QuakerOats;585259 wrote:Imagine if government was half the size it is ........... THE PEOPLE would have thousands of dollars they are otherwise having to send to the government in taxes and they could afford all the food necessary to feed their own kids. Imagine if government was 1/3 the size it is, THE PEOPLE would probably not even need two spouses working and one could stay home and take care of the kids and feed them all they want.

Government gets bigger, and THE PEOPLE lose their rights and their abilities to take care of themselves.

Change we can believe in ........

+1000. Anyone who thinks a nanny state is a good idea should consider that most people can't afford a nanny.

gut;585265 wrote:+1000. Anyone who thinks a nanny state is a good idea should consider that most people can't afford a nanny.

Another profundity. You got a streak goin! What we are up against however, is that those who believe in nannies also believe the evil scum satanic lucky-sperm-club rich should pay for it since they can afford it for themselves. They could care less about equal opportunities...give them equal results and they'll be content.

The "Hungry Children" line is over the top. Its subtle blurbs like this that keeps claims of media bias alive. Many people out there are either not fully informed, do not bother to research the issue further or simply are very sensitive to the idea that there are people starving in this country. When they read this article and see "hungry children" and "republican cuts" they shake their head and wonder to themselves how cruel republicans must be. The writer might as well say "man crosses desert, republican refuses to give him drink of water". If the writer were being objective, they would have used less harsh language and would have provided reasons for the republican decision to block the funding.

One adjective -- hungry -- biased that entire piece. It wasn't necessary (nor accurate, in all likelihood) but the writer chose to put it in there. Read the original sentence without that word, and it's a balanced piece of journalism.

If those on here who claim there is no bias can't see the difference -- then I honestly don't know what to tell you.

I Wear Pants;584962 wrote:You are severely misinformed if you think there are no starving kids in the US. There aren't a lot but they are there. And there are plenty of underfed kids as well.

If there ARE starving children in this country it is certainly NOT the taxpayers fault. These children have parents or guardians. If there are, indeed, starving children in the United States, then their parents or guardians need a visit from from the law. There are PLENTY of public and private resources in this country that will NOT allow starvation in this country....PERIOD.

Writerbuckeye;585363 wrote:One adjective -- hungry -- biased that entire piece. It wasn't necessary (nor accurate, in all likelihood) but the writer chose to put it in there. Read the original sentence without that word, and it's a balanced piece of journalism.

Exactly. This is precisely the type of incessant underhanded manipulation conducted by the media that transitions its role of providing the American public with news and information to propaganda mill for the American left.

Is it too much to ask to simply report the facts to the public and leave the analysis and opinions to the editorial pages?

Truly objective and professional journalism is dead in this country.

Writerbuckeye;585363 wrote:One adjective -- hungry -- biased that entire piece. It wasn't necessary (nor accurate, in all likelihood) but the writer chose to put it in there. Read the original sentence without that word, and it's a balanced piece of journalism.

If those on here who claim there is no bias can't see the difference -- then I honestly don't know what to tell you.

So you're saying the aim of this bill is not to feed hungry children? Pretty sure even the spend happy Dems aren't simply trying to spend money for the sake of it. The intent is to feed hungry children. That is accurate.

Do you not see the ridiculousness of you hunting down one adjective to look for bias?

I Wear Pants;586053 wrote:So you're saying the aim of this bill is not to feed hungry children? Pretty sure even the spend happy Dems aren't simply trying to spend money for the sake of it.

Personally I think they are creating a problem for brownie points. This program makes 0 sense. How/why are these children not being fed by one of several other programs? Maybe instead of spending more money on a problem that isn't really a problem they should look at fixing the existing programs that should already address the need.

The idea sounds horribly messed up. We are going to pay teachers OT to supervise. We are going to pay cooks OT to prepare the meals. We are, presumably, going to create new govt jobs to monitor administration of the program and funds. We are then going to pay for the meals when, the parents likely already receive food stamps or other welfare to provide the meals. I'm disgusted even by a seemingly insignificant description of "blocking a bill to feed hungry children" when the article should have been asking why why why.

Then put yourself in the position of an elected representative. Are you ultimately going to oppose this bill no matter how wasteful? It's probably less than 1/4000th of the budget. You are going to pick your battles and this won't really be one of them. And that is how you end-up overspending and wasting hundreds of billions of dollars.

I agree about this program being a bad idea. But I disagree that this article did anything wrong. The program, despite it's being not very good, is intended to feed hungry children. Bad program intended to feed hungry children was blocked by Republicans. Nothing is untrue about this. Unless you wanted the article to have a conservative bias and say that it was a bad program there is no way they could have reported on the story without you guys saying it's biased.

I Wear Pants;586093 wrote:I agree about this program being a bad idea. But I disagree that this article did anything wrong. The program, despite it's being not very good, is intended to feed hungry children. Bad program intended to feed hungry children was blocked by Republicans. Nothing is untrue about this. Unless you wanted the article to have a conservative bias and say that it was a bad program there is no way they could have reported on the story without you guys saying it's biased.

How does the writer know the children are hungry, when the existing program already provides snacks after school? There was zero reason to put that word in there.

The popular name of the bill is "The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act." Why wouldn't the author use the word "hungry" when describing the bill to the general public?

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:s3307pcs.txt.pdf

BoatShoes;586116 wrote:The popular name of the bill is "The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act." Why wouldn't the author use the word "hungry" when describing the bill to the general public?

Then it would have been: "The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act is voted down". Or something. That sounds reasonable.

