We are the 99%

The mainstream media has given the Occupy Wall Street protest limited exposure. But the information coming from MSM would have you believe that the occupation is made solely of kids and hippies. Think again. WATCH:

Although many in the Occupy Wall Street movement do not want political support for their protest, many Democratic politicians have shown some solidarity with the protestors.

Which Democratic lawmakers have begun to embrace the Occupy Wall Street protestors?

Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) stated in a joint statement:

"We share the anger and frustration of so many Americans who have seen the enormous toll that an unchecked Wall Street has taken on the overwhelming majority of Americans while benefiting the super-wealthy. We join the calls for corporate accountability and expanded middle-class opportunity."

House Democrat, Caucus Chairman John Larson (Conn.), released a statement:

"The silent masses aren't so silent anymore. They are fighting to give voice to the struggles that everyday Americans are going through."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), stated:

"I applaud those protesters who are out there, who are focusing attention on Wall Street, but what we've got to do is put meat on that bone. We've got to make demands on Wall Street [and] break those institutions up."

Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) have also applauded the movement.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), a leader in both the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Back Caucus, said:

"All of us should join that movement."

The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, was asked about the protests during his appearance before the Joint Economic Committee on Tuesday.

"I would just say very generally, I think people are quite unhappy with the state of the economy and what's happening," Bernanke said. "They blame, with some justification, the problems in the financial sector for getting us into this mess, and they're dissatisfied with the policy response here in Washington. And at some level, I can't blame them."

And a sole Republican has come out indicating that he sympathized with the protesters. Rep. Ron Paul (Texas), an outspoken Republican critic of the Federal Reserve, stated

“If they were demonstrating peacefully, and making a point, and arguing our case, and drawing attention to the Fed — I would say, good!

Occupy Wall Street is about ending corporate greed, getting jobs, building back the middle class and keeping the American dream alive. This is a national message that should not be limited to political divisiveness or ideology. We are the 99% and we are gaining strength!

A Common Sense Budget: The People's Budget

Reps. Maxine Waters, Mazie Hirono (podium) and Raul Grijalva introducing The People's Budget at the Capitol

Politicians like to support their theory's with poll results. If you look at the polls, the public's message is clear: protect Medicare and Social Security, spend less on the military, and raise taxes on the wealthy. And while we're at it, let's tax the Wall Street speculators who wrecked our economy.

If you listen to the pundits and TV commentators, the federal budget problem has a simple solution: cuts, cuts, and more cuts. They cheer politicians for making "tough choices," which usually entails taking money away from schools, stiffing public workers, and telling the poor and the elderly they need to make do with even less. Tough choices, indeed — but for whom?

Main Stream Media does not reflect Main Street.

But if you look at the newspapers or your TV screen, those ideas are rarely, if ever, part of the budget debate. Is there no one in Washington who is sticking up for what the majority of the public wants?

But wait.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus, which includes 74 House Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders, released an alternative budget blueprint back in April. This "People's Budget" would achieve a better balance by taxing the wealthy, reining in runaway military spending, and protecting the New Deal social safety net — just what people tell pollsters that they want

So why is it that the People's Budget isn't being discussed?

There's a good chance you've never heard about this part of the budget debate, though there's been a mountain of media coverage of the budget mess — thousands of articles and television programs. If you've paid attention to any of it, you're probably well acquainted with Rep. Paul Ryan. The Wisconsin Republican has "jet black hair and a touch of Eagle Scout to him," according to one magazine profile. The New York Times told readers about his "piercing blue eyes." It's not just his looks that impress the media. His budget plan, which pairs yet more big tax breaks for the rich with spending cuts for everyone else, is constantly touted as being "bold" and "serious."

And the People's Budget? Well, it's not even mentioned. There were no hard news stories about in the big papers. Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote about the press conference unveiling the People's Budget only to mock it— right down to poking fun at one lawmaker's tie.

Here's a general overview of the People's Budget:

• Reduces unemployment—and thus the deficit—through extensive investment in infrastructure, clean energy, transportation and education;
  
• Ends almost all the Bush tax cuts, creates new tax brackets for millionaires and new fees on Wall Street;
  
• Full American military withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, along with other reductions in military spending;
  
• Ends subsidies for non-renewable energy;
  
• Lowers health care costs through a public option and negotiating Rx payments with pharmaceutical companies;
  
• Raises the taxable maximum on Social Security.

