Why Should We Care?

            With the election coming up rapidly there has been a huge uproar of political talk at CCHS. Many students seem to have an opinion they have to say about either of the candidates running for office. During the debates, it was not uncommon to see hundreds of posts on Twitter about the candidates’ policies and how they were good/bad for our nation.

            It’s a wonder how there is so much involvement at our school yet only a slim percentage of students will actually be able to vote in this election. This raises the question for those who can’t vote this year: why should we care?

            Well there are a few reasons why you should care. Staying informed at an early age can help you make decisions later in life. By knowing your politics now you will be able to quickly jump right in once you come of age. Furthermore, by having a solid political base now, you will be less prone to conform to other’s beliefs in college. Once you go away to school you will be around a whole new crowd, biased professors, activist students, etc. It only makes sense that the politically ignorant will choose to simply agree with their peers at this stage. Don’t conform! Get involved with politics as soon as you can. Lastly, by being informed on the political issues, you can still help swing the election. Teenagers are being used around the nation to help with the political campaigns. From mailing letters to registering voters, there are tons of things that us teens can do to help influence the outcome of this election. If you are a politically involved student, you should look into becoming active in a campaign.

            Knowledge is power. This old phrase still holds true today, where the most educated people excel at life. Don’t miss out on knowledge because you believe that it’s not important. Go on political blogs now, start researching the candidates, read up on economic issues, it will only make you a stronger person. 

Defense

The U.S. Army is at the brink. Will budget cuts deplete its forces? Or could it wind up keeping thousands of soldiers? The answer is anyone’s guess. But it’s certainly a challenge for Army leaders, especially when the next big inflection point is out of their hands.

If President Barack Obama is reelected, it probably means the Army will keep up the drawdown already under way from its wartime peak of about 570,000 troops to an end strength in 2017 of about 490,000 — slightly larger than it was in September 2001. The Army chief of staff, Gen. Ray Odierno, has said the force must not wind up smaller than that, acknowledging that it’s “on a razor’s edge.” He is keen, however, on keeping a smaller force a high-quality force. “The thing we have going for us is that I believe the Army is in a position of strength,” Odierno told reporters Monday. It’s drawing down with the best-quality, most seasoned force it’s ever had, he said, and it’s doing so with a goal in mind. “The Army, in the end, will be optimized for a broader range of missions in support of the joint force,” he said. It’ll be a force “that can deploy at several speeds, at several sizes and respond to several different contingencies” — capabilities it didn’t have before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Nonetheless, Army leaders have talked about the need to take “an appetite suppressant” and push back plans to buy new helicopters, as well as taking care to fence off the areas they’d try to protect in a worst-case budget scenario: special operations, intelligence and reconnaissance, and space and cyberspace. But the campaign of Obama’s Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, has made big promises to support the Defense Department if he’s elected. He has said he’d devote at least 4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product to the Pentagon, an increase of billions — or even trillions — of dollars. Perhaps none of the Pentagon’s four services would stand to benefit more than the Army.

Romney campaign officials have said he would stop — or even reverse — the drawdown, with the goal of keeping the Army at around its Iraq-era “surge” peak of about 570,000 troops. The goal, they said, is to avoid what they see as mistakes the U.S. has made as it has demobilized after previous wars, shrinking the Army only to have to grow it again when the next conflict came along. Retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who’s backing Romney, said there was no way to know where the Army would end up but that Romney’s goal was for it to stay flat or grow. “You have seen reductions and planned reductions in end strength. … The number that people frequently toss around is 100,000 [troops],” Franks said. “I don’t know what in the final analysis [the Romney] number would end up to be, but the first thing you do is stop the bleeding and say, ‘In a time of war, what we will not do is have end strength reductions.’

Bogus Letters

The Florida Division of elections and state law enforcement officials are investigating "multiple" bogus letters sent to Florida voters to inform them that they have been flagged as suspected illegal, non-citizen voters. "I sat there and actually had to read it a couple times because I didn't understand what it said at first," Republican Charles Callaghan of Ponte Vedra recounted to Buzz about the letter he opened Saturday. It claimed to be from the St. Johns County elections supervisor, informing him that elections officials had been informed he may be ineligible to vote and "registering to vote under fraudulent conditions or swearing a false oath are both third degree felonies in Florida."

It's an interesting twist on Florida's noncitizen voter purge, which was led by Republican Rick Scott, and was more of a threat to Democrats and independents. But now some outside group is trying to use the GOP-led effort against the GOP. "We've received multiple reports of a fraudulent letter that impersonates supervisors of elections and indicates that eligible voters might be ineligible," said Chris Cate, spokesman for the Division of Elections. "We're working with the state's supervisors of elections as well law enforcement to identify the source of the letters and put a stop to them."

