Another Point of Contention

(Pictures Up tomorrow)

President Obama's old Senate Seat in Illinois, and the GOP plans to place a Conservative rear end in it with Mark Kirk. His democratic rival manifests as Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias.

It also should be noted that the recent Tea Party Movement has been pushing Republicans right, away from moderate policies and voters.

Paul Green, director of policy studies at Roosevelt University, said: "Kirk will have plenty of time to modify his positions in the general. He is going to be very tough to beat if the current trends continue. None of the other candidates' résumés match up to his."

Currently Giannoulias is leading the fractured Democratic field with about a third of the vote, but many have posed concerns about his relative inexperience, as well as recent events that may mar his record.

Read About it Here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/30/AR2010013002162.html?hpid=topnews

Journalistic Integrity

(Again, Pictures will be up MONDAY, when I manage to get fast enough internet access at school.)

Recently I hear Journalists are being criticized for being too involved with disaster victims in Haiti. Calls that objective reporters can't get involved have occured in many disaster areas.

Such Critizism is insensitive and nonsensical. If a journalist is a doctor and someone needs help, who is the journalist, the victim, or the viewer to deny such help to preserve 'objectivity'? It's not like CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta stopped in the middle of a live broadcast to save people either. He helped people off-duty. A reporter does not forfeit his humanity when he takes the job too. As CBC News says, "What the journalist is experiencing is unfathomable to most Americans. Hearing the cries of dying Haitians under piles of rubble would drive anyone — journalist or not — to at least try to help them."

Additionally, footage of reporters helping people reinforces the good attempted by rescue operations. TAKE THAT, FRANCE!!!

Obama's Speech

(Note: Pictures for the next three posts will be up on monday at the latest.)

This Wednesday, United States President Obama gave a "little speech or something", as the eloquent people of our honorable school so accurately described it.

The state of the Union is a long-time tradition of American Presidents. It's there chance to tell the nation their plans and ask for the support of the people and their representatives. Read about it.

Aesthetic and superficial things happened. A standing ovation occurred every 2 minutes. Republicans rarely clapped. Joe Biden looked weird. But so what? Who cares?

The biggest thing I liked about it was his exhortation to both parties to "reject the false choice between leading the country and upholding your values" and try to lead the country. That was one of the major topics later in his speech.
Read about them here

Since the time of FDR, A president's first 100 days in office are rated by how much is accomplished. Obama faced a fiercely devided and partisan government and not much was done. Health care is taking 8 months and rising. Some critics even say bi-partisanship was a mistake.

Obama talked a lot on Wednesday. Over an hour even, and we all hold our breath to see if all that talk held promise.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012904228.html

Tensions Rise

Republicans today are burdended with the task of trying to appeal to a people that has a bone to pick with big buisness. As you know, Republicans favor big buisness. Obama has elicited such when his proposal to restrict large corporations was met with rancid outrage on the part of the Republicans. Conversly, Republicans said it is possible to be pro-business while favoring the interests of workers and small firms over Wall Street excess. :/

However,The public's frustration is directed more at government than at businesses or banks, said Kevin Madden, who served as an aide to Republican Mitt Romney, the former presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor.

Mr. Obama is taking advantaged of the economic and political situations in attempt to garner support. It's working.

Mr. Obama recently proposed a $9 billion-a-year tax on big banks to help replenish the money taxpayers lost from bailouts. The president also suggested limiting the size of big banks and restricting their involvement in trading. This was met with much outrage on the part of Republicans.

In times of hardship, it's so nice to see people of diverse interests and affiliations band together to help their people, isn't it?

Read about it at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704905604575027531605192798.html

According to CNN's Stimulus Tracker, the total stimulous to the US economy totals around 4.7 trillion dollars, including the 787 billion dollar first stimulous package and 3.9 Trillion in 'stealth stimulous', which includes things like credit market support programs, Financial Industry Bail-outs, and housing market initiatives.

And yet, for the vast majority of American people, the economy doesn't look like it's recovering. When President Obama visited Elyria, Ohio friday, he was greeted with statistics showing the state's unemployment jumping from 10.6% to 10.9%, higher than the national average, which is about 10.0 and slowly rising. Nevermind that economists appear on news stations claiming that the economic trend is veering towards recovery, for most people the econmy is still in ruins and our policy makers are gabbling about health care.

Obama acknowledged that communities like Elyria are still not feeling a recovery and renewed his call for Congress to pass a second economic recovery package, which aides say he will push hard for in his State of the Union address on Wednesday.

