I'd just like to mention the extreme frustration of knowing every time I make a post there's at least 9 views afterwards and yet still no comments. The post I made last night has 26 views and still no one. Either people don't know what to say and are too shy or they're all from the same person who just enjoys confusing me.

Impeachment

I forgot to post this yesterday, but during notes Mr. Stephens (If people are reading this not knowing who that is, you need to get your life together. He's in the URL.) was talking about how the house has the power of impeachment. They vote for impeachment and then the senate has a trial. The only two presidents to ever be impeached were Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton. Jackson was found not guilty by one vote and Clinton was not found guilty by the senate.
Mr. Stephens jokingly said impeachment is when they put the President into a peach and let them eat their way out. I was telling my mom about that and she immediately burst out, "like James and the Giant Peach?!" so I've honestly been laughing about this for a good hour before, during, and after making these horribly photoshopped edits. Enjoy them:

Bill Clinton Getting Out of Impeachment:

What has my life become? I'm a mess.

Race In the Election

Dave Weigel says Obama’s poll numbers were higher than George W. Bush’s or Bill Clinton’s were at that point in the political cycle because of race, supporting this claim with “ninety-two percent of black voters want to re-elect Obama, as do 66 percent of Hispanics."

I'm not sure about you, but that's approaching a 45 degree angle there. Does this mean race has everything to do with it? Maybe it does, because I remember people being so hyped up over how this is a historical event because of his race. But wait, this chart was in an article from last year, before the election even started. maybe there's no more race talk by now. WRONG.
John Sununu during CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight" made the suggestion that Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama was based on his race.
The next day President Obama rejected the suggestion, saying that scenario "doesn't make much sense." and that he would let the endorsement and positive assessment of Obama's economic policies "stand for themselves." Sununu later made a statement that said "I respect the endorsement decision he made and I do not doubt that it was based on anything but his support of the president's policies."

Gender Gap

Earlier this week, there was talk of the gender gap being close to "historic highs".
A blog on nytimes.com even displayed a graph showing this gender gap:

A you can see, there is a clear 18 point gap, just below the record holding 20 points.
But only a few days later, new articles came out saying that Obama and Romney have already closed this gender gap.
Why the sudden change in only four days? Most men coming from Romney's side to Obama's are unmarried and sure why this makes sense, but it does. Obama's strong stance with women has changed, maybe because these women are like Monica Jensen who shifted her vote to Romney this time, largely because of the economy.
The Christian Science Monitor discusses this, saying that "Polling experts note that each poll has its own methodology, and so the two can’t be compared. Each polling outfit has its own criteria for identifying “likely voters,” and weights segments of the population differently."
I guess the only thing they can do now is celebrate their victories.

Mitt Romney Quotes

I've been hearing about how Mitt Romney has been saying some stupid things, so I took it upon myself to look up just how stupid these things are. Trust me, you'll be surprised. Here's a list of my favorites:

"I'm not concerned about the very poor, there is a safety net there."
Oh, I'm sure poor people love having to live in shelters all squished together. Paradise.

"I like being able to fire people."
Jerk.

"I have some friends who are NASCAR team owners."
Wow, you're a real southerner.

"Corporations are People."
PEOPLE are people.

"Planned Parenthood, we're going to get rid of that."
NO.

"Ann Drives a couple of Cadillacs."
a couple?

"The answer is self-deportation, which is people decide they can do better by going home."
Thanks for the definition, I would've never gotten it on my own.

"When you have a fire in an aircraft, there is no place to go exactly. You can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft because the windows don't open. I don't know why they don't do that. It's a real problem--so it's very dangerous."
I have just died of laughter.

During a '60 Minutes' interview, Romney says the the emergency room serves as healthcare for the uninsured.
What is he even thinking with these?

If you want to see the rest of Romney's "inspirational" quotes please feel free to go to these websites:
hubpages.com
allvoices.com

Legitimate Rape

You are probably unaware, but in my spare time which I have been lacking lately due to my desperate attempts to finish my projects while sobbing about how my father was right about how I'm never going to be anything in life because I'm lazy and don't know how to communicate with people I run two blogs on Tumblr. While trying to take a break before my brain exploded from reading about the electoral college for another moment, I went on one of them to find a video that would work pretty nicely here! Congrats, Amy, congrats.

