Recently in Issue Framing Category

As a sideline to Scott's earlier blog, it turns out some of those aerial photos of the protesters that descended upon Washington, D.C. this weekend might be fake.  At least one is.  The photograph shown here was touted by Say Anything, a conservative blog, as reasonable justification for the claim of 1,000,000 attendees.    A sharp reader on the site posted the following photograph, proving that the above picture was taken before the National Museum of the American...

While the debate on health care reform is receiving the lion's share of attention, something else is looming on the horizon for President Obama and the Congress, something which the president will address today when he goes to New York--the financial institutions that were considered too big to fail are even bigger, and Wall Street is up to it's old tricks again. "The failure of Lehman, the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history, and the panicky...

Since it looks like it's going to be a rainy weekend in the Houston area, there should be some entertainment on the TeeVee as an assortment of whiners, complainers, sore losers, and general all-around Obama haters converge on Washington, D.C. for a Saturday demonstration. The Wall Street Journal has an account of 54 people making the 17-hour bus ride from Tallahassee, Florida as an example of what can be expected:"Conservative activists (depicted above) from around...

In my opinion, the most important segments of President Obama's address to Congress on Wednesday came towards the end when he spoke about the letter he received from Ted Kennedy:"He repeated the truth that health care is decisive for our future prosperity, but he also reminded me that "it concerns more than material things." "What we face," he wrote, "is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but...

President Obama released the text yesterday of what was intended to be his indoctrination of impressionable young schoolchildren. But that was before the ever-vigilant watchdogs on the right caught on to his devious plot and demanded to read his remarks in advance of their being broadcast. Having read what the President is going to say, I would admonish all the parents of Texas and elsewhere, it's not too late, please keep your children at home...

No one knows what President Obama will propose in his address on health care reform to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, but by reading a few of the tea leaves one word is starting to emerge-- "trigger." And I'm not talking about Roy Rogers' horse. From the New York Times:"With Congressional Republicans standing almost unanimously in opposition to the Democratic approach, the target now for Mr. Obama is primarily a handful of...

Though I don't necessarily agree with some of the political goals of President Andrew Shepherd in the modern classic, The American President, I have always loved that film for its expression of what American politics OUGHT to be.The character of Lewis Rothschild, played by Michael J. Fox, is worth the price of admission alone.  After weeks of character attacks by the President's opponent with no comment from the White House, Lewis makes an impassioned plea...

Estimates are that approximately 18,000 Americans die every year because they don't have health insurance, six times the number who died on September 11, 2001. Now ask yourself, if America suffered six terrorist attacks on the scope of 9/11 in one year, that's one every other month, what would be the response from the politicians in Washington, D.C.?Would they be saying we need to slow down and be sure we take the proper action? Would...

As a bright and shining example of the outright lies and blatant hypocrisy coming from the far-right over what they have concocted in their tiny, narrow minds as what is going to be President Obama's "indoctrination" of schoolchildren in his remarks next week, I give you the Michael Savage show from yesterday:"The first president in American history who is going to force children to listen to a speech he's going to give.""No American president in...

It's funny, but most of us thought there would be less anger after the election of Barack Obama. As a group we are angry people. We see it all of the hate speech. We see it in the Tea parties around the country, and we see it among people that are angry that are health care debate has been bought and sold by the insurance industry. As a group we are all hopping mad, but...