Monday, May 19, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
Blogger Response #16
This Sam Stein blog is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t write emails when you are angry. The battle for the superdegates has taken an unexpected turn which started on Thursday. Apparently Clinton supporters have attained an email list of undecided Democratic super delegates. Most of these emails claim that they have received email threats that if they don’t support Clinton that the people writing the emails will vote for John McCain in November. These emails are being sent, and the tone is that if the superdelegates fall in line with Obama they are traitors to the party. The blog had an un-attributed quote from a red-state democrat. This democrat said "I have been uncommitted throughout this campaign because I wanted to see how the candidates performed in a variety of settings. I am proud of them both. But I am horrified by this effort to threaten votes for McCain if super delegates don't vote for Sen. Clinton. I have received hundreds of emails from both sides - but I can say without exception that I have not received a single email from an Obama supporter that threatened a vote for McCain if I didn't support Sen. Obama. You really ought to be ashamed.” I don’t know if it was a good idea to accept an un-attributed quote, but it really does explain the situation perfectly. So, I guess Stein agreed that the quote was too good to left unpublished even though it isn’t attributed to anybody specially.
After receiving as she said 9 emails in one day campaign manager for Al Gore in 2000 Donna Brazille sent this response to claims that she was a traitor “I believe you're ready to not only destroy Roe versus Wade, voting rights, civil liberties and civil rights. Perhaps adding trillions more to the deficits through non-stop tax cuts to the wealthy and 100 more years in Iraq. Yes, please join Rush and McCain ASAP. The train has left. Catch it."
A Texas Democrat Shirley Luther explained the idea and how she will vote for McCain if Obama is the nominee. "It was a 'spur of the moment' idea brought about by a blog (Taylor Marsh),” Sam Stein had included a link to Marsh’s blog in case anybody wanted to read what inspired these people. “Tonight several of our bloggers came up with the idea of writing the super delegates. Someone on the blog found a list of emails and posted it.... Everything I wrote is the truth about my political background. The exit polls show I am not alone in refusing to vote for Obama and opting to McCain. This probably would not be possible if there was any other Republican running. But there are a lot of moderate Democrats who do respect his service." In an update of this blog post Taylor Marsh has denied any involvement in the campaign, and said that her readers are responsible for their actions no matter who inspired them to do it.”
These people claim that voting for Obama makes them a traitor? These people are claiming to vote for McCain instead of Obama. That’s actually traitorous, and it’s no wonder why the superdelegates responded with such anger. If you want to know what these idiots wrote in their emails check out Sam Stein’s blog I will not give them the satisfaction of writing their comments on my response to the blog. It would make me too angry and I wouldn’t be able to control what I wrote about it. In another update to the blog a spokesperson for Hillary Clinton Phil Singer, has denied any official involvement with this blitzkrieg of emails that has done more damage to Clinton then it has helped her.
After receiving as she said 9 emails in one day campaign manager for Al Gore in 2000 Donna Brazille sent this response to claims that she was a traitor “I believe you're ready to not only destroy Roe versus Wade, voting rights, civil liberties and civil rights. Perhaps adding trillions more to the deficits through non-stop tax cuts to the wealthy and 100 more years in Iraq. Yes, please join Rush and McCain ASAP. The train has left. Catch it."
A Texas Democrat Shirley Luther explained the idea and how she will vote for McCain if Obama is the nominee. "It was a 'spur of the moment' idea brought about by a blog (Taylor Marsh),” Sam Stein had included a link to Marsh’s blog in case anybody wanted to read what inspired these people. “Tonight several of our bloggers came up with the idea of writing the super delegates. Someone on the blog found a list of emails and posted it.... Everything I wrote is the truth about my political background. The exit polls show I am not alone in refusing to vote for Obama and opting to McCain. This probably would not be possible if there was any other Republican running. But there are a lot of moderate Democrats who do respect his service." In an update of this blog post Taylor Marsh has denied any involvement in the campaign, and said that her readers are responsible for their actions no matter who inspired them to do it.”
These people claim that voting for Obama makes them a traitor? These people are claiming to vote for McCain instead of Obama. That’s actually traitorous, and it’s no wonder why the superdelegates responded with such anger. If you want to know what these idiots wrote in their emails check out Sam Stein’s blog I will not give them the satisfaction of writing their comments on my response to the blog. It would make me too angry and I wouldn’t be able to control what I wrote about it. In another update to the blog a spokesperson for Hillary Clinton Phil Singer, has denied any official involvement with this blitzkrieg of emails that has done more damage to Clinton then it has helped her.
