10 Things You Should Know About U.S. Politics.

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Many people tell me they hate politics for one reason or another. They tell me they hate all of the fighting, all of the lies, how long it takes for things to happen, or all of the drama. I was born to talk politics. I've loved it all of my life, and I've followed every election closely since I was a young child. Most people are not me. I studied political science, worked on the hill, and I've worked in the political field ever since. Politics is in my blood. So I love talking politics, but not everyone does.

Even with people who like to talk politics it doesn't mean we're having great conversations. When we talk politics we often assume that the people across from us are as politically informed as we are. Sometimes they are more sometimes they are less. All of us could probably do with upping our political IQ, Hopefully it isn't as bad as the people who appeared in this video from Jimmy Kimmel live. None of the individuals interviewed were able to identify any member of Congress.



So I thought through what are 10 things you should know about U.S. politics as a citizen even if you don't really want to get too involved.
1. You should know the basics of how our federal government works. This includes the branches of government, checks and balances, who has the power to make law, implement and review it.

2. You should know who represents you in Congress. Can you name your representative, and two senators? If you don't feel free to go here to find out.

3. You should know who the leaders of the country are. You should at least know who the President, Vice President, Speaker of the House and Senate Majority leader are. A few other good ones to know are the minority leaders, the Secretaries of State and Defense, and the Supreme Court Justices.

4. You should know who the Governor of your state is. It's also good to know your local leaders and try to be involved at the local level because you have the opportunity to have far more of an impact on the local level than the national level.

5. You should know before an election where candidates stand on the issues compared to you. I recommend the site isidewith.com

6. You should know what the federal budget looks like. Every spending decision that is made affects the budget, every tax cut or increase affects the budget. When people talk of spending on military, welfare etc. it's important to know what those budgets look like.

7. You need to know that your participation in society and in politics matters. The more that people are involved in society the better their income, health, and happiness. The more people are involved in politics and government especially in their community, the more ability we have to accomplish great things and move the nation forward. In fact there is a direct correlation between civic engagement and many of our problems as a country. People have lower drop out rates, lower crime rates and better healthcare as a whole. Unemployment drops and incomes rise.

8. You should know that no one has all of the answers. Listening to the other sides' opinions is just as important as listening to your own side. If you start hearing a major push for one opinion on an issue you may want to take a step back, do some research on your own and figure out both sides.

9. No one disagrees on everything. All of us have shared common ground. Even Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have common ground. We need to recognize that more and not get caught up in the things that tear us apart.

10. Lastly you should know that your vote matters. Here's a good list of times where just one vote mattered.

Why the Minimum Wage Debate Isn't as Simple As it Seems

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For several years now we have seen slow but steady employment growth. While that trend tends to mean we have a strong economy a concern still lingers as wages have lagged behind, increasing at rates lower than inflation. Some have suggested specifically to help those who are in poverty, we should raise the minimum wage which currently stands at $7.25/hr.

It seems simple doesn't it? Just force employers to pay people more. Right now labor groups and liberals across the country have called for at least a $10.10/hr minimum wage. Polling consistently shows that across the spectrum there is wide support for raising the minimum wage.

Others like Senator Bernie Sanders a leading candidate for the Democratic Nomination for president. have called for upwards of $15/hr, their argument states that if today's minimum wage kept up with worker productivity it would be over $21.72/hr.

In a press release introducing his bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour Senator Sanders said "Increasing the minimum wage would directly benefit 62 million workers who currently make less than $15 an hour, including over half of African-American workers and close to 60 percent of Latino workers.  If the minimum wage had kept up with productivity and inflation since 1968, it would be more than $26 an hour today."

It is true that if the minimum wage from the 1960's had kept up with inflation, the minimum wage would be $10.52, but the 1960's was the highest point (inflation adjusted) for the minimum wage.

Opponents of the minimum wage like Senator Ted Cruz, also a presidential candidate have said that the real cost in the minimum wage is lost jobs. That in order to increase wages we need to focus on increasing the number of high tech manufacturing and energy jobs.

“Those who are being hurt the most in the Obama economy are the most vulnerable among us – young people, Hispanics, African-Americans and single moms,” Sen. Cruz said. “They are the ones paying the price for the great stagnation in which we find ourselves. The undeniable truth is if the president succeeded in raising the minimum wage, it would cost jobs from the most vulnerable.”