This video has the caption "Legitimate rape - the new birth control method. Trigger warning: contains simulated depiction of rape." It's a pretty odd thing to see and maybe even uncomfortable but I think it was a pretty powerful way to present their message that The fact that we must argue of what is or isn't a legitimate rape is insane, really and that the way we decide is pretty much a game of . A woman's body can't just reject sperm if the rape is "legitimate" and that it isn't if she's a "SLUT".

The thing I found most odd was that it was a video someone else made for RAINN.org, a website I had no prior knowledge of before this video. RAINN stands for Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network. The website allows you to ask questions, look for warning signs of others in trouble, get help, and donate. It shows Christina Ricci as one of the supporters and asks for people to volunteer. With all these celebrities in here I'm really surprised I haven't heard of them before. The overall layout and color scheme is not appealing to the eyes and I honestly got lost with all of the information and not enough sparkley rainbows mixed in.
It also advertises it's "new and improved" website rainnmakers.rainn.org and I hope I'm not the only one who doesn't want to associate this serious network with "making it rain" (or whatever people call these things. I'm not up to date with slang). It's website is equally unappealing but I've kept both sites bookmarked just in case I want to look more into it later.

Romney's Tax Plan

Wanna figure out Romney's tax plan? Click Here.
I don't know about you guys but that is incredibly informative. I've been wondering about his plan all along..

Pills in School?

In New York City, 7,000 girls 17 or younger get pregnant annually with 90 percent of pregnancies unplanned. In some New York City public high schools, a program called CATCH (Connecting Adolescent To Comprehensive Health) is trying to curb this high teen pregnancy rate with their programs to give condoms and emergency contraceptives like Plan B to their students.NYC Council Speaker, Christie Quinn, told WCBS that the purpose of the CATCH program is to decrease the number of teen pregnancies.

What is plan B? Plan B is an emergency contraceptive that you take the morning after. Apparently, it's being replaces with Plan B One-Step so most information and websites referred to that. Plan B One-Step is a backup plan that helps prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex or birth control failure and is not to be used like regular birth control. It can be bought without prescription from women and men over 17.
Teens 17 and older can purchase EC over the counter without a prescription, but in New York, a person must be 18 or older to buy the pill over the counter. Those younger than 18 must have a prescription. Through the CATCH program, however, emergency contraceptives will be available to teens 14 and older without parental consent. Some parents are outraged that their children can't even have asprin without parent approval and yet they are giving out pills without their knowledge.
The program was supposed to send letters to parents, allowing them to decide if they would want their child to not be a part of the program, but these 13 schools that are doing this seem to have a "very poor outreach to parents".

If you want to know more about Plan B One-Step go to:
planbonestep.com

Ohio

According to the Washington Post my native state of Ohio is the most important state in the country. To me, Ohio is nothing special. Here you have Lake Erie, the Rock'n Roll Hall Of Fame, Amish people, etc. I believe that even though we have all of those things to offer, we as people are incredibly average.
So why is it so important? We're so diverse with our economy and people that it's a pretty tough swing state. In fact, Ohio matters more than any of the other swing states. Ohio has been on the winning side of every presidential election since 1964. Without us, Bush wouldn't have won either terms and Romney's change of winning is pretty implausible.
Nate Silver even tweeted, “Ohio, just by itself, now has a 40 percent chance of determining the Electoral College winner. About as important as the next 4 states combined.”
I guess my silly little state is more special than I thought.

My Views on Gay Rights (Specifically Gay Marriage)

Please watch this video. It's incredible and I really want all of my viewers (I see you lurking on my blog it would be nice to start a discussion) to watch that. It's the kind of twist that makes me want to applaud the Pastor completely. When I saw this video yesterday it reminded me that tomorrow in my government class there will be a debate about gay marriage. In light of this coincidence, I thought it would be a perfect time to share my personal views of gay marriage/rights.

Fifteen. Fifteen friends, family members, and classmates that I know are gay or bisexual. These are people I love, who just happen to love something different than what's considered "right" or "normal". These are people I see being hurt, bullied, afraid. These people are gong to meet others like them who love them. Then what? What happens to these star-crossed lovers who are willing to do what everyone else does: spend a life together? Why can't they have that? Why shouldn't they have that? It doesn't hurt anyone or affect anyone. It doesn't lesson a straight couple's marriage (which can be debated that they don't already do that *cough cough* Las Vegas drive-through weddings *cough cough*). These people should be happy and have they same opportunities as us. They should be treated just like any other American citizen. They are the doctors, lawyers, teachers, soldiers, etc. that help us and make our lives better. Why can't we do the same for them? I can see people refusing gay couples from getting married in or being a part of a church. I can understand if people might be uncomfortable with it because of their religious beliefs, but this isn't a religious matter. This is not a church. The whole country shouldn't have to abide by the views of a religion.

