct democracy, a republic…?” You picked B, “relies less on electing government policy makers.” Not true. In a direct democracy, the people – all of the people who can vote – make the decisions directly. In a representative system, like a republic, the decisions are made by elected officials; the people choose the officials, and they carry out the will of the people in making specific decisions. Democratic republics feature structures that balance power among several different forces (legislatures and courts, for example), typically with systems of law that specifically limit a government’s power. In a direct democracy, the will of the majority can make decisions over-riding the rights of the minority. Incidentally, a republic is a democracy, even if your teacher tells you differently. A direct democracy, as I said, is a system where everyone makes decisions, but that is only one type of democracy (and it’s not used by any country in the world). A democracy is a government that is freely chosen by the people, elected to office, and governing within the rule of law (which means that the government can’t exceed the limits of its own power). A republic is one type of democracy (as in the USA and Germany), a constitutional monarchy (like in Britain or Spain) is another type.
Question 9 asks, “Which best describes major American media?” You chose B, “it is mostly owned by small independent companies.” Not true. ABC is owned by Walt Disney. Rupert Murdoch, a very wealthy conservative, owns Fox, the “Washington Times,” the “Wall Street Journal,” and a string of other assets. The major media are owned by large conglomerate corporations, and more and more media outlets are controlled by fewer companies (which makes answer D invalid). The best answer here is C, “news coverage tends to steer towards the middle.” This is true. The media has its darlings, and paints them in a better light, but generally, the media, taken as a whole, TENDS to strive for balance. This is the case even when one side, left or right, says something untrue; reporters are extremely hesitant to say, “C
to find any comments out there. I see a lot of gripes of parents being responsible for their children’s mistakes (with the exception of Palin), That Clinton was whiner for implying sexism while Palin is a victim because her children are younger. (I wonder where the conservative mantra of women belonging at home went, it was there a couple years ago. Remember, Hillary was evil because she didn’t want to stay home and bake cookies? Did you throw away old talking points?)
If you can’t answer this question without mentioning Obama or whining about unfair media coverage, you lack independent thought and aren’t worth listening to. Just leave a link to Fox News.
Why on earth would they complain about their VP candidate’s celebrity status?? They need someone to make them excited about their caompaign. It sure isn’t McCain doing it.
The fact is Palin is over shining McCain. Something is wrong with that picture, of course the Reps won’t admit that. They were more excited about her speech than McCain’s. What does that tell?
Alternate Focus – Broadcasting The Other Side Of The Story
Alison Weir ( the founder of IF AMERICANS KNEW ), the editor of a small-town newspaper in California, knew very little about the Israeli-Palestinian … all conflict, other than what she had gleaned from the evening news or newspaper headlines. As a journalist, her attention was on issues much closer to home. Neither a muslim nor a jew, she nevertheless became more curious about the topic of the Palestinian uprising. And as she researched it, she became increasingly suspicious that the American media were not telling us the whole story. Months later, she traveled to the occupied territories as an independent journalist to find out for herself what the U.S. media seemed to be omitting. Three months after returning from Palestine, Alison Weir quit her job and founded If Americans Knew, an organization dedicated to quantifying the ways in which the American media was misinforming the public about the conflict. Ms. Weir explains her group’s methodology, analyzes the data, and reports on the key findings. Producers: Paul Chek and John Odam (2006)
Alternate Focus is available on the Dish Network, Free Speech TV, Channel 9415, Saturdays at 8:00pm EST and on cable stations near you. Check website for details.
Duration : 0:9:29
Yesterday, on July 5, 2009, thousands of Uyghur students took to the streets of Urumchi to show their displeasure at government’s handling of a mob attack on Uyghur workers a week earlier in Shaoguan, Guangdong Province, in which 18 Uyghurs were killed and more than 300 were injured, and to get an answer why the police did not show up for hours to stop the Chinese attackers. Yesterday’s student protest started as peaceful demonstration as several amateur videos posted on Youtube suggest (check the video links below). But, as usual, the authorities did not want to listen to the grievances of the students, and replied with excessive forces instead. Paramilitary police initially used tear gas to disperse the student protesters but started to shoot at them when they refused to leave. According to Uyghur witnesses, paramilitary forces started to shoot at any protester on sight in the evening, chasing them around in alleyways, and killed estimated 400 – 1000 young Uyghurs. However, the Chinese media today showed only some wounded Chinese victims and scenes of Uyghurs attacking on various vehicles, images that they selected to present to the world and the Han Chinese audience to portray Uyghurs as bad troublemaker terrorists, a tactic that caused all this mess in the first place. They said 156 people died and 818 were wounded, but did not mention who they were and how they died or wounded. But the authorities are doing their best to restrict coverage from independent sources by blocking internet sites and phone services.