Cate said anyone receiving such a letter should contact their local elections office. The postmark was from Seatttle Washington, as were other similar letters received across Florida. The letters appear to be going mostly or entirely to Republicans in Florida. “Our campaign is concerned with this situation and we are monitoring it closely," said Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams. "If anybody believes that they have received one of these letters, we urge them to contact their local election officials and the Florida Department of State.”

Every election year we always hear horror stories of how one party is trying to trick the other. There are always going to be radical extremist groups trying to influence the election in any way that they can. Make sure that you investigate any mail that you receive regarding the election! 

Privacy Clause

Supporters of Amendment 6 say their intentions are simply to ensure that Florida tax money isn't used to pay for abortions and to restore state laws that require parental consent before minors get abortions. But that's not all this proposed constitutional amendment would do, opponents say. Amendment 6 would modify a privacy clause in the Florida Constitution that for the past 32 years has helped protect citizens from government intrusion in their private lives. They say it's not just a woman's right to have an abortion that could be in jeopardy, but decisions regarding contraception, health care and personal choices. "To us, it's deeply concerning because in our Constitution in this state, there is a very explicit right to privacy that people should be free of government interference," said Deirdre Macnab, state president of the League of Women Voters, an organization leading the campaign against Amendment 6. "This is the first step in dismembering and overturning our Florida Constitution's right to privacy."

Of the 11 different constitutional amendments filling ballots this fall, Amendment 6 is the one that could have the most lasting unintended consequences, opponents argue. The measure, along with 10 others, require 60 percent of votes cast to pass. The proposal, which was placed on the ballot by the Republican-controlled Legislature, is primarily being championed by the Catholic Church. Religious institutions in Florida can support or oppose ballot initiatives without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status. They are prohibited from supporting or opposing specific candidates. While state and federal law prohibits public funding of abortion, supporters want the ban written into the Constitution.

"We believe that people don't want their taxpayer dollars paying for abortions," said Sheila Hopkins, associate director at the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops. The church distributed literature touting the importance of Amendment 6 to parishes. Bishops and priests encouraged members to spread the word among friends and neighbors leading up to Election Day. In addition to making the state Constitution mirror federal rules that prohibit public dollars from paying for abortions (except in the case of cases of rape, incest or when the mother's life is in jeopardy), Amendment 6 also modifies a privacy clause in the state Constitution.

Florida is one of nine states that has specific privacy protections beyond the U.S. Constitution. Supporters hope that relaxing these protections will empower the Legislature to restore state laws that require parents to give permission before a minor receives an abortion. Current state law requires guardians of minors only to be notified. This radical change could change the way we define privacy in Florida. 

Separation of Church and State

In many ways, Amendment 8 boils down to this: When Jerod Powers, 38, left prison in Jacksonville, he had only a change of clothes, his release papers and pocket change. He went to Prisoners of Christ halfway house — an organization that receives some state financial assistance — where he got food, clothes, substance abuse counseling and help finding a job at a lawn care business. Powers also got spiritual guidance.

That case, now playing out in court, asks whether Prisoners of Christ violated a state constitutional ban on the use of taxpayer dollars for promoting religion. The New York-based Council for Secular Humanism, which is suing the halfway house and the state, contends the Department of Corrections' $22,000 contract violates the Blaine Amendment, a ban on state money for religious organizations.

Enter Amendment 8, which seeks to make the lawsuit, and other potential legal challenges, moot. It would repeal the Blaine Amendment and replace it with a law that prohibits the state from considering religious affiliation when it disburses funds. "We don't force anything on anybody," said Prisoners of Christ executive director Dan Palmer, adding that 11 percent of prisoners who get help from his program return to prison, compared with the state average of 35 percent.

Amendment 8, one of 11 constitutional amendments on the November ballot, revives a century-old battle of whether religious organizations should have the same access to state dollars as everyone else, said Tony Carvajal of the Collins Center for Public Policy, a nonpartisan think tank in Tallahassee. The U.S. Constitution would still ban states from favoring one faith-based organization over another. "Let's take two different food banks, two different nonprofits. The way the law is now written, one associated with a religious entity can't get government support, but the other could," Carvajal said.

Opponents of Amendment 8 contend that faith-based community service groups can continue to contract with the state as they always have. They say it's dangerous to introduce a law to change the way Florida defines the separation of church and state. 