Blogger Response #15
Review of Sam Stein’s May 8th 2008 Blog:
Obama Floated Idea of Voluntarily Capping Donations:
We have once again a very quote-loaded blog for my blogger response tonight. This blog is about Barack Obama and John McCain and the idea that they would use public financing in the general election.
Dave Donnelly national campaign director At Public Campaign Action Fund said “McCain opted into the public financing system in the primary and then opted out, then has slammed Obama across the country for this pledge he signed. But Obama never signed a piece of paper saying he would be punished for violating his agreement. That's what McCain has signed and he has gotten a free ride on it. The bottom line is, America needs a reformer in the White House and Obama has proven he will be a reformer by the legislation he's sponsored and his record on the issue. And McCain has clearly backtracked.”
This blog is based on news that Obama has considered using public financing. Obama gave that idea by saying “We need to separate money from political influence. It's an experiment in open source politics…One thing that I am considering, and my advisers might not like this: I may limit campaign contribution amounts per person to less than the federal limit in the general election."
The blog shows the response of many people in favor of major campaign finance reform. Joan Claybrook, president of the good-government group Public Citizen said “"I still believe Obama ought to lead the way and take public funding for these elections… What he is saying here is that he is going to do something to try and walk down the middle. But it is not really walking down the middle. In the general, you either take it or you don't take it."
Obama has said that he would follow up on his promise if and only if John McCain agrees to adhere to his promise as well. As the quote above says John McCain has already cancelled a contract for public funding, so I doubt he will agree to it now. Obama spoke on how great a presidential election would be if everybody had access to the same amount of public funded cash. Obama said public finance “takes power away from PACs, from lobbyists. It takes power away also from institutional players. Endorsements from a governor might not mean as much as it once did. Endorsements from some of the traditional institutional players, even those that are part of the Democratic Party, may not mean as much. That is actually a healthy thing."
Sam Stein also found somebody who does not agree that Obama’s system would be a better one then the one we currently have. Josh Israel senior researcher for the Center for Public Integrity's Buying of the President said that public finance in Obama’s system would basically make the people of America a special interest group. Israel goes on to say that public finance was established to level the playing field in the election. A popular candidate would be able to get more citizens to pay for his election, and therefore would destroy the playing field. Though he is technically correct I completely disagree with Israel. The whole point of an election is to get people involved and get people to the polling booths. What gets people more involved then investing? Do you care how good the stock of Yahoo! does? The answer to that question should be only if you own stock in Yahoo!. Voters would be more likely to vote for somebody if they have an interest in him or her. A person who is popular would have a better playing field? Isn’t that the whole point? Yes, it is the point. Nobody’s special interest means more then the interests of the American people. If the American people are a special interest group then they should be the only one allowed to the party with the poorly cooked chicken.
Obama Floated Idea of Voluntarily Capping Donations:
We have once again a very quote-loaded blog for my blogger response tonight. This blog is about Barack Obama and John McCain and the idea that they would use public financing in the general election.
Dave Donnelly national campaign director At Public Campaign Action Fund said “McCain opted into the public financing system in the primary and then opted out, then has slammed Obama across the country for this pledge he signed. But Obama never signed a piece of paper saying he would be punished for violating his agreement. That's what McCain has signed and he has gotten a free ride on it. The bottom line is, America needs a reformer in the White House and Obama has proven he will be a reformer by the legislation he's sponsored and his record on the issue. And McCain has clearly backtracked.”
This blog is based on news that Obama has considered using public financing. Obama gave that idea by saying “We need to separate money from political influence. It's an experiment in open source politics…One thing that I am considering, and my advisers might not like this: I may limit campaign contribution amounts per person to less than the federal limit in the general election."
The blog shows the response of many people in favor of major campaign finance reform. Joan Claybrook, president of the good-government group Public Citizen said “"I still believe Obama ought to lead the way and take public funding for these elections… What he is saying here is that he is going to do something to try and walk down the middle. But it is not really walking down the middle. In the general, you either take it or you don't take it."
Obama has said that he would follow up on his promise if and only if John McCain agrees to adhere to his promise as well. As the quote above says John McCain has already cancelled a contract for public funding, so I doubt he will agree to it now. Obama spoke on how great a presidential election would be if everybody had access to the same amount of public funded cash. Obama said public finance “takes power away from PACs, from lobbyists. It takes power away also from institutional players. Endorsements from a governor might not mean as much as it once did. Endorsements from some of the traditional institutional players, even those that are part of the Democratic Party, may not mean as much. That is actually a healthy thing."
