An Interesting Viewpoint

Now that we've moved into Comparative Government, I thought it might be interesting to post some things about society elsewhere. For my Spanish class, I have a weekly assignment to inform myself about issues in Latin America, and I use the UN website to do it. This is the link to the Spanish-speaking countries page, but you can navigate from there to any other region in the world, so have fun exploring! (And yes, it really is fun. You can even listen to the reports as a radio publication.)
http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/spanish/
Also. This page is completely in Spanish, but you can change the language in the top right hand corner.

Woman Sues Congress for Injuries Given by a Small Dog.

How are Congressmen just like you and I? They, too, get sued when someone gets bitten by a dog on their property. How are they not like us? When they get sued, so does the entire House of Representatives.
Two years ago, Elizabeth Crawford went to a meeting with her Representative, Tom McClintock. While there, a small dog that belonged to a staffer bit her on her finger. Self-remedies, hospital trips, and two years later, she's suing him for $200,000 of damages. The four-figure amount they offered to pay for the bills was, apparently, not enough. In total, she's seeking 174,000 for "pain and suffering".I'll be interested to see how this one plays out...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dog-bites-woman-woman-sues-congress/ar-BBhz560

After I read Connor's post on the North Korea/Sony problems, I found this on a gossip site, and I think it adds an interesting new piece of the argument.

In our country, we have freedom of speech. We (in general) believe that every person should be able to speak their mind without reprisals. And that is why ultimately, the people of the US agreed when Sony released The Interview even under threat from the North Korean dictator. But just because we believe in it, does that mean that every person has the right to free speech? 

North Korean defector and human rights activist Park Sang-hak has that everyone deserves uncensored access to The Interview, and, together with the Human Rights Foundation, is going to drop 100,000 copies of the movie to the citizens inside North Korea. Now, I respect and understand this desire to help them, and to try to break down the psychological walls Kim Jong-un has built around his country. But, here's the potential problem. IF anyone decides to watch the movie without turning it into the authorities and IF the authorities don't find all of the copies first anyway, those citizens who keep it are automatically subject to a death sentence. So what do you guys think? Is it worth the risk to individuals? Will efforts like these help the situation at all in N. Korea? Is it anyone's place to interfere in the operation of another country? 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/activists-planning-to-balloon-drop-100000-copies-of-%E2%80%98the-interview%E2%80%99-into-north-korea/ar-BBhoaJ3

Politico's 14 Quotes of 2014

In the spirit of the last post, here are 14 memorable things that were said this year. Some of them made me laugh and some of them I honestly didn't remember, but it's a good wrap up for the year in politics.

Some of my favorites were...

1. "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."
Ah, yes. The moment where possibly the most competitive Republican for 2016 flushed his chances straight down the toilet. Even if Chris Christie didn't cause the vote-stopping traffic, his reputation took a big hit and his other faults suddenly came to light.

4. "I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm."
This one just made me laugh. Apparently Joni Ernst, a new Senator from Iowa, used this as a slogan in her campaign. Her ads ran along the lines of "I can help cut the pork from Washington and make them squeal..." let that image sink in for a bit.

5. "Don't do stupid s**t."
I like this. It was the motto of Obama's staff this year, and it's a good motto for anyone to live by. Keep it simple.

8. "We tortured some folks."
I cringed. Just a bad reminder of a bad event that I really wish we hadn't done but we now have to justify to the world.

There are lots more, so take a look here!
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/top-quotes-2014-113882.html?hp=t4_r

15 Political Questions for 2015

The beginning of 2015 will bring the first candidates for the 2016 elections to the forefront. Even though the elections are still nearly two years away, the game is on! These are Politico's questions for this year in preparation for 2016. I only listed the first 5 with my own commentary, but the rest are also interesting and deserve a read!

1. Can Hillary change?
An important question, since she will clearly need to appeal to more people to win this time around. (Having lost once before.)
2. Who emerges as the left's Hillary alternative?
It's an interesting point-there are many options, and the Democratic party needs to decide where their allegiances lie.
3. How far will Hillary distance himself from Obama?
I think it depends on what Obama does between now and election time.
4. Does Jeb scare anyone off from running?
More importantly, does Jeb have a chance himself?
5. What is Rand's ceiling?
I think that depends on whether the Republicans can find anyone who's more sane and likable.

