July 27, 2016

On July 24, 2016 I watched Face the Nation on CBS. The host is John Dickerson. The only guest for this week was President Barack Obama. This week’s panel consisted of Ron Brownstein, Nancy Cordel, Ramesh Ponnuru, and Jamelle Bouie.

For this week they only interviewed President Obama. They started off the interview by asking if terrorism was a growing threat like Donald Trump claims, or if it is something that we shouldn’t worry about. President Obama replied that it was always a threat but currently it isn’t a growing one. The next object of focus was about the presidential candidates for this upcoming election. Though his opinion, like anyone else’s on this subject, was slightly biased by party. He claimed that Hillary Clinton is the most prepared candidate for presidency in history. Personally I don’t believe either candidate is prepared, and that both are mainly going to obtain votes due to them not being the other candidate. Later the remark that Trump is only popular due to him fanning fears of terrorism, which may be one of the reasons but not the main reason. John transitioned the interview’s topic onto what would be good qualities for presidency and how does feel about having to leave office soon. He replied that personally he believes three great qualities needed for presidency would have to be teamwork, discipline, and a great love for the people. He claims you need the ability to work well with others due to the job requires multiple people and is impossible to do anything without teamwork. He explained discipline is necessary due to problems or disruptions randomly occurring and you and your team needs to be able to keep calm and solve the disruption. Lastly he explained they need to love the people and the country to keep carrying through and remember why you are doing this in the first place. He claims that you can get lost and almost forget why the job is worth it. After the explanation John asked what was the advice his predecessor gave him. President Obama cracked a joke and replied always use hand sanitizer because you will catch a cold from touching everyone else’s hands. He then advised even though you will never be able to do everything you want to do; you alway need to try your best. Next was the panel. Their section wasn’t too long this week. Ron started off the discussion by stating that this election will divide the country into transformation and restoration. He claims the transformation group will be the people voting for Hillary Clinton who stands for transforming this country into a new diverse one, and Donald Trump’s voters who stands for America’s past legacy and greatness. Next was Nancy Cordel.  She pointed out that for the main portion of the speeches at the Republican convention were bashing Clinton. She claims that she believes they bashed Clinton due to Trump switching approaches and talking mainly about his goals to improve America’s cities conditions. Due to this most of his supporters who joined him to attempt to rid themselves of their fears of terrorism or an economic depression didn’t stand completely behind Trump and decided to speak about what they could think of, meaning Hillary Clinton. Personally I think that’s what they spoke about because a  main portion of his voters are voting for him due to him being Republican and not Hillary Clinton. Ramesh was next and just bluntly stated that he believes Trump is full of himself and should be preparing instead of partying. I personally think that both candidates are just focusing and exploiting that fact that they aren’t the other candidate.

Due to this blog I’ve started to understand the “interesting” qualities of this election and the amount of terrible scenarios that are now able to happen. I am now hoping that one of the two can get their act together and run a country better than it is already ran. If not another country or group may just take advantage of our situation.

July 17, 2016

On July 17, 2016 I watched Fox News. The host is Chris Wallace. The guests were Trump’s campaign adviser Paul Manafort and RNC Chairman Ryan Priebus. The panel for this week was Brit Hume, Reporter  Julie Pace, News Anchor Bret Baier and, Columnist Kirsten Powers.