That is a very quick summary, and full details can be read here. The Economic Policy Institute has a full analysis here. At the press conference introducing the budget, economist Jeffrey Sachs praised it as the "only budget that makes sense" and "a lot more serious than everything else on the table." He's also previously written about The People's Budget on the Huffington Post.

Partisan Politics

The budget debate is locked up in a partisan stalemate. That makes it as good a time as any to tell the people about the People's Budget. Most newspapers and TV networks aren't doing that. And when you look at who stands to gain — and who stands to lose — it's no mystery why corporate-owned media are keeping us in the dark.

The budget mess is covered daily by the media. It is time to let the public know about the People's Budget.

For a discussion and analysis of the People's Budget, WATCH:

Falling for False News

Once again, the story making the rounds on cable news and in the main-steam media is a fabricated story about racism. Shouldn't the emphasis of this story be focused on the person who manipulated the information? Shouldn't the anger be focused on the lies that were touted as truth. Shouldn't the outrage be directed at the pervasive fake news that dominates right-wing media, blogs and pundits. Shouldn't the focus be on the scumbag who doctored the video tape? Instead, the emphasis has been on the allegation that the administration's actions stemmed from their fear of Fox News.

Jonathan Alter has a different take on this story. He believes the Obama Administration mishandled this fabricated scandal in order to create a "no distraction" zone.

How could the White House have screwed up so badly in the case of Shirley Sherrod, the Georgia USDA official who Wednesday received an apology from the Obama administration (through Robert Gibbs and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack)?

Sherrod was the victim of a smear by the right-wing agent provocateur Andrew Breitbart and his fellow travelers at Fox News. (Yes, that side has adopted some Leninist tactics, as conservative antitax activist Grover Norquist has admitted over the years.) They took a two-and-a-half-minute clip from Sherrod's address to the NAACP and used it to depict her as a black racist who discriminated years ago against a white farmer. It turns out the farmer thought Sherrod had been a terrific help, and a full review of Sherrod's speech suggests that, far from being a racist, she had honestly (and successfully) worked through the complex racial preconceptions we all carry around in our heads.

The NAACP, which says it was "snookered" by Breitbart, acted first and asked questions later. This gave Vilsack and the White House cover to do the same. Only when Sherrod was allowed to defend herself on legitimate news programs (i.e., not on Fox) was the administration's rash and unjust firing fully exposed. So-called journalists didn't do the most elemental checking before running with the story.

The question is, why? Are the president and his team cowed by right-wingers? Doubtful. It seems more likely that the White House's astonishingly ham-handed response to this matter was the result of overreacting to criticism that Obama has suffered recently for his slow political reflexes. Combine that with a firm policy of "no distractions" and you have a recipe for a political hash and serious embarrassment.

To understand this story, you have to go back to the sacking of Van Jones, a midlevel White House aide of little importance (he worked on weatherizing inner-city homes) who was pilloried for days last year for signing a 2002 we-had-it-coming-on-9/11 petition. Fox made it seem as though this was the most critical issue facing America. The White House rightly concluded that Jones had to go and regretted having let the topic dominate Fox News and leach into the rest of the press. Better to have cut their losses earlier, aides concluded in retrospect. Then on Christmas Day with the case of the "underpants bomber" and again in May with the BP oil spill, Obama was legitimately criticized for not moving quickly enough to reassure the country and get on top of the story.

So now we come to the week of July 19, which was supposed to be all about the signing Wednesday of the financial-regulation bill, the largest piece of legislation regulating markets in 75 years. A secondary theme for the White House was the difference between the parties on extending unemployment benefits. In other words, real issues that affect real people, not cable flaps of little or no lasting consequence. So the White House had hoped to cut its losses on the Sherrod story.

"No distractions" has been Obama's mantra from the beginning. For most of 2009 and early 2010, this meant nothing was to distract from health care. It's not that Obama doesn't think race issues are significant—he has no trouble identifying himself as a proud African-American president—but he gets very irritated at having a racial conversation forced on him, especially by right-wingers. He wants to decide for himself when and where to discuss sensitive issues. But that's where Obama the control freak runs up against the realities of Washington. He can't always control the timing of public discussion, and when his administration neglects basic staff research (not to mention basic fairness to Sherrod), he looks lame. The policy of "no distractions" led to a big distraction—and another example of how the supposedly slick Chicago political operators are often all thumbs.

