April 28, 2014

On MLK day, helping the unemployed is a moral issue

            This article January this year talks about the impact of public policy on citizens not being able to find jobs. The author, Raphael Wornock, states that African-Americans are being impacted disproportionately by unemployment. Economic policy is always one of the most important things on the president’s political agenda, and Obama has worked hard to improve the job outlooks of many. Unemployment trends show that it is on its way down, however long term unemployment is still very high. This is extremely bad because when unemployment checks run out, the people have no source of income whatsoever. Wornock goes on to state that African-American unemployment will increase if unemployment insurance is cut now. I believe that Wornock is correct in this assertion. I do not believe that unemployment insurance gives people a reason not to work. They will still be motivated to find a job, regardless of this benefit or not. I do not see why unemployment insurance is cut after a certain amount of time for reasons other than this, and I do not believe this is a very good reason.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/19/opinion/warnock-mlk-unemployment-moral/

April 13, 2014

Hillary Clinton Knocks Supreme Court’s Campaign Finance Decisions

This article from February 2014 discusses Hillary Clinton’s criticism of the Supreme Court’s decision to allow more campaign financing via the Citizens United case. The Supreme Court ruling allows people to donate to as many candidates as they would like. This essentially gives wealthier Americans more of an influence in campaigns. The article goes on to talk about Clinton’s trip across the west coast and her public statements on Vladimir Putin and Russia.

                I think that the Supreme Court’s choice on the Citizens United case was the wrong ruling. It will obviously give wealthier Americans much more power, while also minimizing the already little say on people who are not as wealthy. Despite this, I think that Hillary Clinton is somewhat hypocritical in her comments, and she is benefitting from this decision as well. Although she may not benefit as much as some of the possible Republican candidates, she will still have an improvement because of this decision. It is possible that the reason she is criticizing this decision is to fall into line with her party, as most democrats disagree with the ruling on this case.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/09/hillary-clinton-knocks-supreme-courts-campaign-finance-decisions/

April 6, 2014

Ex-CIA Chief: What Edward Snowden Did

            This article from July 2013 reports what Edward Snowden did when he released information about the NSA. It then goes into the effects of what he did and what it could cause. Snowden releasing this information can alert other countries of the tactics that the United States uses to spy on them. It also causes some citizens to lose confidence in our government. As the article points out, it seems as though the U.S. government can’t do anything secretly. Not only are people upset that they are being spied on, they are upset that everybody knows about the NSA spying on us.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/19/opinion/hayden-snowden-impact/

March 23, 2014

Montana Ex-Guardsman Now Must Fight to Keep Senate Seat Given to Him

 

            This article talks about a Senate race in Montana. John Walsh was given the seat after it was vacated by Max Baucus, who became the U.S. Ambassador to China. Walsh is a Democrat, looking to hold the seat which has been controlled by the Democrats since 1913. This is somewhat surprising since Montana tends to be very conservative. They voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 by a 14 point margin, and have low state taxes and little state regulation.

Republicans have criticized Walsh for his work in the state emergency management division. Both parties realize that this a very important seat to win in the upcoming mid-term election. The Republicans have a very good chance of taking over control of the Senate. If the Democrats could help retain this seat, it will go a long way towards their power in the Senate. Although he has had a very short time in office, he has been attacked by Republicans for the way he has handled his position. Democrats have supported him in return. He has not had a very long time in office, but it is not surprising that both sides have voiced their opinions on him considering the upcoming election.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/us/politics/montana-ex-guardsman-now-must-fight-to-keep-senate-seat-given-to-him.html?ref=congress&_r=0

March 6, 2014

Why your vote for Congress might not matter

This article discusses how lots of seats in the House of Representatives are not going to be close elections because of how the states are gerrymandered. In five states in the south, there are a total of only 9 democratic congressmen. In fact, most states that are gerrymandered favor the republicans. Illinois is the only that that is gerrymandered in favor of the democrats. There are also states, such as Iowa, that are not gerrymandered at all. This is because in Iowa, the group assigned to redistrict the state is made up of two legislative staffers so there is no political interference. Last time that Iowa redistricted, they ended up placing two incumbents against one another for a seat in the House. I believe that more states should implement systems of redistricting similar to Iowa’s. This would help to insure that every congressman has an equal chance when running for election. Implementing a system like that would also make sure that congressmen listen to their district more. This would be due to them not being almost guaranteed re-election because of the district mapping. If they know that their re-election is not guaranteed, they will listen to the public more often.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/18/politics/gerrymandering/

February 16, 2014

Holder Calls for Restoring Ex-Cons’ Voting Rights

            

     Democratic Attorney General Eric Holder is teaming up with Republican’s Rand Paul and Mike Lee to help give voting rights back to some former convicts. According to Holder, there are currently around 5.8 million people who do not have the right to vote because of a former crime they committed. In fact, Holder says that one out of every five black adults in Florida, Virginia, and Kentucky cannot vote because of past crimes. In my opinion, people that committed crimes but served their time in prison for their actions should be allowed to vote. I think that prison should be the only punishment that they receive. Also, after serving in prison, they are sometimes seen in a worse way by society. It also does not make sense to me what reason they have to take away their votes. I do not think that committing a crime would impact the way that they vote. Overall, I agree with Eric Holder, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee on this issue.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/02/11/holder-calls-for-restoring-ex-cons-voting-rights/

February 5th, 2014

State of the Union address

President Obama gave his annual State of the Union address last Tuesday, January 28^th. Although the speech usually tends to be very controversial, it received more positive remarks than usual. After the speech, many republicans were not as critical of the speech as usual. They were also seen shaking hands with the President, which sometimes does not happen at all after the speech. This is however partially because the President gave a significant amount of credit to republicans and republican based ideas.

          During the speech, Obama mentioned the severe gridlock that congress is in, and how we need a way to end it. A plan of his is to issue an executive order to raise minimum wage for government contract workers to $10.10, compared to the current $7.25. While I do believe that it may be necessary to issue executive orders due to how unproductive congress is, I do not agree with raising minimum wage this significantly. I believe a smaller increase would be appropriate, but almost 3 dollars more per hour may be too steep a change at just one time. Also, while it may work for government contract workers, I do not think that it could work for all Americans. This is because business’s do not have the money that the government does to pay all of its workers.

Article: http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/28/politics/2014-state-of-the-union/