3 blogs in 3 days? Part Three

Health care. Like you haven't already heard enough. Well too bad. So apparently, health care just might be different in every state. The House's bill says states would also make a majority of the decisions varying from benefits to when to raise premiums. There would be a "national marketplace" for people without insurance and there would be a public option. The Senate's bill leaves almost every decision up to the states. Instead of a marketplace, every state would have an exchange. The Senate bill does not include a public option but Sen. Olympia Snowe wants to have a trigger, which would mean having a public option for states where private insurers don't offer affordable coverage for everyone.  

3 blogs in 3 days?

Try three blogs in an hour. That's what I get for being ridiculously behind (right Sam?) 

Anyway, this first one is about former senator Edward Brooke. President Barak Obama recently awarded Brooke with the Congressional Gold Medal. He was the first African American elected to the Senate by way of popular vote. When he ran, he was an African American, a Protestant and a Republican. Mostly everyone else was white, Catholic and Democratic. But he won nevertheless.  Edward Brooke served in the Senate from 1967 to 1979.



More about Edward Brooke: Brooke is a D.C. native. He graduated from Howard University in 1941. He then served as an officer in the 366th Infantry Regiment of the segregated army for five years. In 1948, Brooke graduated from Boston University Law School. From 1961 to 1962, he was the chairman of the Finance Commission of Boston and from 1962 to 1964, he was the Attorney General of Massachusetts. Click here to read more.

3 blogs in 3 days? Part Two

The case of Virginia v. Harris: Joseph A. Moses Harris Jr. was pulled over by a Richmond police officer after an anonymous tip was given that he was driving while drunk.  He apparently reeked of booze and failed the sobriety test, so he was convicted, but the VA Supreme Court overturned his conviction. Why? Because the police officer did not SEE Harris driving dangerously, but pulled him over based off of an anonymous tip. The court said that the officer had violated Harris' Fourth Amendment right (protection against unreasonable search and seizure). However, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is not happy with the ruling. He believes it will give any intoxicated driver "one free swerve" and that "it will be difficult for an officer to explain to the family of a motorist killed by that swerve that the police had a tip that the driver of the other car was drunk, but that they were powerless to pull him over, even for a quick check."

If the Watergate scandal happened today...

I'm pretty sure a lot of people, including myself, would be pissed. ESPECIALLY if it was Barack Obama who was behind everything. It really seems like Obama is going to make a lot of big changes (even though he really hasn't yet) and then all of a sudden, he betrays EVERYONE. He uses the CIA and the FBI to cover up what he did and threatened the people involved with who knows what. It would cause a lot of distrust in the government and completely defeat the point of checks and balances. I'm sure today it would start a GIGANTIC uproar, maybe even a couple riots. And I know I would be very, very uncomfortable having Joe Biden as the new president, mainly because I know NOTHING about him. He is NEVER in the news and before he ran with Obama, I'd never even heard of him. So, it'd be just like having some random person become president. Now, I'm not saying he doesn't have the experience (he was a Senator), I have just never heard of him.

G-20 leaders agree to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. What does that mean? We-ellll. You could read the article that the link goes to OR you could just continue reading my blog. :) Fossil fuel subsidies is basically money given to oil companies (through tax deductions or money transfers) so they can find more oil. The issue with that is that 1. there isn't much in the way of oil left to find and 2. the use of fossil fuels is ruining our environment and creating a big hole in the ozone layer (which is bad, very bad). So, if this agreement is actually followed, oil companies can say "bye-bye!" to their free money.

My Congresswoman: Eleanor Holmes Norton

I was scrolling through the articles on Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton from a search on Google and found one that really caught my eye. The headline read, DC's Eleanor Holmes Norton backs Same-Sex Marriage bill, and I was intrigued. I'd never heard of a bill for same-sex marriage even being introduced for the District. I really liked part of the quote. Norton said, "We should approach the rights of gay couples and families with the same resolution and results at we had for others who have sought their human rights in Congress and in the District."
Congresswoman Holmes Norton has also been pushing to find a way to pass a clean D.C. House Voting Rights bill. She asked the House Majority leader on October 15 if the bill could be put in with the Defense Appropriations Conference Report which raised objections with the Republican Party. This article is short and sweet but it really interested me especially since D.C. voting rights is something I have a strong opinion on.

Liberal or Conservative?

Sooo. I was reading Jason Linkins' article, Senators Who Could And/Or Will Screw Up Health Care Reform, on Huffington Post and I have come to the conclusion that he's pretty POed at a lot of senators because they are not supporting the public option. He thinks they're all idiots and basically insults them the entire time... which amused me. :)  I also looked at Rich Lowry's article, Lieberman and the Filibuster. His opinion more even-handed than Linkins' is. Lowry's article was more like an analytical assessment of the the situation given Lieberman's defection.