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Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
As President, Obama Takes On 'The View'
July 28,2010
SCOTT Neuman - npr
President Obama is making his debut on daytime talk TV this week, the first sitting U.S. president ever to make such an appearance, according to ABC.
And he's choosing to do it on The View, the morning show co-hosted by Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd. They were quick to trumpet the news of Thursday's show — "He likes us, he really likes us," Behar gushed — and noted that Obama dropped by the set twice before he became president and that the first lady has also made an appearance.
So why this moment and this venue to make daytime television history?
It may well have something to do with soccer moms and the recent fiasco involving Shirley Sherrod, said David Zurawik, a media critic and commentator for The Baltimore Sun. While chatter on The View may run more toward Lindsay Lohan's mug shots or Madonna's influence on lingerie sales, the show sometimes touches on political topics and its core audience is the soccer-mom demographic so important to pollsters.
The hidden danger is that the hosts may find ways of asking a question that he's not expecting, and that could result in a gaffe.
- Eric Deggans, St. Petersburg Times media and TV critic
"It's a chance to address an audience that might be particularly offended by what happened with Sherrod," Zurawik said. Sherrod was forced to resign from the Department of Agriculture last week after a selectively edited Internet video clip wrongly implied that she had shown racial bias against a white farmer. She's since been asked to return, and Obama called her to personally express his regret over the rush to judgment.
"Here's a woman who was wronged by his administration," Zurawik said. "The View gives Obama an audience of women, although there are some men that watch."
White House spokesman Bill Burton told NPR that the president "likes to find opportunities where he is not just appearing on a traditional news program." He denied the appearance has anything to do with Sherrod.
But will the subject come up?
"You've seen the show," Burton said. "The women are very opinionated — they'll call the shots on what questions to ask."
The president's approval ratings of late aren't exactly at American Idol levels, and the Sherrod flap could make things worse. Sherrod appeared on The View last week to tell her side of the story.
Eric Deggans, TV and media critic at the St. Petersburg Times, said Obama's daytime turn also is a chance for him to bypass the Washington press corps and remind people that he's a regular guy.
"When you look at where Obama is now, it's not a good place. He has an array of media-savvy opponents, and he is struggling daily to get his message out," Deggans said.
"Obviously, he's not going to be grilled about the intricacies of financial reform," he noted. "But the hidden danger is that the hosts may find ways of asking a question that he's not expecting, and that could result in a gaffe."
It's happened before. Obama caught heat last year over a Special Olympics quip he made during a stint on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.
When then-candidate Obama appeared on The View in 2008, Goldberg asked him to list the first three things he'd do as president. His answer: laying the groundwork to withdraw from Iraq, overhauling the health care system and addressing the energy crisis.
Obama can report tangible progress on at least two of those three issues, but given his sliding poll numbers, it's clear he has a lot of work to do. And as Zurawik said, "One appearance on daytime TV is not going to move the numbers that much."
Still, if he can win over Thursday's audience, it's a start.
--http://harlemvoiceblogs.blogspot.com
SCOTT Neuman - npr
President Obama is making his debut on daytime talk TV this week, the first sitting U.S. president ever to make such an appearance, according to ABC.
And he's choosing to do it on The View, the morning show co-hosted by Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd. They were quick to trumpet the news of Thursday's show — "He likes us, he really likes us," Behar gushed — and noted that Obama dropped by the set twice before he became president and that the first lady has also made an appearance.
So why this moment and this venue to make daytime television history?
It may well have something to do with soccer moms and the recent fiasco involving Shirley Sherrod, said David Zurawik, a media critic and commentator for The Baltimore Sun. While chatter on The View may run more toward Lindsay Lohan's mug shots or Madonna's influence on lingerie sales, the show sometimes touches on political topics and its core audience is the soccer-mom demographic so important to pollsters.
The hidden danger is that the hosts may find ways of asking a question that he's not expecting, and that could result in a gaffe.
- Eric Deggans, St. Petersburg Times media and TV critic
"It's a chance to address an audience that might be particularly offended by what happened with Sherrod," Zurawik said. Sherrod was forced to resign from the Department of Agriculture last week after a selectively edited Internet video clip wrongly implied that she had shown racial bias against a white farmer. She's since been asked to return, and Obama called her to personally express his regret over the rush to judgment.
"Here's a woman who was wronged by his administration," Zurawik said. "The View gives Obama an audience of women, although there are some men that watch."
White House spokesman Bill Burton told NPR that the president "likes to find opportunities where he is not just appearing on a traditional news program." He denied the appearance has anything to do with Sherrod.
But will the subject come up?