Social Media and Politics

          As Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama spared during the second presidential debate last Tuesday, viewers sounded off on social media. In the moments before last week's much-anticipated rematch debate between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney, messages like this showed up online: "Let's skip the play-by-play on Facebook during the presidential debates tonight, folks. If you must, do it on Twitter with #debates. You'll reach those who actually want to be reached."
          Implicit in the post was that our civic, if not necessarily civil, discourse is now also very much a cyber one. America in 2012 fully expects to vent about and follow politics electronically. Not long ago, TV was the overwhelming voice in the political conversation. It consisted of campaigns talking at us, often in ways that drove us batty. Today, the television is but one of the screens battling for voters' attention. The explosion ofTwitterand its ilk -- played out on mobile phones, iPads, laptops and desktops -- lets the electorate talk back. "It's one part effective and one part distracting," said Sarah Wood, secretary and treasurer for theSocial Media Club of Kansas City. "You catch new and different interpretations of what presidential candidates have said, and you can fact check on the fly. "The downside," she said, "is the emotionally charged content and the satire is very distracting."
          Wood is part of the technologically savvy culture that lives to post reactions to the season finale of a favorite television program toFacebookeven while pulling up a weather radar on one screen and a Twitter feed on another to find out when it will rain. During last Tuesday's debate, Wood watched the YouTube live stream on her iPad, while using her iPhone to read real-time posts on her Twitter feed. "This tech-savvy generation wants to be involved in conversations to create a connectivity that a singular viewing of an event cannot produce," she said. "We want other opinions and interpretations to be part of our experience."
          Indeed, following the pattern from the two previous nationally televised debates, tonight's third and final debate between Obama and Romney on foreign policy will surely draw millions to their multiple screens. The debate last Tuesday drew 12.4 million comments on Twitter and Facebook, reported Bluefin Labs, a company that studies social media's reaction to televised events. Compared with other social media events, the debate followed this year's Grammy Awards and the MTV Video Music Awards as the third biggest event ever in social media. The first debate came in fifth. "The growth of social platforms like Twitter and Reddit (where users share links to news) are bringing a whole new experience to the election this year," Evan Conway, president of the Kansas City-basedOneLouder, which makes apps for mobile phones and tablets, said in an email.

Tea Party

              Ever since its emergence in 2009, the Tea Party movement has energized the political atmosphere and has changed the face of the Republican Party. Being staunchly conservative, Tea Party members strongly advocate strict adherence to the United States Constitution, reducing U.S. government spending and taxes, and reduction of the U.S. national debt and federal budget deficit. The Tea Party has even come up with a ‘Contract From America’ which lists their goals and wants. The contract is as follows:

1.      Identify constitutionality of every new law: Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does (82.03%).
2.      Reject emissions trading: Stop the "cap and trade" administrative approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants. (72.20%).
3.      Demand a balanced federal budget: Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax modification. (69.69%)
4.      Simplify the tax system: Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words – the length of the original Constitution. (64.9%).
5.      Audit federal government agencies for constitutionality: Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in an audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities. (63.37%).
6.      Limit annual growth in federal spending: Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth. (56.57%).
7.      Repeal the health care legislation passed on March 23, 2010: De-fund, repeal, and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. (56.39%).
8.      Pass an "all-of-the-above" energy policy: Authorize the exploration of additional energy reserves to reduce American dependence on foreign energy sources and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation. (55.5%).
9.      Reduce earmarks: Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a two-thirds majority to pass any earmark. (55.47%).
10.  Reduce taxes: Permanently repeal all recent tax increases, and extend permanently the George W. Bush temporary reductions in income tax, capital gains tax, and estate taxes, currently scheduled to end in 2011. (53.38%).

With this contract the Tea Party movement has seen some success. Since 2009 the Tea Party has aided in taking control of Ted Kennedy’s seat, bringing about the largest legislative landslide in U.S. history in 2010, and spearheading the election of 6 governors across the US. The Tea Party is not something to overlook, as the Democrats have quickly come to realize. Romney’s possible bid at the Presidency no doubt relies heavily on Tea Party involvement. 

Possible Compromise?

            Recently, there has been widespread doubt over Congress’s ability to create a compromise before the sequester takes effect. After months of deliberation, Congress has yet to forge a plan to avoid falling off the fiscal cliff in January, 2013. This lack of progress had led to many people to begin to fear for the impending economic collapse that would ensue if the sequester goes into action. The sequester itself calls for massive government budget cuts all across the board. This drastic change in spending would create a huge ripple effect across all areas of the economy. Thus the panicking.

