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ICYMI

The Oklahoman Editorial Board still loves hypocrisy…

1:50 PM EDT on July 21, 2014

picard facepalm

Over the weekend, The Oklahoman issued an editorial that was probably written by Janet Barresi's best friend's husband regarding charter schools, education savings accounts, taxpayer scholarships and other programs that I really don't care all that much about.

In the piece, "The State's Most Trusted News" complained that polling data show Oklahoman voters want these educational programs implemented across the state, but state lawmakers are not doing anything about it and apparently that's something to be mad about.

Here's a snippet:

Oklahoma lawmakers run counter to constitutents'[sic] wishes

Many Republican lawmakers in the 2014 legislative session opposed efforts to increase educational opportunities for students. In doing so, those lawmakers voted against the wishes of their constituents.

A new poll of Oklahoma Republican primary voters, commissioned by the Oklahoma Federation for Children, shows overwhelming support for education savings accounts (ESAs), charter schools in rural communities, taxpayer scholarships for children with special needs to attend private schools, and tax breaks supporting scholarship programs that help needy children attend private schools.

I'll admit it. Half the reason I'm writing this is so I can include a [sic] in Oklahoman editorial headline. I don't know what a "constitutent" is, but I assume most of them probably voted for Janet Barresi.

Here are the poll results. They really make you question The Oklahoman's constancy when it comes to dealing with polling data.

According to latest SoonerPoll results, Oklahomans are ready to consider marijuana for medicinal purposes and decriminalization. The poll had support for medical marijuana at 71% and support for decriminalization at 57%. The poll did not ask about legalization.

When considering arrest for a marijuana offense, nearly two-thirds of respondents (64%) said they should be treated instead of jailed. Under current Oklahoma law, possession of any amount can earn one up to a year in jail for a first offense and from two to 10 years for a second offense. Marijuana sales—of any amount—can earn a sentence of up to life in prison.

The state’s largest cities were the most in support. In metro Oklahoma City and Tulsa, support for medical marijuana was higher than 75%, and support for decriminalization was at 67% in Tulsa and at 63% in Oklahoma City.

Even Oklahoma’s notoriously conservative Republicans are ready for change. Support for decriminalization came from 53% of Republicans interviewed, lower than the 60% of Democrats and 65% of independents, but still surprising.

Oops. That's actually a 2013 Sooner Poll report that shows an overwhelming majority of Oklahomans, including 51% of Republicans, support the legalization of medicinal marijuana. Apparently those polling numbers didn't matter to The Oklahoman Editorial Board. Instead of criticizing our incompetent state legislature for ignoring "the wishes of their constituents," they issued a snide editorial against legalization for legitimate medical use.

Here's the polling data on the education stuff:

Strong support for raising minimum wage

States are doing it. Some major cities are doing it. And now a majority of Americans are hoping Congress will do it.

CNNmoney's American Dream Poll found that 71% of people surveyed favor a hike in the federal minimum wage.

The majority was strongly represented by both men and women. There was stronger support among Democrats -- 90% of those polled said they supported an increase. But 54% of Republicans also agreed that the minimum wage should be raised.

The federal minimum is currently set at $7.25 an hour. With some exceptions, employers must pay workers at least that amount or whatever the minimum wage is in their state or city if it's higher.

Sorry. I did it again. That's a national CNN poll showing strong support throughout the country to raise the minimum wage. Yeah, it's not Oklahoma specific, but since an overwhelming majority of US citizens think it should be raised, The Oklahoman should criticize the Republican lawmakers in Washington from preventing it from being raised, right???

Wrong.

From a June 24th editorial:

Minimum wage warriors ignore reality

OBAMA administration officials and congressional Democrats have renewed their call to increase the federal minimum wage, visiting businesses that pay above the wage floor for entry-level work. Yet those examples don’t prove the need for a higher federal minimum wage. They actually prove that such laws are unnecessary...

Yes, minimum wage laws are unnecessary. If history has taught us anything, it's that corporations want what's best for low wage laborers. Hell, let's get rid of all labor laws because corporations are fair and honest. Just ask all the journalists who work for The Oklahoman.

To make the anti-minimum wage editorial even better, The Oklahoman actually includes polling numbers from the same CNN Money poll to help prove what I think is some sort of argument:

What President Obama and other liberals refuse to acknowledge is that minimum wage jobs aren’t designed to support a family. They’re overwhelmingly stepping-stone jobs that allow people to enter the labor market, obtain skills and then move on to better-paying jobs. Minimum wage laws can eliminate or reduce access to starter jobs, preventing unskilled workers from climbing up the economic ladder.

A recent poll by CNNMoney found that 63 percent of adults age 18 to 34 now believe the American dream is unattainable. To the degree that this view has a basis in reality, it’s because minimum wage laws and similar government policies are blocking access to economic opportunity and self-improvement.

So... In an editorial about the minimum wage, The Oklahoman ignores the CNN Money poll result that 71% of people want to see the minimum wage raised, but they include a figure from the same poll that shows 63-percent of millennials think the American Dream is dead? Is that a hypocritical double standard? Yes. Is it something we should expect from The Oklahoman Editorial page? Absolutely.

Of course, I guess you can't blame them. We're all hypocritical from time to time. It's probably a bit hypocritical for me to call Oklahoman photographer Chris Landsberger a pervert when I'm also a pervert. I even made fun of The Oklahoman for having one typo in a headline when we have one typo in every other sentence. We're also all guilty of double standards. For example, it's totally fine for a girl to stare at my chest on an elevator, but if I look at hers and try to take a picture with my iPhone I'm suddenly a pervert.

If you really want your mind blown with The Oklahoman's hypocritical manipulation of statistics, check out this editorial about global warming from July 7th:

President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats keep using “climate change” scaremongering to justify intrusive, economically destructive regulatory policies. Yet the public remains resistant to alarmist environmental hyperbole.

New national polling by the Pew Research Center finds a substantial majority of citizens don’t buy environmental doomsday prophesies. The poll found that 17 percent of citizens believe there is “no solid evidence of warming” because it is “just not happening.” Another 17 percent feel there is no solid evidence because we “don’t know enough yet.” And another 18 percent believe warming is underway, but attribute it to “natural patterns.”

Those three groups account for 52 percent of the public, showing broad skepticism about man-made global warming. In comparison, just 40 percent of respondents believed warming is occurring because of “human activity.”

40% of the people surveyed in a Pew Research poll think global warming is occurring because of "human activity," substantially more than the other available polling options, yet The Oklahoman somehow twists the results into something that shows "broad skepticism" towards global warming. In addition to that, they fail to mention that a) 97% of scientists – you know, people who study this stuff – believe global warming is happening and b) only 40% of the American public has college degrees, so who really cares what the general public thinks about a global warming?

Anyway, what were we originally talking about again? I think it had to do with education or something. It doesn't really matter, only 40% of TLO readers actually care about that topic. 17% feel education is boring, another 17% only like education when it comes to hot college girls, and the 18% are constituents. Basically, there's a lot of broad skepticism.

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