"You've seen the show," Burton said. "The women are very opinionated — they'll call the shots on what questions to ask."
The president's approval ratings of late aren't exactly at American Idol levels, and the Sherrod flap could make things worse. Sherrod appeared on The View last week to tell her side of the story.
Eric Deggans, TV and media critic at the St. Petersburg Times, said Obama's daytime turn also is a chance for him to bypass the Washington press corps and remind people that he's a regular guy.
"When you look at where Obama is now, it's not a good place. He has an array of media-savvy opponents, and he is struggling daily to get his message out," Deggans said.
"Obviously, he's not going to be grilled about the intricacies of financial reform," he noted. "But the hidden danger is that the hosts may find ways of asking a question that he's not expecting, and that could result in a gaffe."
It's happened before. Obama caught heat last year over a Special Olympics quip he made during a stint on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.
When then-candidate Obama appeared on The View in 2008, Goldberg asked him to list the first three things he'd do as president. His answer: laying the groundwork to withdraw from Iraq, overhauling the health care system and addressing the energy crisis.
Obama can report tangible progress on at least two of those three issues, but given his sliding poll numbers, it's clear he has a lot of work to do. And as Zurawik said, "One appearance on daytime TV is not going to move the numbers that much."
Still, if he can win over Thursday's audience, it's a start.
--http://harlemvoiceblogs.blogspot.com
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Shirley Sherrod: White House Forced My Resignation
July 20, 2010 3:31 PM
by Stephanie Condon--CBS NEWS-Politics
The Department of Agriculture employee who resigned after a controversy erupted over recent remarks she made is now saying that the White House forced her resignation.
Shirley Sherrod, the USDA's former director of rural development in Georgia, said USDA deputy undersecretary Cheryl Cook called her Monday and said the White House wanted her to resign, the Associated Press reports.
"They called me twice," Sherrod told the AP, noting that she was driving when she received the calls. "The last time they asked me to pull over the side of the road and submit my resignation on my Blackberry, and that's what I did."
Sherrod submitted her resignation after she became the focus of scrutiny from Fox News and conservative blogs over remarks she gave at an NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet on March 27. A video of a portion of her remarks were posted on a conservative blog, giving the impression that Sherrod admitted to discriminating against a white farmer as an employee of the USDA.
The comments were taken out of context, however. In her remarks that day, Sherrod was recounting a story that pre-dates her tenure at the USDA by more than two decades. Sherrod says in her story that Chapter 12 bankruptcy had just been enacted; Chapter 12 was instituted for family farmers in 1986, while Sherrod was appointed to head the USDA's Rural Development office in Georgia just last July. Furthermore, the point of Sherrod's story is that race is not an issue.
Sherrod has said the video excerpt did not include the full story of her relationship with the farmer, with whom she says she became friends after helping him avoid foreclosure.
Nevertheless, Sherrod says the White House pressed for her resignation. A USDA spokesman would not comment on whether the White House was involved, the AP reports.
Earlier today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack released a statement saying he had accepted Sherrod's resignation, and added that the department has no tolerance for discrimination.
The NAACP on Monday released a statement condemning Sherrod's statements and saying the organization supported the USDA's position. The group, however, is now reportedly reconsidering its position.
---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
by Stephanie Condon--CBS NEWS-Politics
The Department of Agriculture employee who resigned after a controversy erupted over recent remarks she made is now saying that the White House forced her resignation.
Shirley Sherrod, the USDA's former director of rural development in Georgia, said USDA deputy undersecretary Cheryl Cook called her Monday and said the White House wanted her to resign, the Associated Press reports.
"They called me twice," Sherrod told the AP, noting that she was driving when she received the calls. "The last time they asked me to pull over the side of the road and submit my resignation on my Blackberry, and that's what I did."
Sherrod submitted her resignation after she became the focus of scrutiny from Fox News and conservative blogs over remarks she gave at an NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet on March 27. A video of a portion of her remarks were posted on a conservative blog, giving the impression that Sherrod admitted to discriminating against a white farmer as an employee of the USDA.
The comments were taken out of context, however. In her remarks that day, Sherrod was recounting a story that pre-dates her tenure at the USDA by more than two decades. Sherrod says in her story that Chapter 12 bankruptcy had just been enacted; Chapter 12 was instituted for family farmers in 1986, while Sherrod was appointed to head the USDA's Rural Development office in Georgia just last July. Furthermore, the point of Sherrod's story is that race is not an issue.
Sherrod has said the video excerpt did not include the full story of her relationship with the farmer, with whom she says she became friends after helping him avoid foreclosure.
Nevertheless, Sherrod says the White House pressed for her resignation. A USDA spokesman would not comment on whether the White House was involved, the AP reports.
