Saturday, May 27, 2017

Are Politicians Corrupt or is the Political System Fixed ?

There has been an ongoing debate amongst most Americans, questioning the legitimacy of the U.S. political system and its constituents. The premise of the debate has been, whether the dynamic of the system is corrupt or if it’s the politicians involved. Our political system is called into question, based on the excessive amount of funds that are allocated into the campaigns of each party. Corruption can be defined as someone who maintains a seat of power and commits, fraudulent actions or conduct, in order to benefit themselves. When placed into context, one could say that, any group or organization that funds a campaign to influence laws or policies, may be corrupt.
But defining and applying corruption under a political context can be hard since, the system is so complex. Politicians are usually left to decide, on whether to accept funds for the sake of their campaign, or deny funds from groups whose interests conflict with the party’s agenda. Though politicians are ultimately supposed to be implementing policies that benefit the common good, this is infringed by their need for money. Interest groups are typically looking to benefit corporations by providing tax incentives or implementing subsidies on certain commodities.
Determining whether politicians are corrupt, can be difficult since the only way to fund a campaign, is by raising money or donations. Raising campaign funds is an extensive and laborious process, so it isn’t uncommon for parties, to set aside their ideals, to gain adequate funding. Which raises the question of, are politicians being bought off ? Trying to remain competitive in a campaign against an opposing party, while maintaining a political platform can become conflicting. Since where and whom parties get their funding varies, implementing policies that favors the common good is extremely difficult.
Furthermore, parties are expected firstly to uphold their ideology enough, to attract voters, without seeming too radical or liberal. Secondly they must procure enough funds for their campaign, without providing it themselves. Then they are expected to pass laws that benefit and don’t undermine the consensus of voters in the electorate. In addition, to receiving a majority of their campaign funds from private groups, who are only concerned with their own interests. Seems like a lot to ask of politicians, along with putting their reputation on the line, when their intent is to help people. I do believe there are politicians who exploit this system to benefit themselves, but i’d say it’s unfair to assume this from all. Clearly there needs to be substantial reform to the framework of the political system and how campaigns are funded.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/05/05/the-u-s-political-system-is-flawed-but-not-corrupt/?utm_term=.df115e1649bf

Friday, May 12, 2017

EPA Funding Cuts

The Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the Federal government of the United States which was created for the purpose of protecting human health and the environment by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress. President Trump's administration has proposed major cuts to the funding of the EPA and there will be some huge effects because of it. It will decrease spending to $5.7 billion from $8.1 billion, and eliminate a quarter of the agency’s 15,000 jobs. These cuts will affect multiple aspects of our society. Climate protection, federal vehicle and fuel standards, water system regulation and criminal enforcement of environmental violators will all be affected negatively. All of these listed duties of the EPA are being hindered by the Trump administration. Of all the federal agencies in the United States the EPA is one of the most important and doesn't deserve to lose a portion of it's funding.

Links:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/climate/trump-epa-budget-cuts.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/03/31/new-epa-documents-reveal-even-deeper-proposed-cuts-to-staff-and-programs/?utm_term=.0ee5d3173033


Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey

This past Tuesday President Trump fired Director of the FBI James Comey. Comey was leading an investigation into whether any of Trump's advisors collaborated with Russia to affect our presidential election. This is a rather shocking move by the President, firing the man who was leading the investigation into Russia and Trump's involvement. "Mr. Trump explained the firing by citing Mr. Comey’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server" [1] This explanation doesn't seem to make any sense seeing as Trump was the one who  gained the most out of the investigation into clinton. It was a political goldmine and Trump would often use it to damage the reputation of Hillary Clinton during the campaign.The President said in a letter to Comey “While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau,” [1] Republicans and Democrats both were shocked with this sudden move. The whole situation just seems like President Trump is trying to get rid of the man investigating him. It has been released that Comey had actually asked for more resources for the investigation just day before his firing. [2]

Sources:
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/james-comey-fired-fbi.html 
[2]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/comey-russia-investigation-fbi.html

Monday, May 8, 2017

Japanese Government prepares evacuation plans for possible N. Korea strike

     The Asahi Shimbun has reported that for the first time since World War II, the Japanese government has had to take steps to instruct residents on how they should prepare and react if there should ever be an attack from North Korea. The Japanese government has warned residents that they may have only ten minutes to get to safety in the event of a strike. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga announced on April 21st that a list of emergency measures had been added to the Cabinet Secretariat's Civil Protection Portal Site.

"We have compiled a set of actions for the public to take to protect themselves based on their heightened interest in the issue" -Yoshihide Suga

     The measures and actions include citizens taking cover inside sturdy buildings or underground shopping areas. They recommend that those who cannot reach such areas should lay on the ground behind objects. For those who choose to remain indoors, they should stay away from windows if possible.

     Local governments have raised concerns that towns hosting American bases may become targets. A dozen or so local officials went to Tokyo to raise these concerns in a question-and-answer session during a briefing on North Korea at a central government building on April 21st. Their concerns shouldn't be taken lightly, for it is possible that North Korea will use the strikes on Japan as a way of also attacking the US.


