North Carolina Trans Gender Law Raises Eyebrows

North Carolina Trans Gender Law Raises Eyebrows

In recent Political News.......... The state of North Carolina is being sued for passing a law that "makes it illegal for men and boys who pose as females to use women’s shower rooms and restrooms throughout the state". This bill also made it so municipalities can't pass non discriminatory bills aimed at advancing the transsexual agenda. 


In other words, 
The state of North Carolina thinks it shouldn't be allowed for a men, who changes to female, to use a woman's bathroom or shower room. Personally, I don't see what is wrong with this. The state has an obligation to the safety of it's citizens. I don't feel as if the state is targeting the groups, but protecting gender equality regardless of the fact of a sexual change that has taken place. I feel as if this is a very understanding bill that should be passed in every state. Doubt it will due to the commotion that North Carolina has caused. These issues are becoming greater and greater as the transsexual world expands. Soon were going to have to accompany for prisons, work place environments, and many other aspects of equality rights for something that would be completely unheard of 20 years ago. 

But WHO cares about my views? certainly North Carolina doesn't. They are probably more concerned with the corporate monsters who have shunned them because of this bill. 

With SO much confusion about gender nowadays, it is going to be much more difficult to identify people. This raises many issues, and makes discrimination that much harder to define. Somewhere a fine line has to be drawn, someone cant certainly be of "two sexes". It's just weird to me how these issues were not even thought of 20 years ago, But then America recognizes same sex marriage, Bruce Jenner becomes a female, and then two people want to bring the state of North Carolina to court because of where they have to be told where to go to the bathroom. I think this case is a waste of tax payers dollars in the state of NC, but i'm sure the judge will grant the civil union the case, and once again, the LGBT community will have risen again. I just think we live in such a watered down country. What happened to the days where kids wanted to aspire and be astronauts, firefighters, actors, etc.  Now girls want to grow up to be guys, and guys want to grow up to be girls. It's just hard for me to wrap my head around. 
VS

Links Used:
http://fortune.com/2016/03/26/tech-condemns-lgbt-legislation/
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/29/bullied_by_the_government_north_carolina

Controversy about Cuba

Double standards are kind of entertaining, right? 

As most people know, Pres. Obama made a historic trip to Cuba earlier this week. He's the first sitting US president to visit the island nation since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. Unfortunately, no one is really talking about his trip to the land of cigars, mojitos and old-timey cars, but rather his visit to negotiate with a communist and betray our system.

Obama has gotten a lot of flack since opening communication with the country back in 2014. Obama wants to ease tensions between the two countries and establish a friendship despite our history and our current differences. This is a travesty to a number of people, like Armando Valladares, who wrote a commentary in the Washington Post (mentioned in this link but not printed in its entirety). Obama's desire to end animosity towards Cuba is interpreted as weakness and his excuse to make waves in his last year of presidency; he's giving in and allowing the communist government to do whatever it wants. Marco Rubio, born to Cuban parents, is perhaps the most vocal in his problems with Obama's visit to the country.

Here's the thing: the worst thing to happen to Cuba isn't a dictatorship. It's the blockade. It's killed more people than the Cuban government and is a much bigger struggle in the everyday lives of Cubans than politics. Cubans call the blockade "the country's biggest genocide." And this embargo has been in place for the past 50 years to discourage their form of government - guess what, it hasn't worked. And it probably isn't going to. Something that bothers me the most about American foreign policy is that we stick our noses in business that isn't our own. I agree, people all over the world shouldn't be suffering at the hands of their government. But if the rest of the world has decided that trading with Cuba and allowing Cubans to survive and eat more food and get cheaper goods, why is America lagging behind?

If you talk to the Cuban people, they are very pro-Americans. They dislike our government, sure, because why wouldn't they after the conditions we've imposed on them? They're very nationalistic and they believe they are still fighting the revolution. And they won't forget their wars and their suffering, but they see it as part of their history, not something that they are fighting against today. Cubans want to meet Americans, they want to have a relationship with us. I think we should be able to do that despite our differences. Sure, it would be cool if they would adopt a democratic government system but that's clearly not going to fix our problems - remember when Gaza held their first democratic election which we ruled undemocratic because we didn't like the winning Hamas?

(For the record, if you want to put aside all of this political stuff and look at the beautiful country of Cuba, I've got some pictures from my trip over Winterim - look out, I must be a communist!)