Earlier today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack released a statement saying he had accepted Sherrod's resignation, and added that the department has no tolerance for discrimination.
The NAACP on Monday released a statement condemning Sherrod's statements and saying the organization supported the USDA's position. The group, however, is now reportedly reconsidering its position.
---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Paterson Signs Bill Limiting Stop-and-Frisk Data
July 16, 2010, 11:56 am
By AL BAKER AND COLIN MOYNIHAN---nytimes
Police officials in New York City can no longer electronically store the names and addresses of people stopped in the street to be questioned but found to have done nothing wrong, under a bill Gov. David A. Paterson signed into law on Friday.
At a signing ceremony in his Manhattan offices, Mr. Paterson ended a debate over the so-called stop-and-frisk database that had been raging for months and will fundamentally alter one of the Police Department’s chief crime-fighting strategies.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly have argued that the database, originally created to comply with a law passed by the City Council in 2001, was invaluable because detectives could quickly cull it for clues they needed to solve cases and make arrests.
Stripping the database of the names and addresses of those stopped would result in more crime victims, Mr. Kelly said, who met twice with the governor this month in hopes of persuading him to veto the bill.
But in the end, Mr. Paterson said, “my conscience will not let me veto this bill.”
“There is a principle – which is compatible with the presumption of innocence, and is deeply ingrained in our sense of justice – that individuals wrongly accused of a crime should suffer neither stigma nor adverse consequences by virtue of an arrest or criminal accusation not resulting in conviction,” Mr. Paterson said.
Mr. Paterson was joined by the sponsors of the bill – Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Eric L. Adams – who voiced their support for the governor’s decision and said the issue boiled down to finding a balance between law and order and civil liberties.
“This is a tremendous victory for all fair-minded New Yorkers,” Assemblyman Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, said.
He said he believed that “reasonable efforts” to attain public safety must be “tempered by the privacy rights of law abiding people.”
Mr. Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat who had served 22 years on the Police Department before being elected to the Senate, said, “We do not allow the police in our country to hold the personal information of innocent people regardless of their ethnicity. This is wrong.”
Many pitched the debate forward – saying that the broader context of the department’s stop-and-frisk campaign could now be examined, with officials focusing on the “quality” of the street stops.
In 2009, the police documented 581,000 stops and have recorded nearly three million stops since 2004.
It is unclear how many of the people whose information is stored in the database were not fined or arrested after being stopped.
In a letter to Mr. Kelly on Thursday, Assemblyman Jeffries asked him to provide “the total number of people whose personal information is contained in the electronic N.Y.P.D. database.” He said he wanted to know how many of them had not been charged with a crime or issued a summons.
The new law applies only to the New York City Police Department, not agencies around the state. Under the law, the database would still include a record of the stop and catalog its points of data – including where and when the stop took place, the age and race of the person stopped and the reason that prompted the officer to make it.
Late on Thursday, as word circulated that Mr. Paterson would sign the bill, a spokesman for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg expressed dismay.
“We’re disappointed that police officers will be denied an important tool they have been using to solve crimes and prevent others,” said the spokesman, Stu Loeser.
-----http://harlemcommunityorganizers.blogspot.com
By AL BAKER AND COLIN MOYNIHAN---nytimes
Police officials in New York City can no longer electronically store the names and addresses of people stopped in the street to be questioned but found to have done nothing wrong, under a bill Gov. David A. Paterson signed into law on Friday.
At a signing ceremony in his Manhattan offices, Mr. Paterson ended a debate over the so-called stop-and-frisk database that had been raging for months and will fundamentally alter one of the Police Department’s chief crime-fighting strategies.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly have argued that the database, originally created to comply with a law passed by the City Council in 2001, was invaluable because detectives could quickly cull it for clues they needed to solve cases and make arrests.
Stripping the database of the names and addresses of those stopped would result in more crime victims, Mr. Kelly said, who met twice with the governor this month in hopes of persuading him to veto the bill.
But in the end, Mr. Paterson said, “my conscience will not let me veto this bill.”
“There is a principle – which is compatible with the presumption of innocence, and is deeply ingrained in our sense of justice – that individuals wrongly accused of a crime should suffer neither stigma nor adverse consequences by virtue of an arrest or criminal accusation not resulting in conviction,” Mr. Paterson said.
Mr. Paterson was joined by the sponsors of the bill – Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Eric L. Adams – who voiced their support for the governor’s decision and said the issue boiled down to finding a balance between law and order and civil liberties.
“This is a tremendous victory for all fair-minded New Yorkers,” Assemblyman Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, said.
