COMM 4020 Political Communication blog

Election Ballot

2010-12-06T17:18:00.000-08:00

Check the line for the candidate for whom you would like to vote.

_____ Abel, Mark

_____ Coy, Justin

_____ Honeycutt, Chad

_____ Perrin, Kate

Poll: Obama eight point advantage over Palin in '12 matchup

2010-11-29T21:47:00.000-08:00

In this particular article, Poll: Obama eight point advantage over Palin in '12 matchup reminds me of the lesser of two evils debate. Obama may be up by eight points beating Sarah Palin leading up to the 2012 election, but he isn't exactly favored the way it looks. After an Associated Press-GfK survey was processed, results indicated that 54% of the people did not think that Obama deserves to run or become elected in this upcoming election in 2012. The fact that Sarah Palin's character has not proven to be the best in the past, she isn't favored so much either. The fact that she blamed the school for her daughter's action of calling a student a "faggot over Facebook makes her look even worse. Although I have my own opinion of whether Obama or Palin deserve to run for office next term, it seems as though the people who took the surveys have no choice but to vote between "the lesser of two evils."

Sarah Palin: Blaming and avoiding responsibility.

2010-11-29T20:32:00.000-08:00

Sarah Palin wastes no time making it on the news once again. Only this time, her daughter Willow is the top story. So what’s the hype? Willow, age 16, called a schoolmate an inappropriate derogative term for a homosexual, “faggot”. I could go on and talk about how the media waste time into politicians lives with senseless stories about name-calling as in this example, however, I’m going to take a different route and join the band wagon by picking on Mrs. Palin mostly because of her response to this situation. What was Mrs. Palin’s response to the immaturity of her 16 year old daughter? By becoming even more immature. Sarah Palin responded to her daughter’s actions by pointing the finger and blaming the schoolmate as well as the media for causing her daughter to cognitively process an inappropriate label on a select group of already targeted individuals for hate crimes and reiterating that in writing through Facebook. It would be one thing to apologize for her daughter’s actions, which would have been in her favor by making her seem mature and responsible for other’s actions, but instead she blamed and denied any responsibility for her daughter’s actions. It should be a given that if you are a politician, with a well-known face at that, you should always take responsibility even in the small things and learn how to say sorry. Ok maybe I am being a little too hard on Mrs. Palin, she does have the media constantly watching her and her families every-move, but, name-calling on a social network and against a controversial group of people and not apologizing, what is she thinking?
Goodnight!
-Damian
http://www.queerty.com/sarah-palin-has-no-problem-with-daughter-willow-calling-facebook-kids-faggots-20101128/

Senate Action on Food Safety Bill Delayed until Tuesday

2010-11-29T20:31:00.000-08:00

The article that I chose to blog about this week is titled "Senate Actions on Food Safety Bill Delayed until Tuesday". This article is about Senate leader Harry Reid announcing that two amendments, the Coburn earmark ban and the Coburn subsitute that pays for food safety, as well as the final passage of the food safety legislation will start Tuesday. It states that the two amendments are neither expected to receive enough votes to pass and the food safety legislation is expected to pass without much difficulty. The article then provides some of the regulations that will become law if the bill passes. However at the end of the article it presents some criticism that Senator Tom Coburn states which is that the bill amounts to regulatory overreach. Some other criticism is that the recently-added language exempts small farmers and food facilities with less than $500,000 in annual sales that directly market to consumers within a 275-mile area. I feel that these people critising this legilation are making evaluative claims on whether it is a good idea to pass the bill or not and to possibly influence a shared belief. Although it is not a public vote these views could get House voters thinking of whether to pass it or not and make changes to the regulations. http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/11/29/senate-action-food-safety-bill-delayed-until-tuesday

Unemployment Benefits Extension Deadline Is Here: Will Congress Act?

2010-11-29T20:13:00.000-08:00

In the article, "Unemployment Benefits Extension Deadline is Here: Will Congress Act" by David Knowles, found on AOL.com proposes the question, will Congress pass the law allowing an extension of unemployment benefits for people who have been out of jail for six months or longer. Benefits are going to expire on Tuesday at midnight unless Congress steps in and approves another extension. According to the article, "Blocked in large part by the Republicans, the U.S. House of Representatives failed to muster enough votes on Nov. 18th to pass a three-month extension of benefits. Now, Congress has just one more day to do so before the current extension expires and more than 2 million Americans find themselves without weekly checks for the federal government" (Knowles). This article starts out by immediately telling viewers that the Republican Party is not for the extension and therefore is not looking out for the struggling lower class population of 2 million Americans. The author really stresses that point. To the attentive public, who are in favor of the Democratic Party would probably be pleased to see this. The author also reaches out to the inattentive public by stirring up conflict by making the Republican Party look bad while making the Democratic Party look good. "Democratic Representative Dale Kildee says he expects Congress to pass the new extension Tuesday" showing the public through this article that the Democratic is confident in their fight for the extension for benefits for the struggling unemployed Americans.

http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/unemployment-benefits-extension-deadline-arrives-will-congress-act/19737197

a plague of bail-outs?

2010-11-29T19:51:00.000-08:00

maybe i'm just naive--but before I heard the term "bailout" used for an entire country was when Obama was speaking about the plan he had for the United States of America and our bailout. Then i read about the bailout that is supposed to take place for Ireland. So...I scratch my head in wonder that if this bailout will also be spent on giving rich people better benefit packages and affording them more paid days off than they already have had. The thought of what is supposed to be economically wise choices benefiting only the wealthy makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. Would it be too obvious to divide this bail out somehow among all the Irish residents? Is that too much common sense or "socialism"? In countries where the poor continue to slip into poverty, isn't it important to give them a helping hand in order to help them come out of these financially dark places? Or will it be more important for Ireland to make sure their top government officials are feed well? In the article it speaks of "...protests were organized by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), which has called the four-year plan for spending cuts and tax hikes "savage and regressive."" Which makes me hopefully that the poor will not stand buy idolly so that they are taxed even more, but totally unable to rep any of the benefits of the bailout that appears that it will cost them even more money through raising taxes.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/11/28/ireland.bailout/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Bush and his book and stuff

2010-11-29T17:37:00.000-08:00

Former President George W. Bush is still a big figure in the media these days, and he is very busy. He has a new book coming out called decision points, and his first stop on his tour will be at the Faceboook headquarters in Palo Alto, California. He is also has been on Oprah, the today show and the tonight show. My question that I would like to raise is how he is able to get so much positive attention these days, but when he was in office he was seen as a goofball. Now that he has left office it seems like people like him more, they seem to have forgotten about all the dumb things he did while he was in office for 8 years. Now that he has a book coming out that explains what went down in the white I feel it would be interesting to read and see what he has to say about his time in the White house. I think that he really wants the American people to show him sympathy, we as an audience are very unforgiving.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/11/29/bush.facebook.live.mashable/index.html

Wikileaks, Facebook, Bush and his Book

2010-11-29T17:28:00.001-08:00

More free media for former President Bush today as he promotes his book to a forum at the Facebook headquarters. He is still promoting his memoir “Decision Points” that came out a few weeks ago. The book has been on the top of the New York Best Sellers and has sold quite a few copies. President Bush claims he is trying to stay out of the political spot light and just wants to make money selling his book. This is interesting to me because he appears more interested in getting people to read his book to see why he made the decisions he did, maybe repairing his ethos or credibility, rather than making money which I’m sure he already has a lot of already. At the Facebook forum, President Bush discussed the resent events regarding Wikileak’s release of classified information that Bush said would “hurt foreign relations”. I found it interesting that he would take a minute to comment on recent events in terms of politics even though he has repeatedly said he would not. Although his input into recent events was brief he made it very clear the point of his appearance was to promote and sell his book. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook was there also and discussion on him and President Bush donating money to help education was discussed.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/29/bush.facebook/index.html

2012 Election hasn’t started…yet…

2010-11-29T17:01:00.000-08:00

And the 2012 Republican Presidential Nominee is…Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? As I read the article “No rush to jump into the 2012 race for White House” I was reminded of Ben Stein looking for answers that no one had and surprisingly we’ve barely heard a whisper from an actual candidate (outside media hooplah over Sarah Palin) about whether or not they’d be running in 2012. The article offers an interesting point of view as to why that is: The 2010 Midterm elections exhausted the political audience. This particular midterm election has been talked about…well since the 2008 Presidential Election concluded and it has completely eliminated any interest from either the attentive and inattentive audiences because we are just sick and tired of it. There are some front runners in the Republican party but none of them are stepping up in the campaign arena as of yet this is becoming beneficial to the secondary candidates who don’t have as much money. This article targets the attentive audience because most people in the inattentive audience wont or even really care if the article hadn’t come out. Since this next election is proving to be another blockbuster its good that we will have a few months to wait before we are bombarded once again with election talk.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/23/no-rush-to-jump-into-the-2012-race-for-white-house/

Obama calls for 2-year freeze on federal pay

2010-11-29T14:38:00.002-08:00

Today President Barack Obama proposed a two-year freeze for salaries for over 2 million federal workers. They are doing this in attempt to cut the deficit from Republicans. The freeze however will only make a tiny dent in annual deficits or the nation's $14 trillion debt. The Obama administration said the plan was designed to save more that $5 billion over the first two years. The proposal still must be approved by congress, but it would not apply to the military, but it will affect all others on the Executive Branch payroll. Many republicans are furious at the decision, Colleen Kelly, head of the 150,000 member treasury employees union, "We're going to do everything we can to make this not happen and to explore all our options". that if passed won't take effect until Jan 1 2011, and as the federal government as the nations leading employer, Obama says we are tightening belts, as the economy and federal spending were top priority. I feel this is a great idea by President Obama, it places the pressure of the economy on the people that have the power to make a difference. With personal ties to the situation, and Republicans unhappy with the decision, they are forced to either deal with it or find an alternative solution.

John Bolton for President?!?!?!?!!! WHATTTT

2010-11-29T14:38:00.000-08:00

The article I read was about how former US ambassador John Bolton is seriously considering running for President in the upcoming 2012 elections representing the republican party. Bolton currently works as a Fox News commentator and is seriously concerned with the national discourse and how it does not include talk of foreign policy. Recently Obama was on a world tour and was highly criticized by Isreal and other countries on how he conducted himself. So for John Bolton to bring this up is only fueling the fire of whether or not Obama is a good fit to be the United States president. Also, with recent polls showing that the independent party has swayed from being mostly supporting democratic party to supporting the republican party. I think John Bolton is playing the roll of a watchdog just was waiting for something to happen and then pounced all over it to make Obama look even worse. Boy does it fit that he'd bring himself into the picture as running for picture directly after Obama went overseas and looked bad as a representator of the United States. This makes sense for him to do so because he was formly a US amabassador which makes him a good candidate for being someone who would properly represent the United States.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/28/goper-considering-an-obama-challenge/

Hillary freaks out about wikileaks

2010-11-29T13:44:00.000-08:00

In this news article, Hillary Clinton expresses her disconnect with the apparently fairly recent phenomena of Wikileaks where government cables are being leaked on the internet. To me, this phenomenon is much needed. I think it is extremely important that our government "secrets" come into the light and that we stop trying to deceive so many nations with trying to play both sides of the table. I believe that these documents coming to the surface are an important part of showing that the American Dream myth is continuing and that all the public sees is that America is trying to "help" but is really planning all of these takeovers and backhanded relationships that they are trying to keep quiet. People like HIllary Clinton are so far into trying to convey America as "the beautiful" that they forget how important it is to be upfront about your politics and honest about your going's on's. I think the irony that Hillary is so opposed to these documents leaking is that Bill had so many secrets that ended up leaking and really harming that family and his legacy as a president. So maybe her few on the Wikileaks is slightly bent and distorted because of that event happening in their life. The fact is though, these dealings have already occurred--regardless if they were leaked or not, and it is not at all fair for the United States of America to have a handful of aces that they are trying to keep from everyone when they try to police the entire world so much and trying to tell so many nations how to live their life. It seems that the people that are going to be affected by the leak are going to attempt to downplay how bad some of those secrets are in order to not damage their relations with other countries. Again though, the fact remains the corruption of power is not anything new to the USA and pretending like it is shows the powerful of the American myth that has transcended the states and clearly has infected other countries views of us too.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/11/29/wikileaks/index.html?hpt=T1

Bad Obama

2010-11-29T08:45:00.000-08:00

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4438853/is-obama-losing-israels-respect
Is Obama Losing respect in Israel? is a video that sums up what news critics have been saying about President Obama’s foreign relationship. This particular video has an Israel man talking about how negative Obama is treating Israel people. The man being interviewed talks about how there has been extreme pressure from the white house sense Obama has been president to do and not do certain things. When taking an excerpt of President Obama talking about Israel, President Obama says that Israel government is asking for trouble when building certain buildings in Israel. This clearly is not accepted by the Israel man and really tries to show how bad President Obama’s foreign relationships skills are. This is not the only example of President Obama being in the negative light. After a world tour President Obama was bashed by all forms of media as media was being a watch dog of President Obama. I don’t understand much about foreign relationships but I feel like when the media destroys President Obama in our media it only aids in the anger of foreign policy and lack of support of the United States. I believe the news should be shown accurately however the President should not be criticized from one man from Israel if that opinion is not the general senses of the people of that country.

Obama gets a fat lip

2010-11-28T17:10:00.000-08:00

Maybe it is just me, or maybe not, but I think there are more important things to be doing than playing basketball. An article titled Flying elbow leaves president in stitches after basketball game talked about how President Obama was playing basketball with White House aide Reggie Love and others at the Fort McNair military base in Washington. During the game, Obama was elbowed in the mouth by Rey Decerega, “who works for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute” (Henry, cnn.com). One quote that kind of annoyed me was said by Decerega. Rey said, “I enjoyed playing basketball with him (President Obama) this morning. I’m sure he’ll be back out on the court again soon.” That bothers me because there are more important things going on in the United States and other parts of the world that should be at the top of the ‘to do list’. I understand that Barack deserves some down time, but he took the most prestigious, most important, and busiest position in the entire United States. I just wish he would act like it more often. I have heard more about him playing basketball than I have about most NBA players. For some unknown reason, that is a big topic with Obama. I wish people/the media would prioritize what they do and the stories that they run. Not only are we in a war that started many years ago, but we are now faced with the North Korean and South Korean confrontation. We have big problems in the United States, and I just think it was a poor choice for Obama to take time out of his busy schedule to play basketball with other White House officials. I also think it was a dumb story to run on CNN.com. Please give me something a little more serious and meaningful next time. I could care less if Obama got hurt playing basketball. I guess this is yet another example of agenda setting, framing, and priming. CNN definitely let us know what to think about by running this story, they covered it humorously, and they decided this story was more important than many other things simultaneously happening around the world.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/26/obama.stitches/index.html

Obama's Role as Head of State in North Korea

2010-11-23T16:29:00.000-08:00

The article on FoxNews labled ‘North Korean Attack Comes Amid Regime Succession, Labeled 'Outrageous' Act’ reminded me of the two major roles of Presidency that we discussed earlier in the semester. The first role was the president as head of state which concerned his obligations in international politics and policy making. The second was as head of government and the President’s role in domestic affairs. This article discussed the current government’s displeasure with the North Korean attack on the South. According to the article, “President Obama is expected to speak with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak at some point on Tuesday.” The article also stated that “"The United States strongly condemns this attack and calls on North Korea to halt its belligerent action and to fully abide by the terms of the Armistice Agreement." This article is an example of how our current President, Obama is acting as Head of State and dealing with international policy. Obama was meet with the Korean president and make sure that international law is being upheld and peace is maintained.

