Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including whether Vice President Joe Biden will join the 2016 presidential race, whether Hillary Clinton has stumbled as a frontrunner and why Sen. Bernie Sanders still seems like a long shot despite drawing huge crowds.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/shields-brooks-bidens-presidential-pondering-voter-perceptions-clinton/

Two Candidates Surge in 2016 Polling–but ...

The two big surprises of the 2016 presidential race so far are Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Two dark horse candidates opposed by party insiders, each began a substantial surge in campaign polls around the beginning of July. In Real Clear Politics‘ average of polls, Sanders has gone from 12.7 percent to 25.0 percent since July 1, while Trump has gone from 6 percent to 22 percent.
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We used the Nexis database to see how often various news outlets had mentioned Sanders and Trump since July 1. The biggest gap we found was in the medium that reaches the most voters: broadcast network TV. On average, ABC, CBS and NBC named Sanders in their news stories 17 percent as often as they named Trump–roughly one story that included the senator for every six with the developer.
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Leading newspapers–the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, LA Times and USA Today–ran three times as many Trump stories as Sanders stories: Sanders was mentioned 34 percent as often as Trump in these papers. (The Journal‘s articles are available as abstracts, not full text, on Nexis.) The New York Times had the highest ratio of Sanders to Trump mentions, at 49 percent; the Journal had the lowest, with 22 percent.
All the cable news channels talked about Trump more often than Sanders–even MSNBC, which often caters to a progressive audience. MSNBC did come closest to parity of any outlet we looked at, however, with 67 percent as many Sanders as Trump stories. Fox News also had relatively frequent references to Sanders, 53 percent as many as its Trump references. CNN was the most Trump-heavy of the cable networks, mentioning Sanders only 33 percent as often. Overall, cable news referred to Sanders an average of 51 percent as often as Trump.
Public broadcasting didn’t pay more attention to Sanders than did for-profit cable. On NPR, Sanders came up 39 percent as often as Trump on NPR, and 56 percent as frequently on PBS NewsHour–averaging to 48 percent.

On average, the 13 outlets we surveyed had 36 percent as many references to Sanders as to Trump. While these candidates are backed by roughly as many voters in their own parties, among the general public Sanders is far more popular; in recent polls, 59 percent express a negative opinion of Trump, with about half as many liking him, whereas Sanders is one of the rare politicians who is viewed more often favorably than unfavorably. On the rare occasions when pollsters match up Republican hopefuls with anyone besides Clinton, Sanders trumps Trump.
So why should news outlets think voters need to hear about Trump about three times as often as they hear about Sanders?

http://fair.org/home/two-candidates-surge-in-2016-polling-but-only-trump-not-sanders-fascinates-media/

Facebook data obtained by the Daily News shows that more than twice as many people were talking about Sanders last week on the social media platform than in the week before, and that the overall conversation about him nearly tripled in the same time, from 5.5 million unique interactions the week ending Aug. 5 to 14.4 million in the week ending Aug. 12.
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Google Trends reveals a similar rise:

“More people have been searching about Sanders than Clinton since mid-June, partly because he’s more of an unknown so more are looking for basic information. But searches of his name spiked starting last Saturday, during a string of huge rallies he held on the West Coast that drew from 8,000 to 28,000 people, and a Black Lives Matter protest that interrupted his Seattle event. He even overtook Donald Trump in total Google searches last Monday.”

As I speak to my fellow citizens about Bernie Sanders, I keep having people tell me versions of “I hate socialism” and refusing further discussion.
If you dislike socialism, please quit driving your Freedom car on our Socialist public roads and disconnect your Liberty toilet from our Communist sewage systems. Also remove your mailbox and quit using our Socialist Postal Service, established by renowned commie Ben Franklin and also stay out of our Liberal Library.
On the other hand if you’re willing and able to distinguish between a political ideology and an economic system, a few minutes study will prove Bernie Sanders would be the best thing for America since women got the vote.
True, it will take a political revolution for him to win, but isn’t it time for one? Remember, Liberal and Liberty both have the same root. The very idea of America was the most Liberal invention of the past 1,960 some-odd years. Ignore labels and listen to ideas, then vote, and take a friend who hasn’t voted before.
—Bob Petersen, Evergreen

I’m a Republican. I’m a feminist. I’m an anti-racist activist. I support marriage equality. I support social programs. I’m voting for Bernie Sanders. Maybe Democrats should listen up and start reaching out to the Rockefeller Republicans that actually left the party. They call themselves Independents today and make up 41% of registered voters.
I’m a Republican.
Just because morons in the GOP have clung to the Tea Party and the theocratic fascists of the fringe right doesn’t mean that I do. I admire and look up to a long history of Republicans who believed in compassionate conservatism.

http://reverbpress.com/politics/a-rockefeller-republicans-call-to-action/