Paul Manafort was the first person interviewed. It started with Chris questioning Paul about Governor Mike Pence being chosen to run with Trump as his Vice President. Paul claimed he thinks Pence is the perfect pick and that he balances and supports Trump’s style completely Now people from both parties are questioning this choice, but Trump claims he is the perfect choice due to him being involved in politics for years, it reassures the GOP establishment about all of Trump’s “going solo” claims, and that it will help reassure social conservatives. NBC News claimed that while Trump discouraged colored voters to vote for him; Pence discourages (sorry for those who are about to get offended) gays and women. The Democrat’s main problems with Pence will be about his views on gay rights and abortion ideals. NBC News claims that Pence was a good choice for Trump due to his ability to help Trump in the Midwest, which holds a decent amount of swing states. The next topic was about the Republican Convention. The guest for this topic was Ryan `Priebus. The interview opened up with Chris asking Ryan if he is worried about the “enthusiastic” and destructive supporters of Donald Trump. Ryan replied, “No, every convention has its fair share of chaos.” Chris followed up asking about the conventions appearance of being “disorganized”. Ryan replied that the Republicans convention seems to be disorganized due to the Democrats releasing the plans for their convention weeks before it happened. However he claimed that the convention is fully organized and planned. Later in the interview Ryan was questioned about Trump’s choice of Pence being chosen for the vice president position. Ryan claimed that it was an excellent decision, and balances most of Trump’s weaknesses. To conclude the interview, Chris points out that the Republican party needs to work hard to obtain the Rust Belt’s votes. Ryan and a huge portion of Trump’s supporters believes that Trump can and will advance and expand the amount of states voting for the Republican party. Next was the group of pundits. Their major topic was what are the pros and cons of each candidate. The panel agreed that the major deciding factor of voting will be what party is the candidate from. Everyone from the media that evaluated Trump’s Vice President choice of Pence claims that Pence is an odd yet safe choice for Trump’s campaign. Julie pointed out that the main problem Trump will have with Pence being his running mate is the fact that now Trump will have to answer the social issues due to Pence being a conservative.

At the end of this show I realized how much influence a president’s choice has on their country. Before watching the show I didn’t realize how, even before office, a candidate’s choice on something like who their running mate will be would cause news stations all over the country to focus in on that one choice.

July 10, 2016

On June 10, 2016 I watched Face the Nation on CBS. The host was John Dickerson. This week’s guests were Mayor Mike Rawlings, Secretary J. Johnson, Officer William Bratton, NAACP President Cornell Brooks, Representative Elijah Cummings, and Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The pundits were Chief of Police Terrence Cunningham, Director-Counsel of NAACP Sherrilyn Ifill, Wesley Lowery from Washington Post, and CBS News Correspondent Jeff Pegues.

The main topic of discussion this week was violent protest against the police all across the country. The first guest was Mike Rawlings. Mike claimed that he hopes Dallas can set an example to the rest of the country by not holding the Black Lives Matter group, as a whole, responsible for all of the acts of hostility against the police. The next guests were Secretary Jeh Johnson and William Bratton. Their interview began with the host asking Johnson about the shooting in Dallas. Johnson responded, “It is a time to come together, to heal, and to mourn. Though we have to remember that the shooter should not reflect upon the whole community and that use excessive force should not reflect upon law enforcement.“ John Dickerson proceeded to ask William Bratton on how do the police officers all across the nation feel about the current events. William replied that there is a lot of pressure on the officers currently, and it is constantly improving to fix the problems we are having currently. Some of the examples were training to improve and lessen the use of force, diversity in the police force, and are working towards closing the gap between the community and the police force. When asked about if they suspected a tragedy like the one in Dallas he replied, “No, they were attempting to plan for the worst and hope for the best, but Dallas was beyond anyone’s speculation.” Personally I just can’t believe a U.S citizen attacked and killed policemen, whom have protected this country and died from a person they were attempting to protect. The next guest was the president of the NAACP, Cornell Brooks. He started off by saying that racial relations have gone down but are not where they should be. He then stated that an African American male is more likely to be shot than his white counterpart. Now at first I was intrigued by this statement, and proceeded to do some research. I found that his claim of police using lethal force on African Americans due to race was incorrect. Through this research I found that there was a disproportionate amount of nonlethal force used against African Americans, but there was not an increase in the amount of lethal force being used due to race. However I did enjoy watching him due to his straight forwardness and conviction. Next on the show was Elijah Cummings. During his brief interview he brought up a very important point that the others barely touched on. Elijah mainly talked about how the police and the community both need to work on their relationship with each other due to the fact that the police can’t do their job without the community and the community will not be able to retain order without the police. The next person to be interviewed was Rudy Giuliani. John Dickerson started off the interview by asking what did Rudy think about Newt Gingrich ironically stating, he is Caucasian, white Americans do not understand the dangers of being African American. Rudy replied that he agrees and that both communities need to work together to solve this problem. Rudy claimed that he believes that African Americans need to be aware of the fact that instead of being wary of the police shooting, which he claims happens rarely, they need to instead be wary of thugs and criminals. He claims that thugs and criminals that may live near them kill every fourteen hours, opposed to the random incidents of police shootings. Rudy ended his interview by claiming, “... Callings themselves Black Lives Matter is inherently racist, and that black lives matter, white lives matter, Asian lives matter, and Hispanic lives matter. The fact that they call themselves Black Lives Matter is anti-American and racist due to them focusing only on the black lives.” The next session was with the pundits. The first one was Terrence Cunningham. Terrence started the discussion by claiming the Dallas police force was something every police force should strive to be. He pointed out that during the protest they not only controlled order over the duration but they also guarded it. He claimed that when the first shot was fired the police ran to protect the protesters, not knowing that they themselves were the targets, and used themselves as human shields to protect the protesters. Sherrilyn Ifill argued that the police do not take responsibility for their actions like in Baton Rouge and Minnesota. Wesley commented on Rudy’s earlier statement about the target and pressure being on the police. Wesley claimed that the media and the people focus on the police shootings instead of the murders due to the police being an extension of the government and the thought of any part of the government killing its citizens were a crazy one. Personally while I do understand his view I do have to disagree about blowing it out of proportion due to the fact that it hinders the police from doing their job without conflict, which causes these situations. Jeff then commented that he believes that the current police targeting and accusations are caused by the lack of trust with the police by the community.