Links:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/04/25/nervous-over-north-korea-japan-issues-guidelines-for-missile-attack/?utm_term=.39703564f50c

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201704240039.html

Friday, May 5, 2017

U.S. to move Okinawa-based troops to Guam

     Washington DC announced on April 27th, 2017 that there are plans to transfer 4,000 out of 19,000 marines stationed in Okinawa prefecture to Guam. The transfer would take place between 2024 and 2028. Okinawa prefecture houses the majority of U.S. bases in Japan. An agreement was made in 2013 between the U.S. and Japan amid protests by residents on the island.
     The original plan was to relocate the Marine Corps Air Station in Futenma, Okinawa, but residents on Okinawa opposed the relocation. The plan included construction of an offshore landfill of Henoko, Okinawa Prefecture but residents and opponents of this plan argue that the construction would destroy coral reefs along the archipelago. Protests in February 2017 halted construction at the site.
     U.S. Marines in Okinawa have been a hassle and a controversy since three marines raped a 12-year old girl in 1995. The marines served jail time and were released in 2003. They had admitted to doing it saying "it was just for fun". Since then, relations between the U.S. military personnel based in Okinawa and Okinawa residents has worsened. Many residents wish for the U.S. military to be removed despite the central government in Tokyo being against the removal of the U.S. military.

Links:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/04/27/national/politics-diplomacy/u-s-start-moving-okinawa-based-marines-guam-2024/#.WQymmlPyuSN

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/02/06/national/protests-erupt-work-resumes-futenma-air-base-replacement-okinawa/#.WQypflPyuSM

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42645.pdf

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Funding Cuts


The idea that low-income women should be prevented from having children was first explicitly proposed to me last summer. The owner of the idea suggested fining violators—but why stop there? Wouldn’t prison and forced sterilization be options, too?
            Shock prevented me from pointing out the obvious: If low-income women were barred from having children, you wouldn’t be having this conversation with me.
My father was born to my fantastic grandmother in the mid-1950s. In addition to being a wonderful person and strong mother, my grandmother also happened to be a young, low-income woman living in the projects on the outskirts of Boston. In part due to government assistance, my father and his siblings were given the chance to grow into healthy and successful people despite a multitude of compounding factors related to poverty and social struggles. My father excelled in school, and now has a successful and meaningful career as an author and professor.
My goal is to make a difference in medicine and global health through research, policy reform, and social entrepreneurship. I hope that my path allows me to serve as an advocate for my relatives who have helped shape my hopeful perception of the world — because more people than ever face the same adversity today.
Is there social capital in providing safe and sanitary housing, nutritious food, and first-rate educations? Yes, and it exponentially pays forward for generations. My brother was just accepted to every college he applied to, and my cousin served as the Western states campaign manager for President Obama’s 2008 run for office and is now the director of field operations for a major company. We, along with thousands of others with stories similar to ours, wouldn’t be here if our grandmothers been told that they weren’t worthy of raising children, or if their children had been considered undeserving of basic human rights.
The history of poverty and oppression in the United States is central to the claim that monetary wealth determines an individual’s parenting aptitude, and it must be loudly acknowledged that dictating parenthood by income level is discriminatory. The notion that low-income women should not be permitted to have children is classist, often racist, and reminiscent of the recent era when eugenicists reigned as the kings of science and policy.
On March 16th, President Trump unveiled his proposed budget for 2018. Among the most sinister of the proposed cuts were those reducing funding for nutrition and family planning services. It is both unrealistic and inhumane to expect women not to have children due to their financial circumstances. Pregnancy and parenting are primal human experiences, and a right that all should have without question. Treating a class of women as unworthy of children deprives them of a basic human need and purpose, and deprives the world of infants who have the potential to grow into wonderful people. Conversely, it is authoritative and unacceptable to corner a woman into having a child she either feels she cannot raise or does not want. The proposed budget changes infringe upon the rights of all women, but especially low-income women who have very few other options. These cuts are a direct attack on those living in poverty, and do nothing but set the stage for the downward spiral of marginalized communities at the hands of a government proffering systemic oppression as it withholds basic human rights.
Ironically, the idea that low-income women are not deserving of motherhood and that babies born into poverty are not deserving of healthy development and humane treatment was first shared with me just minutes after starting my walk home from my internship under a physician studying long-term neonatal neurodevelopment. Nutrition, stimulation, emotional support, and attention are essential to the healthy development of young brains, and the role of nutrition in neurocognitive development is corroborated by several studies. Researchers suggest focusing on overall diet quality to provide children with solid foundation for brain development. Historically, the United States government has aimed to ease a small portion of the pressure on low-income parents by providing food packages, lactation support, and several other services through the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Through WIC, families with children ages 5 and under are able to buy food products with high nutritional value— such as vegetables, fruit, milk, tofu, cheese, peanut butter, yogurt, and eggs— that may have been previously unavailable to them due to financial circumstances. The intent of the program is to lower infant and maternal mortality and to provide families with more capacity to focus on the other areas critical to development noted above. While I am nowhere near motherhood, it easy to imagine how it is both an exciting and challenging transition, and how any previous difficulties can be intensified as a result of new emotional and financial stressors. If parents are less worried about earning enough to provide the next meal, they will be a capable of creating a lower-stress home for their child. In an article published by The Atlantic last week, experts discuss how high stress as a result of poverty can reduce problem solving skills and the ability to set goals and complete tasks efficiently. WIC helps mitigate these effects by working to combat common sources of stress for low-income families. While WIC alone cannot come close to solving all poverty-related challenges affecting young families, it is an integral part of supporting a positive environment change for one out of two babies born in the United States.
The Trump administration has proposed a $200 million cut, which is not likely significant enough to threaten WIC’s current caseload. However, WIC is currently unable to support eligible families in the United States, and in 2013 was only able to provide for 83% of children and families in need. Any budget cuts will further hinder the abilities of the program, essentially robbing mothers and children in the name of unnecessarily increased defense spending. While it should go without saying, if we aren’t caring for our children and nurturing strong families, we have nothing left to protect.
Here in New Hampshire, a bill currently making its way through the legislature—
SB7—would raise the eligibility threshold for the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps, ending the benefit for 17,000 NH families—the vast majority of whom are working poor people. The White House Council of Economic Advisors published a report in 2015 citing research findings indicating that children who benefit from SNAP “…see improvements in health and academic performance and that these benefits are mirrored by long-run improvements in health, educational attainment, and economic self-sufficiency.”
Along with significant cuts to nutritional support for mothers and children, the Trump administration has proposed reducing funding for reproductive health services and taken legislative action to inhibit the abilities of healthcare providers to offer treatments and services that enable women to make informed choices regarding their lives. Opposed by only two Republicans, this new law is a reversal of President Obama’s January 18th rule and will prohibit Title X funding allocation for clinics offering abortions. This decision will not only limit access to contraceptives for low-income residents of conservative states, but will also impede on the affected clinics’ ability to provide other life-saving services, such as cancer screenings and well-woman exams.
 Trump’s policies undermine the individual woman, her family, and society. The proposed system is unethical on many levels — it is unacceptable to police a woman’s human right to have children on the basis of her financial means, and it is unacceptable to force a woman to carry and raise a child that she doesn’t want by limiting her access to reproductive health rights. This is irresponsible and short-sighted, and leaves poverty-affected women in an overwhelming position of amplified insecurity and reduced autonomy. Most importantly, it is cruel to withhold vital nutrition from children in all situations.
Politics aside, children should be our top priority. Their safety, growth, and happiness is paramount. The Trump administration’s proposed budget and legislative action limit reproductive choices and simultaneously lack empathy and rationality, suggesting that classism and racism are at the heart of it. The long-term individual and social benefits of WIC, SNAP, and pre- and post-natal care are all well documented. Only Trump’s alternative facts say otherwise.