            However, recent comments by President Obama have restored faith in many people over Congress’s ability to compromise. During the Monday night debate, Obama stated that the sequester “will not happen." This bold comment has many speculators believing that a compromise is already in the works in Congress. Senator John McCain said, in response to Obama’s comment, "I was astonished, I almost fell out of my chair when the president said, 'Don't worry, sequestration won't happen.' We've been begging the president to sit down with us to avoid what his own secretary of defense said would be a devastating blow to our national security. He just said, 'Don't worry, sequestration won't happen.'” Now Obama has to live up to this huge promise.

            This claim came to most people as a huge surprise. Obama had recently been using the upcoming sequester as a bargaining chip on the expiring Bush Tax Cuts. Senator Lindsey Graham called out Obama after the debate, remarking that “He’s using sequestration as a bargaining chip on the Bush tax cuts expiring. If he wanted it not to happen he should have been leading weeks ago, months ago. We’ve been begging him to come up with a presidential leadership. Saying it’s not going to happen in a debate and not lifting a finger to prevent it for weeks and months is disingenuous.  I think it’s going to happen unless there is some leadership and the president has done nothing to lead on this issue. Tonight he dismissed it with one statement. For months and weeks he’s done nothing to fix the problem. It’s going to happen in January and he’s the commander in chief.”

            Hopefully Obama will go through with his promise because if he doesn’t then we are all screwed. If you ask many mayors and local lawmakers how the sequester could affect their states and towns, you’ll hear about cuts to education programs, infrastructure bonds, and food stamps for children. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, a Democrat who is currently the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said the scheduled spending sequester will depress state and local budgets that rely on extra funding from the federal government to provide security, nutritional or other basic services to citizens. If Congress doesn’t come up with a solution, then we may be looking at huge problems both locally and nationally. 

US and Climate Change

The United States has a moral obligation to mitigate the effects of climate change. According to a report by the Global Humanitarian Forum “Climate change is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our times.” The 2007 UN Human Development Program (UNHDP) report noted that climate change will bring about “unprecedented reversals in poverty reduction, nutrition, health and education” as the limited resources of vulnerable nations are used to mitigate the droughts, floods and other environmental stressors of climate change rather than dealing with social needs. Furthermore according to a report by the Global Humanitarian Forum, 300,000 lives are lost each year due to climate change, with an annual death toll estimated to reach 500,000 by 2030. It is imperative that the United States intervenes on the behalf of developing nations in order to mitigate these negative outcomes.

According to the Josephoninstitute, agreement is a source of moral obligation “even if an agreement doesn’t reach the level of an enforceable contract, there is a moral obligation to do the things we agree to do, especially if others are counting on us to do so.” In the 2010 COP new pledges have been made by developed countries (including the US) to jointly mobilize 30 billion dollars a year for the period of 2010-2012, and 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 to address the mitigation and adaptation needs of developing countries. Furthermore at the Bali conference, the US along with other developed nations agreed to provide financial and technological assistance to developing countries, to help them adapt to climate change. These pledges morally bind the US to provide assistance to developing nations in order to mitigate the effects of climate change.

According to the Journal of Ethics and the Environment, in our present circumstances, those who have contributed the most to climate change are those who are the least vulnerable and the best able to adapt to the impacts of climate change (with, for example, heating and air conditioning, dikes, irrigation, and increased health care), while those who have contributed the least are the most vulnerable and the least able to adapt to the consequences of climate change (e.g., drought, desertification, flooding, and extreme weather patterns.) Furthermore according to the Economist, even though developing countries account for 80% of the world population, their citizens’ carbon footprints are much smaller than those of citizens of developed nations. Based on moral reasoning, those countries that are proportionally the most responsible for climate change should also bear the proportional responsibility for mitigating the effects of their abuses. Since the United States has contributed greatly to the rise in carbon emissions, it has a responsibility to the rest of the world to help lessen the severity of the problem. 

Pelosi

By delaying House Democratic leadership elections until after Thanksgiving, Nancy Pelosi has created speculation about whether she is going to stay atop the caucus. On top of that, the delay raises the question of whether or not Democrats will retake control of the House. Pelosi’s move means one of two things: Either she’s getting out of leadership and wants to give someone else a chance to organize a movement against Minority Whip Steny Hoyer; or she’s simply buying time to consider her future if Democrats fall short of the majority. Either way, her surprising proposal is creating just the type of speculation about her future that Pelosi hates.