“The discussion before this chamber is whether to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour,” Sen. Cruz continued. “But, even if it passed, the real Obama minimum wage is zero dollars and zero cents. Far better than the promise of $10.10 an hour, is $46.98 – the wage Americans can earn in the oil and gas industry. We ought to come together with bipartisan unanimity to say we will stand with the American people to bring millions of jobs, raise median income and make it easier for people who are struggling to achieve the American Dream. We should all come together and vote on the American Energy Renaissance Act, to remove government barriers and open up new federal lands and resources to develop high-paying, promising jobs that expand opportunity.”

A few facts first, only about 3 percent of those who work are working for the federal minimum wage. Many states have set higher minimum wages than the federal one. A very small percentage of those are supporting a family with that income.

So why don't we raise the national minimum wage? Wages have stagnated which has limited the growth of our economy and has weakened the middle class. Why not raise it to $50 an hour and give the vast majority of Americans a raise? There are several reasons opponents to increasing the minimum wage give for not increasing it.

According to the Heritage foundation, here are several quick facts about the minimum wage:

• Studies find raising the minimum wage does not reduce poverty.[1] It is a completely ineffective anti-poverty policy.
• The primary value of minimum-wage jobs is that they are learning jobs. They teach inexperienced employees basic employment skills that make them more productive and enable them to earn raises or move to better jobs.
• Over half of all Americans started their careers making within $1 of the minimum wage.[2] Few stayed there long.
• Two-thirds of minimum-wage workers earn raises within a year—without the government’s help.[3]
• Correctly adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage currently stands above its historical average since 1950.[4]
• The minimum wage hike sponsored by some Members of Congress and supported by President Obama would raise the minimum wage to an unprecedented level—one-seventh above its inflation-adjusted all-time high.[5]
• This would cause employers to reduce hiring, leaving fewer people employed.[6] Macroeconomic modeling shows the proposed minimum wage increase would eliminate 300,000 jobs.[7] That means fewer opportunities for unskilled workers to get started in the labor market and move their way up.
• When businesses have to pay higher wages, businesses hire higher-skill workers, freezing the least productive, most disadvantaged workers out of the job market.[8][9] Consequently minimum wage hikes harm the very people that proponents of the laws most want to help.
• Primarily Affects Younger Workers Without Family Responsibilities
• Only 2.9 percent of wage earners earn the federal minimum wage.[10][11][12]
• Most minimum-wage earners are teenagers or young adults, not heads of families.
• Over half of minimum-wage earners are between the ages of 16 and 24.[13]
• Two-thirds work part time (defined as less than 35 hours a week).[14]
• The average family income of a minimum-wage worker is $53,000 a year, less than the national average of $79,500 a year but well above the poverty level.[15]
• Two-thirds of minimum-wage workers live in families with incomes above 150 percent of the poverty line.[16]
• Just 4 percent of minimum-wage workers are single parents working full time, compared to 5.6 percent of all U.S. workers.[17]
• The Obamacare employer mandate is already scheduled to raise the cost of hiring less-skilled workers. When the mandate takes effect in 2015 the minimum cost of hiring a full-time worker will rise to $10.30 an hour. That includes the minimum wage, employer payroll taxes, and the employer mandate.[18]
• From the employer’s perspective the cost of hiring workers has increased, but the additional money goes to the government instead of the employees.[19]
• The proposed minimum wage increase of $10.10 an hour would bring the minimum cost of hiring a full-time worker—including the Obamacare penalties—to $12.71 an hour.[20]

On the other side the White House in a press release stated the following:
"The Economic Case for Raising the Minimum Wage from White House

The inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage has fallen by more than a third from its peak and is currently about twenty percent less than it was when President Ronald Reagan first took office in 1981. The minimum wage helps support family incomes, reducing inequality and poverty—especially for female earners. But as the real value of the minimum wage been allowed to erode, it has stopped serving this important purpose. The minimum wage is now just 36 percent of the average wage and trending lower, as those at the low end of the income distribution are in increasing danger of being left behind while the economic recovery continues to unfold.

Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour would benefit a wide range of families. New estimates from the Council of Economic Advisers find that when it is fully phased in 28 million workers would see a raise, including 19 million making less than $10.10 and another 8 million with wages just above $10.10 who would benefit from the ripple effect. These wages increases would be progressive with nearly half of the benefits going to households making under $35,000, but they would also benefit millions of middle class families, for example ones in which a spouse worked part-time at the minimum wage to help the family’s overall income. In total more than half of the workers that benefit are women. Only 12 percent of minimum wage beneficiaries are teenagers and the remainder of the beneficiaries include a wide cross section of families with children, couples, and others.

Partly as a result of the more than one-third reduction in the inflation-adjusted minimum wage since 1967, research has found that the poverty rate based only on market incomes has not fallen since the 1960s. Fortunately, as discussed in this recent Council of Economic Advisers report, expansions in rewards for work like the Earned Income Tax Credit and in programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program have contributed to a significant reduction in the poverty rate. Thus, while it is critically important to support these programs—including extending emergency unemployment insurance, ensuring robust nutritional assistance, and making permanent the enhancements to the Earned Income Tax Credit and child tax credit—we also need a renewed emphasis on measures that reduce poverty by improving market wages. Raising the minimum wage is the most direct and immediate policy in this regard.

The President supports raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour in three steps (and also raising the minimum wage for tipped workers), ensuring that wages and tax credits are sufficient to lift a family of four with one full-time worker above the poverty line. After raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, the proposed legislation would also index it to inflation going forward, so that workers earning the minimum wage never again see significant erosions in their inflation-adjusted wages.

Finally, as one recent review of minimum wage research published since 2000 concluded, “The weight of that evidence points to little or no employment response to modest increases in the minimum wage.” Many economists now believe that a substantial portion of the cost to employers of minimum wage increases is offset by savings from reduced employee turnover and higher worker productivity. Moreover, in the short-run in an economy that is still demand-constrained, raising the minimum wage will increase the purchasing power of a vital segment of workers and contribute to stronger overall economic activity."

Wages, and especially the minimum wage are a balancing act. There are more options available other than raising the federal minimum wage that some are considering. Several states have considered bills to effect greater limits on the widening gap between CEO and average worker pay. Some have suggested that the issue should be dealt with on a state by state or even city by city basis, allowing cities like Seattle to have a higher minimum wage while not affecting states where the cost of living is much lower. 

Governor John Kasich of Ohio who is currently a presidential hopeful expressed why he feels a state by state option for raising the minimum wage might be best:

"We’d all like to see it go up, but we don’t want to see the unintended consequence of people losing their jobs," Kasich said. "Back in Columbus, the head of Wendy’s said that if these wages go up too high, they’re just gonna put kiosks in and people won’t be there to take orders. It's about balance. We're doing fine in Ohio. I would prefer for the states to deal with it, at this point."

As we continue to debate this situation, we need to remember that this issue can have massive effects on the economy as a whole. For a stable economy we need to see wages rise. Companies will always weigh the cost of employees to their profit margin and jobs may be lost. The debate for the most part though will remain whether increased wages should come from the market itself, or being mandated by the government — whether that be on city, state, or federal levels.

Fact Check: Trump on Iran and 'Do These Republican Senators Support the Iran Deal?'

Last Saturday in an interview on the "John Fredericks Show" Trump made a statement about the Iran deal: "If Israel attacks Iran, I think -- of course this wouldn’t happen, it wouldn’t happen with me, with Obama you never know -- but we’re supposed to be on Iran’s side if this happens. OK? And nobody knows this and even talks about that point but, basically, we’re supposed to protect them."

Earlier that day in an interview with CNN he made similar comments on the topic: "You know, there is something in the Iran deal that people I don't think really understand or know about," he said. "And nobody is able it to explain it, that if somebody attacks Iran, we have to come to their defense."

So I wondered, is it true that the U.S. has to support Iran if they enter into armed conflict with Israel? Let's dig into the facts. According to Politifact: 

"At the heart of the claim is Article 10, Annex III, of the accord which states:

"E3/EU+3 parties, and possibly other states, as appropriate, are prepared to cooperate with Iran on the implementation of nuclear security guidelines and best practices."

That includes the following:

• "Co-operation in the form of training courses and workshops to strengthen Iran's ability to prevent, protect and respond to nuclear security threats to nuclear facilities and systems as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems;

• "Co-operation through training and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage, as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems."

This article has been criticized in the Israeli media.