The news has been dominated by the Obama Administration's faux pas that accepted this negative false information as fact and did not sufficiently check for truth. That aspect should be highlighted but it should not be the only story told.

Now, there's a story! Rachel Maddox explains.

WATCH:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Media Ignoring Facts?

How many times in the last few days has the news media reported that the terrorist who failed in his attempt to ignite the Times Square car bomb was in fact a 'Muslim from Pakistan?' The words Muslim, Pakistan, terrorist and car bomb have been linked together and repeated over and over. But information about the identity of the person who reported the suspicious smoking car to New York authorities merely indicated that Aliou Niasse was a street vendor. What the media failed to mention, was that Niasse is a Senagalese 'Muslim immigrant!'

The chief suspect in the case of the failed Times Square car bombing is Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad, who has confessed to the plot. Much of the media has latched onto Shahzad’s Muslim faith and his Pakistani identity, making inflammatory remarks and suggestions about Muslims and Pakistanis:

– CNN contributor and Redstate.com blogger Erick Erickson complained that the words “muslim” and “Islam” are “not mentioned” enough in stories about Shahzad. He wrote, “It really is pathetic that you’re more likely to see the words “racist” and “Republican” together in the newspaper these days than “terrorism” and “Islam.” [5/4/2010]

– Hate radio host Neal Boortz tweeted, “OMG! The Times Square Bomber is a Muslim! Shocker! Who would have believed it?” [5/4/2010]

– The cover of today’s Washington Post-published Express features a black-and-white photo of Shahzad with the sensationalist headline “MADE IN PAKISTAN” [5/5/2010]

Yet one fact being ignored in the American media’s sensationalist narrative about the failed bombing is that the man who was responsible for police finding the bomb was Muslim. The UK’s Times Online reports that Aliou Niasse, a Senagalese Muslim immigrant who works as a photograph vendor on Times Square, was the first to bring the smoking car to the police’s attention:

Aliou Niasse, a street vendor selling framed photographs of New York, said that he was the first to spot the car containing the bomb, which pulled up right in front of his cart on the corner of 45th street and Broadway next to the Marriott hotel.

“I didn’t see the car pull up or notice the driver because I was busy with customers. But when I looked up I saw that smoke appeared to be coming from the car. This would have been around 6.30pm.”

“I thought I should call 911, but my English is not very good and I had no credit left on my phone, so I walked over to Lance, who has the T-shirt stall next to mine, and told him. He said we shouldn’t call 911. Immediately he alerted a police officer near by,” said Mr Niasse, who is originally from Senegal and who has been a vendor in Times Square for about eight years.

As the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights notes, “South Asian, and Muslim communities may yield useful information to those fighting terrorism. Arabs and Arab Americans also offer the government an important source of Arabic speakers and translators. The singling out of Arabs, South Asians, Muslims, and Sikhs for investigation regardless of whether any credible evidence links them to terrorism will simply alienate these individuals and compromise the anti-terrorism effort.”

Reflecting on Niasse’s good samaritanism Muslim-American author Sumbul Ali-Karamali writes, “It’s somewhat consoling to know that the man who first noticed the smoking Nissan Pathfinder and sought help is also Muslim, a Senegalese immigrant. … I grew up Muslim in this country, with Muslim friends and non-Muslim friends, and there was very little difference between the two groups. We were all American.

Sumbul Ali-Karamali succinctly puts this situation in context.

I hope we can remember the Muslim Senegalese man who raised the alarm about the smoking car, as well as the criminal who put it there. Muslims, like people of all religions, do good things and bad things. Unfortunately, our media highlights emphasizes the bad and rarely mentions the good. Religious doctrine is not the same as what people do. I hope my fellow Americans remember that -- but in the meantime, let me condemn violence in the name of Islam and offer up another heartfelt prayer for peace.

Even the cartoons about New York vendors reflect an incorrect image . This should be a lesson in understanding the media's need for spin and sensationalism over the need for real reporting and truth.