The Sarah Palin strategy

2010-11-23T08:23:00.000-08:00

I read this article last week as I was deciding on the last blog assignment and it had me laughing, so I decided I'd save this for the final bang. The article I choose is called "From Surprise, to saturation the Sarah Palin Strategy" by Jonathon Mann. The article talks about Palin's idea of creating her campaign through essentially Image advertising which is focused on the type of candidate vs. Issue advertising which is focused on the positions the candidate holds. In the article Mann states "American is watching her climb glaciers on TV, court controversy on the internet and back political candidates nationwide, adjusting to the increasingly obvious idea Sarah Palin really does have her eyes on the U.S presidency". Sarah Palin's whole technique has been to create the perfect American Female Republic President. This can be seen in her show "Sarah Palin's Alaska as Mann argues "featuring the 46-year-old mother of five rafting, climbing and shooting her way through her pictueresque home state". The idea of being an outdoorsy woman this day in age who lives surrounded by family and lives so actively in nature shows the true American Spirit. In recent polls 80 percent of Republicans have a favorable impression of her while among all Americans 52 percent have an unfavorable impression. I'm a firm believer that a woman can be president but for our countries sake I hope her image advertising doesn't make her the first female president.

Sarah Palin's book

2010-11-23T08:07:00.000-08:00

With elections for the next president of the United States coming up in like a year, Sarah Palin is coming out with a book. Her book is called America by Heart and it supposedly about the years during and before the last presidential election and how she received so much love. I think that it is not coincidence that she is releasing it right now. She knows that people will pay attention to her even more now because the book is being released. Even though many people may not feel that she is suitable to run the nation, attention is so very important these days. I for one hope she does not become a serious candidate in the race because I think she’s an idiot, but you never know in our nation. Being a celebrity obviously very important, just like what we saw with Jesse Ventura and Terminator.

Trump under 'pressure' for 2012 run

2010-11-22T23:02:00.000-08:00

The fact that Donald Trump is mentioned in running for 2012 president of the U.S is intriguing. The sight of this happening makes me think of when Jesse "The Body" Ventura running for president. He used his character and wild campaign strategies to win a campaign. Similar, if Donald Trump did run for President he would have to use his past established rapport to gain favor during a campaign run. He's known for his show "The Apprentice" and this would definitely help him win, not to mention that he is one of the wealthiest people in the world. This article also makes me think of when Presidents would show up on television shows, demonstarting that they are normal people. Because Donald Trump has already showed up on television shows and various commercials, this would be another way that would help Donald Trump succeed if he would run for President. If he were to run, a great campaign strategy might involve his success in gaining money through investments, real estate, and generally working well with people.

Burning of a Gay Pride Flag

2010-11-22T20:58:00.002-08:00

This article talks about the burning of a Gay Pride flag at Albion College. A student by the name of Salaina Catalano apologized for taking apart of the burning of the flag on October 18th. Catalano turned herself in to Campus Safety where she signed a written statement about the incident. College President Donna Randall responded to the situation by issuing a statement that said, “The college has taken the situation very seriously and followed its established policies and procedures in investigating the situation and determining what should be done. As of November 10th none of the students had been issued any punishments. Randall went on to say “Privacy laws prohibit me from providing information about the actions taken against those individuals, I want to make it very clear that the college condemns harassment of any member of our college and I feel confident that those involved will not participate in such acts in the future.” There has been some backlash for the lack of response from the college, including an online petition which encourages people to refrain from donating to the college.

I have mixed feeling about this. I truly believe in gay rights. But I also believe in freedom of speech. However, burning a Gay Pride flag can be seen as harassment and something used to intimidate a group of people. It can make homosexuals feel not welcome. I think burning a Gay Pride flag is a disgusting act and is juvenile. Then again, burning it may be protected under the first amendment, just as the book says, “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment , it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable. We have not recognized an exception to this principle even where our flag has been involved” (310). The United States flag represents a country while the Gay Pride flag represents a smaller group of people who have been oppressed. In the end, I think the actions of the college students were disrespectful and radical.

http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2010/11/albion_college_releases_statem.html

2010-11-22T20:16:00.000-08:00

The article I have chosen this week is called "Women who told Obama she was 'exhausted' loses job". Velma Hart, the chief financial officer for Am Vets, a veteran services organization based in Maryland, was fired from her job after telling the President that she was exhausted in a televised town-hall meeting in September. Hart told Obama "Quite frankly, I'm exhausted. Exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the man for change I voted for, and deeply disappointed with where we are right now." Obama goes on to say that the economy is very poor right now and that everyone is struggling and he understood her frustration. This article made me think of scapegoating. The book says "the scapegoat becomes responsible for all that's wrong, and the rhetor and the audience unite against this scapegoat and achieve a kind of redemption by purging the scapegoat from their midst" (Bell 109). I remember watching this on television and the audience was supportive and happy when Hart said this to our president which makes me think she was making Obama the scapegoat for all her problems. This is obviously ridiculous because Obama can not be directly to blame for not only one woman's problems but for the entire audiences as well. The book goes on to say that "the person or group chosen is not as responsible for what's wrong as the rhetor claims" (Bell 110). The article goes on to say that Hart still supports Obama and is trying to look at the positives right now. She may not have meant to blame Obama or make him a scapegoat but she certainly did during that meeting and maybe now the tables are being turned.

Nato official clarifies Kabul child safety comment

2010-11-22T19:48:00.000-08:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11807382

In the article from the BBC entitled “NATO official clarifies Kabul child safety comment”, the author discusses a senior NATO official, Mark Sedwell, and his response to articles that came out about him stating that the Afghan capitol of Kabul was a safer city than places such as “London, New York or Glasgow or many other cities”. Sedwell, who is the Senior Civilian Representative in NATO, made these comments to a group of children when discussing their safety in combination with what was going on in Afghanistan, however he holds firm that is words were taken out of context. Sedwell claims he meant it in a manner of explaining how the violence in Afghanistan was changing, and that some of the major cities, such as Kabul, were much safer than other places in the country because of the security within them. However, his words are proven to be false later in the article by first hand accounts from children who say there are bombs going off all the time within the city.

This is something I would classify as being a form of free media. Free media is the idea that no matter what the media, in this case the BBC, is doing, they are giving free promotional coverage. This goes along the lines with the belief that no publicity is bad publicity. Although this article at first makes Sedwell seem apologetic and lets him explain himself, at the end it goes into details about why he is wrong, and simply makes him look like an idiot. However, his name is now out there, and some people who have never heard of him, like myself, now know who Mark Sedwell is, the Senior Civilian Representative in NATO.

Clinton Says She Isn't Planning on Running...Yet

2010-11-22T19:43:00.000-08:00

“I am not running for President of the United States” …where have we heard that before? When asked whether or not she was planning to run for President in 2010 against the incumbent Barack Obama Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that she has no interest in doing so. This is a pseudo-event because of who is involved if it were any other Democratic politician who wasn’t Clinton it wouldn’t be an issue and definitely not something that would have come up on cnn.com. This is a pseudo-event because it doesn’t matter we all know that no Democrat is going to announce that they are going to run against President Obama until 2011 is half-over and the election run is going to be in full force before anyone rises to oppose him and the only reason Hillary is asked is because she’s viewed as Obama’s greatest threat. She’s the Secretary of State she’s the only challenger he has that could win and for that reason this is an event this isn’t important and it is vaguely speculation. Personally I hope she does run because it would make me happy to see someone challenge Obama because it appears Sarah Palin is going to be the Republican’s #1 Contender as it were…good lord.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/21/clinton-im-not-running-for-president/

Palin Releases Excerpts of 'America by Heart'

2010-11-22T18:33:00.000-08:00

While reading several of the top articles on CNN.com I noticed, as always, Sarah Palin is in the public eye. As several people may already know, Palin just launched a new reality show series, "Sarah Palin's Alaska". This has sparked several viewers attentive and inattentive attention. While some are supporters and think it is a positive move toward the next Presidential election, others feel that it makes her look like a joke and feel that they can't take her seriously anymore. However, the article that I decided to blog about is not about the Palin's new reality show, but her new upcoming book, 'America by Heart'. According to the article, Palin describes the book as "my view of America and what has made her great. And says much of her inspiration has come from conservative icon Ronald Reagan". The excerpts recently released state, "President Reagan's call for us to fight for, protect, and pass on to future generations the sources and meaning of our freedom is both a political and a personal call; it's a challenge, both for our country and for us individually. I take this challenge seriously. Passing on peace, prosperity, and liberty". I think that this quote relates to both agenda setting as well as priming. This was just a 'sneak peek' at her upcoming book. I think it is setting up an agenda for what Palin wants the public to see from her. She is stating that she plans on taking on these challenges, and she's serious about it. She is priming the public to think that she is uplifting and politically minded while portraying Americans in an inspirational way.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/22/palin-releases-excerpts-of-america-by-heart-3/

Chandra Levy Case/Politics and Media

2010-11-22T18:31:00.000-08:00

After looking at news stories, this one caught my eye because I remember watching this case closely while I was in middle school and wondering what ever happened. In this article titled, “Chandra Levy: The Story that Gripped Comes to a Close” it really reflects on the political impact this case had and the effects media had in the whole case now that a suspect has been found guilty. I remember watching many news segments about this in the summer of 2001 and remember thinking even as a seventh grader, “how big of “scum bags” are politicians?” because in this case Representative Gary Condit not only had an affair with his intern, but was suspected of killing her. While I was young and didn’t read into how much the media was finding Condit guilty before adequate information, but the story seemed to line up and it seemed like it was all but agreed upon by the jury. Condit’s reputation quickly was tarnished, as he not only was immoral as a husband but was made out to be a murderer. While I agree that this was the most controversial story until the tragedy of 9/11, I believe it is a perfect example of how the media always throws a quick “guilty” suspect to the public in order to for a scapegoat and to tie together a better story. In this case I think it came at a time where there was slow news, and while a cheating politician wouldn’t be anything new, after Clinton and many others, a politician murderer would be a huge story and plot line to cover. In this case it was a great plotline to create, and now they must cover themselves with articles such as this one. I think it’s ironic that in today’s media a suspected politician murdering can ruin one’s career, wheras Ted Kennedy ran his car off a bridge killing someone and his political career remained is revered.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20023618-503544.html

Facebook-banning NJ pastor acknowledges threesome

2010-11-22T18:30:00.000-08:00

http://www.middletownjournal.com/news/nation-world-news/facebook-banning-nj-pastor-acknowledges-threesome-1008998.html

In searching for an article for the blog assignment, I ran across a very interesting article that I found to be very amuzing. The Rev. Cedric Miller confirmed the information reported was true of a testimony he gave in a criminal case in 2003 dealing with his ex-wife. In his testimony he said his wife had an "extramarital affair with the church assistant" and Miller participated in many of the sexual encounters, and sometimes the assistant's wife was present that took place at Miller's home place during Thursday Bible study meetings and Sundays after church."The minister said the encounters "came to a crashing halt" when several women in the church accused the assistant of having sex with them.Miller since then has been preeching that "Facebook was a "portal to infidelity" and told married church leaders to delete their accounts or resign as the church leaders. Miller ends the article by saying , "My life as a minister, husband, father and friend has led me to the conviction that I must do all that I can to help as many people strengthen, preserve and repair the often times fragile cords of marriage" This article automatically made be thing of Bitzers, Rhetorical Situation theory. The exigence of the situation is the affair that the Minister and his wife had together. The audience in this situation was the congergation of his church or anyone he recieves his words of wisdom, The constraints of the situation was that he was having orgies with members of the church and was preeching a different message. And the fitting response was "My life as a minister, husband, father and friend has led me to the conviction that I must do all that I can to help as many people strengthen, preserve and repair the often times fragile cords of marriage", he since then has been trying to seploy people off of Facebook.

2012 Election Polls- Obama over Palin ;)

2010-11-22T17:12:00.000-08:00

For this weeks blog entry I read an article on cnn.com about how the 2012 elections could happen. The article states that President Obama currently leads Sarah Palin by 8 percentage points in a hypothetical 2012 general election. Of the people polled 49 percent felt that Obama should not be re-elected while 43 percent felt that Obama should be re-elected and given the chance to take on another term and prove that he can change out nation for the better. In the poll 9 percent we're undecided on whether or not he should be given the chance. According to the associated press-GFK survey that was released 11 days ago stated that over 54 percent of people believed that Obama should be voted out of office while only 39 percent belived that he should be given another chance at taking on a second term, while once again 9 percent we're unsure of whether he should be given a chance or not. According to the Quinnipiac poll Republican's chose by a 92 to 4 margin believe that Obama should not be re-elected while Independents believe that a 51 to 35 margin that Obama should not be re-elected. Peter A. Brown, who is an assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute said this is respose to the recent polling, "The Democratic base remains squarely behind President Barack Obama when it comes to his re-election, but his weakness among independent voters at this point makes his 2012 election prospects uncertain,." I believe that this is a very fitting response given the information that everyone has received in the past week about how polls are heading. It covers that democrats are still backing them, however, unlike when he got elected and had the landslide from Independent party, now he is not supported at all like that.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/22/poll-obama-eight-point-advantage-over-palin-in-12-matchup/

Pres Carter Attacks Fox and Glenn Beck

2010-11-22T16:02:00.000-08:00

In the article Jimmy Carter Takes A Stand Against Glenn Beck and Fox News, President Carter is given “free media” and possibly “earned media” on CNN. President Carter took aim at Glenn Beck, Fox news, and MSNBC news, saying they “deliberately distorted” the news. When asked about his recent book and the criticism of the media in it, President Carter said how he believes the three news stations (Fox, MSNBC, and CNN) are all biased. He claims Fox is heavily biased towards the right, CNN is biased in the middle playing both sides but also being the most fair, and MSNBC biased towards the left and liberals. I tend to agree with President Carter’s assessment of the big three news stations and where their biases lie. President Carter’s main point in the interview was that these media stations have stopped reporting the news as what has actually happened, and have started reporting credit or blame for what has happened. It is hard to explain but he basically says both sides of the political spectrum in terms of news outlets, have distorted the news and facts to reinforce their partisan biases, whether they are on the right or left. It was an interesting article and President Carter had several good viewpoints.

http://www.politicususa.com/en/carter-beck

2010-11-22T15:27:00.000-08:00

Another day, another Sarah Palin article. This time, it's about Palin's new book, "America by Heart." The conflict arose last week when Gawker, a website, posted exerpts of her book without consent. Her book, which is scheduled to be released tomorrow, is expected to be a hit based on her popularity after the elections. She also released a sneak peek on her Facebook this week to help promote the book. While the book is mostly about her new fame, it doesn't steer away from her political views.