"One of the clauses in the nuclear deal reached between world powers and Iran last week guarantees that the world powers will assist Iran in thwarting attempts to undermine its nuclear program," Israel Hayom, a newsletter, said July 20.

But experts told PolitiFact Florida in late July that such interpretations are, at best, exaggerated. The aim of the provision, they said, is to protect nuclear materials from theft (say, if terrorists tried to steal Iranian assets) or from sabotage (with the intent of causing a hazardous-materials threat to health)."

It is also important to note that this deal is not being presented as a treaty; it is considered an "executive agreement" and therefore doesn't have much hold on the U.S. When a new president is sworn into office in 2017, he or she will have to decide what to do with the agreement and whether or not they will continue to follow it.

Earlier this year during a committee hearing, Senator and presidential hopeful Marco Rubio questioned Secretary Ernest Moniz and Secretary John Kerry about this provision:

Rubio: "If Israel decides it does not like this deal and decides it wants to sabotage an Iranian nuclear program or facility. Does this deal that we have just signed obligate us to defend Iran against Israeli sabotage or for that matter the sabotage of any other country in the world

Moniz: "I believe that applies to physical security and safeguards all of our options and those of our allies would remain in place."

Rubio:If Israel conducts an airstrike against a physical facility, does this deal, the way I read it, does it require us to help Iran protect and respond to that threat?"

Kerry: "No. The purpose of that is to have longer term guarantees as we enter the world in which cyber warfare that when you are going to have nuclear capacities we want to make sure you are properly protected. But I can assure you we are going to coordinate in every possible way with Israel."

Rubio: "If Israel conducts a cyber attack against the Iranian nuclear program, are we obligated to help them defend themselves against the Israeli cyberattack?"

Kerry: "No, I assure you, that we will be coordinating very, very closely with Israel as we do on every aspect of Israel’s security."

It seems pretty clear that while there are some security features in here, that we will not be required under the deal to protect Iran against Israel. This claim is rated false.

Going along with this I also came across another claim on facebook, that several Republican senators had supported the Iran deal.

The claim is simply that these senators supported the Iran deal. We took a look at each of these senators press releases and statements to the media. 

Senator John McCain is one of the leading opponents of the deal and has even gone so far as to call Secretary Kerry "delusional." 

Senator Lindsey Graham has made opposing the Iran deal a central part of his presidential campaign message.

Senator Hatch stated: “For decades, the Iranian regime has been dangerous in its aims and duplicitous in its quest for nuclear weapons.  Any deal that removes sanctions without robust means of ensuring the regime's disarmament and compliance with its international obligations is worse than no deal at all.  Empowered by the bipartisan Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act that we passed into law earlier this year, Congress must fully scrutinize this agreement and must not hesitate to oppose the deal if it endangers the security of the United States or our allies in the region.” He has been a major opponent of the bill.

Senator Alexander opposes the deal stating that it "does not sufficiently restrict Iran's nuclear program and makes no effort to put a brake on its other conduct as the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism." He continued,"The agreement puts some limits on Iran's nuclear program, but it also legitimizes it, thereby encouraging a nuclear arms race in the most unstable area of the world," Alexander said. "The agreement takes the pressure off Iran at a time when pressure is likely to succeed."

Senator Coats' statement on the deal explains:

"Members of Congress now have the opportunity to review the pending deal, and every member must determine what this deal buys us and at what cost. We must ignore the coming public relations campaign that will trumpet this deal as a victory for diplomacy and the false premise that the deal is a choice between peace and war."

President Obama has defended his deal by challenging critics to put forth an alternative. How about exercising American leadership and enacting more vigorous sanctions to persuade the Iranian leaders to reconsider their positions or persuade the Iranian people to reconsider their leaders?

Congress should reject this bad deal."

Senator Corker stated that “Rather than end Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, over time this deal industrializes the program of the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. ... Congress should reject this deal and send it back to the president.”

Senator Flake said he opposes the deal because “While Congress has received assurances from the administration that it does not forfeit its ability to impose sanctions on Iran for behavior on the non-nuclear side, these assurances do not square with the text of the [agreement]," 

Senator Perdue plainly stated that the senate should "reject the deal"

To put it simply, this post is flat out false on all counts. There isn't a shred of truth to the statement. If you see a friend post this meme or the above quote please feel free to refer them to this article.