I think John Dickerson did an average job on hosting only due to the fact that he remained silent for a huge portion of the show, but he did an excellent job on choosing the guests. Secretary Jeh Johnson and William Bratton did a great job on the show by each providing a view of the pro-BLM(Black Lives Matter) and the police force. Cornell Brooks did a great job on the show he completely believed everything he said, even though his statement was wrong, and proceeded to go straight to the point. Rudy Giuliani was a great guest. He provided new views and interesting ideas. The pundits were great and cooperated to prove their points and used what the previous pundit said to explain their own view. Though by the end of the show I am now skeptical about how much order the police will be able to maintain due to all of the tension in the air raised by the NAACP and the BLM.

July 6th, 2016

On July the 3rd, 2016 I watched Fox News. The host during this session was Ainsley Earhardt. The guests were Xavier Becerra and Devin Nunes. The pundits were Brit Hume, Charles Lane, Scott Brown, and Heidi Przybyla.

The first guest was Xavier Becerra. The main subject of discussion during this interview was the investigation on Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. Xavier believes that all of the emails information was not classified as top secret until weeks after she sent the email. The main percentage of the democrats see this incident as a huge misunderstanding, and she won’t make the mistake again. However on the opposite side of the spectrum most of the Republican party believes she should be in jail for treason. Ainsley transitioned the conversation to the Benghazi tragedy for the last few moments of the interview. Xavier, a Democrat, firmly believed that Clinton couldn’t do anything to stop the tragedy from happening. After the interview the pundits, all Republican, came on. They all agreed that Hillary Clinton should be directly responsible for the deaths at Benghazi. After the discussion Ainsley introduced Devin Nunes. Devin’s interview mainly talked about the terrorism threat in the United States. He started exclaiming we can’t call the threat by any other name besides radical Islamic terrorist. He said that Democrats need to stop just calling them terrorist and call them by what they are. Personally I don’t think it matters if they leave the two words out due to adding them  will just be offensive a whole religion.

This analyzation of the two parties emphasized to me the difference between the two parties. In other shows, ones that aren’t mainly composed of one party for their pundits, they argue over matter that were off topic, and only end arguing when they are taken off the show.