"But maybe I can think of a sadder prospect: Tripp and our other grandchildren spending their whole lives working to pay off the irresponsible debt we have accumulated and are about to leave to them."

That's just one excerpt, which clearly has political sentiments in it. Since then, she released a few more, less political excerpts as well as some more uplifting ones. I think that this article is an example of free media, but also shows how social media can help to promote ones cause. Palin has the right idea by using Facebook, which has more than 500 million viewers, and he fan page has almost 2.5 million viewers. That's 2.5 million viewers who she is promoting to, to ultimately receive more free media.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/22/palin-releases-excerpts-of-america-by-heart-3/

The Carnival of Politics

2010-11-22T12:02:00.000-08:00

Our Country, also known as the land of the free, where we can say what we like and practice what we want as long as it does not hurt another(s) is one of the few countries in the world where its citizens can make fun of its own government and political leaders on a daily basis if they so choose. For example, if a politician or executive leader in our country does something to alert attention or is controversial, the media will be there to cover it and along with the media are the skeptics who make fun and ridicule current political situations such as what happens on Saturday Night Live (SNL). This article talks about SNL and the tactics it does to make fun of political leaders and organizations. This article specifically talked about the Transportation Security Administration or TSA. The TSA has added extra security precautions for traveling with airlines such as screening pat-downs to ensure safety for every passenger. Politicians such as Incoming House Speaker John Boehner however, were able to go right around the metal detectors and scanners as well as avoiding the pat-downs, during one of his most recent flight trips. Of Course, this triggered SNL to make a skit over the actions of the TSA in adding these extra procedures. SNL made a skit where cops were patting down attractive women and the narrator saying "spending time with a TSA agent couldn't be easier. Simply book a flight departing from any American airport." And "The TSA: It's our business to touch yours." SNL does a great job at the carnivalesque.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/22/political.circus/index.html

Palin's Reality

2010-11-22T11:17:00.001-08:00

Sarah Palin has done it again, she has successfully ruined yet another aspect of Americans’ lives; television. Although my personal feelings for the woman (she makes me want to eat glass) present some bias, I have to admit it is a very smart political move. Sarah Palin is now using the realm of reality t.v. to push her political agenda, which is not surprisingly conservative (you can watch her fishing in bear country in the first episode). This is a smart move by Palin because our country is so bound to the tie between celebrity and politician. During Obama’s campaign, he became more of a superstar than a boring old senator, and I think people really connected with that. In Palin’s case, this show will most likely humanize the conservative robot who talks like she is giving a throwback to Fargo. Only ratings and time will tell if her success on television is linked to her success in the polls, but I find it hard it to believe that there won’t be some correlation. Watching some of the latest polls, it shows Palin viewed almost as exactly as before, so watching those numbers shift just may open up a new avenue for politicians to plug themselves, television. Given polls have their fair share of flaws, as we talked about in class, demographics, age groups, gender, etc. are huge factors in the sample, and do not always reflects the nation’s actual view of Palin. Save, I think I can be a little more creative, how do you feel about Snooki giving John McCain a lap dance, or maybe the Flavor Flav picking Jan Brewer to be his life partner?

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AE41020101115

Obama and Chamber of Commerce

2010-11-21T18:13:00.000-08:00

The article I have chosen is from cnn.com. This article is titled “Obama mulls big speech to Chamber of Commerce.” The article is all about how when Obama took office his speech was almost bashing the Chamber of Commerce because of his beliefs that the Chamber was using illegal foreign money to influence the midterms, a charge the Chamber passionately denied. This has caused a gap between President Obama and the Chamber of Commerce especially with the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donohue. This article also states that there is talk about an invitation to President Obama to come into the Chamber of Commerce. This has struck up the idea that possibly after the New Year President Obama could give his speech when the new Congress convenes. It would be predominantly good timing for President Obama to try to get everyone ready and prepared for his State of the Union address which will be held later in the month of January. Additionally with this timing there is hope to “hit the reset button on his fractured relationship with the business community” in the Chamber of Commerce, but mostly with Tom Donohue. This to me would be a speech to the Chamber as an apology for accusing and attacking them when he first took the office.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/19/obama.chamber.commerce/index.html

Weed

2010-11-21T15:10:00.000-08:00

So we’ve all been there, you’re sitting at your house and you want to smoke a little weed but you can’t, You can’t because you don’t know anyone else that smokes pot or could supply you with marijuana. Tony’s law wants to change that. Entitled 'Tony's Law' Would Require Marijuana Users To Inform Interested Neighbors an article in The Onion is about this proposed law. Tony’s law wants illegal drug users to post a sign in there yard informing neighbors that they smoke pot. Legalizing marijuana is a hot subject right now and again we see an extreme opinion on ways on how to change hot topic laws. Tonys law got its name after Tony DiCenzo who went nine months without getting high due to the lack of supply. Tony doesn’t want this problem for any other Americans and presented to congress recently. The tagline for this law is “Millions of Americans love to get high.” The Onion not the most valuable news source outlines why so many Americans feel congressmen are a waste of time and money. An idea supported often in the media. This free media by The Onion will heighten the issue about legalizing marijuana and inform the audience about Tony’s law.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/tonys-law-would-require-marijuana-users-to-inform,1298/

Who is the better dancer?

2010-11-20T07:50:00.000-08:00

I was reading an article from CNN.com titles ‘Political Circus: Bush a better dancer than Obama?’ The picture that accompanied the story was of former President Bush dancing with members of a West African troupe during a White House event. The article started by talking about George Bush’s appearance on ‘The Tonight Show with Jay Leno’, and this was Bush’s first appearance in 10 years. On the show, Leno played a clip of Obama dancing with kids in India and then played a video of Bush dancing at the White House event with the West African troupe. Leno then proceeded to ask Bush who he thought the better dancer was between him and President Obama. Bush’s verdict: President Obama. The article continued by jabbing at other politicians and their slip ups and most memorable moments. There was a segment called ‘Notable Quotable’, and this mocked Dick Cheney. Next, the ‘Underwear Summit’ that made fun of a quote by U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman. The article hilariously ended with some ‘Late-night Laughs’. Conan made fun on Donald Trump running for President in 2012, Letterman made fun of both Palin and Trump running, and George Lopez made fun of Bristol Palin and Mike ‘the situation’. Not only does this article fit the criteria for carnivalesque with the tables turning on the politicians (or want to be politicians), but the media is also making these certain, highly unimportant issues more salient and accessible than other more pertinent issues. Although the article is funny, I feel there are more important topics that should be at the forefront of our news media.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/19/political.circus/index.html

I really wish Sarah Palin would go away!

2010-11-20T06:34:00.001-08:00

Sarah Palin has done it again. She has managed to make something ‘not political’ into something very political. And, she is strategically using free media to promote herself…once again. As most people probably know by now, Sarah Palin is now the star of her own reality show. This show features her and her family in their natural habitat in the great outdoors of Alaska. As if we all didn’t know, there is speculation that Palin will be running for President in 2012, and this show is sure to help. According to Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, “Everything Palin is doing is ambiguous. These things are helpful if she runs for President. But they don’t necessarily commit her to doing so.” Sarah is using her power and popularity to use free media, just as she did on ‘Dancing with the Stars”. The cameras are always on her and following her every move. Whether she is supporting her daughter on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ or fishing with her kids on her new reality show; all eyes are on Sarah Palin. “A recent Gallup poll found 52 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of the former governor. Another poll conducted by AO-GfK found 49 percent of Americans view Palin unfavorably. But, among Republicans, it’s a dramatically different story. That same AP-GfK poll discovered 79 percent of GOP voters like Palin” (Acosta, CNN.com). It’ll be interesting to see if her tactics are successful or not. I guess we will all have to stay tuned to see.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/15/palin.alaska/index.html

Obama Apologizes?

2010-11-17T09:31:00.000-08:00

A recent interview with President Obama related to our class discussion on genres and more specifically apologia. On November 4th Obama took part in an interview with Steve Croft from 60 minutes on CBS. The interview took place two days after the midterm defeat and was the only interview President Obama sat for. The discourse between Obama and Croft was reminiscent of an apologia speech. In this interview Obama seemed to be reaching out to the public apologizing that he had not lived up to America’s expectations and providing reasons as to why he was defeated in the midterm elections. He admits to not living up to people’s expectations when he says, “people I think expect that we would have made more progress than we have on the economic front. And I think that was uppermost on people's minds.” Further into the interview Obama works towards rehabilitating his ethos through bolstering and providing specific examples that focus on positive things his government has done. Obama provides an examples of how his government has produced jobs and is working towards lowering the unemployment rate e.g. “Absolutely it's produced jobs. And I'll give you a specific example…five years we went from two percent of the world mark potentially to 40 percent of the world market. And those jobs are in places like Michigan and Ohio that had been really hard hit.” His speech is reminiscent of an apologia as there appears to be an admittance of failure, rehabilitation, and bolstering but he does not officially say he is sorry or regrets what he did just the circumstance at which he came into office.

2010-11-16T16:25:00.000-08:00

Today, President Obama's children's book "Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters" was released. In the CNN article "Obama's new childrens book hits shelves"President Obama was inspired to write this book by his daughters Sasha and Malia. The book is a tribute to thirteen amazing men and women who have shaped our nation and created the ideals for which it stands for today. "The book celebrates the characteristics that unite all Americans-- the potential to pursue our dreams and forge our own paths, Said Chip Gibson, head of the publisher's children's book division". Obama also wrote this prior to becoming The President of The United States of America, which is a strong point that I feel needed to be made so that people do not criticize him. Although I think this book will be a powerful one with a lot of great meaning behind it, I also believe that this is once again the press creating free media for the President. His status got him a headline spot and a news story to cover his book and he didn't even have to lift a finger. The implications of this news story suggests that Obama still believes in this country and understands how it developed but he and his campaign can also use this as a free exposure to show the world that they are still dedicated and fighting for what is right. Another important part of this article that I enjoyed and I am sure people will be pleased with is the fact that all the proceeds from the books will be donated to a scholarship fund for children of fallen and disabled soldiers. So this also helps to show his dedication to the troops and to the US military. I also think this will help his image a little bit after the midterm elections. Since the Midterm elections proved to be over reported and made into a bigger deal then they were Obama's popularity seemed to be on the decline. When I first read the headline, I was kind of disgusted because it seemed like CNN was framing this as a negative thing, like Obama has been writing books in all of his spare time. The media never seems to amaze me with the way they can twist a story and highlight things exactly the way they want to, but in my opinion of this case President Obama got a little bit of free image repair out of it.

Rangel walks out of ethics trial

2010-11-15T20:48:00.000-08:00

For this weeks entry I found an article/video titled “Rangel walks out on ethics trial” on CNN.com. This article talks about how Democratic Representative Charlie Rangel walked out of his ethics trial Monday afternoon. It speaks of how his request to delay the hearing because he was not given enough time to assemble a new defensive team was rejected by the ethics subcommittee was the reason for his behavior. Rangel faces 13 allegations which include failing to pay taxes on a home in the Dominican Republic, misuse of a rent-controlled apartment for political purposes and improper use of government mail service and letterhead. Although Rangel’s defense team left him in September, one would think that if knew that he was expecting to go to trial that he would assemble a new defense team immediately. However it does say a lot about the trial and Rangel that even his defense team left him. Him leaving the trial affects his ethos, or the persuasive appeal he makes based on who the audience believes he is, negatively because leaving a formal event such as a hearing does not reflect well upon Rangel. It does not look good for him and it does not look good to the committee and the rest of society. Being a U.S. Representative for New York, it also questions his credibility. You would think that someone with his power and status to show some confidence in himself with or without a defense team. Having ethics issues and walking out of a trial does not make the people of New York feel comfortable with him being their representative. He should probably resign as other House Republicans and Democrats have told him to do so. He should of planned ahead of time. http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/15/rangel.ethics.hearing/

Killing The Filibuster Softly?