There's more I'd want to say but honestly I could go on forever really..

By the way, in case to matters to any of the readers, I identify as bisexual/pansexual. (Pansexuals are attracted to transgender people, cisgender people, androgynous people, etc. They don't usually even consider the sex of a person in the attraction, while I am attracted to all kinds of human but do consider sex in the attraction.)

I'd just like to apologize for not writing anything for quite a while except for observations on the debates. I have been too sick and have been dealing with some problems at home that I've had, and still have to attend to.
I assure that I will make a large effort to post more regularly or at least more than usual, especially before the election. I'll also try to talk about things I've learned to far in my government class from our first 2 units and share all this cool stuff I learned.
Thank you for your patience and understanding. Stay tuned!

Presidential Debate (Foreign Policy) Observations

Please note that I am going write these observations with a slight bias and that I'm going off of memory and some notes I took so things may not be facts.

Obama

Pros:
-Stepped up his game and called Romney out when Romney said something wrong.
-Threw in a few jokes that lightened the mood
-Recognized that we can't do nation building in other countries without first taking care of our own.
-The way he spoke about going to see Holocaust still was very stern and serious, as if he's aware how serious this business is.

Cons:
-Obama made the mistake in saying that we spent the most head of 10 countries when it's really 15.
-Had the chance to make Romney look like an amateur and really put him down but didn't.


Romney

Pros:

-He appeared to be a lot calmer than before and less aggressive, stopping once interrupted instead of constantly pushing for more time.
-His state was #1 in English and Math
-

Cons:
-"Every time you'd entered an opinion you've been wrong."~Obama
-Had the chance to really prove himself this debate but didn't.
-Still hasn't said exactly where he was going to get money for programs.


I think Obama and Romney agreed on quite a few things this debate and it was pretty close. They both had a lot of important stuff to say and they conveyed it to the best of their ability. Going strictly on their performance, I would say this is tie. The fact that I am an Obama supporter the topics they discussed made me think Obama won this debate.

Presidential Debate (Foreign and Domestic Policy) Observations

Please keep in mind that I have a slight bias and that these are just things I tried to remember and write down as things were going on. I have a poor memory so any facts I write may be wrong.

Obama

Pros:
-He did not say "um" as much, only slipping up a few times in the second half.
-Said to have mentioned Planned Parenthood 5 times.
-When finished, he had a larger crowd around him and it made Romney look bad to me.
-Brought up Romney's comment about the 47 percent.
-Someone discussing the debate mentioned that Obama pointed out that "Romney cannot abolish the state tax, keep the bush tax cuts, cut taxes across the board by 25 percent eliminate dividends and capital gains taxes for most people in the country and and not reduce revenues."

Cons:
-Did pause and stammer slightly while speaking.
-He doesn't really have a "second term agenda", which is true.
-Failed to answer Romney's question at the very beginning while taking about oil and coal regarding whether he let people go.


Romney

Pros:
-Nomatter the topic, he brought it back to jobs, kindof rubbing it in Obama's face that he has not brought enough jobs.
-He was persuasive on why people shouldn't vote for Obama for another term.
-He brought up a lot of facts and tried to share stories or accounts from people he's heard.

Cons:

-I remember he made mistake when talking about when Obama said an attack was a one of terror saying that it took 2 weeks but it only took 2 weeks to get all the facts together to verify it while Obama said it from day one.
-His numbers really don't add up at all.

Both

Pros:
-They were aggressive and din't let the other really slide on anything.
-They spoke with confidence and certainty, using facts.

Cons:
-Both are being said as cold and did not try to specifically appeal to the people. They didn't crack any jokes.
-I remember when they were talking about weapons, Romney went on a tangent and was talking about gangs and didn't answer the question, having to have the question retold to him. Obama interrupted him after his second attempt at answering and talked about education, which really came out of nowhere for me and I was left lost for a while. That entire situation was confusing and bad for them.
-They did not shake hands at the end and that really bothers me to no end.

Overall I feel like Obama really brought himself up from the last debate and may have one this one.

Vice Presidential Debate (Foreign and Domestic Policy) Observations

Please note that these are simply observations on their debating skills that are based on my slightly biased opinions and not about the actual issues discussed.

Anyone see this picture and think of Link opening a chest? Da da da daaaa! nope? okay..