Steve Scalise Says he is NOT a Supremacist

The new Republican whip, Steve Scalise, was accused by certain Democrats earlier this week of having supremacist tendencies. We're used to politicians accusing each other of things, but I think it's an important aspect of being a public figure to research your claims before you publish them. In this case, we have a badly supported claim. The evidence? A speech he gave to a group in Louisiana as a state legislator. The group was founded by a member of the Ku-Klux-Klan and has been classified as a hate group. But the largest hole in the accusation? The speech was 12 years ago and was only one in a series of many speeches he gave to inform the public of a new tax bill.
Now, I don't agree with many Republicans in many ways, but accusing a probably innocent man of being a supremacist? That's a little too far. Isn't it?

original story:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-leader-i-regret-speech-to-white-supremacists/ar-BBhlRe5

Well, folks, it is 11:00 at night and I'm sitting here staring at the screen waiting for election results! Tomorrow when the official results are released I will edit this post and add the real numbers, but thus far almost nothing  is happening the way I would have chosen...congrats to all of you who voted for the first time today, I was excited and I hope that you were too!
 UPDATE: Love V.  Owens is currently 47, 49, respectively!!

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/is-the-ebola-crisis-affecting-the-midterm-elections/

Will the threat of Ebola affect midterm election results??

This one is very interesting. Brought to you by Harry Enten of 538, this article is an argument against Politico's allegation earlier in the week that the threat of Ebola would cause more people to vote Republican in the coming weeks. It argues that just because people have less confidence in the government, it doesn't mean they will desert their party. (This reminds me of our Unit Two test.) Enten writes that whichever party isn't in "control" at the moment will automatically have distrust for the federal government-for example, when the presidency switched from Bush to Obama, the confidence switched from Republican to Democrat. 

Also interestingly, he claims that people are concerned about Ebola about as much as people were concerned about the swine flu in 2009. And there have only been 3 cases in our country, think what the panic could be like in another few months!  

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/10/19/24-7-wall-st-worst-states-women/17344861/

Utah Ranked Worst State for Women???

Based on recent Census Bureau, USA Today published a listing of the ten worst states for women, and our very own state ended up in the first spot. This is why-

 

> Gender wage gap: 70 cents per dollar (4th worst)
> Poverty rate, women: 13.6% (13th lowest)
> Pct. in state legislature: 16.3% (6th lowest)
> Infant mortality rate: 5.0 per 1,000 births (2nd lowest)

Perhaps we don't notice these discrepancies because we live here and this is just life to us. 

I would be curious though, (forgive me for being defensive of our wonderful state) if the results would be the same if other factors were considered? For instance, I don't see any suicide or depression rates, and while I'm not saying women here can't be depressed, I am saying that there are important other factors in the "worst state for women" that should probably be included. Perhaps domestic abuse or rape percentages, education levels, etc. 

That being said-to the girls in the class-let's make the "% in state legislature" statistic a little higher, sometimes I definitely feel a bit under-represented! 

Original story here:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/18/politics/texas-voter-id-law/index.html

Supreme Court Approves New Texas Voter Law

Two days before early voting starts in Texas, the Supreme Court ruled that the state could keep the new voter law they've decided to enforce. According to this law, citizens must show state-issued identification in order to vote at the polls. At first glance, this seems pretty simple. The only problem? As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg points out in her (7 page!) dissent to the decision, about 600,000 citizens of Texas don't have state-issued identification. Further, a large majority of these citizens are African-American or Hispanic, which, at least in my mind and the minds of the three dissenting judges, sets off an alarm pointing back to the old Jim Crow laws that the Civil Rights movement abolished in the 60's. For this election, at least, the voters of Texas will have to show ID to get into the polls, but with further argument and review, the Republican government of Texas may change their plans. 

In my opinion, this kind of thing is the reason Texas may soon become a state of Democrats, if they aren't more careful to listen to the overwhelming presence of minorities. 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/scott-brown-elect-republicans-to-make-america-safer/

Scott Brown: Elect Republicans to make America "safer"......?