Sam Stein also found somebody who does not agree that Obama’s system would be a better one then the one we currently have. Josh Israel senior researcher for the Center for Public Integrity's Buying of the President said that public finance in Obama’s system would basically make the people of America a special interest group. Israel goes on to say that public finance was established to level the playing field in the election. A popular candidate would be able to get more citizens to pay for his election, and therefore would destroy the playing field. Though he is technically correct I completely disagree with Israel. The whole point of an election is to get people involved and get people to the polling booths. What gets people more involved then investing? Do you care how good the stock of Yahoo! does? The answer to that question should be only if you own stock in Yahoo!. Voters would be more likely to vote for somebody if they have an interest in him or her. A person who is popular would have a better playing field? Isn’t that the whole point? Yes, it is the point. Nobody’s special interest means more then the interests of the American people. If the American people are a special interest group then they should be the only one allowed to the party with the poorly cooked chicken.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Blogger Response #14
A former host of the People’s Court thinks that Barack Obama is a loser. No, it’s not Judge Wapner it is Ed Koch a former mayor of the city of New York. Koch is a supporter of Hillary Clinton who believes that Obama will lose the general election in November. Koch believes that the super delegates should be used to give the election to Hilary Clinton. Koch believes that Clinton had the better chance of winning the general election in November against John McCain. Koch said “The reason the superdelgates are there is to select the person who is most likely to prevail…in all probability the super delegates will be afraid to exercise their own judgment and will simply go along with the count of delegates that were chosen in the polls.” This is news to me; I didn’t know we were polling for the Democratic nominee. I was under the impression that we were actually doing a little thing I like to call voting. Koch is suggesting that the people of the United States of America don’t deserve to have their voice heard. Koch is also suggesting that Obama doesn’t have a chance to beat McCain. I disagree, and so do the polls. I actually mean polls in the real meaning of the word, and not the fake definition that the former mayor of New York is using.
Koch takes Obama to task for the whole Rev. Wright debacle, and calls him a loser for not standing up and walking out on the preachers sermons years ago. Koch explained this by saying “"I'm absolutely surprised because I think that all the things that Wright says -- and nobody believes that Obama supports those statements -- but he didn't have the courage to stand up and object for twenty years. If you are running for president, you can't be like some other poor guy in the pews who is afraid to stand up or even say something privately to the minister. You're the guy who wants to lead the country and you have to have courage to stand up and lead your own pastor. He did not exhibit that. But the fact that the Democratic constituency doesn't seem to care is a shock to me, but I'm certain that the overall constituency voting in November will care and that it will make the difference in the adverse way to his candidacy.”
Koch also believes that Obama not walking out of Wright 20 years ago will cost him the election. Koch goes on to say “I believe that the vast majority of voters will look at all of these allegations, which nobody disputes, as related to Wright and his comments, and that they will have an enormous impact on the vote and on those Independents and others who will make a decision in the general election. I just think he is a loser because of that." I think being a fake judge on the People’s Court makes somebody a loser, but that’s just my opinion.
Koch takes Obama to task for the whole Rev. Wright debacle, and calls him a loser for not standing up and walking out on the preachers sermons years ago. Koch explained this by saying “"I'm absolutely surprised because I think that all the things that Wright says -- and nobody believes that Obama supports those statements -- but he didn't have the courage to stand up and object for twenty years. If you are running for president, you can't be like some other poor guy in the pews who is afraid to stand up or even say something privately to the minister. You're the guy who wants to lead the country and you have to have courage to stand up and lead your own pastor. He did not exhibit that. But the fact that the Democratic constituency doesn't seem to care is a shock to me, but I'm certain that the overall constituency voting in November will care and that it will make the difference in the adverse way to his candidacy.”
Koch also believes that Obama not walking out of Wright 20 years ago will cost him the election. Koch goes on to say “I believe that the vast majority of voters will look at all of these allegations, which nobody disputes, as related to Wright and his comments, and that they will have an enormous impact on the vote and on those Independents and others who will make a decision in the general election. I just think he is a loser because of that." I think being a fake judge on the People’s Court makes somebody a loser, but that’s just my opinion.
U-Mass Celebrates First-Ever Founders Day
Team Credits:
-Video Credit: Ryan Damon.
-Audio Slideshow: Jon Brandt.
-Photographer/Article Writer: Daniella Bordonora.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Blogger Response #13
This latest Sam Stein blog was posted at 12:19 am on May 7th 2008. I have started to write this response at 1:55 am on the same evening. This shows to me something very clear: that multimedia journalism has an immediacy to it that can’t be found in other forms of journalism. The printing presses have long started in the normal print world, and probably won’t have complete coverage of the results of tonight’s primaries. This blog has a lot to do with the election, but not what is normally covered anymore: John McCain.