Used in this post:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35874559

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2016/03/20/marco-rubio-obamas-cuba-trip-is-a-disgrace-n2136923

Media and Politics

The media has become a sweeping factor in not only how politics function, but also in the results of it. In today's society news and media is everywhere, whether it be newscasts and social medias, or websites and journalist articles. Political media is an expanding factor simply because the public has become lazy. Rather than reading books, longer articles, and watching long debates the people would rather read a short paragraph or watch a three minute news clip. A majority of the people of the United States yearn for news to be given to them in a way that requires minimal effort, causing media politics to thrive.

The television news is supposed to inform the people of the United States daily, bringing noteworthy information to the citizens, but often times it only shares exciting and grasping stories. Once a television news station discusses a topic they immediately move on, not referring to it again. Currently, in regards to Politics the news is solely mentioning results and minor things that are of little importance. Issues and political information that remains remarkably important are no longer or hardly mentioned. The information and stands that candidates have need to be shown more than one time and then discarded. Showing these stands and beliefs multiple times would make it easier for people who choose to get their information from newscasts, helping them decide who they truly relate to most, as well as with what the politicians agree and disagree with. Another substantial aspect, along with newcasts media is what stories are chosen to be aired to the public. When one story about a certain candidate is more intriguing than others they are talked about immensely, leaving the other candidate in the shadows and not mentioned at all.

Journalism is another method of media that affects politics considerably. Journalists commonly write stories in attempts to make the front page, juicy, sizable stories that are aimed to grab the greatest groups of peoples attention. If journalists wrote only about politicians stands, views, and plans then many people would simply not pay attention. To a large number of people within the United States, they would skip it and turn the page. Another issue with news papers is that journalists often times only focus on the black and white areas, for example areas that are understood and clear to everyone, rather than gray areas that many people find confusing and possibly do not even understand. Rather than clearing up what people are confused about they share simple facts that many people already know.

A positive portion of media however, is the Presidential Candidates use of websites (although in some cases they manage to make it a negative one). Each Candidate has a website in which their issues, positions, events, and news are clearly shown and accessible. But how many people take the time go online and read about the candidates views when they have facebook, twitter, and other social medias begging for their attention?  An intriguing idea for the website side of politics would be including a feature where all candidates are found on a single website, where valuable information is listed, and certain issues could be exhibited side by side to comprehend the contrasting views.

Through the use of media in regards to politics it is challenging for people to know who truly stands for what, and this can be directly connected to the low number of voter turnouts. Real, unbiased, reliable information is hard to find, and when people vote without knowing proper information, it causes the American voter to be very frightening.

http://www.uky.edu/AS/PoliSci/Peffley/pdf/ZallerTheoryofMediaPolitics(10-99).pdf

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/2016-election-social-media-ruining-politics-213104

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/

https://www.tedcruz.org/index.html

Internet Memes and Attack Ads

I wanted to make my first post on the John Oliver video, but I think the video is too old now. Also, I've watched it three times; once by myself, again with my mom, and a third time with a friend. They have very different political views, and I think my analysis/review would be too skewed and ranty now. I will say, I think the video is well put together and its worth the 20 minutes watch time (like I said, I watched it three times, which equals an hour). Although I will also say, I don't know how factual the information is because I didn't fact check. I'm one of those people who recommends a 20-minute without knowing the validity behind it. It's not that I don't want to fact check, it's just... I don't have enough hours in a day to google everything I read on the internet (and okay, maybe I also don't want to... just a little bit). If I don't want to check the facts, as a person in college studying politics, what makes any other average person motivated to check?

With social media playing a bigger role in this election than ever, there is A LOT of information flying around. Facebook LOVES memes. Check out these I found just scrolling through my newsfeed today:

Some of them had over 100,000 shares and thousands of comments. Most found images are targeted at Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Some of these images (not the ones above) are helpful infographics to get information spread quickly but others sadly most informed. It is easy to spot out the false ones if you have been paying attention to the world around you. Others are less obvious and require some research. It is real easy to assume pretty pictures with facts and numbers are true. The question is, are these "memes" hurting the political system?

Attack ads are nothing new to campaigns. Remember the Daisy Girl ad? The Huffington Post in 2014 published an article written by Christopher Lamb, believes these types of ads bring humor to a usually dark subject. Like I said, here in 2016, the internet loves images. While yes, they are funny sometimes, but it's unprofessional and demeaning to how serious the presidential campaign is. On the other hand, are these memes and images bringing more people into the political world? Attack ads on TV are paid for... with money. Making an image then posting it on the internet costs nothing and anyone can do it. Anyone can share or comment on them. Ideas and opinions are spread so rapidly because we can like and share things instantly. Sharing images and ideas allow people to be connected to the campaign. However, those connections are not always beneficial to the knowledge of the voter or the integrity of the candidate. 

