Archive for the ‘Barack Obama’ Category

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Paul Wall and Barack Obama

Thursday, January 8th, 2009

Paul Wall told HipHopDX that he feels inspired to make more positive music because of the election of Barack Obama:

DX: This is the first time in history that we have a President Elect thats extremely in-tune with urban culture. What type of influence do you think Barack Obama has on Hip Hop?
Paul Wall: I think he has a huge influence because being that he likes Hip Hop, and listens to it; he’s real in touch with what’s going down. Also, I feel like we have a bigger responsibility to uphold our duties as Hip Hop icons, musicians or rappers – whatever you want to call it. We got a responsibility we have to live up to now. You got the President of the country thats down! What if he got my CD in his deck right now, or my new song on his iPod? It’s something that really might happen.

DX: So you feel pressure to make more “positive music”?
Paul Wall: Yeah a little bit man because I voted for Obama. But what if I come out talking ’bout I support Obama this and that, man they going to get on Fox News talking about they got someone like me supporting Obama and I’m talking about sex and drugs and street lifestyle. So I don’t know if he wants that kind of support from somebody like me, but at the same time, those same people talking about drugs and alcohol was supporting [George W.] Bush and he ain’t have a problem with it, so it’s all good. Dude definitely made me sit back and say, “Okay let me make some positive music. Maybe I’ll be performing at his inauguration! Bring my grills.”

It’s a good thing to have hip-hop artists involved in current affairs as influential as Obama has been on the youth.

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Voting Is Scary

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Voting isn’t really scary in the United States unless something goes extremely wrong. Choosing candidates to vote for now that is the scary part. Reason Magazine has a survey of its writers and contributors and who they plan to vote for President.

My answers are down below:
1. Who are you voting for in November? Bob Barr. He is not a perfect candidate but who is. Voting for Bob Barr gives the clearest signal to the world that I side with libertarians. I’m not going to vote for John McCain because he strikes me as crazy and believes that national greatness can be brought to the country by the government. Barack Obama is a liberal who wants to spend more than most of the other candidates running and would make George W. Bush look like a fiscal conservative. So I am voting for a former member of Congress who has recently lobbied on behalf of the MPP and opposed the bailout of the banks.

2. Who did you vote for in 2004 and 2000? In 2004: I voted for Badnarik and was a candidate for the electoral college for Badnarik in New York. Badnarik was a loon who could not drive himself anywhere because he refused to give the DMV in Texas his Social Security number. But Badnarik was not Bush or Kerry and he talked and believed in smaller government. In 2000: I voted for Harry Browne. I thought about voting for George W. Bush because he said he was against nation building but I am sure glad I did not make that mistake.

3. Is this the most important election in your lifetime? I’m not sure. Looking back the 2000 Presidential Election was a big deal. I don’t think we would have gone into Iraq after 9/11 if Al Gore had been President.

4. What will you miss about the Bush administration? Laura Bush. Laura Bush has been a very gracious first lady who has had very little involvement in policy which I admire in a first lady.

5. Leaving George W. Bush out of consideration, what former U.S. president would you most like to have waterboarded and why? I’m tempted to agree with what Grover Norquist told Reason that it should be Dick Cheney for poetic justice reasons. I guess it would have to be one of the warmongering Presidents like Polk, Jackson, Wilson or Johnson.

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Posted in 2008, Al Gore, Badnarik, Barack Obama, Bob Barr, election, George W. Bush, John McCain, Libertarian Party, Presidential Election | No Comments »

Obama and the Fairness Doctrine

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

The fairness doctrine is an old idea which liberals propose every so often and right wing talk show hosts bring up to scare their listeners. The fairness doctrine would force broadcast media to give equal time to equal sides. Both John McCain and Barack Obama oppose reinstating the fairness doctrine. This does not stop Mark Steyn at National Review from basely bringing up the idea that Barack Obama wants to bring back the fairness doctrine as a given. There is enough to dislike about Barack Obama without having to make things up.

