Keep Celebrities Out of White House

I will be commenting on my fellow classmate alyssaxnicolex00's blog entry entitled

Why Celebrities and Politics Don't Mix. Alyssa wrote about the recent ridiculous brouhaha that Donald Trump was creating over President Obama's birth certificate. I watched a few news reports on this topic and I feel that she covered all the grounds of the story. She included the history on Mr. Trump's obsession with the birth certificate; a pathetic two year ordeal that our country's leader has tried to ignore until recently. She also includes the racial issue that has come up because of some of Mr. Trump's controversial comments. Is this man really running for President in 2012? I agree with another classmate in one critique, and that would be to include who Andy Ostroy is. It's very important to give some background about the people you are bringing into your articles; for many readers it helps make that person's word seem more agreeable and credible. Overall, I thought it was a well written piece that was easy to follow and interesting to read. 

In the end, I believe Pres. Obama had the last laugh by cutting off the last five minutes of Mr. Trumps television show "Celebrity Apprentice" (a crucial time in each episode) to announce the death of Osama bin Laden. Go Obama!

What About the Children?

     American children receiving government assistance will be affected by the 2012 budget changes.  The Republican-imposed budget cuts for both 2011 and 2012 represent an all-out war on the middle class, low income people, seniors, kids, and anyone who’s sick. This budget will cause untold suffering for women and children but yet won’t create a single job. (And why has the issue with creating jobs been placed on the back burner?) Next year’s Republican budget proposal is even more extreme – it ends guaranteed Medicare for seniors to finance a giant new tax cut for corporations, and would add trillions to the deficit over the next ten years. This isn’t a recipe for a balanced budget, it’s a recipe for disaster.
     The cuts that will be made to services for children are the most upsetting. How can they take away from kids that already have so little in the first place? A budget passed by the Texas House of Republicans for child abuse prevention will be cutting funds by 55%. Yet in Washington, President Obama recently declared April as Child Abuse Prevention Month. How can we prevent the devastation caused to children by abuse and neglect if we don’t have the funds to do so? There will not be enough money to pay the investigators that keep an eye on the children at risk. If the numbers of abused children rise, will there be enough funding available to provide mental health services to them?
     Services for children with mental disabilities will be affected, as well. Families with an Autistic child that rely on programs provided by the government will notice the effects of the cuts. There will be a two year waiting list for these families to go on as the number of people who need help will grow, yet the assistance available will dwindle. Community-based programs for kids with Autism will be restricted or disappear.
Unfortunately there are many more children’s services, such as WIC (Women Infants & Children), that will be negatively affected by budget cuts as well. We need to take care of our country’s children; they are our future. 

Commentary on Colleague's Article

I was very impressed with Julia Elliot’s piece “Planned Parenthood and Women’s Rights.” She presents an argument in favor for the funding of Planned Parenthood, which was recently slashed by budget cuts. She offers an enlightening perspective to how removing Planned Parenthood affects women in this country and their rights. All of the scenarios and questions presented in her article are valid and encourage readers to consider the consequences of taking away such a service to women. My only suggestion would be to add some links to news articles or blogs about the recent cuts to help support her argument on how these changes will have an adverse effect on American women. A well written article; I couldn’t agree with her more on the topic.

March Madness

In the blog piece March Madness: Washington Forgets About Jobs, author Robert L. Borosage covers a vast area of potential fixes to America's lack of available full-time jobs. He manages to tap into almost every problem area we are currently facing and offer long-term solutions that would appear beneficial to our country’s sagging employment rate. Borosage is the founder and president of the Campaign for America’s Future link and helps direct Jobs Summit link.

Borosage supplies many staggering numbers that reflect our country’s need for jobs. He includes a poll from NBC/WSJ verifying that American’s are still very much concerned about jobs and the economy and want for Washington to focus primarily on these issues. He offers some back and forth between Republican and Democrat stances including President Obama’s but the author concludes that “neither party has a jobs agenda.”

Many well thought solutions are presented in this piece. He basically breaks them down to three main priorities each with their own detailed paragraph which include reviving manufacturing in America, rebuilding America’s infrastructure, and investing in education. He does though continue to go off on a plethora of ideas which begin to make the piece feel somewhat overwhelming. He lists off complexities that include Wall Street, Big Oil and drug companies, and the Pentagon. Little information is offered on these ideas and could possibly scare a reader away. On the contrary, it may entice the reader to further their knowledge and try to understand how these topics may help fix the unemployment issue.

My favorite part that Borosage wrote was “… the right isn’t focused on deficits anyway; they’re focused on cutting government. You can’t demand tax cuts for the wealthiest American’s in December, and then claim you’re for deficit reduction in March.” I have had the exact same thoughts as this for several months now and was thrilled to see it in writing on this blog post. I feel that he did a good job at addressing a very serious problem that this country currently has and was able to offer valid and intelligent solutions that were easy to understand.

A pro-choice choice: Shift course or lose ground

    In A Pro-choice Choice: Shift Course or Lose Ground, author Frances Kissling argues that the pro-choice movement needs to get with the times or risk losing all rights completely. Kissling is an abortion-rights activist and former president of Catholics for a Choice. Her piece is directed towards pro-choice advocates and she is sending them an important and urgent message.

     Dropping startling facts taken from Gallup polls, Kissling states that Americans are drastically changing their opinions from pro-choice to pro-life and this change is starting to show up in the decisions our government is making. She mentions the bill that was passed Friday, February 18, 2011 that will remove federal funding from Planned Parenthood. This extremely beneficial clinic provides reproductive health services to poor women. They serve over 5 million clients a year, 26% of which are teenagers under the age of 19. The house is even proposing a bill that would make it impossible to buy private insurance covering abortion.

     The main message Kissling is sending goes out to the pro-choice advocates who are still using the same tactics and facts that were used in abortion debates in the 1970s. She's telling the abortion-rights movement "to accept its (the fetus) existence and its value." She believes we need to reject post-viability abortions (24 to 26 weeks) except in extreme cases such as the woman's life is in immediate risk or when the fetus suffers from conditions that are incompatible with a good quality of life. She also proposes mandating and funding non-directive counseling on all options available to pregnant women.

     Kissling warns that "the new ultra-conservative members of Congress are fighting to get rid of the legal rights to choose abortion." She strongly believes that the movement needs to start working with the state. She wants to see more responsible and compassionate state policies, even naming the European's system as a positive example for the U.S. to model.

     She closes with a powerful statement: "If we don't suggest sensible balanced legislature and regulation of abortion, we will be left with far more draconian policies- and, eventually, no choices at all."

Montana Has Had Enough of Medical Marijuana

The use of medical marijuana may come to an end in the state of Montana. The state has had a medical marijuana law in action for the past six years and government officials are now feeling “duped” by the citizens. House speaker Mike Milbum says “the medical use had been a pretext for encouraging recreational use and creating a path to full legalization and fears gang drug wars in Montana’s cities and debilitation of its youth.” Milbum feels it’s time to shut everything down and that marijuana use has gone way too far. In 2009, the federal Department of Justice stated that medical marijuana would not be a law enforcement priority. This is the same time that the use of medical marijuana exploded; the number of patients has quadrupled to more than 27,000 and millions have been invested in grower businesses and retail supplier shops.

The main reason for the repeal may be the major changes in Montana’s politics. Republicans surged from a 50-50 tie in the House before last November’s election to a 68-32 majority now. And although party line positions have defined the issue in Montana, with Republicans mostly lined up in favor of restriction or repeal, there is widespread agreement among legislators and residents that medical marijuana has become something very different than it was originally envisioned to be.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/us/11marijuana.html?ref=politics