Thursday, January 29, 2009

obama 1

Acting as the Chief Executive, Obama complained about the bonuses that Wall Street executives gave themselves this year amid the national economic crises. He said it was 'shameful' and he said he will promote responsibility during his term as president. I think that the message he's sending about responsibility and sharing the wealth is good because people are greedy, and even more so when everybody has less than normal. That the message to share is coming from the Chief Executive is a powerful thing.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Mock Congress.

I thought the Mock Congress was very effective. I learned a lot even though it was a little rough and I liked the debating over bills and stuff. I thought it would have been better if we had had more discussion time and time to defend our bills.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

essays on articles.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/06/congress.convenes/index.html?iref=newssearch

This article talks about the 1st session of Congress, the top priority on their list - the economic stimulus bill, the refuted Senate seats and the reelection as Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.

This article emcompasses everything we have addressed about Congress this semester. It addresses the Senators being elected, and some, who have to be chosen by the governer of their state because the elected senator resigned. It says Dick Cheney swore in the 34 new senators, a duty of the Vice President that we had discussed. Democrats hold 256 seats in the House of Representatives, a body we know to have 435 memebers, while in the Senate, a body with 100 seats, the article says there are 55 Democrats. The 1st bill presented to the Senate was about Economic Stimulus and we know it has to go through several committees and be agreed upon by the Senate, House and the President. We also know this bill will not be vetoed by the President because the article says Obama is pushing for it to be passed. The article also addresses the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, an incumbent who was reelected. We know about imcumbents having an advantage over their competition, and about the duties Pelosi will have as the Speaker. She will have control over the committees that members of the House will be a part of, and which bills, like the Economic Stimulus Package, will be directed to which committees. This article was very broad, but it was a good example of everything we've learned in class.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/us/05withdraw.html?_r=1&scp=16&sq=congress&st=cse

This article is about legislation to prevent mining on public land. The rule was issued by the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management. It is one of Congress' emergency powers.

This article is related to what we have studied in class because it addresses the passing of bills. We have talked about several ways a bill can be struck down - in a committee, the Rules Committee, on the floor of the House or Senate, and by the president. This is a new form of legislation we had not talked about, specifically for mineral development. It allows Congress it put a stop to mining if the body agrees it is dangerous, and it is a rule rather than a veto or a filibuster, other things that might halt legislation. The article also tells us that the rule came from a specific committee - the Interior Department.

Inauguration

The inaguration today was really cool. It was the first one I had seen. The crowds of people there were massive and amazing. I think somebody said like 3 million people? The glass around the podium was really thick and impressive although it didn't even cover their heads.
Obama's speech was very heavy and I thought he was promising the country and the world a lot in it. He has been put on a very high pedestal since the election and I think people are expecting him to save the world. I know his election is definitely a positive thing for the country but I'm sure it will take a while for the effects to be seen and I believe people are expecting pretty much instant gratification. He's kind of like a god to some people. I know he'll have power and I know he has ambition that will help him stay strong but I'm kind of expecting him to fall flat in the first few months - at least in peoples' eyes.
Anything and everything in politics takes time but I don't think people are thinking about that and I think Obama might have forgotten just how long things can take by the aspirations he mentioned in his speech.
It was very empowering though.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Mr. Smith

Mr. Smith goes to Washington was actually an okay movie in the end. It was cool to see how a filibuster works, as well as a political machine. I would never have imagined that a machine could have that much power. It was ridiculous. I learned a lot about the senate and how much pork means to Senators because they want to get reelected. Also it was cool that they incorporated all of the educational information into the normal movie, like what a bill encompasses and stuff.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Pork II.

This article didn't necessarily praise pork completely - it had some negative things to say - but essentially it said it was a good thing. The authors seemed to think that pork was a bribe for the congressmen to help restore the ecomony as much as it was to benefit districts. They said Senators and Congressmen would not pass neede legislation like raising taxes unless they benefitted from it in someway to get reelected, which is where the pork comes in. It seemed legit.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Pork.

I had never really thought about the positive or negative aspects of pork-barrelling and ear-marking, so this article was interesting.
I was suprised that not much money was spent on universities - especially public ones. The whole reason an institution would be 'public' would be to receive funds from the government.
I want to see what an earmark would look like on a bill because I'm not really sure. It almost sounds like it's a completely different piece of legislation, just made for little secions of the country, like individual counties or something.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Congress Schedule

The article was kind of interesting but he just kind of rambled a lot. It was cool to see how much a Representative does and I bet a Senator does even more. Other than the schedules where he laid out everything he did I didn't think it was all that beneficial. But you know. It was cool.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Gerrymandering.

The game was interesting but I think fairly pointless because a lot of procatutions are taken against gerrymandering and all you really needed to do was get the numbers right and the rest would fall into place. I can see what thought goes into recreating districts though. Kind of.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Michael Bennet

Michael Bennet is the superintendent of Denver Public Schools and Governer Bill Ritter has chosen him to replace Ken Salazar in the United States senate. He's never held an elected position before although he worked in politics before he became superintendant. He's a democrat.
People are suprised Ritter picked Bennet over the more well known John Hickenlooper, Denver's mayor, who had Bennet's job before him because no one knows exactly how he will behave in the Senate- casting votes on issues, etc. He has been described as very intelligent and an independent thinker, so it might work out alright. We'll just have to wait and see.