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Posted in Barack Obama, free speech, freedom, National Review, radio | 1 Comment »

Obama: Let’s Prop Up Failing Corporations

Monday, September 1st, 2008

Obama has a new ad called “Revitalize” in which the narrator criticizes John McCain for not supporting government loans to the auto manufacturing companies. There is no reason to support loans to car manufacturers who are not able to meet the demands of the manufacturers; American car manufacturers will be able to get loans from private businesses if they deserve them. All these loans would do is to funnel money from taxpayers to big inefficient corporations.

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Posted in Barack Obama, economics, Presidential Election | No Comments »

Obama supports higher prices for food and gasoline

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

Obama supports higher prices for food and gasoline. Or at least that is what one would have to conclude from Obama’s support for ethanol.

According to the New York Times, Barack Obama is a big ethanol supporter.

When VeraSun Energy inaugurated a new ethanol processing plant last summer in Charles City, Iowa, some of that industry’s most prominent boosters showed up. Leaders of the National Corn Growers Association and the Renewable Fuels Association, for instance, came to help cut the ribbon — and so did Senator Barack Obama.

Then running far behind Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in name recognition and in the polls, Mr. Obama was in the midst of a campaign swing through the state where he would eventually register his first caucus victory. And as befits a senator from Illinois, the country’s second largest corn-producing state, he delivered a ringing endorsement of ethanol as an alternative fuel.

Mr. Obama is running as a reformer who is seeking to reduce the influence of special interests. But like any other politician, he has powerful constituencies that help shape his views. And when it comes to domestic ethanol, almost all of which is made from corn, he also has advisers and prominent supporters with close ties to the industry at a time when energy policy is a point of sharp contrast between the parties and their presidential candidates.

Obama is not just a supporter of ethanol as an alternative fuel but it is part of Obama’s protectionism. Obama refuses to even consider using sugar based ethanol from Brazil defending the need for high import tarrifs on ethanol.

This is one issue where John McCain has taken a stand that does not appease the voters of Iowa and has opposed the ethanol program.

Mr. McCain advocates eliminating the multibillion-dollar annual government subsidies that domestic ethanol has long enjoyed. As a free trade advocate, he also opposes the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff that the United States slaps on imports of ethanol made from sugar cane, which packs more of an energy punch than corn-based ethanol and is cheaper to produce.

“We made a series of mistakes by not adopting a sustainable energy policy, one of which is the subsidies for corn ethanol, which I warned in Iowa were going to destroy the market” and contribute to inflation, Mr. McCain said this month in an interview with a Brazilian newspaper, O Estado de São Paulo. “Besides, it is wrong,” he added, to tax Brazilian-made sugar cane ethanol, “which is much more efficient than corn ethanol.”

The United States should be getting rid of ethanol all together or at least letting in Brazilian sugar based ethanol which is 4 times more efficient.

The price of ethanol has raised the cost of gasoline.

Ethanol also has raised the price of food. Farmers are growing corn for ethanol thus raising the prices of all types of food.

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Posted in Barack Obama, ethanol, food | 1 Comment »

Barr Not Just Running for McCain Voters

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

The Washington Post has a video of an interview where Eric Pianin interviews Bob Barr about the election.

One of the things I liked about this interview was that Barr brought up Obama making it specifically clear he is not just going after John McCain’s voters. Barr should repeat to the anti-war Clinton voters that there is an anti-candidate running other than Obama.

Barr also brought up the point that McCain’s proposed assault on earmarks is not enough to fix the budget process. In many cases, earmarks just redirect funds that would otherwise be appropriated. Control of earmarks is a start but is not enough to get control of the increased rates of spending.




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Posted in 2008, Barack Obama, Bob Barr, John McCain, Presidential Election | No Comments »

Will People Who Aren’t Hip-Hop Stop Staying Bling?