McCain's Rough Night Overshadowed By Clinton's:
McCain, according to the numbers has a quite a problem on his hands. McCain has only one opponent who is still technically in the race and that is Ron Paul. The election results show McCain with what would have been a large victory had the race been fully contested. These numbers should be much larger then they are since nobody of note is still in the race. According to the data, in North Carolina there are 105,000 who voted in the uncontested primary for somebody other than McCain. In Indiana, the number of people who voted for a candidate other than McCain is 85,000. These numbers are also shown in the race last week in Pennsylvania where McCain got 73 percent of the vote compared to Paul’s 17 and Huckabee’s 11. The title of the blog says it all “McCain’s Rough Night Overshadowed by Clinton’s.”
The blog barley mentions the Democratic Race because the results were not fully processed by the time the blog was posted. I will update this blog with newer information on the Democratic race when or if Stein updates his blog. The results from last night and early this morning are not exactly good for Clinton. Clinton did win in Indiana, but apparently will only gain about four delegates in the effort. Obama on the other hand gained eight delegates his North Carolina victory. Obama has a net gain of four delegates in tonight’s primaries. In last weeks primary in Pennsylvania Clinton had a net gain of 12 delegates. Since, the primaries had started back up last week Clinton had gained 8 delegates. It seems that time is running out for Clinton’s campaign. On a related note CNN.com has a new feature that is really interesting to this news story. They have a new interactive delegate count tracker, which allows you to predict how the final primaries will go. You plug in the percentages of how you think the vote will go and the computer calculates how much delegates would be won. On the bottom of the interactive module is a bar that is the super delegate counter. You can also slide that around to predict how the super delegates will vote if indeed their vote will be allowed to sway the primary one way or another. DNC chairman Dr. Howard Dean has said that it would be a disaster for the party if the super delegates were allowed to choose the winner, so I don’t think that will happen. You can reach this Democratic delegate counter here.
Blogger Responces #11 and #12: Clinton Gas Holiday Plan
Just like my last post I have two articles from Sam Stein’s blog that correspond with each other. Both of these blogs are based on Hilary Clinton’s idea for a Gas Tax Holiday sometime during the summer. Sam Stein’s blog seems to have created news itself, as one entry got a response from the Clinton Camp.
Expert Support for Gas Tax Holiday Appears Nonexistent:
Hilary Clinton and John McCain have come forth with a plan to have a Gas Tax Holiday sometime during the summer. This blog is a response to a futile attempt by Sam Stein to find experts who agree with this idea. This blog contains a great deal of quotes from political, economically and environmental experts who seem to all agree that the tax idea is not the correct answer to our gas problems.
Tom Friedman from the New York Times said that Clinton “has now joined John McCain in proposing the most irresponsible policy idea of the year – an idea that could actually aid the terrorists.” In response to these quotes Stein attempted to get a response from Howard Wolfson, a Clinton adviser. They were not able to get a statement from Wolfson, but there was a response the next day which became another blog story.
Jerry Taylor from the Cato institute called the idea a holiday from reality and that the gas prices would not fall. Taylor said “service stations would just continue to charge what they are charging.” So, that would mean the profits would be very high for the oil companies and it would be tax free. Max Schulz called it “bad policy and political gimmicks.” Schulz continued “I have never seen the wisdom in playing gimmicks with the tax code.” This quote also reminds me of Tax Free days in Massachusetts which suspend the states 5 percent sales tax usually in August.
Environmentally Robert Shapiro commented that this tax would lower the cost of substances that raise greenhouse gases. So, the experts agree that the cost overweigh the benefit. The only question is how the Clinton camp will respond to the charge that this plan is a waste of time and money and potentially dangerous to the environment.
Clinton Camp Defends Gas Plan: She Doesn’t Have to Listen to Experts:
The next day the response from the Clinton Camp that Sam Stein wanted actually happened. This might not have been an actual response to the blog, but it might be because Stein commented that he attempted to get a statement from Wolfson. Wolfson said in a conference call that "Senator Clinton realizes there is a problem for consumers that requires both a short term and long term set of solutions. In the short term, she has laid out a plan to suspend the tax and have those resources or revenues paid by oil companies as well. In the long term, she has the boldest and most comprehensive plan that will increase fuel efficiency standards... help lawmakers retool their production facilities.”
Wolfson did not give a definitive answer whether or not Clinton would leave the campaign trail to push this legislation. Wolfson also responded to the critics of the tax plan by saying “we believe the presidency need leadership.” Basically Wolfson was saying that the president was the “decider” and would do whatever they want whether or not the experts agree with it or not.
