White House | It's On Broadway

Takeover Thursdays – 1 Tweet Drops the Market

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Bobby Broadway

The great thing about Twitter is that it’s currently the fastest way breaking news is communicated.

The bad thing about Twitter is that it’s currently the fastest way breaking news is communicated.

It’s all fun and games when Twitter kills of celebrities like Bill Cosby every once in awhile, but now he good and bad of Twitter has come to the forefront with recent events like the Boston Bombings and the hacking of AP’s Twitter account. The Boston Bombings had news organizations caring more about beating each other to the punch with Breaking News than getting the story right. And then the hacking of AP’s Twitter account had people thinking for a good minute that there was a real life ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ shit going down.

That single hacked tweet from AP caused a good size drop in the market. The false tweet about President Obama being injured by and explosion at the White House was immediately identified as a false tweet, but it still impacted the markets.

Now how is it that traders were able to quickly see that false tweet and then make trading decisions based on that bad information?

Are traders on Twitter all day??? If so I could probably be a beast at that job, ha!!

It turns out that there are trading applications using sophisticated analytic software that looks for keywords on social media that will kick off automatic trades.

Hmmmm….

So no one could foresee an issue with using social media as a source of information to make trading decisions!

WTH

Wow, needless to say this is kind of dangerous. The market is built on confidence, using social media in that way is reckless IMO. Yes, the market quickly corrected itself as traders recognized the mistake. But what about next time when it not so quickly identified that a news organization’s Twitter account has been hacked? It will be interesting to see the fall out from this incident, will Twitter be required to implement more security?

As always….

If there is something to be said, “It’s On Broadway” to step up and say it!!

Letter with “Suspicious Substance” addressed to President Obama

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Bobby Broadway

From Politico Breaking News:

A letter addressed to President Barack Obama “containing a suspicious substance was received at the remote White House mail screening facility” on Tuesday, the Secret Service announced Wednesday.

The Secret Service said that the letter was received at a facility that routinely identifies letters or parcels that require secondary screening or scientific testing before delivery.

“The Secret Service White House mail screening facility is a remote facility, not located near the White House complex, that all White House mail goes through,” Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said. “The Secret Service is working closely with the U.S. Capitol Police and the FBI in this investigation.”

So we have the Boston Marathon Bombing, a letter suspected to be laced with a poison, ricin sent to Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi being reported yesterday and now we have a letter “containing suspicious substance”.

And this just in….

Capitol Police are responding to reports of suspicious packages in the Hart and Russell Senate office buildings and a bomb squad is on the scene. The buildings have not been evacuated, but certain areas of the buildings have been closed.

This has the makings of some homegrown terror, hopefully the “suspicious packages” in the Hart and Russell Senate office buildings will turn out to be nothing and just a result of everyone being extra cautious.

As always….

If there is something to be said, “It’s On Broadway” to step up and say it!!

President Obama calls the Boston Marathon bombings acts of terror

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Bobby Broadway

President Obama has officially stated what I think we already knew, that the Boston Marathon bombing was an act of terror.

From Politico Breaking News:

“This was a heinous and cowardly act and given what we now know about what took place, the FBI is investigating it as an act of terrorism. Anytime bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror,” Obama said at the White House. “What we don’t yet know however is who carried out this attack or why, whether it was planned by a terrorist organization, foreign or domestic, or whether it was the act of a malevolent individual.”

Obama said he had just been briefed by his national security team, but information about those responsible and any motives was still coming in. He promised continued briefings on the situation throughout the day.

“We will find whoever harmed our citizens and bring them to justice,” Obama said. “We also know this: the American people will not be terrorized.”

It’s important for people to remain patient while the facts are being determined, too many rumors and wild stories of Facebook pages for the victims being created 2 days before the bombing floating around.

***At 1st I hesitated in adding the link about the Facebook page being deleted, but then it’s important to at least see the rumors flying around. In no way do I endorse the Facebook story!***

As always….

If there is something to be said, “It’s On Broadway” to step up and say it!!

Broadway’s Blog: President Obama’s final news conference of 1st term

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Bobby Broadway

As reported by The Washington Post…

President Obama is planning a news conference Monday at 11:15 a.m. A White House official said Obama plans to use the platform to make his case for Congress to raise the debt limit.

This will be Obama’s final news conference of his first term and comes as his administration readies an ambitious second-term legislative agenda including comprehensive immigration reform, an overhaul of gun laws and continuing fiscal issues.

Technically We Are Going Over the Fiscal Cliff

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Bobby Broadway

According to Politico…

The House is not scheduled to vote on any fiscal cliff package on New Year’s Eve, so the United States is technically going over the fiscal cliff, but perhaps only for a day or two if the White House and congressional leaders can win enough support for passage of a tax package already being negotiated between Senate leaders and the White House. Timing for House and Senate votes remained unclear with just a few hours to spare before 2012 ends.

Talking Points Tuesdays – President Obama failure on Gun Control….

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Bobby Broadway

In 2008 candidate Barack Obama talked about re-instituting the Federal Ban on Assault Weapons; 4 years later we have a witnessed tragic shootings that have left a member of the United States House of Representatives (Gabrielle Giffords) recovering from being shot in the head and senseless murder/injury of innocent people trying to watch the latest Dark Knight movie (Dark Knight Rises). While it is true that you cannot say for sure that these shooting could have been prevented with stricter gun control laws, what can be said is that the weapons used in the attacks would have been banned (AR-15 and extended magazine clip). Of course having a ban of such weapons doesn’t guarantee no violence but it’s a start. The last thing we should want to do is make it any easier for NUTBAGS like James Holmes to be able to purchase firearms and ammunition.