2010-11-15T20:01:00.000-08:00

The article titled “Dan Coats For Reform: Incoming GOP Senator Embraces Change” addresses the current events surrounding the support of changing filibustering in the Senate. Republican Senator Dan Coats, a vocal leader for this change, is supporting “removing the ability to filibuster the motion to proceed.” Coats has stated, “The American people deserve that we are transparent with them, that we take one item at a time, that we register our yeas and register our nays, and be accountable to the American people for what we’ve done. It’s been too much gathering everything at the end and throwing it into one big package. There’s just too much need for moving forward with action to address our serious economic situation and a number of other issues to not go forward on that basis. So I’m going to work to try to streamline the situation and move things forward.” Coats is suggesting the current filibuster system is actually slowing the progress of the country and that improvement is needed. The American public, attentive and inattentive, didn’t receive much information because media coverage was limited to C-SPAN2 and only brief articles were released afterwards. However, Ian Millhiser a Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress, has stated that he doesn’t think Coats proposal would get rid of the 60-vote filibuster completely and he wrote “Present Senate rules permit senators to filibuster both the beginning and the end of debate on most bills. Coats Proposal would eliminate pre-debate filibusters, but still give Senators an opportunity to filibuster before a bill can receive a final up-or-down vote. […] Coats proposal would be a meaningful step towards eliminating a minority’s power to delay virtually all Senate Business into oblivion.” Also, a public poll found that 64 percent of the public supports filibuster reform. I found this article interesting because it was originally a republican, Rick Santorum, who brought forth the idea of pre-debating before the democrats could filibuster George W. Bush’s judicial nominations (287-288). And now it’s a Republican who’s voicing the concern to reform filibustering. This reverse filibustering is supported by our constitution in that the constitution does not offer any guidance about what constitutes presidential advice-seeking from the Senate, nor does it offer any guidance about what rules of approving a presidential nomination might be. Because Article 1, Section 5 makes each chamber responsible for setting its own rules, the Senate has been able to create its own processing presidential nominations (288). However, Santorum’s reverse filibuster did not allow the republicans to be successful in achieving their objectives. The public has little sympathy for pending judicial nominees. Such nominees tend to be sitting judges or prominent attorneys in their home states and communities, and most Americans will never be litigants in federal court (289). And because this process isn’t working there is support to reform filibustering some of that support includes the public, politicians, and President Obama.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/07/filibuster-reform-dan-coats_n_780098.html

Airport Security or invasion of privacy

2010-11-15T19:55:00.000-08:00

Like many major airports, O'Hare airport in Chicago Illinois has an intense security policy. One which more and more people are having a problem with. To get through O'Hare each patron is required to go through a full body scanner and pat downs. Some people are saying that these security measures are too much whether it be the radiation the body receives through the scan or just that the scanner is an invasion of privacy. Not only are passengers having problems with the security measures but also the pilots and flight attendants who find the security measures to be over kill after already going through other forms of security. When reading this article about the intense security, I believe people need to be logical and let the infringement on their privacy slide if it means their families and their own safety when flying. How anyone could expect after 911 to not go through procedures like this is ridiculous. However annoying and invading this security practices are, it is better to be safe than sorry. A homeland security secretary says that the machines images are safe and are also viewed in private by professionals who are just doing their job to make sure the passengers fly safely. The secretary also states that the pat downs are usually rare and random. Passengers can also request that the pat down be performed in a private room if they feel that in public is an invasion of privacy. As someone who does not travel often I respect and would have no problem with the security procedures. Due to the amount of passengers reluctant to the security measures, groups have formed to rebel against them or fight them. An online group is allegedly encouraging passengers to refuse these security measures on the day before Thanksgiving, on of the busiest days of the year. I find this childish and a group that is just going to delay not only themselves with many others. If this is such an infringement on a persons privacy and they are so opposed, drive or get on a bus/ train to where you need/ want to go!!

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/national_world&id=7789612

2010-11-15T17:14:00.000-08:00

In the article called "Sarah Palin's Alaska: 7 secret political messages in her new reality show", journalist Shelley Ross discusses some hidden messages from Palin's one hour show that premiered last night on TLC. The seven messages Ross found were 1. My campaign commercial is ready (and so is my close up), 2. I have found the perfect running mate- Alaska, 3. Katie Courics can eat my reindeer meat!, 4. I will never make the same mistake twice, and I have a gate in front of my daughters bedroom to prove it, 5. I am motivated by all the right stuff, 6. I am ready for Ahmadinejad, and lastly 7. I have repented for my sins in politics.
This article and Palins show is a good example of politicians using popular culture as the book talks about. The book says "Aware that popular culture can reach groups that otherwise might not be reached, political figures have, for more than a decade, used popular culture" (Bell 364). Sarah Palin is most definitely using her new show to not only promote herself but also to reach a broader audience. The book talks about Bill Clinton using popular culture avenues during his presidency and how it resulted in helping his candidacy by showing people that he was "one of us". Palin is doing this in her show and Ross talks about this in the article by using the example of Palin using a baby gate to keep boys out of her daughter Willows bedroom. She is showing the world that she is a mom but also that she will not repeat the same mistakes.

Palin's unfavorables reach all time high

2010-11-15T17:12:00.001-08:00

Recently, a lot of articles and news show hosts have been discussing the decrease of Sarah Palin's ethos. In the article "Palin's unfavorables reach all time high" Gallup polls are analyzed and a clear trend has emerged; Sarah Palin is becoming less respected and creditable to her supporters. From page 30 of Perspectives on Political Communication, "Ethos is the persuasive appeal a rhetor makes based on who the audience believes he or she is" (Bell 30). In other words it is the creditability and character of the person in question, and in regards to Sarah Palin, polls are showing her ethos is dropping rapidly. In addition to the article, the other night I saw Anderson Cooper on CNN talk about a story involving Sarah Palin. It appears she got in an argument with someone from CNN, and knew she was at fault in the argument but continued to argue. Too further show her lacking ethos, Anderson quoted Sarah Palin's argument from an article she used, however if you read the whole article you would see that it actually refutes Palin's claims and not defend them. Knowing this, she purposely quoted the article but left out the part that would prove her wrong, and Anderson Cooper pointed all this out in his show, showing Palin's character. I personally do not understand how this woman is still in the spot light or a political figure, she is clearly a "giant douche".
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/12/palins-unfavorables-reach-all-time-high/

2010-11-15T17:11:00.000-08:00

SLOBODAN LEKIC of The Associated Press reports that NATO's chief and a senior U.S. official said that NATO and Russia are ready to conclude a series of agreements that are designed to boost cooperation in the Afghan war. This tactic would expand the original arrangements which allows NATO to ship non-lethal supplies from Europe to Afghanistan overland through Russia. Representatives from the 28 nations of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)will meet in Lisbon, Portugal and will be joined by Japan and Russia since they have contribute units to Afghanistan. One big issue that will be discussed is a proposed missile defense system for Europe and a new mission statement is needed to be updated. The summit is expected to focus on the war. At the meeting they seen an improvement of ties between the former Cold War rivals in the Afghan war, where the U.S. and NATO already have about 150,000 troops. Russia, refused to let their troops out of Afghanistan which because they fear Islamic extremism along its southern borders, has , but is willing to help NATO's war effort. It is said that NATO and Russia also will be attended by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, said a senior U.S. official which would establish new counter-narcotics center in Russia to train agents from Afghanistan. I chose this article because Martial Rhetoric is involved. Martial Rhetoric evokes military language, while NATO is all about Treaties which deals with war and they are trying to come with a resolution.

Obama help end "don't ask, don't tell"

2010-11-15T16:16:00.000-08:00

The article that I read was called “Gay rights protestors demand Obama help end “don’t ask, don’t tell’”. This article is about how thirteen gay rights activists have handcuffed themselves to the White House fence Monday afternoon, calling for president Obama to work harder for repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on gay service members serving openly. Protestors repeatedly shouted, “I am somebody, I deserve full equality!” One by one U.S. park police cut through the handcuffs that attached protestors with a huge pair of red shears, they were then arrested and detained. One man shouted, “President Obama is afraid to act!” For five of the protestors, this was not their first time arrested in front of the White House; they carried out the same act of civil disobedience back in March to fight for gay service members. This article caught my attention primarily because of the discussion that we had in class last week. Although some may not agree with the same sex marriages, homosexuals still have the right to be treated like human beings. The discussion that we had in class was very emotionally intense, but this learning style was the most effective as I believe everyone present that day in class walked away with something no matter how you stood on the subject. We how intense this battle for equal rights amongst homosexuals are getting with repeated protests directly in front of the White House, that day in class gave us better understanding of that even if we weren’t closely connected to the subject.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/15/dadt.protesters/index.html

Faith, delusion, or excuse for Crime?

2010-11-15T16:11:00.000-08:00

The article I chose to share this week was about a man named Brian David Mitchell who claims to be a prophet from god who calls his bed an altar, grew a long beard, and use to walk around handing out a "Declaration of Faith" to people in the streets. Brian David Mitchell is on trial for kidnapping Elizabeth Smart while she was 14 years old and taking her across state borders to have sex. He had her captive for over 9 months while she was missing to everyone. Now she is 23 years old and he is on trial for his actions forcing jurors to decide whether he was actually believed he was commiting an act of god meaning he would be innocent due to insanity or was he aware of what he was actually doing and guilty?!!! The article then gives a number of other examples of when people got off due to insanity. One example is when a women in Texas in 2001 drowned five of her children in a bathtub because she believed they were stumbling into the throes and were going to burn in the fires of enternity. Therefore, by killing her children she believed that she would be saving them from this fate and the devil would be vanquished. She was found NOT GUILTY by reason of insanity. My view on the subject is that I don't care if you think your insane, I don't care what motive you had, or who your doing it for, murder is murder, bottom line. Unless someone is attacking you and you feel your life is in danger to where you might die there is never a reason good enough to murder someone. I don't think that anyone should be found NOT GUILTY due to insanity bad as it may sound, thats just me, hate it or love it I don't care......I think a lot of people try to use the concept bolstering we discussed in class today to make there situation seem like it was justifiable. Like Brian David Mitchell saying he did this because he was a prophet of god and was carrying out something he would want done. To me I dont care what you say, if you have no proof then you have no proof! Any person who commits a crime "crazy" or not, justified or not should be held up to the full extent of the law. You have to put yourself in that person who has suffered circumstance, would you want someone who kidnapped and rapped you to get off because of insanity? Or would you want them to uphold the law?!!!!!

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/15/on-trial-faith-delusion-or-an-excuse-for-criminal-action/?hpt=C1

Cross Aisle Owned Media Airing Palin

2010-11-15T14:48:00.000-08:00

In this article entitled “Five Million Watch Debut of Sarah Palin TV Show” on ABCNews’ website it talks about the recently aired “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” reality show on TLC. This television show is an apparent look at the inside life of Sarah Palin and her family while also being considered a “travel show.” After reading this article I tend to agree with the writer, that this 8 episode series seems to be more of a 8 episode campaign ad rather than a true travel show. It seems hard not to argue that this may be a perfect example of mass media and the role it plays in political campaigns as there has already been talk of Palin running for president in 2012. However, after doing more research into TLC and it’s parent company’s owner, I was very surprised to see his past political donations actually fell in the Hillary Clinton campaign and other well known democratic candidates. This really surprised me as we studied early the amount of pull media often has in setting agendas, especially within possible election campaigns. It shocked me that a supporter of a potential rival, and competitor would give publicity and free media to a potential candidate without somehow editing the show to tarnish her credibility. I guess only one episode has been shown thus far and there is plenty of room for TLC to show their intentions in presenting this outlet for Palin, however they better figure it out quick with the response ABCNews has found some people are starting to catch the Palin fever already!

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=12153752

Sarah Palin’s Alaska The Pseudo-Event to End All Pseudo-Events

2010-11-15T14:31:00.001-08:00

Sarah Palin has her own reality show…the Jersey Shore now has competition for the most asinine thing on television. But the question on everyone’s mind is: Is this a ploy by Sarah Palin to get into everyone’s minds when the election in 2012 rolls around? Well since Bristol Palin is still on Dancing with the Stars I am going to have to say yes. This is a concrete pseudo-event because of the fact that there was no need for Sarah Palin to star in her own reality show with her family no one was really clamoring for it and that is evident by the fact that she is being shown on TLC. Sarah Palin has been on the campaign trail since the Republican popularity started waning in the election of 2008. I also feel that this is a pseudo-event because Sarah Palin is not doing anything noteworthy politically during the show, so far we get to watch a 9-year old fishing next to a real live grizzly bear (which I am not sure if it is worse than Steve Irwin, his children, and the Crocodiles), Sarah and “The First Dude” go rock climbing, and the family complaining about a journalist moving in next door…riveting political news. I found nothing about this show that would require CNN to report it other than the fact that Sarah Palin is in it, much the same way Bristol Palin’s dancing somehow became news worthy. This is what reality TV has become a launching point for a political figure toward their next campaign. I can’t wait until we see Mitt Romney or Secretary of State Clinton join the Jersey Shore crew down in South Beach and if Sarah’s show boosts her popularity that idea may be less ridiculous than it sounds.

Islam an Election Issue

2010-11-15T11:58:00.000-08:00

This article is about the division of religion and state. This line is trying to be drawn now with the Koran, Shariah law and the state government. Shariah law is a rule written in the Koran and in states such as New Jersey and New England have stood up in the court of law. The article shows an example of a case were a woman was denied a restraining order against her husband claiming she was raped. The judge stood with Shariah law denied the restraining order. Democrat Cory Williams was attacked by the Republican Party due to supporting this bill in his own state of Oklahoma. Attack advertisements were ran saying Cory Williams supported Islam and associated him with terrorist. The eptisteme here is why Williams supported this bill and how the discourse of terrorist and Islam are used against William in his campaign. This article is interesting because of the close relation of our chat in class of homosexuality. This is another example in completely different context of how the division of church or for this case the Koran and state are not separated. In support of homosexuality Christian views were analyzed and viewed as not the supreme law and therefore have no say in state. Here we see Shariah law actually being supported in court cases and this example should be highlighted as a complete contradiction of separation of church and state.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/us/15oklahoma.html?_r=1&ref=politics

Bush's answer to 'Why Iraq?'

2010-11-15T11:09:00.000-08:00

Another week, some more free media for "dubyah." In case you missed it, George W. Bush released his memoir recently, and it's been everywhere. He invaded Football Night in America last week, talk shows, and CNN with his take on his personal experiences. Today's article is more about why Bush did what he did. Mainly Bush talks about his declaration of war against Iraq, why he did it, and why it was justified. He says "There were state sponsors of terror. There were sworn enemies of America. There were hostile governments that threatened their neighbors. There were nations that violated international demands. There were dictators who repressed their people. And there were regimes that pursued WMD. Iraq combined all these threats." I've not read his book, but this article gives a good summary of the "good" parts. It tells how Bush feared for his life daily, and how he began planning his death, something I never thought about. Bush also goes into depth about what happened after September 11th, the fear he had for himself and the country, and the fear he had of biological warfare and further terrorist attacks. Ultimatly, this article gave Bush more free media, and I now actually wanna read the book.

Priming the Democrats!