If the government had simply explained Shaoguan situation, as the demonstrators demanded, all this bloodshed could have been avoided. But, once again the authorities used this occasion to kill more Uyghurs to satisfy its thirst for Uyghur blood. Clearly the authorities demonstrated the same attitude to Uyghurs as those Chinese attackers at Shaoguan did a week earlier—deep hatred.
http://www.uyghuramerican.org/forum/…ad.php?t=15350
http://www.uyghuramerican.org/forum/…ad.php?t=15366
http://www.uyghuramerican.org/forum/…ad.php?t=15368
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIEZNJpyKaE&NR=1
Unfortunately, most international media outlets directly copied the news and images from the Chinese media and distributed them without proper investigation. By this time any responsible and observant journalist should know that China routinely lies in this kind of situation to cover up state abuses, especially when it comes to Uyghurs and Tibetans. For example, the Tiananmen massacre on Jun 4, 1989 did not happen on China’s book. It is disheartening that the international media completely ignored the incident in Shaoguan a week earlier, which led to yesterday’s demonstration in Urumchi.
What happened on Jun 26, 2009 in Shaoguan?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_PJTO2k0PM
In recent years Chinese Government has been forcing young Uyghurs, primarily girls, against their wills to go to China’s coastal areas to work in factories as cheap labors as part of their scheme of assimilation. Last May they brought 800 Uyghur peasants to a toy factory in Shaoguan. The factory might have laid off some Chinese workers to make room for them. One disgruntled laid-off worker started a rumor that those new comer Uyghurs raped Chinese women. The Chinese workers believed this rumor easily because of the constant portrayal of Uyghurs as bad criminals and violent terrorists by the state media, and hundreds of them started to attack the Uyghurs randomly, killing 18 Uyghurs including 2 girls and injuring more than 300 according to Uyghur sources. Video images of that attack are unbearable to watch, the level of cruelty and hatred is uncomprehensible. One of the video clips posted by proud Chinese blogger shows a dozen Chinese were beating an Uyghur lying on the ground and yelling “you are still not dead yet, you are still not dead yet?” as they kept beating the motionless body.
According to Uyghur witnesses, some Chinese distributed a truck load of batons to Chinese workers. Security guards on site not only did not stop them but also helped distribute batons. The police did not show up for three hours. What is more outrageous is that those attackers were hailed as national heroes by Chinese bloggers who posted comments on those videos images. I browsed through Chinese sites and did not come across a single Chinese person showed any concern about innocent people being killed viciously like that for a false rumor. It is apparently a vicious hate crime that resulted from government’s constant portrayal of Uyghurs as bad terrorists. Considering that those poor peasants were brought there by force against their wills, the government should do more to protest them.
In Shaoguan the police did not show up for hours while Uyghurs were being murdered, but in Urumchi they showed up fast with fully loaded guns and did not hesitate to use them against armless students.
Xinjiang, which we call East Turkistan, is home to about nine
The July 2009 Ürümqi riots broke out on July 5, 2009, in Ürümqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in northwestern China. They involved between 1,000 and 3,000 Uyghurs. The total death toll has risen to at least 156, according to Chinese government sources. The Daily Telegraph reported a majority of the casualties were Han Chinese. In response, hundreds of Han Chinese armed with home-made weapons clashed with both the police and the Uyghurs on July 7. By evening martial law was in effect and reports stated that troops were deployed in the city, while Chinese presdient Hu Jintao canceled his attendance at the G8 summit in Italy to return home.
The violence was part of an ongoing ethnic conflict between Han Chinese and Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group that is predominantly Muslim and is one of the officially recognized ethnic groups in China. These specific riots were sparked by dissatisfaction with the Chinese central government’s handling of the deaths of two Uyghur workers in Guangdong province. Officials said more than 1,000 others had been injured and that many motor vehicles were burned. Police attempted to quell the riots with tear gas, water hoses, armored vehicles, and roadblocks.
Xinhua reported that police believed agitators were "trying to organise more unrest" in other cities in Xinjiang such as Aksu and the Yili Prefecture. Xinhua also reported that about 200 people were "trying to gather" at the Id Kah Mosque in the centre of Kashgar, but were dispersed by police early on Monday evening. As the protests spread to Kashgar, they also became violent.