Pelosi and her associates are extremely secretive about what she might do if Democrats fail to win the House. All they will say is that Pelosi has stated that she won’t retire no matter what happens on Nov. 6. “It’s really up to my caucus who will lead the party next and my family as well, if they care to after all this time,” Pelosi recently stated. Yet some Democratic insiders see the potential for a December vote for the party’s leadership as aimed at Hoyer. Additional time between Election Day and leadership elections could give Pelosi time to run someone against Hoyer. This would basically mean picking her successor.

One veteran in Pelosi’s circle put it this way: she’s either trying to figure out who will fill the leadership table below her, or is looking to figure out who will succeed her. But such a move carries risks, and it’s not at all clear whether even Pelosi can make this happen as a lame-duck leader. In such cases, the leader giving up his or her post very quickly loses the ability to steer events in the direction they want. If Pelosi were truly staying put, delaying the election would be a perplexing strategy. Normally, incumbent leaders look to schedule leadership races as close to Election Day as possible, a move that prevents potential challengers from having time to organize a run for the top leadership job.

But Pelosi aides deny that is her intention. They maintain that members have complained about being lobbied by three Democrats campaigning for the vice-chairman post of the Democratic Caucus, and add that Pelosi is not angling to keep Hoyer from winning the post he has wanted for so long. 

LGBT Marriage

                In America, we have always prided ourselves in being the ‘land of the free’ and ‘upholders of liberty’. While these labels remain true in many aspects of our society, we have yet to extend these freedoms and liberties to certain minority groups. This being said, the LGBT community is currently being deprived of marriage rights. This fundamental freedom is being denied to the LGBT minority mainly because of stubborn politicians.

                In order to analyze the LGBT marriage issues we first need to gain a basic understanding of what marriage is. Marriage has its roots in religion. In the Judeo-Christian sense, marriage is the social contract between a man and a woman. Men and woman would get married through a religious ceremony which would, in theory, solidify their relationship for the rest of time. Many believe that this religious ceremony was developed over thousands of years because of the need for families to produce children in order to perpetuate. Without children, families would lose their power and/or wealth. Religious institutions adopted this ritual and have used this basic definition of marriage for thousands of years.

                Interestingly enough, states began to uphold marriage contracts. Governments became part of the marriage process. Now, marriage was not only a social contract but also a legal contract. Laws were created about the terms of marriage and specific tax codes were made applicable to married couples. If marriage remained solely a religious practice then there would be no controversy over it. But now that the government became involved, citizens want to ensure that these marriage policies do not discriminate against certain groups.

                It’s already established that the religious definition of marriage is a contract between a man and a woman. That’s all fine and dandy until the government gets involved. Since there is a separation between church and state in the US, the question is should the government adopt the religious definition of marriage? Well, let’s look at this logically. Marriage guarantees certain privileges among those who are married. If the government were to limit marriage to only a man and a woman, these privileges would be held from those who seek to marry others of the same gender. This is a classic case of discrimination. Thus, the answer to the previous question is no, the government should not adopt the religious definition of marriage. In order to promote freedom and equality in America, the government must extend marriage rights to the LGBT community or simply drop its involvement in the marriage process all together.  

3rd Party Stuff

Green Party candidate Jill Stein and her vice presidential running mate Cheri Honkala were arrested at the Hofstra University debate site on Tuesday as they protested their exclusion from the second presidential debate. According to Stein’s campaign manager Ben Manski, they were jailed for disorderly conduct around 3 p.m.  when they were blocked by police officers as they attempted to enter the debate hall. Manski said that it was unclear when they would be released, but they could remain jailed until midnight. The Nassau County Police Department said that it was unclear when Stein and Honkala might be released.

“The arrest was outrageous and shouldn’t be tolerated in a country that is a leading proponent of democracy,” Manski told ABC News. “They knew that there was the possibility that they would be arrested. Their intention was to enter the premises and bear witness to the mockery of democracy that is tonight’s debate,” he said. The Green Party has long complained that the Commission on Presidential Debates attempts to “rig elections” in favor of the two major political parties by excluding third party candidates from debates. Stein and Honkala also planned protests at the first presidential debate in Denver.

            This unorthodox demonstration raises the question of whether or not 3rd party political groups deserve more media attention. All we hear in the news is “Democrats this, Republicans that”. This biased coverage makes us more narrow-minded and almost forces us to conform to this two-party political oligarchy. Americans are a diverse group of people whose needs cannot possibly fall under just the Democratic Party or the GOP, yet we always vote blue or red in every election. If the media were to expand its coverage to other parties then perhaps things would change. Perhaps people will begin to realize that there is a 3rd party out there whose views considerably coincide with their own. Look at where the Democrats and Republicans have got us so far and make your own decision.