2010-11-15T09:15:00.000-08:00

Once again, we see how news organizations prime their coverage to influence their readers. The article is titled “Rangel Walks Out of Ethics Hearing”. Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-New York was charged with allegations of Corruption. His trial is still be looked into however, Rangel states that he has spent much money on lawyers and the court case (over 2 million) and he has not been given enough time to find and fundraise for more lawyers because he stated that the committee was rushing to complete its work before the conclusion of the current lame duck Congress. Rangel is suggesting that he is not being given a fair trial. During an Ethics sub-committee meeting, Rangel walked out for that very reason. CNN seemed to really prime their headline for this coverage to set the mindset of its readers. When you first read the headline “Rangel Walks Out of Ethics Hearing” do first thing you assume is that Rangel does not conform with ethics since he “walked out” and not just out of any hearing but a “Ethics hearing”. The correlation with “Rangel” “walked out” “ethics hearing” were very much primed to think negatively of Rangel. Then, once you began to read the article, you realize that he is a democrat and so you assume that democrats are unethical. As most of us know already CNN is a Republican organization. Therefore, this story was probably primed for a republican audience. A democrat walks out of a ethics hearing and it is in the top news coverage for CNN. Pretty Clever!
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/15/rangel.ethics.hearing/index.html?hpt=T2
-Damian

No need for iPad: Obama has human apps

2010-11-14T23:18:00.000-08:00

In the article titled "No need for iPad: Obama has human apps," Obama goes against the idea of the diffusion of innovations which is spoken of in chapter four of our book. The idea that the diffusion of innovations suggests is that many resources, along with the internet, will be created for consumers to use to their own personal benefit. Because Barack Obama is President one would think that he would have advanced technology to help make his job a lot easier. The way that we see Obama’s ignorance of innovations is by using his “iReggie.” Obama explains that his “iReggie” carries everything that he needs such as music, books, newspaper, etc. This iReggie is his personal assistant. By Obama choosing to ignore the advancement of technology he goes against the norm of taking advantage of resources that can limit his dependence on his personal assistant, Reggie. In fact, he buys Michelle Obama one, so we know that money is not the reason that he chooses not to invest into an iPad. Another way that we see Obama’s ignorance to the diffusion of innovaions is by barely using his Blackberry phone. It was reported that the public rarely sees him use his smartphone. Obama may be “old school” but he is the first president to carry a smartphone with Internet and e-mail access.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/13/obama.ipad/index.html

Youths want Obama to stick to his vision

2010-11-14T20:28:00.000-08:00

Voter turn out was very low just recently for President Barack Obama. Young people feel that the president has not lived up to his yes we can campaign. People need to see the same confidence that they saw from him in the past because they feel like he is not coveying that anymore. Voter turn out was very low, and the main people who didnt vote were young blacks.
The only way this can be done is for Obama to go back and look at what he said he was going to do.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/11/12/heffner.obama.vision/index.html

Obama King in Carnivalesque

2010-11-11T17:45:00.000-08:00

Something that I have found interesting over the course of this assignment is the idea of ‘carnivalesque’. We discussed in class that this idea was derived from an old tradition that there was one day of the year that it was acceptable to make fun of the king. After this one day things would return back to normal. In today’s media, a carnivalesque story – where a politician is made fun of occurs regularly and is certainly not a one day a year occurrence. The CNN Election Center by Kristi Keck from November the 8th lists numerous events that satirize or ‘make fun’ of political activity. In particular she focuses on President Obama who would be equivalent to the king in a ‘carnivalesque’ situation. For example, the article comments on Obama’s campaign trail saying “Perhaps it is part of his populist pitch and/or the makings of a new drinking game. Either way, Obama's been channeling Porky Pig with his new favorite word: folks.” The article then goes on to comment on Obama’s dancing abilities at a Diwali celebration in India saying “A for effort, C for technique.” The “carnivalesque’ stories are common in today’s media and it seems that instead of being one day to make fun of the ‘king’ it would be more likely that there is one day a year the media does not make fun of him.

Democrats Must Learn the Language of Freedom

2010-11-10T13:18:00.000-08:00

This week I decided I wanted to try to find an article about the use of God/ Devil Terms and the triumph on the individual in society because we have been having a lot of discussions about them in class. The article I decided to analyze was written as a special opinion piece to CNN and it is called "Democrats must learn language of freedom" by Aziz Rana. This article talks about how politicians mainly targeting President Obama for using the term Freedom to represent the greatness that politics brings. And how by using the term it may sound high and mighty and very democratic their practices are not matching up nor are the emotions of the citizens. Aziz states "part of what makes the conservative language of freedom so potentially potent is that it resonates with a problem many Americans face. In the 21st century we are faced with increasingly massive and hierarchical institutions". So from what I am seeing is that God terms that politicians have been using for years are starting to become over used and the fact of the matter is that the government is not concerned with the triumph of the individual as much as much as it should be. These god terms that used to help build unity are now turning into points for critic of the system.

House Democrats agonize over leadership choices

2010-11-09T05:32:00.000-08:00

With all the recent loses that the democrats have lost to the rpublicans they are unsure of the person trying to lead. Pelosi is the women trying to help the democratic party win back seats in 2012, but ofcourse she has supporters and people who are unsure. She wants to retain her top spot and ofourse people are unsure because they feel new leadership is needed to move forward after the many troubles they have faced and are facing. Maybe it is because she is a woman, who knows. A supporter for her said this "Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO, indicated his support for her, issuing a statement calling the veteran San Francisco Democrat "a tireless champion for working families."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/08/house.leadership/index.html

Gates, Obama urge repeal of military's gay ban

2010-11-08T20:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.middletownjournal.com/news/nation-world-news/gates-obama-urge-repeal-of-militarys-gay-ban-997449.html

In my hometown newspaper, The Middletown Journal reads an very interesting article that I believe coreelates to the course very well. The reason why I chose this particular article is because it reminded me of the class we had last wedsday where much discussion and personal opinions were revealed. Our discussion was about the past election and about issue 7905 and 7906 which is An ordinance that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity (transgender protections) and HIV status and other factors. The article is relates because "Defense Secretary Robert Gates is encouraging Congress to act before year's end to repeal the ban on gays serving openly in the military. It's a position shared by his boss, the president." Defense Secretary Robert Gates is encouraging Congress to act before year's end to repeal the ban on gays serving openly in the military. It's a position shared by his boss, the president. Gen. James Amos says "This is not a social thing. This is combat effectiveness," which is interesting because a person's sexual orientation does not means he or she is not worthy enough to go into battle for our country. This notion also embarks gender roles that we often see in today's society. We socialized our country to believe that females cannot do some of the same things that men do. Just because a person does something different in the bedrooom than the "norm" does not necesarily means he/shecannot do their job especially at war,becaue if a person is at wwar I believe they will be all about business because their life is ont he line.

The Secret Life of Rand Paul?

2010-11-08T20:45:00.000-08:00

In the weeks leading up to this year’s Mid-Term election, a senate seat for Kentucky became intense. Democrat Jack Conway released an ad targeting Republican opponent Rand Paul. The ad questioned Paul’s affiliation with a secret society. According to the ad, this secret society called the Bible “a hoax” and also in this society he allegedly tied a woman up and told her to bow down before a false idol and say his god was “Aqua Buddha.” The article also cites a piece from GQ in which says that Paul and another member of the society blindfolded a women took her to an apartment and forced her to take bong hits. Paul was quick to respond to the ad, strongly denying the accusations. Paul stated, “No, I never was involved with kidnapping, no I was never involved with forcibly drugging people. Do we live in an era where people can come forward anonymously and accuse you of things and then all of a sudden I am supposed to spend the rest of the campaign defending myself against anonymous accusers who say I kidnapped them? The story just borders on ridiculous.” This attack ad uses enthymemes, which are abbreviated arguments. In this ad, the audience is invited to complete them. And once the audience becomes the co-creator of the arguments it makes it more compelling (176). This ad also reminded me of the controversial ad released against 2006 Tennessee Democrat Harold Ford. The ad suggested that Ford was a “party animal” who slept with white women and parties at the Playboy mansion (177). The ad against Rand Paul suggested that he was a psychotic “cult” figure who practiced odd rituals and engaged himself in hazing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/17/rand-paul-attacked-over-s_n_765674.html

Hilary Clinton

2010-11-08T20:18:00.000-08:00

The article titled "Clinton gets casual on White House decor, Kardashians" made me think of Daniel J. Boorstin's term of "pseudo-events" which are when "events have been structured by organizations for the primary purpose of gaining news attention" (Bell 69). Yesterday, Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton did an interview with an Australian radio show and talked about things such as the decorating of the white house by the Obamas and the Bush's, reality television and eating chips. I think this interview qualifies as a pseudo-event because it meets all four of Boorstin's characteristics which are 1. the event is not spontaneous. Hilary certainly did not call into this radio show, she and her camp scheduled this event. 2. The event occurs primarily for the purpose of gaining news attention; Hilary knew she would create news attention by being on a radio talk show and discussing things other than politics. 3. asking "what does it mean? about the situation is ambiguous; Hilary's interview and answers would certainly have different meanings to many different people. 4. a self-fulfilling prophecy may occur; In the interview Hilary states that she is an "avid eater of chips".
In conclusion, this article is a pseudo-event that was created by Hilary Clinton's camp. "Many events look like news and sound like news, but when we explore further their potential newsworthiness, we may conclude that they are pseudo-events with little purpose beyond media coverage" (Bell 69).

Sound of Sunday

2010-11-08T18:43:00.000-08:00

After looking around on CNN.com I came across a very interesting article that entailed several intriguing and memorable quotes from CNN's Sunday morning show. I found this article important and wanted to write about it for today's blog for many reasons. For one, timeliness, conflict, and prominence are terms that we have discussed and learned in class and this article presents all of them. The timeliness of this article is relevant and is current to what is going on in American politics today. Conflict is another term we have discussed that can be found in this article. The problem or conflict that is occurring in today's politics and is discussed in this article is the issue of President Obama's health care plan, and the major problem of unemployment in America today. And prominence is another term presented in the article because the issues that are discussed are extremely significant to the United States government and all of its citizens. These issues are completely political and should be discussed for citizens to see. This article also uses the mass media perspective of political communication through agenda setting. Author discusses what President Obama's plans are for solving these issues, and states what some think of his agenda. "When you hear the president say things like, you know, 'we did a poor job of explaining what we were trying to do', I think that's indicative of his not getting it, because the voters have had enough of the Obama agenda" (Republican Whip Eric Cantor, "Fox News Sunday").

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/07/sunday.sound/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Hillary Apparently "Crushes" Obama in Polls....of 1000 surveyed

2010-11-08T18:21:00.000-08:00

After looking in the news at the headlines, one really stood out to me that made me laugh in particular and it was one titled, “Poll: Hillary Would Crush Obama”, on the Fox News webpage. This article made me laugh not because of the content, as it was pretty short and also a quick blurb about another article from a different website, but it was the article’s title that made me laugh. In reading the article I read that there was a poll that went out on Newsmax.com that questioned who would win against Obama, with choices being entertainers and some current politicians. Out of all of the options, Hillary came out victorious as one could guess from the very bold title of the article. I think its funny how Fox News titled this brief article with the term “crush” as the verb to explain that she basically won a pointless poll a week after Democrats lost so many spots. While it is interesting that Hillary out voted the current President, I question many things about this survey and do not feel it is an accurate statement of the population. This article seems to only accomplish one thing in my opinion and that is to stir things up to show that the U.S. is not in fact happy with Obama and to build on the hope Republican’s received after last week’s election. For a majority of 1000 voters to vote for Hillary over Obama, really doesn’t really get me excited, but rather it makes me wonder what is news now-a-days.

http://nation.foxnews.com/hillary-clinton/2010/11/08/poll-hillary-would-crush-obama

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/hillary-clinton-barack-obama/2010/11/07/id/376266

"Obama strolls with 15 schoolgirls"...Really?

2010-11-08T18:08:00.000-08:00

Today, Michelle Obama “strolled with 15 schoolgirls and took turns holding each one’s hand during a field trip” (Daigle). This was the first sentence of an article from the Associated Press. In my opinion, this is an example of the media playing the role of the junkyard dog. According to the textbook, “The junkyard dog exemplifies the reporter as aggressive and intrusive and suggests that gossip may be perceived as newsworthy” (pg. 71). I feel like this article is silly and holds no true relevance or importance. It is just another story the media thinks people should know about. The article continues to talk about how Michelle delivered ‘a strong message’ about how she likes to exercise because “women have to stay strong” (Obama). This confirms my thoughts about the lack of significance in this article. The story then continues on by talking about how the group of girls sat under a tree with Michelle and shared mango juice. And…the final sentence of the article puts the icing on the cake. It goes as follows, “Mrs. Obama smiled at a giant statue, and pumping both hands in the air, told the girls ‘women and power’” (Daigle). Although I understand the point of her message, I don’t think it was important enough to post everywhere online and in the news. I also think this could be an example of agenda setting. Here, the media is not really telling us what to think, but rather what to think about. It kind of annoys me to see a story like this in the news. It was sort of a waste of time to read the darn thing.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101108/ap_on_re_us/michelle_obama_asia

Catholics split in Gay Marriage Campaign

2010-11-08T17:56:00.001-08:00

Given the discussion we had on Wednesday I felt it was interesting to see the article on cnn.com which focused on a specific church in Minnesota which during the most recent election sent out a DVD which said that the parishoners needed to oppose the same sex marriage. The interesting part about this was that the church stated that they were not supporting a candidate one way or another despite there being a clear divide amongst the two politicians on this issue and in sending this out they clearly supported the stance held by Republican candidate Tom Emmer. I think this is a good example of media acting as a watch dog because despite your view fair or foul on this particular issue if there is a separation of church and state as we choose to believe in our country then our churches should not be able to send out any sort of propaganda especially over 400,000 pieces as was the case here. The other issue that was brought up in the article was the firing of a church employee when she voiced her disapproval of the campaign. The idea that needs to be realized and is being shown here is that a church should not be sending out this material because it is voter coercion that is supposed to not occur in a religious setting. This is a watchdog approach by the media because if this is allowed to occur than there cannot be as we have it a separation between church and state and at very least a church should not just arbitrarily send out something that can and in this case has offended their parishioners.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/08/minnesota.catholic.gay.marriage/index.html

BP Findings

2010-11-08T17:48:00.000-08:00

In the article Obama backs BP claim is a surprise to me until I read this story. I thought for sure the United States government would be able to find something that BP did or did not do to prevent such large oil spill happening. This article states that the investigation team by the U.S. government did not find any safety issues that BP could have prevented this $1.5 a day oil rig from having this large spill. The article justifies that BP did not put the dollar over safety. I find this extremely hard to believe as most know that companies analysis problems all the time and if the cost of the problem is less than the price to fix the problem, the problem will remain. The world has seen the movie Fight Club and knows about Car Company’s doing this in the past. The opinions of attorneys suing BP for other reasons seem to believe that BP did in fact put dollars in front of safety also. BP’s main argument is that no one wants to put saving money over the protection of someone’s life. This article portrays big business and the government relations. The stereotypical ideas of the government getting paid off to keep large corporations image up is supported in this article. The Democratic support of portraying that BP sacrificed safety for saving millions is exclaimed and reassures the Democratic hate against big business and lack of regulation. In this article I believe the Republican Party is viewed negatively as it has many democratic representatives fighting against the BP. This article are linked to the view of it is not what is said it is what is not said.