Supreme Court and Campaign Finance

This week, in a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court ruled the government may not ban or restrict political spending by corporations in elections, becasue it was a restriction of Free Speech.

The decision — Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission — overturned campaign finance laws classified in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which prohibited businesses from financing issue ads from their general treasury funds. It also affects laws in 24 states.

Before the decision, ads could not be aired 30 days before primary elections and 60 days before general elections.

However, corporations and unions still cannot after the decision directly contribute to a candidate’s campaign. The decision does not affect political action committees.

Is it really a good Idea to allow third-parties unrestricted access to public broadcasating? I anticipate the proliferation of attack-ads and wanton displays of substancless commercials. Blech. But I suppose free speech is a right, even if it can be annoying and perpetuates voter ignorance and shallowness of politics. :)



Read about it here. and here.

Hilary Rodham Clinton attacked China's Internet policies, specifically the censorship of the Internet. Her speech was the first one by a senior American official that put forward Internet freedom as a plank of American foreign policy. With its cold war undertones — likening the information curtain to the Iron Curtain — it was almost certain to ignite tinder in China and other countries she identified.

Ma Zhaoxu, a Foreign Ministry spokesman,that the criticism leveled by Mrs. Clinton was “harmful to Sino-American relations.”

And President Obama promised last year to start a more conciliatory era in relations with China, pushing human rights issues to the background, but the new criticism of China’s Internet censorship and rising tensions over currency valuation and Taiwan arms sales indicated that ill will could flare in the months ahead.

Google announced that it might shut down its chinese search enginge, Google.cn, after around 30 hacker attacks were traced back to China.

(But seriously, 20% of a given population of internet users has a pasword from a bank of around 5,000 common passwords, with one's like 123456, qwerty, and princess making the top of the list. Your fault.)

So why is Internet Freedom a good thing? Besides the fact that it has the world 'freedom' in it, which makes it American and unaduleratedly good. True, having a block in school on things like 'hate crimes' (for 'hate and discrimination') and 'games' (for 'games') and sites like YouTube and blogs are annoying, and nobody would like to have the same blocks on thier homes, but completely unadulturated Internet Freedom is probably a bad thing, seeing as how much of the internet is used for one thing, and how much of the other stuff is very distracting, I see no reason for complete internet freedom.

It should be noted that China discourages thier people from playing online games known for thier addicting quality (world of warcraft) by halfing the efficiency of characters after three consecutive hours online.

Additionally, Hillary's speech was the first one by a senior American official that put forward Internet freedom as a plank of American foreign policy. With its cold war undertones — likening the information curtain to the Iron Curtain — it was almost certain to ignite tinder in China and other countries she identified.

“The U.S. campaign for uncensored and free flow of information on an unrestricted Internet is a disguised attempt to impose its values on other cultures in the name of democracy,” the newspaper said, adding that the “U.S. government’s ideological imposition is unacceptable and, for that reason, will not be allowed to succeed.”

Back to Square One

Republican Scott Brown won the senate seat in Democratic stronghold Massachusetts today. He's the first Republican senator in the state since 1972, beating Democratic rival and Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley by 52% to 47%.

Here is the potential problem: Scott Brown claims he won by critisizing Obama's health care and tapping into the general discontent staing:
"We already have 98% of our people insured here already in Massachusetts, so we do not need the plan that's being pushed upon us,". - So really he just used the unique demographics of Massachusetts to land a victory while many other states don't enjoy adequate health care.

But there's still hope: "I never said I was going to do everything I can to stop healthcare," he said, "I believe everybody should have healthcare, it's just a question of how we do it." - I can only hope that's true, Mr. Brown.

But you also pleged to be the vote that kills the current health care bill, bringing us back to square one at worst.

Which means the people will have to wait even longer for universal health care and worse, the last several months the Obama administration has spent vying and working for the current welfare bill will have been WASTED. FOR NOTHING! >:(.

And they can do it to. It takes sixty votes for cloture on an issue, and there are 41 Republicans in the Senate. None of them support

Conservative commentator Reihan Salam, co-author of the book Grand New Party, says there is "a real exhaustion with what many folks see as Obama's big government agenda". - They'll be more exhausted if they found out that Obama post-poned serious commitment to troop-increases overseas, the natoinal economy, many of the prommises he made to get elected - all things that affect at least most people on a daily basis
- FOR NOTHING! >:(

That's what it will come down to if the Republicans keep saying no: NOTHIN >:(. Voters are tired of policy gridlock and voting down health care will just perpetuate the issue. So say yes sombody.

