Public Overwhelmingly Want To Eliminate Electoral College & Put Age Limit ON Elected Officials

 

The charts above are from the Pew Research Center.

Public Opinion In The United States Is Turning Against Israel (and Netanyahu)

 

The charts above are from a Pew Research Center survey -- done between March 23rd and 29th of a nationwide sample of 3,507 adults, with a 1.9 point margin of error.

Most Americans Not Confident Journalists Act In Public's Best Interest

 

The charts above are from the Pew Research Center in a survey they did between December 8th and 14th of a nationwide sample of 3,560 adults, with a 1.8 point margin of error.

Percentage Of Highly Religious People In U.S. And Europe

The top chart, from the Gallup Poll, shows the percentage of Americans that are highly religious. The second chart, from the Pew Research Center, shows the percentage of highly religious people in the 34 countries of Europe.

I think it's the general consensus of many in the United States that their country is a very religious one, while Europe is not. That's not strictly true.

As the top chart shows, only about 37% of Americans are highly religious. There are nine countries in Europe that have as many or more highly religious people as in the United States (37% to 55%). The other twenty-five European countries do have a smaller percentage of highly religious people than the United States -- many of them a much smaller percentage. The range is from 7% to 32%.

However, the percentage is shrinking in both the United States and Europe.

Obama Gets Far Less Positive News Coverage Than Romney

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism has been keeping track of the positive (and negative) stories about each of the presidential contenders since January. The results of their survey are shown in the charts above. Note that in every single week the mainstream media has run far more positive stories about Mitt Romney than they have run about President Obama.

Now you may say it is due to the Republican nominating race. That because there was doubt as to who would win, it naturally got a lot of coverage. That's nonsense. Obama is the president, and has been in the news a lot. It's just that most of the stories regarding him have been negative, which is strange since the economy and unemployment have both been showing slight improvement.

Frankly, I think we need to consider the possibility of corporate bias. All of the mainstream media are owned by corporate giants, and it is no secret that the corporations have cast their lot (and a ton of money) toward getting Romney into the White House. They know the president wants to make them pay their fair share of taxes, while Romney would gives them massive new tax breaks (or even eliminate corporate taxes altogether). Is this corporate bias toward Romney coloring the news coverage?

After seeing the mainstream media's biased coverage (whether corporate-driven or not) it is even more amazing that the president has a several point lead over Romney in the latest polls -- and his lead is growing in the all-important swing states. Doesn't it make you wonder how much larger the president's lead might be if the coverage had been a little more fair?

Did Bush Make The World A Safer Place ?

After 9/11, many who weren't already paying attention suddenly realized that we live in a dangerous world. President Bush used the opportunity to promise Americans (and the world) that he would declare a war on terror, and make the world a safer place for everyone.

His first move, the invasion of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, was almost universally supported. Anyone who has read this blog knows I am not a Bush supporter, but even I thought the Afghanistan invasion was neccessary and appropriate. The Taliban didn't just support and protect Al-queda, their beliefs are virtually interchangeable.

But Bush wasn't happy with attacking the real criminals who had attacked us. Before we had even finished the job in Afghanistan, he turned his attention elsewhere. After lying to America and the world, he invaded Iraq, once again using the excuse of "making the world a safer place".

Of course, now we know that he was not telling us the truth. Saddam was not a danger to America (or any other country for that matter), he did not have nuclear weapons or even a nuclear weapons program, and he was not in league with Al-queda. In fact, as most Muslims already knew, Saddam and Osama hated each other.

Now we are stuck in a real mess in Iraq, and the Taliban is coming back in Afghanistan. Why did Bush have to invade Iraq before finishing the job in Afghanistan? I don't know. But most of the world thinks it was to control Iraq's vast oil supply.

The Pew Global Attitudes Project gives us the following percentages of people in different countries who think we invaded Iraq because of the oil:

Great Britain..........33%

Russia.....................51%

France.....................58%

Germany.................60%

Pakistan..................54%

Turkey....................64%

Morrocco................63%

Jordan....................71%

But has the invasion of Iraq made the world a safer place? No! Once again referring to the Pew Global Attitudes Project, we find that most people, including half of Americans, think Bush has made the world a more dangerous place. Here are the numbers:

COUNTRY............LESS SAFE

France..................76%

Spain....................68%

Germany..............66%

Great Britain.......60%

Russia..................44%

Japan...................61%

China...................44%

India....................34%

Nigeria................32%

Jordan.................74%

Egypt...................70%

Turkey.................70%

Indonesia............54%

Pakistan..............52%

As you can see, a majority of people in countries that we consider to be our allies, think that Bush's blunder in invading Iraq has made the world a more dangerous place.

The war in Iraq is bleeding away the effectiveness of our military, is needlessly costing the lives of our soldiers, is using resources that could be put to better use in Afghanistan, and has made the world a more dangerous place!

It is time to bring our troops home. Just yesterday Muqtada al-Sadr, who was once a supporter of the government Bush installed in Iraq, called on Iraqi soldiers and police to join his militiamen in attacking American soldiers. Over the weekend, 10 more American soldiers were killed in Iraq. Our soldiers have no friends in Iraq. They are hated by both the Shiites and the Sunnis.

Stop the madness and bring our soldiers home!