Bush's New Book, and Free Media

2010-11-08T16:46:00.000-08:00

In recent weeks, noticeably after the mid-term elections, President Bush has been out promoting his new book Decision Points. He has been receiving a lot of free media lately because of the book and outcome of the mid-term election. In the article "Bush on Water boarding: 'Damn Right"', President Bush's interview with Oprah Winfrey is discussed and is an example of the some of the recent articles about him and his book, which is free media. All though the book is suppose to restore some of President Bush's ethos, it seems to be doing the opposite. In this article, water boarding and the OK by president Bush to the CIA to use it on terrorist is called into question. In other articles I have read throughout the week also call into question some of Bush's decisions, furthering his free media about the book. One of the other criticisms was how he said Dick Cheney wouldn't be his friend if he did not pardon Scooter Libby. This already hints at the weak character of President Bush, which is a whole different topic, but regardless its all free media for President Bush and his new book. In addition to Oprah Winfrey, President Bush has appeared on the Today show, Letterman, and has done several interviews for papers such as The New York Times. This is all examples of free media for President Bush and his new book.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/05/bush.book/index.html

Is it 1994 all over again?

2010-11-08T16:43:00.000-08:00

I picked this topic because we have been talking about the elections of the 1990's for a few weeks now, and we should be getting more in depth with this one fairly soon. The article starts off talking about last weeks elections, with the Republicans gaining the majority in the house again over the Democrats, who had the majority in 2006 and 2008. The article then goes into depth about how the same thing happened in the 1994 election, instantly drawing comparisons. The republicans went into an investigation of the Clinton allegations, missing out on cues that Osama Bin Laden had made and it ultimately divided the house, making the legislative more difficult. The author believes that it happeneing again, and that house decisions will be harder than ever based on a split congress. The article goes further into Obama's decisions, trying to compare them and justify them like Clintons, but the author ultimately says that Obama will have the harder time because "After all, many liberals are already frustrated with the kinds of compromises Obama has made. Going too far -- for example, declaring that the era of big government is over -- could trigger a challenge to the president in the Democratic primaries."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/11/02/zelizer.midterms.partisan.gridlock/index.html

It was no year of the women

2010-11-08T11:50:00.000-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/11/03/lawless.women.election/index.html?iref=allsearch

It was no 'Year of the Women' reminded me of what kingmaking is when it comes to the issuing of campaign coverage. In this article, Jennifer Lawless talks about how this year women are running for U.S House and U.S Senate positions and how they are not being recognized as much as she feels they should be. Because many women are running for positions in the House of Representatives Jennifer believes that these women should recieve more coverage, especially since women running for office in the past has not been so common. In this particular article, the kingmaking refers to the Republican and Democratic male parties, and not the women. One of the reasons that Democrartic women are put below the kingmaking belt is because of the fact that they are up against anti-Democratic, anti-establishment electorates while representing 77 percent of the women in the house and the Senate. This would put Republican women representatives a little closer to the kingmaking belt than Democratic women, but not high enough to be "king made." It was predicted that the outcome of many Democratic women running for office would lose, which would put Republicans at a favorable spot. This preconceived notion of casting out women running for a position puts women at a disadvantage, especially favoring the Republican party. This also puts women at a disadvantage because there is the idea that why would anyone cover thier campaign when predictions were made and had accurate depictions of the race.

Post-election Cynicism

2010-11-08T11:29:00.000-08:00

For this blog assignment, I chose a political cartoon that reflects the polarization of our two main political parties. In the cartoon, the idea of “compromise” is drawn with a wagon being pulled two different directions, one way by a donkey, the traditional symbol of the Democratic party, and pulled the opposite direction by an elephant, the symbol for the Republican party. In the bed of the wagon is the White House, obviously making no progress, either way. I thought this cartoon was important to our class because it shows how the divide between political values in our government impedes progress on issues that are important to many people. Drawn on 11/5/2010, a few days after the elections, the American public is once again subjected to the clashing ideals of Washington D.C. We usually think of an election as a rebirth in our political structure, where candidates can be replaced, or kept, almost improving our country. But again, we have a divided central power that is going to be at a stand-still until millions of dollars are spent on the next election promising everyone change, that is never going to happen unless we take steps to reconstruct or political system.

http://www.politicalcartoons.com/cartoon/c9bac3d0-0ca8-47a4-8857-27c681e5cdd7.html

Hidden Agendas on Election Day

2010-11-02T15:13:00.000-07:00

Today is ELECTION DAY! for many of us it is the last day of having to be annoyed by campaign commericals, for the of us it is a time where we get to cast our votes on the important issues. The article I choose was from CNN.com called "Democrats privately admit house loss looks likely" talks about the importance of this election like many, which has the power to turn over the control of congress to the opposite party. The reason I choose this article was because it made me think about a lot of small different components and one larger term that we focused on in class. When reading this article the reporter talks to random people about casting their votes because of the relevance it plays in their lives as attentive audience members. This article also has a strong hold in agenda setting, it makes people think about the election then shows how President Obama is trying to get his message out, then it goes back to Rand Paul who is talking about how Obama has failed at doing what he promised, and then the end of the article talks about the open offices that need to be filled and upon reading this you feel like you should vote Republican because the staff writer made you think that way. The larger part of this article in my opinion explains the concept of free media. Which is unasked for media, that can really never hurt the candidate. I think this did a good job of talking about President Obama as well as Tea-Party supported Republican candidate Rand Paul and former President Bill Clinton. The article shows the efforts each man has taken and it also states their objectives on Election Day. The importance and significance I see with the free media is that the inattentive publics can be pushed towards the republican party because of agenda settting and the Republican Party is gaining free media to help them gain the victory that they want.

Watchdogs Bark at Fake Freeman

2010-11-02T15:11:00.000-07:00

A recent CNN news article by Allison Harding drew attention to a topic we discussed earlier in the semester. According to our textbook the media can serve as watchdogs which means that the news media watches “over the government, checking the accuracy of people’s statements and ‘barking’ to alert the public” (70). The article Ad's fake Morgan Freeman voice roils campaign explains how a recent republican campaign in North Carolina featured the ‘fake’ voice of Morgan Freeman.

Although Republican candidate B.J. Lawson's said that the party was tricked into using the voice by a production company the article reveled that even after suspicious had been drawn about the identity of the voice Lawson confirmed it was Freeman on Facebook. Furthermore the article stated that the production company MEI, “sharply denied misleading Lawson, and said that it told the campaign they would be using a voice double for Freeman at the outset of their discussions. MEI produced an e-mail dated October 12 - two weeks prior to the e-mail released Lawson's campaign – that it says proves it never claimed to have the real Freeman available.”

This article is a solid example of the media act as a watchdog and keeps an eye on the government, checking up on their accuracy. As watchdogs they revealed that the freeman voice was a hoax and brought forth evidence Lawson claims that he was mislead may be false.

Top Democrats stump for candidates as crucial election looms

2010-11-01T20:57:00.000-07:00

I found this article very relevant to what we are currently discussing in class. It discussed several of the strategies that the Democratic Party are taking to win seats in tomorrows election. I thought that this connected well with several of the commercials we have been watching on YouTube in class. Also, several of the speeches that representatives of each political party have been doing on large news programs shows that the media is making sure that they cover the election closely and are taking every event in the election very seriously by covering it and debuting it to the public through the television, newspapers, and of course the Internet. This article also discusses the confidence in the Democratic Party. This is implying to the public that they feel strong about their candidates and are confident in them and feel that they will win in taking control of the Congress.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/01/campaigning.democrats/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Kasich tells Lebanon crowd he is ready to be governor

2010-11-01T20:52:00.000-07:00

For this week's blog assignment I decided to turn to my hometown newspaper
for a source. The Middletown Journal Ed Richter reported on a story that I felt
related to our class we had today. God Terms and Devil terms was the topic. God Terms are possitive terms that brings hope to the people while Devil Terms are ususally negative terms that bring bad feelings to the public. The article is set in Lebanon Ohio at theLebanon Conference & Banquet Center, a former post office that sits a block away from the historic Golden Lamb inn and restaurant which is significant because earlier in class we watched a video clip that was in the building. Republican candidate John Kasich for Ohio govenor compaered himself as he was dressed in a blue checkered collar shirt, to the Bible hero David in comparison to incumbent Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, who he compared to Goliath. John Kasich told the audience, “I’m ready because I have prepared.” HE use words like "We are Ready to win" to the 400 member audience and compared this election to
the 1994 election when the GOP took control of the U.S. House and controlled many other state offices when President Bill Clinton was in office.
http://www.middletownjournal.com/news/election/kasich-tells-lebanon-crowd-he-is-ready-to-be-governor-989845.html

Tom Delay Money Laundering Trial Begins in Texas

2010-11-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

Tom delay money laundering trial begins in texas . (2010, November 1).

Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11671062

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Tom Delay went on trial today in Texas for money laundering while he was in office. Delay has been accused of funneling money into the legislative races in Texas during the 2002 elections. It is said that Delay collected money in the realm of 190,000 dollars to send to candidates he favored in the elections by sending money through a group he started into the Republican National Committee in order to get the money to the candidates. The problem is that in Texas it is illegal for candidates to receive corporate donations. Tom Delay currently denies any wrongdoing and also denies any wrongdoing whatsoever. If he is convicted, the maximum penalty is life in prison. I found this article to be quite interesting and useful for the blog post.

A term that we discussed earlier in the semester that I believe applies to this article is the idea of free media. Free media is the idea that no matter what the media does, it is giving free promotion and publicity. This goes off of the idea that no publicity is bad publicity. This article about Tom Delay fits this term perfectly in my opinion. Yes, it is quite a negative article for Tom Delay to have out about him, but he is currently out of the actual political realm and could use any bit of publicity he could get, because it wouldn't be surprising if he still had ambitions of getting into politics.

Don't ask, don't tell

2010-11-01T20:49:00.000-07:00

An article I found interesting is called Appeals court extends life of gay military policy from MSNBC. Today a federal appeals court extended the militarise ban on gays openly serving by indefinitely freezing a judge's order on halting the enforcement of the"don't ask, don't tell" law. This means that gay Americans who disclose their sexual orientations can not enlist in the army and those who are serving can be investigated and discharged if they are found to be serving openly gay. President Obama has said numerous times that he opposes the "don't ask, don't tell" policy and has even worked with Democrats on writing a bill that would lift the ban but was ultimately blocked by the Senate. "The President claims to want to see 'Don't ask, don't tell' ended. It is time that he stop talking and start working to make a real difference for gay and lesbian Americans by pushing for repeal when Congress returns," said R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, the gay rights group that sued to overturn the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.
This article made me think of the many classes we spent talking about Michel Foucault's theory of episteme which is when a "given era permits a certain messages to be delivered and attempts to silence others" (Bell 52). Critics have looked for the "counter-discursive" messages in a certain era and this article is a prime example of this in my opinion. A counter-discursive era is one that challenges not only the prevailing political order but, in many ways, also how politics and political arguments should be conducted." (Bell 53). The Log Cabin Republicans represent this counter-discursive message because they are challenging the current episteme that gays should not serve in the military.

Oh Obama

2010-11-01T20:38:00.001-07:00

Obama has a slip of words again. Media watchdogs have risen up and told the public about Presidents Obama recent slip of words. When talking to the Latino nation in Arizona when told about how many Latinos feel like protesting against voting he responded: “If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,' if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder.”
Clearly a mix up calling other Americans enemies however in the article I chose to analysis he did apologize for this statement and told the public he meant opponent not enemies. Republicans after this remark have been quoting President Obama saying the presidents few them as enemies therefore getting nothing done in congress will continue to happen.
The article continues to inform the readers on what President Obama will be doing to help the midterm elections. The articles states that he is targeting young Americans, particularly African Americans in key states for the midterm election. In class we talked about how the president’s party throughout history has been destroyed in midterm elections. That the President is criticized for his moves and this article supports that.

Marijuana Legalization / Voting

2010-11-01T20:21:00.000-07:00

To go along with voting for local and state law makers, voters around the country will also vote on other things such as fishing rights all the way to the legalization of Marijuana. California is considering legalizing marijuana for personal use for people thats are 21years old and older, meaning someone could possess and transport marijuana for their own personal use. Arizona, Oregon, and South Dakota are considering various measures from legalizing marijuana to loosening up the laws on it. I am a firm believer that marijuana should be legalized for a number of reasons. I believe the legalization of marijuana would reduce the crime rate as well as become a huge way for the government to make money and bring our country out of are ever growing debt. If California was to really legalize Marijuana im sure the government would put a huge tax on it like they do cigarettes. This could cause a ripple effect for other states across the country to realize the type of revenue that could be gained by legalizing marijuana. I mean alcohol is legal and the dangers that alcohol causes are way worse then what marijuana does to your body. I do not see why marijuana can't be legal like alcohol with resritctions just how alcohol is.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/01/ballot.initiatives/index.html

Attack ads

2010-11-01T20:19:00.000-07:00

When I get bored with school work, I enjoy watching a YOUTUBE or HULU video or two to refresh my brain. Lately though, I've been fairly frustrated with both of those services though. A new part of the YOUTUBE and HULU experience are ads before super popular videos. For instance, tonight I watched "Single Ladies", and sure as you're born with the millions and millions of hits that video has had, there was an advertisement at the start, and like so many lately, it was about the Ohio governor race. A video later, I find myself seeing another advertisement about the Ohio governor race...that says the exact opposite of the video that I saw before it. It is unbelievable to me that in a span of less than ten minutes, I can see two advertisements for two different candidates--both swearing up and down that the other one is worse than the one you should be voting for. How confusing! As part of the inattentive public for this race, I don't know what to think when I hear two advertisements saying the total opposite points that one says. In our book it said that (I do believe) right around 52% voted in the 2008 presidential election. I am slowly but surely coming to the conclusion that this is because of how insanely polarized the two candidates let advertisements make them seem, people are simply too confused which one of them is being honest and the other a liar, so they just disregard them all together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m1EFMoRFvY&ob=av3e

Online and Campaigning

2010-11-01T19:58:00.000-07:00

From 2004 through today, online social media is strongly prominent and influential to voters in the United States. This article from the Lodi News-Centennial points out various candidates using the internet to gain support. For example, Congressman Jerry McNerney is using Facebook to send out event invitations to let his followers know when he will be maing campaign stops. McNerney's opponent, David Harmer, countered by using Facebook to post pictures of campaign volunteers making phone calls and challenging others to help out on the campaign trail. Alyson Huber, Democrat Assemplywomen is using the social network to post endorsements from organizations. While her opponenet, Jack Sieglock, posts videos to encourage support of his campaign. In face, a councilwoman in the city of Lodi, California, praised social networking saying, "It is easier for people to contact you and let you know there is a problem, or thank you for solving one." The article also suggests that the fusing of social media and politics is still growing because some candidates have features that may turn off the audience. For example, when you first enter Sieglock's webpage you get a popup that immediately asks for a phone number and e-mail address. Online campaigning and blogging started gaining some attention with Howard Dean's 2004 bid for president. Even though Dean's "Scream" led to his campaign downfall, he showed us that using the internet is an effective way to attract and get in touch with supporters (153-154). Even in the 2006 Mid-Term elections political campaigns utilized the internet. For example, Mike DeWine sent out attack ads via online, endorsements he received, and a countdown that remined people of election day (184). New Jersey's Bob Casey used his blog to post pictures "From the Road." This made the viewer think they were getting personal and an exclusive look at the candidate (185).

http://www.lodinews.com/news/article_a7b8297f-d60d-50cc-b525-3885d7da940.html

Back from the dead!