Anniversary!

Obamas entering his second year in office soon. Things he as to look foward to for his second year

- Health Care bill
- HUGE animosty because of the health care bill
- Staggering economy that's still losing jobs
- No end to struggles in Afganistan
- Israel and Packistan are still fighting
- North Korea and Iran are still working on Nukes
- An approval rating that is the second lowest in the last century
- Immigration
- Environment
- Flak for not keeping promises

Several of these things are important. Well, all of them are really. Thus they will be discussed. Soon.

Meanwhile, find out more about it here, or there, or over there

Haiti

Haiti recently experienced major damage when a 7.0 earthquake hit the country earlier this week.

I found out about this because a webcomic I was reading had a side-entry about it. So:

- 3 million people have been affected
- Of that, tens of thousands are feared dead
- Thousands of buildings including the Presidental Palace, the United Nations office, and hundreds of homes.

So, as good Samaritan neighbors, Barack Obama has stated that the "people of Haiti will have the full support of the United States" and that "every element of our national capacity, our diplomacy, and development assistance, the power of our military and most importantly, the compassion of our country"

Many other countries, such as Britain and France and China, have pledged their support for the island as well.

Mr Obama promised an immediate $100m for Haiti's relief effort and said that investment would grow over the coming year to aid long-term recovery.

The head of Medecins du Monde, Olivier Bernard, told AFP news agency that aid had to arrive by Thursday evening. "To save lives, surgery must be available ideally within the first 48 hours."

So, as Ben Parker once said, "With great power comes great responsibility". As a country with rapid deployment options and stuff we have the power to help Haiti. We'll save lives, gain a little rep (it'd look bad if we didn't Even China's doing something), and feel good inside. 'Cause that's all a rich nation like us is missing right??

Fail.

President Obama announces the failure of the federal government in stopping the terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from blowing up a plane.

They actually did catch him before he killed anybody, but because a misspelling of his name on the database led security to believe he did not have a valid passport, which he did. If not for this fluke, 290 people on a Detroit plane would have exploded.

Obama states that Abdulmtallab's name was on a data base of suspected terrorists, but the data was scattered over several databases.

A similar thing happens with the FBI. Hundreds of local police stations and the National agency don't communicate with each other, leading to duplication of research and ineffective crime-fighting-ery. An attempt to compile the entire FBI database back in the previous millennium ended in failure and a significantly larger debt.

People hear stories about police agencies that take months to find a dead girl's body in a crazy persons driveway when the neighbors noticed the fresh concrete and the crazy's rantings when the crime happened. Is this related? Probably not. But it makes good filler.



So the Bureaucracy and Decentralization has resulted in an impotent government (slightly). One more argument for centralized states. Click the link if you don't know them. But Obama is the big centralizing thing in the US, right? Every other branch is composed of 535 congressmen, or a heirarchy of judges. Obama is at the top of the executive branch, so its his job to pull stuff together, right?


Read more here
And here

Being the President of the United States, Barack Obama is seen on TV, front covers of Newspapers, and appears in everyday conversation.

So it's only natural that, being a celebrity, advirtising companies would use him in an attempt to boost sales.

The above billboard appeared in New York Times Square this morning, featuring Barack Obama in a "Weatherproof" brand jacket on the Great Wall of China.

The White House has asked Weatherproof to remove the billboard, as it misleads consumers into thinking that Weatherproof recieved endorsement by Obama and the White House.

A recent PETA add showed featured four celebrities on the cover, including Oprah Winfrey, Tyra Banks, and Carrie Underwood, all who have said they are PETA Supporters. The forth person is Michelle Obama, who both has not given her permission for PETA to use her picture and is not allowed to endorse private products as the First Lady. But PETA claims she once said she was against fur, so that "justifies" using her picture.

This sort of thing has happened to presidents in the past, but accorind to David Jackson of USAToday, "it appears that Obama -- and wife Michelle -- are considered more glamorous than previous White House occupants, and therefore more appealing to advertisers looking to push a book, a magazine, a cause, or a product."

As one of most powerful and influencial people in the world today, the President of the United States cannot help but recieve great publicity and gratuitous name recognition, and being a public Icon it makes sense that companies would want to use the President to try to boost sales, like some companies put pictures of scantily clad women in thier adds to try to boost sales. At least the latter seek permission.

So as Leo Standforda of the Daily News saids, "President Obama is the leader of the free world, but don't mistake him for "A Leader in Style."