Webpages mentioned/inspired by:

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5856984

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/gop-primaries/272288-study-76-percent-of-attack-ads-target-trump

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0221-mcmanus-ad-report-card-20160221-column.html

http://www.newschannel5.com/news/could-political-memes-impact-election-results

Blog Schedule

Week of March 7

Kelsey 

Week of March 21

Samantha
Sophia
Sean
Brooke
Justin
Rory

Week of March 28

Joseph
Taylor
Kevin
Sophia
Cullen
Olyvia

Week of April 4

Joseph
Taylor
Kevin
Brooke
Stephen
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Week of April 11

Zachary
Sean
Ben
Megan
Ryan
Stephen

Week of April 18

Robert
Trevor
Zachary
Moises
Megan
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Week of April 25

Robert
Moises
Nitsa
Haven
Ryan
Cullen
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Week of May 2

Trevor
Nitsa
Haven
Kelsey
Justin
Samantha

Political Party History of New Hampshire

This is from an article Dr. Egbert and I wrote for State Party Profiles: A 50-State Guide to Development, Organization, and Resources, Andrew M. Appleton and Daniel S. Ward, eds. for CQ Press, 1997.

Political Parties in New Hampshire reflect the enduring characteristics of the state: a homogeneous population, a moderately high level of economic prosperity, dominance by a narrow range of political interests, and a traditional and amateur governmental structure. New Hampshire, with a population less than 2% racial minority and ethnic minorities that have tended to be as conservative as the majority white populatioon, has endured few deep and lasting cleavages among its major groups. The state has no large cities, few large employers, and no dominant industry. Interests such as railroads, newspapers, textile manufacturing, lumber, and tourism have been dominant only in alliances with one another rather than individually. The structure of government, especially the amateur nature of the 424 member legislature, has made party organization difficult. Consequently, the state has had a one-party system except during a few transitional periods. Further, dominance by a single party has made strong organization difficult for the minority party and unnecessary for the party in the majority. The recent switch to a Democratic Majority bodes change for the state's party structucture.

PARTY HISTORY

Several themes run through the history of New Hampshire political parties: dominance by a single party, strong party organization and competition only during transitional periods, cycles of corruption and reform, the influence of coalitions of powerful interests, and the impact of strong personalities.

At first, New Hampshire was among the strongest of the Federalist states; the state's Puritan Congregationalism was synonymous with the Federalist Party. Most town charters required that land be set aside to build a church, the state constitution required towns to support a Congregational minister, and public office was restricted to Protestants (Heffernana and Stecher 1981, 103).

Federalists began to lose support in the granite State when their reckless abuse of power became evident in the Union Bank fight of 1800. John Langdon, a Democrat-Republican, organized a new bank which made small loans on easy terms. The state legislature refused to charter Langdon's bank since the state owned a considerable interest in the state's only bank, the New Hampshire Bank. Langdon and the Democratic-Republicans, unable to obtain loans at the New Hampshire Bank, paralyed this into a hard-fought campaign alleging the denial of the charter was just "another piece of Federalist intolerance." (Robinson, 1916, 30).

In 1806 the Democratic-Republican Party became the majority party. New Hampshire's people were ideologically much more closely aligned to the party of Jefferson, so the change is not surprising. During the transitional period after the turn of the century, the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans created permanent hierarchical organizations. The latter, still using the legislative caucus for nominations, created a "Grand Committee of Elections and Correspondence" and subordinate local bodies, and the existing New Hampshire Gazette (which continues publishing today) became the party organ. The grand committee appointed and controlled county committees, which in turn appointed and controlled town committees (Robinson 1916, 63).

Bitter conflict between the parties was in evidence when the newly empowered Democratic-Republican legislature took over Dartmouth College as a state university, revising its governance and relieving former Federalist trustees of the property and records of the institution. Daniel Webster represented the trustees in court to reverse what Jager and Jager (1983, 58) referred to as this "novel process of creative theft." The decision against the trustees in the Supreme Court of New Hampshire was reversed by the Federalist-leaning United States Supreme Court (Dartmouth College Case, 4 Wheat 518 [1819]), which found the legislature's actions in violation of the impairment of contracts clause of Art. I, sec. 10.