Jobs Report: 5.1 Unemployment Rate Doesn't Tell the Whole Story

The monthly jobs report in the U.S. comes from the Bureau of Labor statistics'(BLS) Current Population Survey(CPS). The CPS is a survey conducted by the United States Census Bureau for the BLS. The BLS uses the data to provide a monthly report on the Employment Situation in the U.S. This report provides estimates of the number people who are employed and unemployed in the United States.

In August, the economy added an estimated 173,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.1%. This is lower than the estimated 217,000 jobs most economists had expected.Employment in health care rose by 41,000. Employment in financial activities rose by 19,000 in August.
in August. 

Though America has added jobs in recent months, this is a good reason to be optimistic. There is some concern  that the increase in jobs has not been seen as widely in the manufacturing, according to Thomas Hemphill & Mark Perry :

"In September 2012, President Obama announced a national goal to create 1 million new manufacturing positions by the end of 2016. Since that announcement, the US manufacturing sector has created payroll jobs at a rate of only 11,000 per month and fewer than 300,000 jobs in total over the last 27 months. That rate of factory job creation would generate only about 560,000 new jobs by the time Obama leaves office -- a 440,000 job shortfall compared to the president's unrealistic goal of 1 million new factory jobs by the end of next year."

"We'll be lucky if we gain 600,000 jobs by next December. Even in that case, factory employment would only return to the January 2009 level of about 12.5 million payroll jobs, which at that time was the lowest level since the late 1940s, and 7 million jobs below the 1979-peak of 19.5 million factory jobs."


27 thousand jobs in manufacturing mining and logging were lost last month, undoing all the gains from the previous month. The lack of manufacturing jobs is a concern because they provide stability and strength to the economy.

So is the 5.1% number telling us the full story? The number you see in the headlines is referred to as the U-3 number which does not include:

• People who have been out of work for more than a year
• Those in part-time positions for people who would prefer full-time employment
• People so discouraged that they’ve stopped looking for work

When we include these numbers, referred to as the U-6, the unemployment rate is nearer to 10% down from 12% last year. It is important to note that both numbers have been decreasing steadily since the beginning of the recession, and especially within the last two years. It is unclear why the news media only uses the U-3 number in their report.

The unemployment rate drop can also be attributed to fewer people being counted as out of work but instead being considered outside of the workforce. The jobs report’s survey puts the number of unemployed persons down 237,000 to 8 million. The number of people out of the workforce climbed 261,000 to a fresh record of 94 million. We currently have the lowest labor participation rate in decades.

This can be attributed though to increased retirement by the baby boom generation. The survey includes all working age adults (age 16 and up). 94 million includes all stay at home mom's, people in college, and those who are retired.

Why does the unemployment number matter so much right now? The Federal Reserve has waited for the economy to show enough strength to start increasing interest rates. Most economists believed that if August showed strong numbers in job growth that would be the signal to being increases. One concern has been wages, which have not shown much growth for the last year, but which grew 8 cents in the month of August, which is cause for optimism.

While the report may not change views that the U.S. economy remains strong, the global markets remain unsteady including significant decline in China. This instability could further complicate the Fed's decision at a policy meeting mid month.

The reason why the interest rate is so important to job growth as explained by CNN Money:

"One of the Federal Reserve’s mandates is is to maintain full employment. When unemployment rises, it can try to stimulate growth by cutting rates. The idea is that cheaper borrowing makes it easier for consumers to spend and for businesses to expand and hire new workers. The flipside is that higher interest rates and tighter money supply can make hiring less likely. That’s one of the reasons the Fed has been so hesitant to raise rates in recent years, and there’s a risk that a too-early rate hike will cut off job growth."

Overall the continued growth is a good sign for the economy and it is likely we will start to see interest rates increase in September. Most of the indicators for the U.S. economy are showing good signs.

The Fight to Defund Planned Parenthood : What's it All About?

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Yesterday, the ninth in a series of undercover Planned Parenthood sting videos was released.  The video from the Center for Medical Progress features Perrin Larton, a procurement manager for the company Advanced BioScience Resources, which works with a Planned Parenthood clinic in California and provides aborted baby tissue to researchers. Previous videos have outlined Planned Parenthood's sale of aborted baby tissue and organs, which has caused them to come under fire from many groups, politicians and celebrities.

