Posts Tagged ‘barack obama’

First report from the Obama rally today UPDATE Photos, video and Instalanche! UPDATE 3000 supporters bussed in

Posted: October 16, 2010 by datechguy in elections, internet/free speech, short films/interviews, special events
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Just arrived at the Sean Bielat HQ in Newton from the Obama rally today several observations:

The Unions had a lot of sign holders out across the street, there was a small tea party presence there as well but not very significant from what I saw.

I was told on the record that the fire Marshall allowed 6600 in the main room, it was full, there is also an over flow room that hold about 2400, there were 800 people or so there plus another 200-500 outside. So figure maybe 8000. That means that president Barack Obama, Deval Patrick and Barney Frank were unable on a Saturday 3 weeks before an election to outdraw Sarah Palin on the Boston Common in April on a Wednesday. Democrats be afraid, be very afraid.

I am very interested in how many congressional candidates and state office holders in contested races choose to skip this rally.

Most of the people there once they found out I was a conservative and a tea party supporter clamed up and assumed I would be a dishonorable liar. I should have resented that more but I was more amazed than resentful. When I told them I predicted that we (Republicans) will take 3 seats including ma-10 they laughed at me….

…but they also insisted the tea party was strictly astroturf and that we were being financed. To that I say, if only, IF ONLY!

I did talk to several people in line (only one would go on camera, delightful woman) and they were mixed about how much help the visit would be. I actually think it will help Patrick a lot since it’s a 3 way race and in a 3 way race your base is the most important.

Ran into Michael Graham who was at the Comic Book convention (and Magic tourney) in the same building. The comic book & magic people drew about 2500 so the prez did 3 times better than them with a free event.

For the first time ever I forgot my press credential from the Scott Brown rally, and it hurt because the Secret Service turned me away from the press entrance because of it.

The defining moment of the day for me happened just after that. One of the guys from a comic store in Lowell figured this was a great chance to move some of the Obama hardcover Spiderman comics that he can’t move. Cover price is $30, Amazon sells it at $22, he offered it for $5 and out of a dozen managed to sell…..2.

This rally has absolutely convinced me that democrats in Massachusetts are in deeper trouble than I thought and the most fanatical ones of them are in even deeper denial.

I’ll update with photos as soon as I get a chance.

Update: Here is a slideshow from the event

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Also Stacy has some info on the rally

Update 2: Here is some video. The first is the spiderman video

The next one was while I was inside heading to the overflow room, I thought the line was for the president but it turned out it was for the Mayor of Quahog

In fairness of COURSE there were more people there to see the president and governer, his crew outnumbered the Magic the gathering tournament and the comic convention 3 to 1 (of course it was free to see the president).

Here was the overflow room, I got there at the end and you can see how many had flowed in:

The delightful lady who supported Deval and Obama was Natella Poladzade

If I was the president I’d take her to every rally he has.

Update 3: Via Fleming and hays Barney’s boyfriend heckles Sean Bielat at WGBH:

They ask an interesting question:

This brings an interesting element to the race when such a prominent “supporter” of Frank feels the need to try and pick a fight with the opposition. While Frank continues to promote his theory that, “According to our numbers we are up by more than 20 points no matter what we do.”, this type of action smells of desperation and fear. Not to mention, he clearly has no campaign staff to speak of, obviously, because the only person he could muster up to heckle his opponent was the antithesis of anonymous. We’ve got to give Barney a break, though, this is the first time in 30 years he’s had to campaign and he clearly doesn’t know how to go about it.

That’s a good question, I invite those who doubt my three seat prediction or my report on the trend in Massachusetts at Examiner.com to answer.

Update 4: Quick FYI to the people who talked to me and gave their first names, I’ll be writing a longer examiner column about what you said during my road trip that I’m starting tonight, do not worry you will be heard.

Update 5: Instalanche welcome pundit readers. I have a little more video I’m about to add. Also $190 away for paying for a 3 state road trip with RS McCain to cover a few congressional races in NY and Pa (and maybe va) so if you can kick in to finish paying for the rental and gas that would be much appreciated.

