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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.