The transfer of power from the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans to the Jacksonian Democrats was complete in New Hampshire by about 1835. Important political figures, of former or later national stature, behind the Democratic Party organization in the state included Isaac Hill, editor, U.S. senator, and governor; Levi Woodbury, governor, U.S. senator, secretary of the navy and the Treasury, and justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; and Franklin Pierce, W.S. senator and later president of the United States. Jacksonian Democrats brought the spirit of reform to the state, and New Hampshire became a leader in the treatment of the insane, prison reform, public education, religious toleration, improved working conditions, and abolition of imprisonment for debt. The Democrats replaced "king caucus" with the state party convention and solidified their power by controlling most newspapers in the state.
The next transitional period began as the Democratic Party split into two conflicting wings in 1842. Independent Democrats, Whigs and abolitionists combined to control the legislature in 1846. Reform efforts continued as railroads and other large interests were subject to state regulation. The issue of slavery unified the remnants of the Whig Party, the Free Soilers, the Know Nothings, rebellious Democrats, and other smaller groups to provide the basis for the Republican Party. In 1853 Amos Tuck called a meeting at his home in Exeter, New Hampshire, where those invited claimed to have conceived and named the Republican Party (Jager and Jager 1983, 61). The Republicans elected their first governor in 1857, and in the 150 years since, only seven Democrats have occupied the New Hampshire executive office.

Following the Civil War, Republican hegemony supported rampant corruption and huge increases in political spending. William Chandler, former owner of the New Hampshire Statesman and Concord Monitor, while serving in the U.S. Senate chronicled the heightened role of political money at the time. he wrote that big money first appeared in 1882, when railroads began to spend "immense" amounts (Chandler 1898, 8). The state party supported candidates directly, and the state committee chair had the discretion to dispense all state party funds (Chadler 1898, 13). Some recipients signed contracts: "In consideration of one hundred dollars, I agree to vote as the maker and prior endorser [party chair, railroad, etc.] of this draft may direct" (Chandler 1898, 15). Free railroad passes and retainers for lawyers were provided openly. By 1907, critic Frank Putnam would write that the man who really governed New Hampshire was "the president of the Boston and Maine Railroad" (Jager and Jager 1983, 61). Republican ascendance in this era did not translate into party government. There was an absence of clear party ideology and organization. Tradition, slogans, "strong personalities, enormous egos and ambitions both broad and narrow fired the political system" (Wright 1987, 53).

New Hampshire joined the progressive movement by passing legislation curbing free railroad passes in 1907. In 1909 the legislature voted to require reporting of legislative concerns and expenditures of lobbyists, to require use of the direct primary to nominate party candidates. Progressives were the first to understand and take advantage of the new nomination process, electing Robert Bass as governor in 1910. Under Bass, the legislature regulated utilties and monopolies and provided for child labor reform, workmen's compensation, factory inspections, and forest protection.

The feud between Roosevelt Bull Moose Progressives and the Taft Republicans spilled into New Hampshire. As the Republicans feuded, New Hampshire Democrats organized to elect Samuel Felker governor in 1912, the Executive Council, a majority of the legislature, and a United States senator. In the first election following ratification of the 17th amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1913 mandating the direct election of U.S. Senators, the Republicans swept back into power and remained the dominant party, until the 2006 elections.

ReferencesChandler, William E. 1898. The growth in the use of money in politics in New Hampshire. Manchester Union, Dec. 24 and 28 (A reprint, by Rumford Press, Concord, N.H., appeared in 1899.)

Heffernan, Nancy Coffey, and Ann Page Stecker. 1981. New Hampshire: Crosscurrents in its development.Grantham, NH: Tompson and Rutter.

Jager, Ronald, and Grace Jager. 1983. New Hampshire:An illustrated history of the Granite State.
Woodland Hills, Calif.: Windsor.

Robinson, William A. 1916. Jeffersonian democracy in New England. New York: Greenwood Press.

Wright, James. 1987. The Progressive Yankees: Republican reformers in New hampshire: 1906-1916.
Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. 

Welcome to the Spring 2017 Class!

Welcome to our blog! The first step for class members is to set up an account with Blogger if they do not already have a google account. so I can add you to this blog so you can get started posting! You should have received an invitation from me. You do not have to use your name, but please be sure to let me know what it is so that you get credit for your participation.

A few rules to follow:

1. No profanity or obscenities! This Blog will maintain professional standards of discourse!

2. No jerks.

3. No incivility. You are expected to treat one another with respect and offer constructive comments.

4. follow all rules about fair use of material--copyrights etc.

Remember you are expected to comment on your classmate's posts!!

Now....get blogging!