2010-11-01T19:50:00.000-07:00

What has come back from the dead? Ghouls and Goblins, No! Vampires and zombies, No! More like Republicans and Conservatives or so the media seems to hint at. With the upcoming elections coming up in a couple of days, many people are starting to speculate the return of a Republican House party and the media seems to be sending out the invitations. "The Conservatives Come Back From the Dead", a story found in the Politics Daily news room is A pretty clever title for the upcoming elections esp. with a hint of the Halloween Spirit giving it its tone. This article speaks about the return of the republicans and conservatives. Many theorist as well as politicians assumed that the House would stay Democratic for many years to come with Obama winning presidency in 2008. However, with all the assumptions and opinions, it seems that the republicans just might after all regain power. I chose this article because it shows a great example of how the media assumes things are going to happen before they actually happen. During the 2004 presidential election with Bush and Carey, the media assumed that Carey was going to win and they assumed that Carey won Florida, and as they created and briefed their news coverage around this assumption, one of the worst things happened for them, they were wrong and people found out about it. The media today, seems to be doing the same thing. Note, I am not saying that they are wrong now, which I hope that they are not, but I am saying is that the assumptions have begun once again. When will the media learn that they should not assume something has happened until it actually happens.

-Damian

Fake News Proves Once Again It’s Real

2010-11-01T19:43:00.001-07:00

On Thursday October 28 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart did something it had never done in its entire run: interview a sitting United States President. Barack Obama realized that the Democratic Party was in trouble to lose all of Congress and putting his chips down on the popular satirical news program hoping that it would get the target demographic voters out to the polls tomorrow. My question was had he underestimated what Jon could do to him even though he was President? After watching the interview I found that the article: “President Obama skewered by Jon Stewart in ‘Daily Show’ interview” gave the best summary of what happened during this interview. This article showed us that “Fake News” as they call it is actually more real than the news we get from MSNBC or Fox. They spoke about how since he came into office all of the things that we promised were not delivered in the way we were promised and how the Democrats were running on the “Please baby one more chance” ticket and that President Obama’s slogan should have been “Yes we can…but.” I was pleasantly refreshed with the questions that were asked by Stewart and how despite President Obama trying to spin things as he is so good at doing Jon stayed the course and pushed the buttons that everyday Americans wanted pushed and he pushed about as hard as he could without making Obama angry. This was a good example of fake news becoming real news because they had an opportunity not many people had they could ask questions in a way that gave a slight sarcastic humor that would have offended a “real” newscaster but we got answers and saw Obama actually have to search for answers to questions he wouldn’t be asked in a normal setting. We saw something we don’t normally see someone taking what Barack Obama said and showing that it wasn’t anything of substance.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/turns_out_the_joke_on_obama_uo0uvZYYI8UzHMp09xngzM

Sarah Palin Rallies Democrats

2010-11-01T17:56:00.003-07:00

The article that I read was called “Democrats’ Last Hope: Sarah Palin”. The article discusses how Sarah Palin can save the House of Democrats, and ho many of the party’s endangered incumbents are spending their final days campaigning as much against the former Alaska governor as against their Republican rivals. The article describes how Republicans tend to love her but Democrats and independents view her unfavorably with equal intensity. The numbers from the latest Bloomberg survey, conducted by Des Moines-based Seizer & Co, show these sentiments with just 38 percent of Americans view her favorably, while 54 percent see her unfavorably. Incumbents are trying to associate their republican rivals with the former governor. Palin has endorsed 56 candidates across the country, stretching from her home state of Alaska to Florida and New Hampshire. In Ohio, Mary Jo Kilroy, a democrat, has used on of these donations to paint her opponent, state Sen. Steve Stivers, as a Palin “protégé”, turning those non-Palin supporters against him. Some democrats feel bringing up ties to Palin will rally democratic voters and alienate independent voters, bringing a combination that democrat need to win the race. Republican however feel that bringing up or denying tells to Palin is irrelevant and ridiculous, “Sarah Palin’s not on the ballot. People aren’t thinking about her. They’re thinking about what’s been going on in Washington”. However, I feel people will care about this because it is gossip, and Sarah Palin now has celebrity tied to her, this brings attention from the media, whether good or bad, and will gain viewer interest.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/20101031/pl_yblog_exclusive/democrats-last-hope-sarah-palin

Fox News cuts down Palin's claims...

2010-11-01T17:15:00.001-07:00

The article, "Fox News cuts down Palin's claims about 'corrupt bastards' at CBS", is a good example of the media acting as a watchdog. In our book it says "...news media serve as a watchdog over government, checking the accuracy of people's statements and 'barking' to alert the public to issues of concern" (Bell 70). In this article Fox news is checking the accuracy of Sarah Palin's statements at a recent rally and "barking" to prove her wrong. Recently at a rally for Republican Joe Miller, Palin said that reporters from CBS affiliates were trying to "smear" his reputation for the up coming election. Palin's proof is a voice mail that was excidently left on one of Miller's aides phone suggesting how to smear his name. However, Fox news looked into the latest news reports and columns from the CBS affiliates and no bias news or reputation smearing articles were discovered. In fact they said they found the opposite and Palin was wrong about the whole situation. This reminded me of media watchdog and I think it is a good example as Fox has been "barking" about some of Palin's remarks.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/fox-cuts-palin-corrupt-cbs/

"electric cars are gay"

2010-11-01T16:13:00.000-07:00

The line maybe be offensive and it may harm peoples feelings however famous and popular directer, Ron Howard is keep it in his up and coming new film. A character played by Vince Vaughn in his film that will release in January states that electric cars are "gay". Although Ron Howard does believe in being sensitive he tell the Los Angeles Times that he does not support censorship. This issue is an interesting one to me because I am very pro gay rights and have a close friend who is gay. However I am also a supporter of comedy. I do not believe that the line in the Ron Howard film is being said to intentionally bash on homosexuals. However not specifically talking talking about gay people the line in the has caused a public outcry about the issue of using language like this in films. GLAAD, the gay lesbian alliance believes that lines such as this being allowed in films is just perpetuating the problem of allowing this type of harsh and offensive language continue. I selected this article on CNN because I felt that this is an issue I truly find myself in the middle and sympathize with both sides of the argument. Having friends who identify with being gay, I would not want lines of films to offend them. Not being gay I truly can not comprehend the frustration of being discriminated in this way. I also support the art of comedy. My friends who are black make black jokes and even my friends who are gay make gay jokes. Jokes are meant to be funny and not always to offend and harm someones feelings. Issues such as the line is the movie are going to become in the headlines more as gay rights continues to be and main issue in our country. It will be interesting to see how film makers such as Ron Howard deal or do not deal with these situations.

Voting Inefficiencies

2010-11-01T16:09:00.000-07:00

So I found this article on the “Columbus Dispatch”, my home newspaper’s webpage, and was disgusted especially. This may be me on a soap box or may just be personal opinion, but with situations such as described in this article where close to 5,000 election reminders have mistakes on them that have been sent out; it really makes me question is there a better way or more efficient way to run elections. In this day of age it seems that the way elections are run is almost outdated and completely inefficient. I began to think about this last spring when I went to vote for the various Levys on the ballot, only to find out I was not at the correct polling place thanks to a printed off book of names and pages that did not provide much more than an inconvenience and almost deterred me from voting. I think the archaic way we run elections currently needs to be looked at very closely and consulted in the near future because very soon the population will be our generation of learners, who don’t always seem to appreciate the systems of the past and could easily be turned off and made apathetic about the pace and end all value of the process. I think we need to look at better ways to make the process efficient and maybe more technologically advanced, such is the rest of the world, to persuade others out to the poll and voice their opinion, and use their civic duties.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/11/01/election-cards-have-errors.html?sid=101

Those who say things going poorly higher than 1994 or 2006

2010-11-01T15:59:00.000-07:00

75 percent. Thats the percent of Americans who think that things are going bad for our country. That number, which is alarmingly high, is the highest it has ever been since the poll originated in the 1970's. Of those 75%, an astounding 52% think that the biggest concern for our country is the falling economy. Getting more specific, the part of the economy, according to the survey, that Americans find most upseting is the rising unemployment rate. According to the article, even when the nation heads from a repulican candidate as perisent to a demcratic, or vise versa, the percentage hasn't been this high. Surprisingly to me, even with these high numbers, most people agreed that things were getting better, or were happy with their personal lives. I feel like I can personally vouch for how hard the economy is hurting. I have to live with the reality that both my parents, even working at the same place for over 20 years each, are both at jeopardy to lose their jobs. My dad's factory is continually laying people off, and had has hours fluctuate weekly for over a year now. My mom's bank seems to be in jeopardy of being sold to another company each week, making her job security at question as well. Even for me, finding a simple part time job for last summer was a struggle.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/01/poll.election/index.html

Immigration and Latinos voting

2010-11-01T11:32:00.000-07:00

The article I read today was from cnn.com. This article was all about the immigration laws that are in Arizona and other states and the laws that the Republicans are trying to pass. The article states that because of the Arizona law and many other copycat laws against the Latino immigrants, the GOP is in reality ruining their own campaign. With these laws on the forefront, the Latino population is beginning to keep the immigration laws on their mind and by doing so they are more likely to vote Democrat. The DREAM act, which stands for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, enables Latino immigrants to earn their citizenship by going to college or serving in the military. The GOP is against this act. By the GOP being against this act and being in support of the Arizona laws, the Latino population is beginning to turn their backs to the Republican Party and look more closely at the Democratic Party. Since Latinos are the single-largest ethnic minority in the United States, and that they are unhappy with the actions of the GOP, there is a large chance that there will be an increased turnout in support of Democrats. This could lessen the chance the Republicans have to gain the majority in the House and Senate. With this vote, the Republican Party could lose the Latino voters that they had to begin with and that could end up not only being a short term effect, but also being a long term effect.

Obama calls on Democrats to vote on Tuesday

2010-10-31T20:02:00.000-07:00

In the article, “Obama calls on Democrats to vote on Tuesday,” Obama and Biden stress the importance of voting for this upcoming midterm election. In fact the article states that “Both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden depicted the elections as a choice between Democrats wanting to move the country forward versus Republicans seeking to return to past policies that led to economic recession.” It also states that "When you get knocked down, there's only one thing to do. Get up. Get up and vote," Biden told the crowd, eliciting cheers. "Make sure the same thing doesn't knock you down again." This kind of talk coming from both Obama and Biden reminds me of a discussion we had on ethos. By both the President and Vice President choosing the words that they chose to share with the public, the audience is emotionally struck. It is almost as if Obama and Biden are saying that it is up to the audience and anyone representing the Democratic vote to make this country move forward. By both leaders portraying the idea Democrats need this vote to move forward suggests that the audience cannot move forward if they do not cast their vote. This particular statement emotionally charges anyone who supports the Democrats to act upon what Obama and Biden stand on. It also charges anyone who supports the Democrats to “not want to get knocked down again.”

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/31/ohio.obama/index.html

Obama on the 'Daily Show'

2010-10-29T14:39:00.001-07:00

I read an article yesterday from the USA Today titled, “Obama gets his ‘Daily Show’ moment of Zen”. The article talked about Obama’s visit with John Stewart. While on the show, Barack stayed mostly serious, often defending his record as Stewart poked him about the promises of “change” he made during his campaign. After being ridiculed by John Stewart, Obama felt the need to revive his name and the work he has done while in the White House. He told John, “His team prevented an economic depression, revived private sector job growth, and passed a historic health care plan.” He continued to say that they have done a lot that he had talked about in his campaign, and that they are going to do more.

At one point in the article, the White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, Obama “obviously has a constituency of younger voters that watch that show, and it’s a good place to go and reach them.” The article in the USA Today made me think of the discussions we had about the mixing of politics and popular culture, and the reading of real news versus fake news. I am sure Barack new that Stewart was going to give him a hard time throughout the interview, but knowing that his young audience was likely to see the show justified his decision to go on.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-10-28-obama28_ST_N.htm

Worthy of Acknowledgement

2010-10-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

In an MSNBC article "ARK. school official accused of Anti-gay screed" by Jill Zeman Bleed, Clint McCance, a member of the Miland school board used a Facebook post to protest people wearing purple to show support for bullied gay and lesbian youth. His post stated "The only way im wearing it for them is if they all commit suicide. I can't believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed thereselves because of their sin". The school district has made it clear that he was not speaking as a member of the district but as a free citizen. When I looked at this article I thought a lot of things. First, is this man serious? Secondly, what on earth is the public relations department for this school district going to have to do to fix this and third, this is an event that is definately news worthy and will be reported on. For something to be news worthy it must meet seven different criteria including timeliness, proximity, conflict, impact, prominence, currency and uniqueness. The statement made was done so in a period of time that was crucial to the success of this awareness event and because of this it creates and uproar. The news article even states that by Wednesday afternoon only one week later 23,000 member had joined the group on Facebook to fire McCance. The families and members of the community and society believe that his remarks should be shared with others. The impacts of his remarks have also shown that men like McCance have not helped but harmed the students who have been victims of bullying. This story as well has a lot of power to it in terms of equal rights and gay and lesbian rights and his statement has made it a startling response to a topic that is now frequently supported. This man clearly has veiws that are not publically supported by the American people and therefore this story has become newsworthy.