Planned Parenthood's response to the videos has been to claim that they were faked or highly edited. They also made this statement: "The allegation that Planned Parenthood profits in any way from tissue donation is not true. Our donation programs – like any other high-quality health care providers – follow all laws and ethical guidelines. Over our 100-year history, we have continually engaged leading medical experts to shape our practices, policies, and high standards – and always will."

To be clear, federal law bans the sale of unborn babies’ body parts and organs.  In fact, it’s considered a criminal act.  However, the law provides a loophole allowing payment for a wide range of services associated with the "donation" of aborted babies organs, including “reasonable payments associated with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue.” Planned Parenthood does receive payment for these "donations" to an approximate total of $23 million per year. Because of these concerns over buying tissue of aborted babies, many conservatives are calling for Planned Parenthood to be defunded.

It is important to note that, with the exception of extreme cases, federal money cannot be used to fund abortions. Planned Parenthood however, does receive a large amount of it's funding from the federal government.

Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the U.S. They have received scrutiny in the past for some of their practices, including many undercover videos seeking to expose them for coercive abortions, failure to notify parents, and encouraging abortions over other options.

Those who defend Planned Parenthood note that the company provides many other services including contraception, STD/STI screenings, cancer screenings (not mammograms though), and other women's health services. These are the services for which they receive federal funding. According to their annual report, abortions make up approximately 3% of their yearly medical services.

That 3%, however, equaled 327,000 abortions last year. In total it is estimated that there were just over 1.05 million abortions performed in the U.S. in 2011 (the last available year). If this number has stayed even, it would mean that Planned Parenthood performed nearly one-fourth of all abortions in the U.S. last year.  In total Planned parenthood has conducted over 6 million abortions. They are the largest provider of abortions in the country.

So why do people want it defunded? If Planned Parenthood is defunded by the federal government, they would lose approximately $500 million in funding per year. Their total yearly budget is approximately $1.1 billion per year. This means over 40% of their yearly budget comes through federal funding. Opponents believe that because so much of their operating budget comes from the federal government, this means they are thereby funding abortions as well. If Planned Parenthood were not allowed to have federal funding it would deal a serious blow to the company. It is foreseeable that this could cause them to close several clinics throughout the country, thereby limiting their ability to perform as many abortions as they do.

The Senate already attempted a vote to defund Planned Parenthood which failed by a 53-46 margin. This is not the end of the debate in Congress though. The federal government is set to run out of funding September 30th, and members of Congress are threatening to stand firm on Planned Parenthood funding, with some even threatening to shut down the government in order to defund Planned Parenthood.

When talking about whether they would seek to defund Planned Parenthood as part of the debates on government funding Mitch McConnell stated, "We just don’t have the votes to get the outcome that we’d like. I would remind all of your viewers, the way you make a law in this country, the Congress has to pass it, and the president has to sign it. The president has made it very clear he is not going to sign any bill that includes defunding of Planned Parenthood, so that’s another issue that awaits a new president, hopefully with a different point of view about Planned Parenthood."

We will see over the next few months what will happen with federal funding for Planned Parenthood. For those who are pro-life, Planned Parenthood represents abortion in the U.S. This debate has been waged for decades now and has become one of the most politically charged topics in our country. No matter what decision is made concerning Planned Parenthood funding, this debate will not be over soon.

What's Wrong With the News?

About 50 years ago more than 80 companies controlled the majority of print and television media in the U.S. That number is now down to 6. These 6 mega huge corporations — News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS, and Comcast have changed the way we receive the news on a daily basis, and that isn't necessarily a good thing.

It isn't fully their fault that most people are ill informed, part of the blame lies with each of us. We have at our fingertips the ability to access nearly limitless amounts of information. Our 20 second attention spans and lack of interest in doing our own research is part of the problem. But part of the issue is the major shift we have seen from print media to online and cable TV news reporting.

Many of the old time newspapers were able to focus on subscriptions which meant quality reporting was their main focus. The more quality reporting you had, with quality writers and columnists, the more subscriptions you could sell. Advertising sales would increase with subscriptions, but the focus was on content. Reporters would dig deep to get scoops on corruption in government, and issues that were affecting the average person.

Then the internet came around and for over 7 years now print media has declined, especially subscription to newspapers. Many will only get the newspaper for coupons or shopping ads on Sunday. Other sections that were once considered must reads go into the recycling bin as boring and out of date.