Biden

Pros:
-referred to the moderator as Martha, and I liked how he made it feel more personal and casual.
-has a soft, soothing voice that made even aggressive statements seem calm.
-used the word malarkey, which may not mean a lot to you but I enjoy that type of word choice.
-was more aggressive in his manner and it seems like it made up for Obama's debate.
-points his fingers to emphasize words, and it made me pay attention more.
-brought up Romney's statement about the 47 percent more than once and I think it's important not to forget that.
-tells personal story of his wife dying
-compared Ryan to Sarah Palin, which I feel did a lot in his favor.
-repeatedly corrected Ryan and challenged him.
-got his act together and started to become more serious as time went on
-kept using himself as a resource, saying "I was there when.."
-"Their ideas are old, their ideas are bad.."
-"We are leaving in 2014. Period."


Cons:
-needed to control his laughter. It was an effective tool but I think many are going to have a problem with that.
-Many may also have a problem with how much he interrupted Ryan.
-seemed to be very concerned about having a fair share of time, which I found odd. It's not quantity, it's quality.
-kept telling Martha "you know what I'm talking about" and I feel like he should have explained it tome because I obviously don't know what he's talking about.

Ryan

Pros:
-"Watch out middle class, that tax is coming to you" (looked at camera while talking about deficit, very effective)
-speaks casually and with nice hand gestures
-tells a story about Romney helping someone from his church and mentions his charity
-tried to keep his cool even though Biden came in heavy.
-mentioned that they would be better off if they stopped interrupting each other.
-looked, talked, and acted respectfully.

Cons:
-smile slowly faltered every few seconds and in my head that's loss of confidence.
-said Romney was misquoted and that sometimes "the words don't come out of your mouth the right way."
-keeps drinking water and clearing throat
started out calling Martha Congresswoman and then started called her Martha after Biden was doing it a lot.
-was not specific about plans

Overall, even though I clearly am in favor for Biden, I feel this was almost a draw with no immediate clear winner. Biden certainly made up for Obama's downfalls last debate but Ryan was quite the fighter and kept his cool.

Seeing Obama (for 2 seconds)

Let's go step by step here on my little experience yesterday.

On Friday, I started my day with my usual routine. The clothes I laid out the night before were a nicer than usual, what with my black jeans and a blazer, but my cat decided they were a wonderful bed. I tried to use tape to get the fur off but, alas, it was not going to work. Knowing it may rain, I also looked everywhere in my closet for a raincoat or at least something with a hood, but I could not find anything. So you could see my day was starting off not exactly how I planned.
When I got to school, the first three classes went normally, the sky was shinning, and I was just dying to leave. We were all dying to leave and you could just see the excitement on everyone's faces. By the time we got on the bus it was almost too much to bear. We were just frustrated with waiting by then. It started to drizzle and the air was cold so everyone closed their windows, but it was nothing we couldn't handle. We could've went home if we really wanted to, but no one did. We were committed and in this for the long-haul.

You can see how excited I am (left) as well as two of my friends, Tyler (middle) and Erica (right).





So here we were. While going through security I emptied out pockets and randomly found an earplug in my pocket. Te guard just looked at me like I was stupid for having that and then to verbally make his point he said "Why would you bring earplugs to hear the President?" To which I mumbled something about how I just found it and walked away beat red because I'm just that weird.
AND THEN IT WAS TIME..
and by it was time I mean it was time to wait for 3 hours in the pouring rain. Everyone was wearing trash bags and my friend Jessie (right) and I looked everywhere for the people who were passing them out but we couldn't maneuver through the crowd. This pretty much resulted in the great pneumonia attack of 2012.

See those faces? Those are not the faces of happy campers. These are the faces of two girls who are soaked and shivering.



Those three agonizingly freezing hours later Obama finally arrived, and people were hyped up. I even tried to push myself closer to the stage so I could see him.. but I still couldn't. I didn't realize how short I was until that moment when I couldn't see over half the people in front of me. All of the other students there talked loudly the whole time and I couldn't hear past that and cheering. The guy next to me thought it was important to talk to me about how "Unemployment just went from 8.1% to 7.6% this morning!" and how "I love how dedicated and eager young kids like you are about politics." So my only shot left was to jump as high as I could repeatedly like an idiot until I caught a glimpse of Obama's face. Honestly, the only thing I could make out was his skin color and ears. The rest was a blur that was gone before I could register it. Then with a proud "Thank you and God bless America!" it was over.

You can't even see him in this picture that I took on my tip-toes with my arm up as high as I could reach.





