Trent

Because making it harder to abuse a system is either racist, elitist, or disenfranchising. There is a magic number out there that is the percentage of people who are misusing a system that determines when something should be done about it. Welfare hasn't reached that yet. Oh you'll never know the number... "they" will just tell you when it is a problem and as long as they get votes from not doing something about it... it'll never be a problem. Oh, hello again!

Nevermind. The media is totally fair and balanced, except for Fox. Have a good Halloween! Oh, hello again!

You didn't see that drill-down section in there? It's right next to the section that goes to not buying plasma screens for worthless lazy people who refuse to work. Oh, hello again!

By all means, that stuff should be looked into and given attention as well! How much of the "trash" is handled by the major media? How much of that "trash" is put out by the McCain campaign? How much of that "trash" is true or partly true? 14 of the 45 trashes have some element of truth to them, according to the totally impartial snopes. Oh, and some of the "trash" was stuff that could have been seen as a positive for Obama... you know, little stuff like he has a healing touch. Lol. Oh, hello again!

Yep. That one seems to be stretching, I agree. But there are legitimate issues, associations, donations, etc that seem to get blown off as "just smears" when they are things that really would keep you out of a government job any other time. Of course, the BS filter is thicker for one side than the other seemingly. Especially in the case of the wardrobe and makeup BS that made front pages. What did you think about the methodology statement about the study? Does that change how you see it? Oh, hello again!

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/ ... has some worthwhile info and charting for those who are interested. Takes a little more work than just reading an article, but the numbers break down pretty easily. Of course, of interest for this thread would be the Welfare section of each year's budget. Oh, hello again!

That doesn't appear to be how they decide what is negative and what is positive. From their methodology... Tone Variable The tone variable measures whether a story’s tone is constructed in a way, via use of quotes, assertions, or innuendo, which results in positive, neutral, or negative coverage for the primary figure as it relates to the topic of the story. While reading or listening to a story, coders tallied up all the comments that have either a negative or positive tone to the reporting. Direct and indirect quotes were counted along with assertions made by journalists themselves. In order for a story to be coded as either “positive” or “negative,” it must have either 1.5 times the amount of positive comments to negative comments, or 1.5 times the amount of negative comments to positive comments (with an exception for 2 to 3, which is coded as “neutral”). If the headline or lead has a positive or negative tone, it was counted twice into the total value. Also counted twice for tone were the first three paragraphs or first four sentences, whichever came first. Any story where the ratio of positive to negative comments was less than 1.5 to 1 was considered a “neutral” story. Apparently the news media only gives the people what they want (negative stuff, as you say) when it's against McCain. The problem is, some things that are legit (opinion of course) are just being written off as "smears" by Obama supporters. These "smears" would be of interest to the government if you were applying for a job with them, why shouldn't these things be called into question? Now some of it's trash, of course. But so are all the nonsense front page stories of Palin's wardrobe and makeup... Oh, hello again!

How do you write one about the Obama campaign? Just say hope and change and ridicule any criticism, even if it's legit? Wouldn't it come off as negative for the other side then? Unless the article or story was something along the lines of "McCain came off as a crotchety old man..." or something. Look, McCain is not my favorite guy as a conservative, but to say that he's more deserving of negative criticism is silly and it's just an opinion. Clearly many people just think the media is right for loving Obama. I guess this study doesn't mean anything in the case that people really think that the other side has no merits at all and deserves all the negative mentions. That's all opinion though and hardly portrays the media as honest and impartial. Oh, hello again!

So FOXNew s is not in the tank for McCain then? How would you quantify someone's worthiness of negative coverage then? Let me guess... Oh, hello again!

Very witty! Congratulations! Oh, hello again!

Democrats keep that stuff in the freezer. Start looking there! Oh, hello again!

So YOU say. Oh, hello again!

Those are funny. The first one is great! Oh, hello again!

Well that's what happens when the government bails companies out. That's why it shouldn't have happened in the first place. Did the Democrats not want the bail out? I recall that quite a few did think it was a good idea. So did a bunch of Republicans. They were wrong. Stockholders are placing a "bet" on a company when they buy stock. If you bet wrong, you lose. They should have lost. If the government wanted to buy out a company, they should have just bought it when the prices bottomed out on it after they DIDN'T pass a bail out. Oh, hello again!

I think the records have all been re-set. I just wonder where all the money really came from. Oh, hello again!