Switching to online media has made many of these companies go away from traditional reporting to celebrity and click worthy news reports. Digital advertising has grown massively with these companies, as they have sought to cover the loss from print media. The focus has shifted from news and print media to online and cable news networks.

We have seen a rise in entertaining news rather than informative. The massive popularity shows like the O'Reilly Factor, the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, and Last Week Tonight are indicative of this. Trials like Jodi Arias, which were once only covered by local media now become media circuses with live coverage. 24 hour news cycle is forcing news outlets to have news out immediately as events unfold, even if reporting hasn't been completed.

Facebook and Twitter have also had their impact. Focus on social media and mobile has forced content into 140 characters or less idea, leaving readers with the base understanding, but lacking any depth in content. News media outlets like The Huffington Post, Drudge and The Blaze have taken so much of the online focus that much of news has become focused on being viral content.

Since this shift has occurred you are more likely to hear about Kanye West running for president in 2020 than possible ideas to change the tax code. With old print media, there was the opportunity to explain an issue in great depth; now it often must either have a great deal of opinion and controversy or some sort of celebrity pull for it to be front page news.

Some news outlets are focusing on specific demographics, applying themselves to the "left" or "right" in order to get more people watching their networks, or reading their articles.

There is some hope however, with focused news sites like politico and the hill, which focus much less on biased political reporting and more on facts and informing. Aggregate news sites like realclearpolitics can help you weed through some of the distractions to meaningful posts.

These changes to the way news media functions have altered the way we view our country, our government and the world in general. Citizens are less informed while having more access to news media than ever before. The news channels or stations we watch and listen to can also have a major impact on how informed we are as citizens.

As we now face a new presidential election cycle it is more important than ever that we focus on educating ourselves on the issues and candidates, having open minds and hearts, and being aware of the needs of our country. We should challenge ourselves to do better, by being wiser in what we watch, read and listen to.

The Other National Debt No One Talks About

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As we look at the state of the economy some people may be wondering,"Why, if jobs are increasing, are we not seeing other signs of improvement?" Though unemployment was down to 5.3% in July, wages only rose a few cents, and overall they have barely kept up with inflation since the beginning of the recovery.

Part of the problem may be people transitioning into new fields out of manufacturing into retail, healthcare or IT jobs; another is that people have less money after taking care of their bills to spend on the economy. One of the biggest obstacles to our economy is the massive debt burden that most Americans are carrying.

Current as of August 2015

U.S. household consumer debt profile:

• Average credit card debt: $15,706
• Average mortgage debt: $156,333
• Average student loan debt: $32,953

In total, American consumers owe:

• $11.85 trillion in debt
• An increase of 1.7% from last year
• $890.9 billion in credit card debt
• $8.17 trillion in mortgages
• $1.19 trillion in student loans
• An increase of 7.1% from last year

With student loans alone, over 11.5 percent of the $1.19 trillion owed is in default. That number is up slightly compared to the 10.9 percent default rate we saw last year around the same time.

Why is debt such a major obstacle to our economy? When people are paying hundreds of dollars in credit card and student loan payments they don't have the money to buy a new car, put a down-payment on a house or start a business.

While we currently have a national debt of $18.3 trillion which our federal government owes, the $11.85 trillion which we as Americans owe is more concerning. 60% of college seniors have credit cards leaving college, with most of them carrying a balance. This may require them to take jobs that offer a guaranteed paycheck such as in retail versus interning or doing volunteer work out of college.

Student loan debt has been increasing drastically over the last decade as the cost of attendance increases. The worse news is that it can have even longer lasting effects. A recent by Gallup showed that:

"College graduates who carry a high amount of student debt appear to face long-term challenges that stretch beyond just their finances. A new analysis of Americans who graduated college between 1990 and 2014 shows that graduates who took on the highest amounts of student debt, $50,000 or more, are less likely than their fellow graduates who did not borrow for college to be thriving in four of five elements of well-being: purpose, financial, community, and physical."

It is no wonder that individuals offering debt advice like Dave Ramsey are becoming so popular. With so many Americans carrying such a large load in debt, the burden is becoming too great. While many point to the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008, if we were to have a major crisis right now with mass layoffs it could cripple our economy for years to come. With the current amount of consumer debt there would be a major unavailability of consumer spending to pull us out of a crisis. With 70 percent of our economy reliant on consumer purchases that could be devastating. 