Meanwhile here is the crowd moving forward

and more crowd shots:

And a “bad sign” for Deval

And the info about the 6600 allowed in:

Update 6: Chris Lackey claims I’m misrepresenting facts, since he claims that I’m acting dishonorably I demand satisfaction! I put a series of questions in comments for him to answer or to put up his own account of what he saw.

Update 7: Chris answered my questions in comments and I answered his in comments, and I figured out why he thought I was BS’ing. He was counting the number of people in the hall itself. The 6600 represents the number of supporters that the fire Marshall allowed in AFTER security and people on stage etc. So naturally he thought I was lowballing the number since he of course based his number on everyone while to me the number allowed in (indicating the number of supporters willing to show up) was the story. No wonder he thought I was lying. That should have occurred to me so I’m sorry I got so angry about it, but questioning my veracity or honor is a hot button thing with me.

Also apparently they held initial people in the overflow room (when Chris showed up) so naturally it was full then. I saw it after the main hall was full and they were putting people in there to see. Both of us were right but different perspective because of different times.

Update 8: Continued the discussion here and discovered that 3000 supporters were Bussed in ahead of time all over the state. As I recall this wasn’t done for the April 14th Rally with the Tea Party express and Sarah Palin. So I guess things are even worse then I thought if they had to bus people in to make sure they had numbers.

Obama in Massachusetts? Can’t anyone play this game?

Posted: October 12, 2010 by datechguy in congress, elections, local stuff, politics, special events
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The biggest news from the interview than Stacy and I had with Sean Bielat (other than byebyebarney.org) was the news the president Obama will be coming to Massachusetts to campaign for Deval Patrick.

I seem to recall that the president came to Massachusetts just before election day in January and it had an excellent effect…for republicans.

With republicans dying to link their opponents to the president I can’t think of any move that the democrats can make that will cause them more grief in congressional races in the state, that being said since there is a three-way divide for Governor this might actually help Patrick rally his base…if his base was pleased with Obama.

But what do I know? I’m just a fat guy in a fedora.

Yeah I know he got it up first, but he’s a faster typist than me….but I’ll have VIDEO shortly Heh Heh Heh!

Will this be the media’s Lady Di/Mother Teresa moment?

Posted: October 8, 2010 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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On Sept 5th 1997 on the PBS’ news hour the talk was of the death of Lady Diana, near the end of the segment Mike Barnicle at the very end of the chest thumping made one of my favorite statements in the history of the show:

Well, I think the past week has been, you know, nearly totally media-driven. I think it’s–we’re crazed by celebrity in this culture, not just here in this country. And much of the coverage of the funeral is certainly media-driven, and much of the attraction to the coverage is because it’s so media-driven. And an odd thing happened today. If you believe in God, or a higher being, it’s almost as if God tapped the news media around the world on the shoulder at about 1 o’clock this afternoon and said, “It’s time to straighten your priorities out. Mother Teresa is dead.”

For five straight days we have been making Princess Diana larger than life. She seems like a very wonderful woman, a nice woman. She was 36 years of age. A woman died in Calcutta today who spent all of her life touching the poor and helping the poor. And I’m going to be interested, and I think many Americans would be interested to see if Peter Jennings and Dan Rather and CNN and Tom Brokaw go to Calcutta.

Looking at the Nobel mania that hit our media last year I can’t help but think of this. Every network covered the awarding of the peace prize, every morning show covered it, blog after blog (including mine) generated pixel after pixel of commentary.

Now this year the peace prize winner is Liu Xiaobo what do we know about him? Well here is a smidgen:

Liu Xiaobo was tried by the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court on December 23, 2009, and pleaded not guilty to the charge of “inciting subversion of state power.” The trial lasted less than three hours, and the defense was not permitted to present evidence. Two days later, on December 25, Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison and two years’ deprivation of political rights. The Beijing High Court rejected his appeal on February 11, 2010.

Ok outside of the Free Speech diva also known as Rebecca MacKinnon and Jay Nordlinger… (who wrote about him just two days ago saying):

A group of 30 congressmen has asked President Obama to bring up a couple of human-rights cases when he next meets with Hu Jintao, the Chinese boss. That will be in November, at a “G-20” summit in Seoul. For a press release on the congressmen’s admonition, go here.

