As unemployment numbers rise, women and minorities are disproportionally affected, according to a review of August unemployment numbers by a number of think tanks.
John McCain’s speech Thursday night drew 500,000 more viewers than Barack Obama’s record-setting speech a week earlier, Nielsen Media Research reports. More than 38.9 million watched McCain accept the Republican nomination for president on eight networks, according to preliminary television ratings.
Can you hear me now … hello? … you’re breaking up
Verizon Wireless reports cell phone traffic increased by almost 10 million calls and transmissions on its network around the Democratic National Convention in Denver last week. The phone company bolstered capacity near the Pepsi Center with three additional cell towers and even put a mobile “Cell on Wheels” on the streets.
Denver’s 9NEWS reports the FBI asked for more serious charges to be filed against at least one of the suspects arrested last week in a suspected plot to kill Barack Obama during the Democratic National Convention. Federal court documents obtained by reporter Jace Larson describe a plot to assassinate Obama in a suicide mission using a gun hidden inside a camera.
A lot has changed since the tumultuous conventions of 1968. Maverick journalists Dan Rather and Jim Lehrer lament the old days when political conventions were spontaneous and less immune to corporate influence. Both are searching for substance behind the spectacle.
The Department of Homeland Security is providing a boost to local intelligence operations during political conventions, sending in federal reinforcements to state “fusion” centers for on site support and communications with department headquarters in Washington D.C.
Late last year I had the horror of watching Chicago 10 at the Denver Film Festival. The movie combines animated sequences with archival footage of the 1968 riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and it scared the hell out of me — especially with this year’s most outspoken protest group calling themselves “Recreate ’68.” But then … not a whole lot happened here Denver last week. What gives?
Read more of Jeff’s commentaries:
• Congratulations Colorado
• Palins supports teaching creationism in schools
• Who the heck is Sarah Palin?
• Biden on Biden
A Gallup daily tracking poll released Tuesday shows Democrat Barack Obama topping 50 percent support for the first time, adding to a lead that has been growing since his speech Thursday accepting the nomination at Denver’s Invesco Field. Other polls tracking the presidential race over the weekend tally an Obama lead over John McCain by as many as 9 points, up from a virtual dead heat as the Democratic National Convention began last week.
The doubters said we couldn’t do it. That our fair city, our “cowtown,” would be overrun. In 1908 restaurants ran out of food on the first day, having no idea what hosting the Democratic National Convention required. But 100 years later I’d say Denver more than made up for our past follies by hosting a truly magnificent convention.
Read more of Jeff’s commentaries:
• Palins supports teaching creationism in schools
• Who the heck is Sarah Palin
• Biden on Biden
On May Day in 2006, a human mass of white shirts stretched along downtown Denver’s Speer Boulevard in one of the largest mobilizations in the city’s history. An estimated 75,000 people boycotted work and school to march and protest against federal legislation that would have further criminalized undocumented immigrants in the Untied States. Millions of others rallied in more than 25 cities.
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