Fact Check: 'Illegal Alien Facts'

I've run across this picture posted on Facebook a half dozen times now, and I wanted to do a little research to fact check it's claims. Many Americans have the impression that most illegal immigrants are here just to live off our welfare system. So I wanted to check, are these "facts" true?

The first fact claims that more than 43% of all food stamps are given to illegals. According to estimates by Pew Research Center, there are currently 11.3 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., which has stabilized after decades of massive growth. According to the Department of Agriculture, 46.5 million Americans are on food stamps. Right there we can easily see that the first claim cannot possibly be true. Mathematically there aren't enough illegal immigrants in the U.S. to equal 43% of food stamp users.

On the claim that 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angelos are for illegal immigrants, several groups have fact checked this claim and found it to be only half true. Illegal immigrants are more likely to flee jurisdiction before being arrested, so warrants would remain open indefinitely but we don't have accurate statistics on what the most recent data is.

The next claim is that less than 2 percent of illegals are picking crops, but 41 percent are on welfare. Politifact found this claim to be mostly false. While only 2 percent of illegals are involved in picking crops according to a 2007 report, it is far from reasonable to even consider that as many as 41% are on welfare. Politifact continues:

"According to a 2007 report by the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors stricter immigration laws, 40 percent of illegal immigrant-headed households used any "major welfare" program in the previous calendar year.
   
But it’s important to keep two bits of context in mind:
   
• This statistic addresses households headed by an illegal immigrant. However, many of these households include American citizens within the family, often children who were born in the United States and who received citizenship at birth. Indeed, given the web of restrictions on the granting of government benefits to illegal immigrants, most of the "welfare" benefits being counted in the CIS table are going to citizen children, not to adult illegal immigrants.
   
• We suspect that when many people hear the term "welfare," they think of cash benefits. However, very little cash assistance is going to illegal immigrants. According to CIS, less than 1 percent of illegal-immigrant-headed households included anyone receiving direct government cash assistance, such as Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or state-run cash aid. This is not surprising: Illegal immigrants are generally barred from receiving such payments.
   
Instead, 27 percent of such households received coverage from Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor, while 33 percent received food assistance, such as free or reduced-price school lunches, food stamps, or benefits from the Women-Infants-Children program (WIC). As noted earlier, many of the recipients of these programs were actually citizen children of illegal immigrants."

The next claim is that 2/3 of all births in California are to illegals on Medi-Cal. This was found to be a false skewing of data which focused just on Los Angelos and included all births to hispanics.

Number five says that nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties in U.S. are illegals. Politifact found that "The closest but unverified estimate we could find for illegal occupants in HUD housing is less than 1 percent nationwide. The claim of 60 percent is ridiculously false."

Next we look at whether more than 39% of California students grades 1-12 are illegals. A Center for Immigration Studies report (2011) gives the percentage of school age “illegal and U.S. born children of illegals” in California as 14%. The math on this one just does not add up, and is rated false.

The post claims 75% of LA’s Most Wanted are illegals. According to the LA Times (to which many of these facts were first falsely attributed), the LAPD, states this is simply not true.

More than half of all gang members are illegals. This one seems to come from a 2008 study funded by the Justice Department. The Center for Immigration Studies found that 25 to 50 percent of gang members arrested in northern and western Virginia were removable, and usually illegal aliens. We simply do not have the data available to determine the validity of this claim. However since there are around 1.4 million gang members in the U.S, it seems unlikely that the claim would hold up nationwide.

US companies using illegals in 2005 profited over 2.36 trillion dollars. The total U.S. economic output in 2014 was just over 17 trillion dollars. While illegals do make up 5.1% of the U.S. labor force, it seems unlikely that they would drive that much economic growth. Legally however, companies are required to check to see if their workers are here legally.

US Taxpayers are footing the bill for ALL illegals. Currently 43% of all Americans aren't paying federal taxes, but all of us (illegals included) are paying taxes. We all pay sales tax, and if we own property we pay property tax, (even if we're renting, our landlords pay property tax). I'm sure many illegal immigrants would love to be here legally and wouldn't mind paying back taxes just to have that right.

Overall this internet meme is rated false. Some of the claims have half truths. Others were flat-out lies. If you see your friends post this meme, please refer them to this article.