The cases are those of Liu Xiaobo and Gao Zhisheng. These are two of the greatest dissidents and democracy activists in all of China. And, of course, they are in prison. Unspeakable things have been done to them. I have written about these two men extensively. To know them is to be in awe of them.

…did anyone here really know his name? Ironically Nordlinger mentioned the Nobel prize:

I mentioned the Nobel Peace Prize: The 2010 winner will be announced on Friday. A lot of people want Liu Xiaobo to win. He is the leader of the Charter 08 movement, a movement modeled on Charter 77 — which was, of course, Vaclav Havel’s movement in Czechoslovakia. Havel is backing Liu for the Nobel prize. And 120 Chinese intellectuals just sent a letter to the Nobel Committee, urging the selection of Liu.

For many years — at least 25 — Chinese dissidents have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and they are always among the “frontrunners.” Wei Jingsheng was once in this position. But they never win — at least they haven’t so far

Now the MSM is put in the same position that it was in 1997 when Mike Barnicle wrote in Sept 7th follow-up column on Diana vs Mother Theresa titled There was no comparison:

Realistically, nobody expects the coverage of Mother Teresa’s passing to equal the volume accorded Princess Diana. After all, Mother Teresa does not have two handsome children to
appear in solemn procession behind her casket. Will not have millions of bouquets tossed in
the street outside her palatial home. Wore only one outfit. Touched the emotions of a
largely invisible group and did so far from the light of glamour…And most people have legitimate difficulty identifying their own lives, their own mortality, with a woman who spent every waking moment honoring the least among us.

That gets us to the end game: If Diana’s life, causes, and commitments did indeed come up in conversation only one time prior to being snuffed out in a Paris traffic accident, it was
probably one more mention than Mother Teresa got.

Take that paragraph and re-write it substituting the works of Barack Obama for Lady Di and Liu Xiaobo for Mother Theresa and it stands up pretty good. After all when Obama was “organizing” his community, Liu Xiaobo was in Tiananmen Square in 1989 organizing under slightly different circumstances.

I don’t expect to see one tenth of the coverage of Liu Xiaobo in the media, when the prize is given and the speech is given for him as he rots in a Chinese Prison camp it will rate a 30 second mention on the TV. The Outraged Chinese communists will see to that

The Chinese state media blacked out broadcasts of various channels during the Nobel announcement and when reports about the award were being aired. This was followed by government censors blocking Nobel Prize reports from various Internet websites.

but in the end just as Barnicle’s last sentence in his 1997 column still holds true today:

And anyone who equates the deeds of Diana’s life with those of Mother Teresa’s is a fool.

I think the same can be said for Liu Xiaobo and last years Nobel Prize winner as well.
(more…)

Barack Obama the most expensive free agent in history

Posted: August 30, 2010 by datechguy in baseball, opinion/news, politics, Sports
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Saw a tweet today from Reesdansie that said: America Held hostage day 588. I think that is unfair.

Held hostage implies that it was against our will, we did this to ourselves.

However with Manny on the brain it led me to this SI article from a few years ago of really bad free agent signings:

1. Hampton, $121 million, Rockies (and Braves). The deals for him and Denny Neagle ($55 million, five years) set the Rockies back five years. On the other hand, the complicated trade to send him away and get the Rockies on the path to the World Series was a stroke of genius. The Braves, who got him from the Marlins in November 2002, two days after Colorado dumped him, are known for wise pitching decisions, but this has to be their worst.

2. Carl Pavano, $40 million, four (long) years, Yankees. Never really looked interested. Changed agents more times than he actually pitched.

3. Albert Belle, $65 million, five years, Orioles. Brought surly mood, diminished power and bad hip to Peter Angelos’ brand of bad baseball

His list has 13 names on it with contracts worth a combined $925 million.

That is really the way we have to look at it. Barack Obama is a free agent who came with a lot of hype and the country got carried away with it, we thought we were getting the next Jackie Robinson, instead we got Pumpsie Green.

Bottom line Barack Obama is the most expensive free agent signing in history and he still has two years left on his contract!

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