Tom Lantos announces retirement

This morning Democratic Congressman and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Lantos, announced that he will not be seeking reelection to the House due to cancer in his esophagus. He has been in Congress since 1981 and is known best for being a Holocaust survivor, an advocate for human rights, and a supporter of Bush's war policy and the war in Iraq.

If he had chosen to run again, he would be running against Jackie Speier in this years Congressional election.

How do you think this will affect Congress? I feel that it will be a huge loss because he has been a very effective and well respected Congressman over the past 27 years; however, it will also window of opportunity for someone with differing opinions on the war in Iraq.

Same-Sex Divorce

In Massachusettes, a new problem is challenging the legal system: same-sex divorce. This is a messy issue for many reasons: in cases of child custody, the maternal preference doesn't apply because there are either two mothers or none at all; it's hard for some couples to find lawyers familiar with how the law affects gay divorce; if a gay couple was married in Massachusettes, both people must remain residents in Massachusettes in order to get a divorce because other states may not grant divorces as they may not recognize the marriage in the first place; divorced same-sex couples can be financially ruined as the IRS does not recognize same-sex marriages and so the support money paid from one spouse to the other is not tax deductible, etc.

A good example of some of the complications the question of same-sex divorce presents is child custody--a child born to a heterosexual couple is considered a child of the marriage whether or not both spouses are its biological parents. However, a child in a homosexual marriage must be adopted by both spouses or else give up any legal attachment to the spouse that has not adopted it. Because of this rule, spouses have lost children that were not their biological offspring as well as child support money (because the other spouse had no legal obligation to the kid).

A further complication is seen through a lesbian couple who married in Massachusettes and then moved to Rhode Island. Although they now wish to get divorced, there is no way to do it unless they move back to Massachusettes and establish residency for one year before filing for divorce.

This raises a question debated between the presidential candidates in our election simulation - should the federal government intervene in this issue or stay out of it? Will leaving it to the states cause too much confusion?

Bush takes a step towards helping Darfur

Today President Bush passed a bill allowing local and state governments to cut ties with Sudan. This was done in response to the genocide that is currently occuring in Darfur.

The legislation allows state, county, and municipal officials to seek ways to take out the money that they invested in companies that bring the Sudan government a lot of profit. These companies control oil, power production, mining, and military equipment.

I am so happy that Bush has finally started to do something about this issue. Like we have done in so many conflicts in the past (Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, etc.), we cannot just pretend that nothing is going on and do nothing.

Garbage Woes

In the San Francisco Chronicle, catering company owner Ari Derfel was profiled for his unusual quest to collect a year's worth of his personal trash to demonstrate how much waste a person creates in one year.

Derfel is now in his last month of collecting trash and ended up with about 96 cubic feet of waste.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans generate about 250 million tons of solid waste a year. As Derfel points out, "When we throw something away, what does 'away' mean?...There's no such thing as 'away.'" because "Each thing we throw away has been produced somewhere, shipped to a store, entered the home, and then is sent somewhere else - using up water, oil and land."

Do you think pollution and the subsequent event of global warming is a legitimate and/or looming threat? If you harbor concerns about the environment, will this affect who you vote for in the elections (based on their environmental platforms, rather than other factors)?

Bushy on Vacation

Did Bush shoot himself in the foot vetoing a military policy? Bush vetoed the bill because "of an obscure provision that could expose the new Iraqi government to billions of dollars in legal claims dating to Saddam Hussein's rule." Bush is now being accused of supporting troops in the past, and now not. But, is it fair? We learned in class how little provisions sneak into bills. This veto does not reflect Bush vetoing the entire bill, he is just upset at congress for trying to slide in a certain provision and therefore was forced to veto the entire bill.

The main question: How often are politicians misrepresented for voting against a bill because of one little provision? And how badly does it effect their profile? From this, it seems pretty bad to upset not just your opposing party but members of your own party as well!

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/30/africa/veto.php

I want to know it all!

So this post was from a month or two ago, but I think it is quite interesting. The main problem I feel that effects American voters is the "best sounding idea", not the most realistic. Obama has plans on providing healthcare coverage to the 47 million Americans that currently do not have it. SOUNDS GREAT RIGHT? Well what this article goes on to say is that 1/3 of those 47 million Americans have the money for the insurance, but they just do not buy it. Now I am not saying anything like Obama has not thought out his ideas, I mean I should trust a man who graduated from Harvard right? And that is my point, HECK NO. Americans fall into the trap of voting based on these ideal proposals, but this one example shows that there are many controversial things with this plan and Americans need to see everything before they vote for the president who is going to stop World Hunger and bring World Peace.

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2007
/11/obama_rides_the_wine_track.html

With College on our mind, will we get to save a Dime?

Our friendly congress the other day apparently went to far according to our governors on a new higher-education bill that tells states how much money they must spend on their public colleges. Kind of sounds alright to me. Next year would it be great if the schools were nicer and there was money in our pockets? But, for all those out there the money has to come from somewhere now doesn't it? According to the NGA letter, "the new mandate 'would have a chilling, negative impact on future state higher-education investments.'"

Should our opinion count even if we are 17, I mean the ordeal effects us quite a bit. What do you think?

P.S. I came across this and I wanted to know if people thought things like this were funny, or are the absurd and should not be allowed?

http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Hillary-Clinton-Nutcracker
/2568425/product.html