Remember in November- Hispanic Americans

Here's some information about why the Hispanic vote could play a crucial role in this years election. In an op/ed piece at Politico, Martin Frost asks: Can GOP ever win Latino vote?

Romney captured the Cuban vote in the Florida primary, this doesn’t mean the GOP can win Latino votes this fall. Unlike other Latino voters, Cuban-Americans are reliably Republican.

The vast majority of Latinos in other states, however, are not from Cuba. Many are from Mexico, as well as Central America and Puerto Rico. Even in Florida, there is now a significant number of non-Cuban Latinos, who tend to vote Democratic.

Second, assuming Romney is the Republican nominee, he has a lot of ground to make up with Latinos after being pushed far to the right on the immigration issue during the early primaries and caucuses.

Many Latinos are culturally conservative, patriotic and remarkably entrepreneurial. On paper, this sounds like fertile territory for the GOP. But once Latinos have heard the GOP’s strong anti-immigrant rhetoric, they may well stop listening to anything else Republicans have to say.

Rupert Murdoch, Ratings and The Yellow Journalism of Fox News 2/2

Roger Ailes, President of Fox News

by Nomad

In the first part of a two-part series which was first posted at Politicalgates earlier this year, we examined the intricate and intimidating Murdoch connections and how watching Fox News apparently makes you more ignorant than watching no news at all.

In spite of the near continual boasting at Fox News, some (real) reporters have dared to question the Fox News ratings. Their suspicions were aroused by the simple fact that the numbers made little sense. Was it actually plausible?

How is it, they wonder, that Fox News can be so consistently in the lead despite their obvious niche programming focus on a narrow segment of the viewing audience. The decidedly right-of-center bias of Fox News corresponds to a rather small portion of the national electorate. Republican favorability has been hovering in the mid-twenties for years. So how does this negligible slice of the market translate into such a disproportionate ratings advantage?

Rupert Murdoch, Ratings and The Yellow Journalism of Fox News 1/2

(Originally posted at PoliticalGates earlier this year.)

by Nomad

At the turn of the century, writers searching for the soul of America looked at the country through the new lenses and found much to criticize. While the nation had become a world power with a great navy and mounting wealth, the journalists sought to prove that much of the wealth was gained through cheap labor that kept the laboring class subservient, poor and unhealthy.

Millionaires... had developed a powerful economy enjoyed by the few. What rights should workers have? What education should be afforded child laborers? What quality and safety were afforded the working class in their homes, their food? Through the lens of these news ideologies, early twentieth century journalists re-examined the relationships among politicians, business tycoons, and laborers.

The Public Press, 1900-1945: The History of American Journalism, by Leonard Ray Teel

That quote refers to a time over a hundred years ago - fondly called the Progressive Era- and yet what has changed since that golden age of journalism? 

In some ways, America as a nation is stuck in the right-turn lane.  

A full century has passed and the battle between the wealthy- now super-wealthy- and the middle laboring class- now called the 99%- has re-commenced. Or has it ever really ended? 
One essential difference is, of course, the state of American journalism- the once disinterested crusader for the people’s interests. The press- along with the promise of reform it once represented- has been absorbed into the system and what's left when the capitalists got through with it is, well,  Fox News and CNN.

Beyond Flip-Flopping: Is Romney Just a Liar?

By Nomad

Here we are with only 193 days before the election night and Mitt Romney appears to have the Republican nomination wrapped up. This hellishly long vetting process, with endless, needless debates and primaries run amok, has been an inglorious examination of a variety of political failures. 

From Newt Gingrich's impossible pomposity and Rick Santorum's often unnerving tendency to sound as tolerant as your average Iranian mullah, to Rick Perry's bout with unexpected amnesia in mid-sentence. 

With all that maneuvering, jostling and elbowing, what has emerged out of the muck is a candidate who will, quite literally say anything to get elected. Although this tendency has long been a handicap of Romney, the history of modern American politics has perhaps not seen anything quite like this character. 

Whether the candidate of yore was liked or not, a voter could feel reasonably certain what his core values were. (There were exceptions, of course. Nixon for example.) 

With Romney, it has been a question of wind direction.

Quote Smackdown: Ann Coulter vs. Stephen Hawking

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