He said he believed that “reasonable efforts” to attain public safety must be “tempered by the privacy rights of law abiding people.”
Mr. Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat who had served 22 years on the Police Department before being elected to the Senate, said, “We do not allow the police in our country to hold the personal information of innocent people regardless of their ethnicity. This is wrong.”
Many pitched the debate forward – saying that the broader context of the department’s stop-and-frisk campaign could now be examined, with officials focusing on the “quality” of the street stops.
In 2009, the police documented 581,000 stops and have recorded nearly three million stops since 2004.
It is unclear how many of the people whose information is stored in the database were not fined or arrested after being stopped.
In a letter to Mr. Kelly on Thursday, Assemblyman Jeffries asked him to provide “the total number of people whose personal information is contained in the electronic N.Y.P.D. database.” He said he wanted to know how many of them had not been charged with a crime or issued a summons.
The new law applies only to the New York City Police Department, not agencies around the state. Under the law, the database would still include a record of the stop and catalog its points of data – including where and when the stop took place, the age and race of the person stopped and the reason that prompted the officer to make it.
Late on Thursday, as word circulated that Mr. Paterson would sign the bill, a spokesman for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg expressed dismay.
“We’re disappointed that police officers will be denied an important tool they have been using to solve crimes and prevent others,” said the spokesman, Stu Loeser.
-----http://harlemcommunityorganizers.blogspot.com
Monday, July 12, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Monday, July 05, 2010
Congress should extend unemployment insurance instead of focusing on politics of spending
Posted on Fri, Jul. 02, 2010
Kansas City.Com ---Star
Two million Americans stand to lose their unemployment benefits because Republicans in Congress have suddenly decided deficit spending is a bad thing.
The refusal by enough GOP senators to move a measure forward doomed the latest attempt to extend modest benefits to the long-term unemployed. The Democrats, meanwhile, refused to shift previously committed stimulus dollars, a move that would have convinced two Republicans to back the plan and provide enough votes to block a Senate filibuster.
To Republicans, the vote was a clear political statement: “We’re against government spending.” To the Democrats, the other side’s refusal to compromise was also a clear political message: “The GOP is heartless.”
Playing politics with the lives of others is hardly victimless.
Americans remember Republicans not too long ago were all in favor of deficit spending to pay for tax cuts under George W. Bush. Those have meant $2.48 trillion less in federal coffers — with most of the money going into the pockets of the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, also approved in the Bush years, have now cost more than $1 trillion.
The public also remembers, not so far back, Democrats were willing to move stimulus funds around to meet pressing needs. Auto bailout, anyone?
There are few things Congress can do that will have a more direct and positive effect on lives and the economy than extending unemployment benefits, as virtually every dollar allocated would quickly be spent on living expenses.
The long-term unemployed are not bums or “hobos,” as at least one GOP congressman has cruelly suggested. Many of them are people who worked for years and are desperate to work again but find themselves cast into a job market that has shed nearly 8 million positions in the last 2½ years.
Extending unemployment insurance until job prospects improve is the best thing Congress can do for them and for the nascent economic recovery.
---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Kansas City.Com ---Star
Two million Americans stand to lose their unemployment benefits because Republicans in Congress have suddenly decided deficit spending is a bad thing.
The refusal by enough GOP senators to move a measure forward doomed the latest attempt to extend modest benefits to the long-term unemployed. The Democrats, meanwhile, refused to shift previously committed stimulus dollars, a move that would have convinced two Republicans to back the plan and provide enough votes to block a Senate filibuster.
To Republicans, the vote was a clear political statement: “We’re against government spending.” To the Democrats, the other side’s refusal to compromise was also a clear political message: “The GOP is heartless.”
Playing politics with the lives of others is hardly victimless.
Americans remember Republicans not too long ago were all in favor of deficit spending to pay for tax cuts under George W. Bush. Those have meant $2.48 trillion less in federal coffers — with most of the money going into the pockets of the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, also approved in the Bush years, have now cost more than $1 trillion.
The public also remembers, not so far back, Democrats were willing to move stimulus funds around to meet pressing needs. Auto bailout, anyone?
There are few things Congress can do that will have a more direct and positive effect on lives and the economy than extending unemployment benefits, as virtually every dollar allocated would quickly be spent on living expenses.
The long-term unemployed are not bums or “hobos,” as at least one GOP congressman has cruelly suggested. Many of them are people who worked for years and are desperate to work again but find themselves cast into a job market that has shed nearly 8 million positions in the last 2½ years.
Extending unemployment insurance until job prospects improve is the best thing Congress can do for them and for the nascent economic recovery.
---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Saturday, July 03, 2010
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