And as much as I will defend President Obama on some of his policies, I CANNOT DEFEND HIM ON THIS!

The NRA and nutbags within the GOP would have you believe that President Obama wants to take away your guns. Well that is simply not true as President Obama has not done anything when it comes to gun control. What’s sad is that Obama had the perfect opportunity to take up the fight of gun control when Representative Giffords was shot in the head; she survived along while 6 others died that day including a 9-year-old girl. He had the sympathy of the nation but nothing was done….

There is no indication even if the president won re-election that he will pursue the federal assault weapons ban. Jake Tapper of ABC News reported that the White House has suggested that the president does not have the appetite to pursue stricter gun control laws.

“The president’s views on this are, as he has stated and as he spelled out in the op-ed that was published in an Arizona newspaper, which is that he believes we need to take steps that protect Second Amendment rights of the American people but that ensure that we are not allowing weapons into the hands of individuals who should not, by existing law, obtain those weapons…” – WH Press Secretary Jay Carney (reported by Jake Tapper)

Basically the president is saying, he has to SHOW that he is not planning to take people’s guns away as he can’t afford to lose any possible votes to Mitt Romney.

Sorry Barack, but if you have no appetite now when will you have one?

Hopefully we will not see another tragedy like Aurora, but then again didn’t we say that after the shooting in Arizona????

In case you forgot below here are some of the regulations included in the Federal Assault Weapons Ban:

Assault weapon (semi-automatic) refers primarily (but not exclusively) to firearms that possess the cosmetics of an assault rifle (which are fully-automatic). Semi-automatic firearms, when fired, automatically extract the spent cartridge casing and load the next cartridge into the chamber, ready to fire again; they do not fire automatically like a machine gun, rather, only 1 round is fired with each trigger pull.

In the former U.S. law, the legal term assault weapon included certain specific semi-automatic firearm models by name (e.g., Colt AR-15, TEC-9, non select-fire AK-47s produced by three manufacturers, and Uzis) and other semi-automatic firearms because they possess a minimum set of cosmetic features from the following list of features:

Semi-automatic rifles able to accept detachable magazines and two or more of the following:

Folding or telescoping stock
Pistol grip
Bayonet mount
Flash suppressor, or threaded barrel designed to accommodate one
Grenade launcher (more precisely, a muzzle device which enables the launching or firing of rifle grenades, though this applies only to muzzle mounted grenade launchers and not those which are mounted externally)

Semi-automatic pistols with detachable magazines and two or more of the following:

Magazine that attaches outside the pistol grip
Threaded barrel to attach barrel extender, flash suppressor, handgrip, or suppressor
Barrel shroud that can be used as a hand-hold
Unloaded weight of 50 oz (1.4 kg) or more
A semi-automatic version of a fully automatic firearm

Semi-automatic shotguns with two or more of the following:

Folding or telescoping stock
Pistol grip
Fixed capacity of more than 5 rounds
Detachable magazine

The earlier term assault rifle refers to rifles that are capable of fully automatic fire. By that definition the ban did not cover “assault rifles” at all. Instead, it created a new definition of “assault weapon,” a term that was broad enough to encompass all three categories of firearm (rifle, pistol and shotgun) capable of semi-automatic fire and having a combination of features as listed above, but did not include fully automatic firearms of any type.

As always….

If there is something to be said, “It’s On Broadway” to step up and say it!!

Militant Mondays – I can’t support Pres. Obama

Posted on April 26, 2010 by Bobby Broadway

As you all may know I have been a strong supporter of President Obama and his policies; Health Care Reform, Financial Reform, his stance on foreign affairs etc…. But now the president in my eyes has gone too far, I can’t lie I am VERY disappointed in the direction Obama wants to go in with his latest act. I guess there were going to be some issues that I would not agree with Obama but I am a little shocked by this one.

What’s scary is that I think I can finally understand where the far Left Southern contingent is coming from when they talk about Obama being dangerous. I just can’t figure out how I could have missed this glaring issue with the president. This is not the “Hope and Change” I voted for in 2008, here is a perfect opportunity for the president to stand up and send a strong message to those who support Evil Empires! Instead Obama will be inviting an Evil Empire to the White House to enjoy pleasantries that MY tax dollars pay for; SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!!

So what could the president have done that was so bad that a strong supporter like myself would 2nd guess his actions?

There is only one thing Barack Obama could do that would shake my confidence in his ability to lead. That one action is the most unforgiving of all; having the hated New York Yankees at the White House to celebrate their World Series victory.

I know, it is tradition for the President to host the World Series Champs, but where is my “Hope and Change”? The president is Chicago White Sox fan and I would have expected better from him. It’s not so unreasonable to ask that the president not invite the Yankees aka “The Evil Empire” to the White House. The president showed his loyalties to the White Sox’s by wearing their hat on Opening Day when he threw the 1st pitch at the Washington Nationals game.

So where are his loyalties to the White Sox’s or all enemies of the Yankees? Where is the leadership to show the country we will not stand for the evil of the Yankees and their winning ways? By having the Yankees at the White House President Obama is basically validating the fakeness of Alex Rodriguez, the wild and crazy ways of Nick Swisher, and the demoralizing ways of Mariano Rivera as he continues to take the hearts of opposing hitters.

Arrrggghhh, I just hate the Yankees and everything about them. Maybe I can petition the president to sign an executive order to just dismantle the Yankees, hmmmm… Hey if we can have a Black President I can dream the Yankees would just go away, LOL!!!!

LET’S GO METS!!!

As always….
If there is something to be said, “Its On Broadway” to step up and say it!!!