CenterBHSFan;586127 wrote:Then it would have been: "The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act is voted down". Or something. That sounds reasonable.

The media doesn't often use the popular names of bills when they are reporting on them. For instance, not many people even know that Obamacare's popular name is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, etc.

I'll tell you what isn't reasonable. Starting a thread titled "Media claims republicans want to starve poor children" when a reporter uses a related form of a word, hunger, in the title of a bill when reporting on a procedural event related to that bill.

fish82;586103 wrote:How does the writer know the children are hungry, when the existing program already provides snacks after school? There was zero reason to put that word in there.

The bill is about feeding hungry children. It's in the name. Why does the writer have to know, personally the children are hungry to say that a bill that was to provide funding to feed hungry children was blocked? He doesn't, especially because the word hunger is in the damn name of the bill.

At the end of the day, all this bickering over semantics doesn't mean a damn thing to me.

BOTTOM LINE: Apparently, we should just sit back and let government take away parenting from a certain income bracket of families and only have these parents feed their kids on weekends.
And by God, if we don't do this, we've just greedy, racist, heartless people.

How about we argue the cruxt of the situation instead of the damn words?!

To do otherwise is insipid beyond belief, because it shows a lack of actual conviction one way or another. PERIOD.

Nothing says we can't argue both, Center, and in fact we are.

There are two discussions going on here, one about the bias in the news reporting of the bill, and another on the bill itself and whether it's even necessary.

Reporters are supposed to put FACTS in their articles. There is no way the reporter can know, for certain, that there are (pick a number) of "hungry" children. Not possible.

The intent of the bill is to feed children who MAY be hungry -- or at least ensure that children do not go hungry. There is nothing in the information provided that proves a specific number of HUNGRY children exist. It's all a guess.

That raises two issues: One (the most important) is whether the bill is even necessary and/or why is it so much money? The second is how the bill is being portrayed to the American people to sell its necessity. One very much as to do with the other.

If those sponsoring this legislation can't convince fellow legislators and their constituents that a need exists for the bill, the money won't get spent. The bias of the news article helps achieve that goal.

I Wear Pants;586143 wrote:The bill is about feeding hungry children. It's in the name. Why does the writer have to know, personally the children are hungry to say that a bill that was to provide funding to feed hungry children was blocked? He doesn't, especially because the word hunger is in the damn name of the bill.

With the dollars attached to it, there is more going on than just feeding the children.

Al Bundy;586320 wrote:With the dollars attached to it, there is more going on than just feeding the children.

Yep....It appears to be a form of free child care. Obviously these kids aren't being fed dinner promptly at 3PM after school lets out. You can see why some people would think this is a good idea (I agree, on the surface, but that conversation can't exist in a vacuum ignoring cost) - kids are supervised after school eliminating a problem of child care for a working single parent. They probably spend that after-school time supervised by teachers and doing homework, so there would be an educational aspect and also enabling more personalized help/instruction from teachers.

I don't know... Is there a better example of the fed govt intruding on state/local govt responsibilities and flushing billions down the toilet with questionable results/effectiveness than on the front of education?

I don't have much issue with the use of "hungry" in that article. What annoys me is how the public is consistently manipulated to support bad programs because "it's for the children". If you oppose blank checks for the children the stigma is you're a bad person "starving" the children or denying them an education or health care.

You never see articles that state "Repubilicans want to extend tax cuts so employers can hire and reward more unemployed workers with starving children".

Hey! Let's start sending them home with care packages on Friday, too. That way schools will know the parents won't have to cook on Sat./Sun. either!

BoatShoes;586131 wrote:I'll tell you what isn't reasonable. Starting a thread titled "Media claims republicans want to starve poor children" when a reporter uses a related form of a word, hunger, in the title of a bill when reporting on a procedural event related to that bill.

Done by design BS. I had hoped it would help drive home my point.

Little Danny;586499 wrote:You never see articles that state "Repubilicans want to extend tax cuts so employers can hire and reward more unemployed workers with starving children".

That's an excellent point. Although if you look in the right places you do see articles like "Businesses not hiring over economic uncertainty". Few and far between, though. 9 out of 10 in the media appear to have a liberal bias. Even generally fair and objective articles such as this one struggle to remove all bias. The use of the word "hunger", although relatively harmless, was not really necessary and bias of that sort, no matter how subtle, unfairly influences opinion.

Ha, ha, ha.

With the Obstructionists in power in the House we had better get used to lots and lots of whining about unfavorable media attention. Some of you would be happy if Tass were running the media coverage here.

stlouiedipalma;586612 wrote:With the Obstructionists in power in the House we had better get used to lots and lots of whining about unfavorable media attention. Some of you would be happy if Tass were running the media coverage here.

We now live in the Untied Socialist States of Amerika. I thought Tass was running the media here.

stlouiedipalma;586612 wrote:Ha, ha, ha.

With the Obstructionists in power in the House we had better get used to lots and lots of whining about unfavorable media attention. Some of you would be happy if Tass were running the media coverage here.

What makes you think there's that much difference now? About 99 percent of the media comes from the same political perspective in its reporting. That's only 1 percent less than the Soviet people were subjected to.

Al Bundy;586320 wrote:With the dollars attached to it, there is more going on than just feeding the children.

I thought we already established that I think this is probably a bad bill that deserved to be blocked. I just don't think the article was particularly biased. I came away from the article with the thought that the Republicans probably blocked the bill due to concerns of its practicality and cost/efficiency. Not that they were somehow anti-child.