We were cold and tired and wanted to get out of there. We followed the crowd out of the gates and then walked around until we found some familiar faces.. but there weren't any. Panic struck in. Where was the rest of the students? Where were the chaperons? Where did we go? We decided to retrace our steps and see if everyone went back to where buses should be. We only went halfway until we saw little clusters of students buying food, taking pictures, and wandering off as clueless as us. When we finally all gathered parking lot, we had just wanted to get out of there immediately. After a ton of walking and confusion about buses all of the students had to wait until around until 4:45 in a part of CSU.

Here's Erica and Tyler trying to huddle up and stay warm by the windows in the building we were in the shelter from the rain.



We were cold, we were tired, and I had tripped several times into puddles because of my shoes had fleece bottoms. By the time we met with everyone I wanted punch someone and then freeze to death. It was not my day.
Overall, the experience was awful and the only thing I can say about it is at least I get to say I was there.
If you want to see it from a choppy, not really informative, not feeling horrible rain on you way here's the link to the only video I could find of him being there: Have fun.

Presidential Debate (Domestic Policy) Observations

While watching the debate I jotted down notes on the tendencies of both candidates did that have nothing to do with their actual discussion but just on how well they debated.

Obama

Pros:
He spoke forcefully
Pointed out some very large mess-ups in Romney's plans.
I remember him repeatedly saying that Romney did not give examples or specify what he was going to do.
He had a joking, light manner with some of his comments and I thought it brought a lot of charm.
He brought a lot of personal examples that made it seem relatable.

Cons:
Obama looked down too much or at the camera than looked at Romney, which didn't show the correct mood he should have been portraying.
In the middle of the debate he began to falter in his positive manner and I can see how people could dislike that.
He spoke too slow to keep within the time limits.
He said "uhh", stammered, paused a little too much.

Romney

Pros:
He spoke fast and with enthusiasm.
He is an aggressive debater and challenged the standing policies.
He tried to tie all of his points together while speaking.

Cons:
What he said in the debate does against what I thought he stood for beforehand with his entire campaign.
He spoke a little too fast for me to understand.
He did not give enough specifics and said some things I did not quite understand.
There was a point in the debate when they were trying to move to the question, "What is your view on level of federal regulation on economy. Is there too much or does there need to be more?" Romney repeatedly refused to stop talking and I found it to be unrespectful and unprofessional.
He made a slip up of saying "poor people" instead of "low income people", which I feel like it offended many low income Americans.

Despite not being able to write as many pros for Romney, which I admit is partially because of my bias, I do believe overall as far as how they debated Romney did much better than Obama with his charm, enthusiasm, and speaking in a clear manner.

I'm going to see Obama!

Obama is coming to CSU this Friday and I will be the one of many lucky students attending. You can't even imagine how exciting it is to see Obama in person because I am such a passionate supporter of him, clearly. I'll probably blog extensively on whatever I can remember about it and the whole experience. I'll try to write it right after, but due to plans it might be moved to some point in the weekend. Stay tuned for that!

Raising Water Prices

On USA Today in a survey of 100 municipalities found residential water bills in at least one in four places have doubled in the past 12 years. In Cleveland, the price has raised +130%.
A Philadelphia homeowner who is petitioning against a the water rate increase in her city says, "I don't know how they expect people to keep paying more for water with the cost of gas and day care and everything else going up." Philadelphia's deputy water commissioner notes that his agency held rates stable from 1993 until 2001, but costs had to go up to maintain crucial water supply and delivery systems.
US water systems will need as much as $1 trillion in infrastructure improvements by 2035 to keep up with drinking water needs. That's a whole lot of money and the only way they're going to get it is through taxes. If people are going to keep wanting water, which is essential for life, there's really no choice.
It goes on to explain the trend toward higher bills and how it is being driven. They say it's by the cost of paying off the debt on bonds municipalities issue to fund expensive repairs or upgrades on aging water systems, increases in the cost of electricity, chemicals and fuel used to supply and treat water, compliance with federal government clean-water mandates. rising pension and health care costs for water agency workers, and increased security safeguards for water systems since the 9/11 terror attacks.

Dates to Remember

Hey guys! Don't forget some pretty important dates this month!

* Wednesday, October 3 - Presidential debate on domestic policy
* Thursday, October 11 - Vice-presidential debate on foreign and domestic policy
* Tuesday, October 16 - Presidential town meeting on foreign and domestic policy
* Monday, October 22 - Presidential debate on foreign policy