Saturday, June 14th, 2008

Mary Battiata has a piece at Slate talking about how Obama could bring an end to “bling.”

The piece is written in a way that is probably well intentioned. She seems to think that if Obama is elected President, suddenly the poor black people in American cities will have no problems after they are able to cleanse themselves of excessive materialism.

Her article is full of out of date phrases and stereotypes. Bling is an expression that was popular in the 90′s, this is a new time. Battiata references heavy gold medallions have not been popular since the late 80′s unless she is really complaining about the whole subculture of hipster rap that bases itself off of clichés of the 80′s.

Mary Battiata and other liberals have to realize that Barack Obama is not the second coming of Jesus. Obama is just another politician and people should not expect him to change the culture of the world.

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Posted in Barack Obama, hip-hop, Jay-z, Lil' Wayne | No Comments »

Liberal Democrats for Bob Barr

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

A poster at DailyKos called Caban suggests that liberal Democrats should support Bob Barr and the Libertarian Party. Caban’s logic is that if Bob Barr and the Libertarian Party are on the ballot in many states Bob Barr will wind up taking votes away from John McCain. Bring it on! The more Bob Barr supporters the better, even if it is for the wrong reason.

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Posted in 2008, Barack Obama, Bob Barr, Daily Kos, John McCain, Libertarian Party, Presidential Election | 1 Comment »

Brent Bozell Is Not Hip-Hop

Monday, April 28th, 2008

Brent Bozell uses Obama’s recent reference to Jay-z as an excuse to attack Obama and hip-hop. Obama has been critical of the lyrical content of rap music in the past, even being accused by the website HipHopDx of hating hip-hop.

But Obama’s criticisms of hip-hop are not enough for Brent Bozell who would probably only be happy with politicians referencing hip-hop as code for insulting black people like Bill Clinton did in his 1992 campaign for President when he brought up Sista Souljah.

Bozell cites a Parents Television Council study that points out some problems with the hip-hop videos being aired on TV by Viacom:

Obama should take a look at a new report from the Parents Television Council about three popular rap-music programs that air in the afternoon or early evening — “Sucker Free” on MTV and “Rap City” and “106 & Park” on Black Entertainment Television for two weeks in December and a week in March.

In 41 and a half hours studied, analysts found 282 uses of the N-word. Is that “a little too frequently,” too?

A little too much degrading of women? In those same hours, there were 143 uses of the B-word to describe women.

A little too much focus on material things? Here, Obama is gliding by the question of what material things are acquired. The rap shows included 205 depictions or discussions of drug sale or use and other illegal activity during the study period, for an average of 7.5 instances per hour, or roughly one instance every eight minutes.

Obama did not discuss the heavily sexualized world of rap in his answer. Sexually explicit scenes or lyrical references on these shows appeared 27 times an hour in December and 40 times an hour in March. No one could miss that drumbeat.

In just one week of programming — 14 hours in March — PTC analysts found 1,342 instances of offensive/adult content, or 95.8 instances per hour, or one instance of adult content every 38 seconds.

There certainly are problems with hip-hop and the programs Bozell mentions but it is not fair to say that 106 & Park represent all of hip-hop. Obama has mentioned that he has discussed the problems he have with the lyrics in hip-hop with Nas and Jay-z who are certainly high profile rappers. What more could Brent Bozell want?

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Posted in Barack Obama, Brent Bozell, hip-hop, Jay-z, poverty | No Comments »

Did Obama Make a Jay-Z Reference?

Friday, April 18th, 2008

Obama may be the big government candidate for President, but is hard not to like the guy.

In Wednesday’s debate about trivial issues, Obama did not perform at his best. Obama’s not worried. At his speech the following day, Obama makes what I think is a clear reference to Jay-z by brushing the dirt off his shoulders.


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Posted in Barack Obama, Jay-z, Presidential Election | 2 Comments »

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