Newsworthiness of Michelle Obama

2010-10-27T17:37:00.000-07:00

An article published online by CBS news titled 'Michelle Obama's Fashion Home Run’ reminded me about the idea of ‘newsworthiness.” The textbook describes newsworthiness as the evaluation of news or events based on seven different criterions which include timeliness, proximity, conflict, impact, prominence, currency, and uniqueness (68-69). This article focuses on how fashionable the First Lady is. This seemed extremely un-newsworthy to me. However, upon further examination I was able to see how this article did in fact meet some of the criteria for newsworthiness.

The article was timely, had prominence, and currency. ‘Michelle Obama’s Fashion Home Run’ was published on the CBS website four days after the event and the first lady was said to have appeared at the event looking like “a budding fashion icon.” As the wife of the President Michelle Obama is a prominent figure which means that even if the story met no other criteria it is likely to be published as she is a well known and popular public figure which draws interest from the general public. As not only the wife of the President but the first ‘black’ President stories about the Obama family are of current interest to the public. The audience is interested in stories about Michelle which means that articles concerning her address the currency criterion.

Women Voting

2010-10-26T10:12:00.001-07:00

For my blog assignment this week I read an article on CNN.com This article was about how many women are pushing away from voting. The article starts out very positive saying how women are taking up more and more positions of power in the government. Over 262 women ran for a congressional seat this year, that is 40 more than there was in 1992. In a study done by CNN.com that came to conclusions that only 23% of women are "enthusiatic" about voting compared to the 38% percent of men who are "enthusiastic" about voting. It seems that even with all of the progress women have made with gaining higher positions throughout the government moral is still down. The article goes into stating that the feeling of being let down much, and poeple not doing as they say they are going to has been part of the reason why voting enthusiasm is down among women. Another reason why voting enthusiasm is down with women is because unemployment rates are going no where. Now a days women account for 2/3 of a families incomes in order for their family to survive. Women have to work so hard to do anything now a days, between working harder to have a fair chance of power within either its a large company trying to climb the ladder, or its just simply gaining ground in positions of power in the government. Women are simply starting to lose hope over the face that they have so much on their plate and are not getting the respect they deserve. I chose this articly because I remember talking about in class why people vote certain ways. Such as demographics why certain areas vote a certain way or why they do not vote at all. For this instance, this article seems to target many women that are most likely middle class hard working busy women who seem to be losing hope. Therefore, with loss of hope they are voting less.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/10/25/wefald.gould.women.voting/index.html

Obama is The Devil

2010-10-25T20:45:00.000-07:00

The article Mississippi Democrat admits he didn't vote for Obama is an interesting one. I truly believe to be a good politician it is not what you say but what you don’t say. Gene Taylor, Mississippi representative said that he did not vote for Obama and added that “better the devil you know.” This political socialization that takes place on certain websites and/or television channels is aggressive. This article is on Fox News website which is mostly a republican news source and this supports this theory. The ethos that Obama has with many Americans may not be too high however I don’t believe a candidate from the same party should be referring another member of his same party the devil. Taylor then continues to dismiss the current speaker of the house Pelsoi and how she has “veered towards the left.” This extreme cause to separate oneself from Obama really does not say anything to me as a voter. The guy is a democrat and it is hard to believe he is not going to have the same perspectives as the majority of his party. I believe this extreme cause will only hurt Taylor as it proves no loyalty to his fellow party members.
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/10/25/mississippi-democrat-admits-he-didnt-vote-obama

RI Dem: Obama can 'shove it' for not endorsing me

2010-10-25T20:33:00.001-07:00

RI Dem: Obama can 'shove it' for not endorsing Me
By MICHELLE R. SMITH, Associated Press Writer

For my blog post, I decided to be different and use BET as news source. http://www.bet.com/News/NationalRIDemObamaCanShoveItForNotEndorsingMe.htm
I believe this article used forms of persuasion with Ethos being a big part of it.
Ethos is an appeal to the authority or honesty of the speaker. It is how well the speaker convinces the audience that he or she is qualified to speak on the particular subject. Ethos is involved with this article becaause they use President Barack Obama has a notable figure, and with him stating his opinion could persuade voters to vote another way. Rhode Island Democratic Frank Caprio's told reporters that he would welcome the president's endorsement, but since then Obama made his decision that he would would endorse no one, Caprio told WPRO-AM in an angry way that Obama can "take his endorsement and really shove it." Obama chose not to endorse Caprio because his opponenet, independent candidate Lincoln Chafee, who was a onetime Republican, endorsed Obama in 2008 while running for presidency in against John Maccain.

Sink, Scott Clash in Final Debate

2010-10-25T20:33:00.000-07:00

The article that I chose to write about for this week is titled “Sink, Scott clash in final debate” by CNN’s Allison Harding. A very simple concept that can be applied to this is “free media”. This article is about Republican Rick Scott vs. Democrat Alex Sink final debate and what went down. It stated some of the attacks that each side gave to each other about what they felt about their topics and the others response. It describes how it became hostile. Both candidates leveled charges that the other had engaged in fraud during previous careers. They both pretty much just took blows at each other. The article corresponds with free media because if this debate was not sponsored by CNN, the St. Petersburg Times and the University of South Florida, it is not sure that anybody would have paid any attention to it. What also makes it free media is because of the intensity during it that made it an interesting thing to talk about. To tell you the truth I had never even heard of these two before I read this article and for them to get publicity like this is very helpful and hopefully their message will reach the masses and make people begin to think about voting for one or the other. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/25/sink-scott-clash-in-final-debate/

Federal Agent guilty of murder?

2010-10-25T20:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/25/virgin.islands.atf.agent.case/index.html?iref=NS1

The article I selected I found on CNN and it was a story about an ATF agent who shot a man five times and killed him in the virgin islands. Allegedly, AFT agent, William Clark was off duty and noticed a nude man screaming at his girlfriend and shouting racial slurs at a neighbor who had come outside to see what the commotion was.The victim of the shooting had a high blood alcohol level and was also under the influence of other drugs. The victim went inside his house when Clark approached and put on shorts then attempted to attack the off duty agent with a large flash light. The reason I selected this article is because this agent is now on trial for second degree murder. Similar to celebrities, I feel like and assume people in the military get special treatment when going on trial for crimes. Due to the fact that this man serves our government his sentence if he does receive one will be far less than anyone else would serve for this crime . the man who was shot 5 times was not carrying any other weapons and due to the training of the ATF agent I would assume he would know another way to disarm the man from his flashlight. Instead he shot the man five times. I always notice and do not understand how people get such special treatment than others who do not serve in the military.

First lady makes West Coast swing

2010-10-25T20:22:00.000-07:00

In Michelle Obama’s speech for the West Coast tour she explains what real change is. In her explanation of what real change her speech is shown to be relative to Law Professor’s Thomas Emerson’s four main purposes for free expression relative to the functioning of democracy. It is in this speech that we are able to see how free expression helps individuals achieve self-fulfillment by Michelle’s redefining of what real change is and how change will come about. The way that she explains how change will come about was by saying that it is a timely process. The way that she explains how free expression allows for the advancement of knowledge and the discovery of truth entails her explanation of how important it is to vote democrat for midterm election and what will come about for that particular vote. The way that she advocates for free expression being essential to provide for participation in decision making by all members of society is by trying to get the people to vote. Lastly, the relationship between free expression and consensus within stabilizing communities is shown by her speech being developed to get all the members of the particular community to agree that what she has to say is reason enough to vote democrat.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/25/michelle.obama.campaign/index.html?iref=allsearch

Obama Pleads Ohioans to Repeat the Magic of '08, but is the Magic Gone?

2010-10-25T20:13:00.000-07:00

President Obama and his wife were doing their first day of campaigning together since the 2008 election cycle here in Ohio this last Monday and he was working hard to remind Ohioans just why they voted for him in the last presidential election. He remarked about the economy and how his policies for the last two years helped stave off a Second Great Depression. This article is showing how despite the fact that it isn’t only thirty seconds that what he said was basically an attack ad. He used issues that worry people to make sure that his policies look good and that he strikes the fear of god into anyone who wants to vote Republican. The question is that is it too late Governor Strickland is having issues in his race, there are four Democratic Reps in fear of losing his race, and Fisher’s Senatorial race vs Portman is being seen as a loss already. President Obama realizes he and the Democrats are in trouble and he’s pulling out all the stops, but the entirety of his visit and his presidency can be summed up in a pair of quotes from a Cleveland fundraiser between himself and the first lady. Mrs. Obama introduced the President as "the love of my life... and more importantly, the president of the United States." To which Pres. Obama said "It is not true that more importantly I am the president of the United States," the president replied when he got the microphone. "More importantly, I am Michelle Obama's husband, and Malia and Sasha's father, and Michelle has put up with me through thick and thin, and I'm grateful for her each and every day." We’re not quite sure what we’re getting from him nowadays and it seems he and his wife can’t even agree on it. So if that’s our President how do we trust the Democrats in Ohio?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/17/obama.ohio/index.html?iref=obnetwork

Text Message Causes Campaign Loss

2010-10-25T20:11:00.000-07:00

An article I found on cnn.com titled "Trending: Aide fired over Florida debate foul." This article is about a political debate that is taking place in Florida between Alex Sink and Rick Scott. During a break, a campaign member texted Alex Sink on her Driod smartphone. This is a breach of the rules during a debate. There is no outside help or communication with anyone and because of this mistake, a member of her campaign, Brian May, had to be fired. This article made me think of these past few classes where we are talking about the different debates and how one was favored over the other or one completely fumbled and screwed their debate or public appearance up. This incident has seemed to cause some controversy between the two candidates and between the public and Sink. Even though what happened was wrong, she still tried to justify it with a reason why one of her campaign member's wanted to get a hold of her and let her know some information. She stated that Brian May texted her because he was upset with the things Rick Scott keep repeating and how distorted and wrong they were. He admitted doing something wrong, but he still lost his job and position in the campaign.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/25/florida-debate-foul/

Why Democrats are hurting

2010-10-25T19:46:00.000-07:00

In the article, "Why Democrats are hurting" author Julian E. Zelizer explains how the Democratic Party has become disconnected with America. Zelizer states that the Democrats failure to recover the poor economy has left the party and President Obama with a "conversational record and an angry electorate", This article demonstrated several terms and concepts we have discussed in class throughout the semester. For example, Zelizer's purpose for writing this article is to persuade the viewers that the Republican Party has made a remarkable recovery since the last election in 2008 while slandering the Democratic Party and pointing out all their parties issues and flaws. He then states that the Republican Party is looking forward to the 2012 election implying that they will do well. This reminded me of a few of the campaigns we explored in class and the attacks on the opposing candidates or parties. Zelizer also frames this article to visitors of CNN.com that the Democratic Party is falling apart, struggling, and "hurting". He even states that people in favor of the Republicans are framing the political media, "Conservatives have also done very well at playing the politics of the media by staying on message and framing Obama and his policies in a negative light."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/10/25/zelizer.democrats.woes/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Obama on the Hot seat again!!

2010-10-25T18:50:00.000-07:00

Things just aren’t looking good for Obama. Unfulfilled promises, avoiding political questions, and changing -policy issues a couple of years into his presidency, are just a few things (to name a few) that media has been able to address about Obama’s presidency. It’s becoming a dark and lonely finish for Obama as we get closer and closer to the 2012 elections. Media has been all over Obama that it’s no wonder patches of gray and white in his hair have sprouted over the past couple of years. Every time Obama makes a mistake, the media is sure to create for him another patch of gray and white hair. To make it even worse, now Obama is being coined for the loss or future loss of so many democratic seats in the senate. As this article suggest Obama’s campaign in 2007-2008, did not expect that with his win so many former democratic seats would and were in jeopardy of being lost to the Republicans such as his own seat when Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was the likely democratic candidate to fill Obama’s vacancy, was convicted of trying to sell Obama’s seat. Hilary Clinton’s seat was in Jeopardy as well once she got promoted to Secretary of State, as well as Ken Salazar’s seat, when he was elected to be Obama’s interior secretary and V.P. Biden’s seat which was almost lost to Tea party Candidate Christine O’Donnell. This article reminded me of another example of the ever dominate practice of framing and priming in news organizations. FOX news aligns itself with Republicans and the way they frame their news and primes them such as the title of this article, “Turning Victory to Defeat? How Obama's Election Helped Put the Senate in Play” Shows it. The title is primed so that people reading it will think that Obama’s victory has somehow led to a defeat and once they read the article, the readers clearly see that the defeat is for all democrats.
-Damian

Analysis: Professor exposes more voting system flaws

2010-10-25T18:31:00.001-07:00

The story that I found on CNN.com talks about how these days it is so easy to tamper with voting systems in the U.S. When I saw this story immediately thought about the situation in Florida with Bush and the votes. I think that these days’ officials are not always the honest nice guys that they seem. The hacking of the voting system was done by a professor at University of Michigan. He was able to look at data and even put the Michigan fight song on the site just for fun. This makes me wonder in the future how someone who wants a certain person to win a certain spot will use their computer skill in order to sway a vote. If it was easy for this professor than any person with computer hacking skills will be able to get in the system where ever they have a computer. Political databases that handle voting numbers I feel should be more secure and safe, because you never know what could happen.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/25/voting.system.flaws/index.html

California Governor Campaign Ad, Nothing New But a Practice That Works

2010-10-25T17:51:00.000-07:00

While looking at my Google news feed I came across a story I felt was especially worthy of a blog entry as it is all about the governor election race out in California and a specific ad that was recently ran. In this Jerry Brown advertisement, it shows footage of Meg Whitman saying in a previous interview how great California was and the opportunities in the state thirty years ago when she moved to the state, it then shows that Jerry Brown was the governor at the time and what he has accomplished during his time as governor and as a statesman. This ad is a shot at the Whitman campaign because it uses her own words against her and truly capitalize off the statement at the end of the commercial, when Meg says, “I mean it’s why I came to California.” This statement along with her praise of the way California was at the time of Jerry Brown’s governor term thirty years previous, really speaks highly of what Brown was able to accomplish and has truly hurt her campaign along with series of other advertisements and allegations regarding her hiring of an illegal immigrant. These ads’s really seemed to have a similar look to those of other campaigns we looked at in class, and while it does not clearly attack Whitman it definitely offers the audience a message that will be hard to combat for Meg Whitman’s team. The article mentions that Brown has a 52% leading up to elections currently and ads similar to these will definitely help him keep that lead for Election Day.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/brown-ad-uses-whitmans-words-against-her/65142/