Here's an interesting interview to look at! Scott Brown is a Republican running for the Senate in New Hampshire (he's already been a Senator for Massachusetts) and his claim is that Obama's leadership is the reason the United States is so vulnerable to the problems in other countries. He discusses several problems in the Middle East and blames the lack of American leadership in the world for the problems in governments half a world away from here. So far, this just seems like a matter of opinion, right? A typical situation-one candidate is throwing the other one's party under the bus just to get ahead. But Wait! It gets better! Scott then claims that if Republicans were in charge, they would fix it. They would set America on a safer path through this confusion. 

This is the problem I see, folks-plenty of states have elected Republicans as leaders and yet...the leadership seems no better or worse from the representatives of either party. Obama is not the only person who can do anything about it. Ultimately, if they are in unison and willing to work together, I believe that Congress can be even stronger than the President. 

So, I will believe Mr. Brown when he proves that the Republicans can be cooperative, true leaders as he claims they can be. Until then-I would suggest that supporting the President (even when you don't fully agree with him) is probably a better way to keep us safe than blocking him as every turn. 

DEMOCRACY FOR HONG KONG??


Original story...
http://news.msn.com/world/thousands-rally-in-hong-kong-as-democracy-campaign-heats-up?ocid=ansnews11


To begin-I know that this story isn't about American issues, but I feel like it's a good thing to mention because it puts our own government in perspective.

Years ago, when China regained control of Hong Kong from Britain, all of the parties involved made an agreement-Hong Kong could be Chinese again if the Chinese government allowed more democracy for the citizens of HK than they do for the rest of the Chinese people. Needless to say, the Communist Party of China really doesn't want to give a lot of freedom to HK, for fear that the desire for freedom will spread and loosen their hold on power. So, when the time to elect a new city leader came recently, the Chinese government tried to limit the candidate options to only those people approved by the Communist party. Because the citizens of HK don't consider this to be a democratic solution, they've been holding rallies, which are slowly spreading to other areas. Perhaps the Chinese government's efforts to keep control could result in even less control than they began with? Now that the rest of the world is paying attention, they need to be careful-if they give in too easily, other provinces in China may try to protest for their freedom. However, if they refuse to acknowledge the demands of the HK residents, Great Britain will not be happy at the violation of their agreement. Situations like this are what make me glad to be an American-even though sometimes I'm not happy with the way the government controls things, I at least have the power to voice my opinions without the threat of undue punishment.

original story here:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/after-the-midterms-the-diversity-gap-in-the-house-will-be-wider-than-ever/

After our discussion in class yesterday, I went to FiveThirtyEight.com and I browsed the politics section, where I found an interesting article on the predicted outcomes of the midterm elections for the House. According to Silver, the GOP will still hold the House. (More Republics than Democrats will have seats.) However, a different statistic had the Democrats very excited-their caucus will be composed of more than 50% female and minority Representatives.  I have a few opinions on why Republicans can't get any women elected, but since they are similar to Silver's, I invite you to read his original article, posted at the top. To the women in the class I ask- would you feel misrepresented as a member of the Republican party or as the citizen of a Republican-dominated state? (Just to keep it clear, I definitely would/do.) And to the men in the class-do you think it really makes a difference to have women in our government or do the men do a good job of representing both sexes? And to everyone-what about minorities? Are they well represented even if the Representatives don't have the same background, race, religion, or ethnicity?

Just as a follow-up....you can read the story of our President deciding to get involved at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/obama-speech-authorise-air-strikes-against-isis-syria.
I suppose this answers my question! Don't get me wrong, I would not be happy if we went back to war. I do not necessarily support military actions, but I also don't support taking no action at all. Also, does anyone else find it an amazing coincidence that this was released the day before 9/11? Clever political move, dontcha think??

Is ISIS a bigger threat than we anticipated??

video here: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/chuck-hagel-isil-defense-james-foley-110241.html
After reading Cameron's post about the ISIS/James Foley situation, I looked into a bit myself and I found an interesting video of Chuck Hagel, saying that ISIL (he calls it ISIL, it's the same thing as ISIS) is beyond or as dangerous as any other terrorists group we've ever seen. He then goes on to say that the U.S. interference will remain limited, even though they will "eventually need to be defeated". We knew al-Qaeda was a huge threat and we didn't solve the problem early...which resulted in 9/11. Personally, I didn't appreciate 9/11 or the years of warfare that followed, and I don't think ANYONE wants to experience that again. So someone answer me this-if we know that they will continue to terrorize and murder other people(including Americans), why do  we insist on staying out of it?