Also, the blog has a piece of commodity news from 2000 showing that Clinton was not in favor of a Gas Tax Day while running for her senate seat. Clinton called a tax free day “a bad deal for New York and a potential bonanza for the oil companies.” Clinton experts were quick to these potential flip-flop allegations by saying that her tax plan will be paid for by the oil companies. Clinton advisers note that the 2000 republican plan would have been paid for by using a highway trust fund. This idea of a highway trust fund was also noted in the first blog with Stein commenting that no trust funds would be used in the plan after he got a response about these funds by the American Trucking Association which said the “ATA appreciates the effort and supports the proposals. But we do have concerns that any fuel tax suspension proposal could damage the already ailing Highway Trust Fund. To the extent that McCain and Snowe's proposals use general revenue funds to offset the hit to the trust fund, that concern is addressed. ATA did not ask for this legislation. And we believe it is only a very short term answer that does not do anything to address the longer term issue of rising fuel prices. ATA recognizes that rising fuel costs have a disproportionate impact on small trucking companies where even a small savings can be the difference in their staying in business.”
In regards that the plan would be a waste of time and money Clinton adviser Geoff Garin disagreed. Garin said that “our calculation is that the average driver would save 70 dollars.” With upcoming votes in blue-collar states such as Indiana, could this idea sway the vote? As George W. Bush has proved these states love getting extra money no matter who pays for it in the end. This Tax Break idea reeks of republican politics, and how will that help Clinton during a democratic election? I don’t think it will help that much and it could do a great deal of damage.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Blogger Response #9 and #10
McCain strongly rejected long-term Iraq presence “Bring them all home”:
This is a Sam Stein blog from April 28th 2008, and it has a video piece from MSNBC. The blog and the video show the differences between Sen. John McCain the senator in 2005 and Republican Candidate McCain in 2008. MSNBC’s video had the headline “McCain’s Iraq Flip-Flop?” On Hardball with Chris Matthews in 2005 McCain said “as soon as we can reduce our visibility as much as possible, the better I think it is going to be.” Matthews was asked if Iraq would be a good place for a permanent military installation like there is in South Korea.
Now in 2008 McCain has changed his mind as has been widely shown in the news that he feels we could be in Iraq for 100 years and beyond. McCain now believes that the Korea model is exactly the right model for our troop deployment. The blog has been updated with a response from somebody in McCain’s camp Marc Ambinder, who says “the full context of the interview he gave in 2005 suggests that he modeled a long-term U.S. commitment to Iraq on South Korea, albeit with a big difference: a major corps would not necessarily have to embed itself in the country.” Also Ambinder suggests that the military advisers in the speech are actually solders just not called soldiers.
Clinton in 05 ‘I agree with McCain on long term-Iraq presence:
This is a Sam Stein blog from May 5th 2008 which directly relates to the McCain blog from a couple of days ago. In 2005, Hillary Clinton agreed with John McCain that Iraq military presence should be modeled after the US military presence in South Korea. This is the same thing that John McCain said on Hardball with Chris Matthews which was the story from last week’s blog. Clinton said “we’ve been in South Korea for 50-plus years. We’ve been in Europe 50-plus years. We’re still in Okinawa with respect to protection there coming out of World War II.
These quotes came back to the public eye this past Sunday which makes it similar to the Reverend Wright speech. This is old news that is coming back to the fold which is in news terms is called commodity. The old news becomes today’s headlines, and everything old is new again. Clinton continued “We don’t want to send a signal to the insurgents, to the terrorist that we are going to be out of here at some, you know, date certain… We want to send a message of solidarity.” The blog tried to explain why exactly Clinton would say the things that she did. One thing that Sam Stein noted that the interview was Clinton had just traveled to Iraq and saw their first democratic elections. This would put her in good spirits as she just saw a big success in Iraq.. Stein noted that everybody except war critics believe that this was a turning point in the mission. Clinton now believes that we should get out of Iraq by sending a few brigades home every month for 16 months. The blog has links to a CNN article in which Clinton said that she was the only candidate who would or could end the war. The blog also has a statement from Barack Obama who says that he is the true war-ending candidate.
The only thing that would have made this blog better was the video from the Meet the Press interview. The other blog had a video from Hardball, and that made it better overall. I think most people will believe a video or audio piece better then something that is written. It would have been better to see or hear Clinton in her own words. The interview from Meet the Press is the news, and it should have been the focal point. An embedded video would have made that point clear, and it was a missed opportunity.
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