Science Funding Cuts

President Trump’s released his 2018 budget proposal included several major shifts in comparison with previous years, including a decrease in funds allocated for scientific research and environmental protection. Specifically, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) could lose 20% of its budget ($5.8 billion) if Trump’s proposal is approved. According to the George Bush administration’s NIH Director Elias Zerhouni, this is a “catastrophic loss.” The NIH is responsible for advancing scientific research, doling out 80% of its budget to 2,500 universities and organizations and supporting 300,000 scientists whose work is vital to the health and prosperity of the nation. The research areas losing the most funding are the workhorses of science —slow and boring to most, but absolutely essential for life as we know it and future progress. Private investors do often contribute to funding scientific endeavors, it is often only the exciting, fast-paced science that is deemed worthy. While this type of science is incredibly interesting- vaccine development and response to outbreaks, driverless cars, and trips to Mars- they do not attempt to solve the more common diseases affecting millions such as diabetes and cancer. Unfortunately, Trump’s budget proposal also focuses on the headline-making science and abandons the areas of important research that the government usually backs.
Interestingly, one area of health research and reform is getting special attention and a proposed increase in funding. If the budget is approved, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be granted $500 million to develop prevention and treatment programs focused on opioid use. While value and morality of these programs depends completely on how they are executed, this could be a turn in a positive direction for many areas of the country. If the programs make sustainable, constructive, and respectful solutions possible, this increase in funding could be a major asset for New Hampshire. According to the Concord Monitor, New Hampshire is third in the nation deaths due to opioid use per capita.
The proposed cuts may be traced back to political tension over a few specific methods, such as stem cell and climate change research. In comparison to the multitude of other very necessary research focuses of NIH-funded universities and organizations, the number of stem cell or climate change projects funded is quite small. As a nation, it makes much more sense to focus on finding cures for cancer, heart disease, and other common ailments and save many lives than it does to dig our heels into the ground and deprive all citizens of new treatments for a vast range of ailments, and it is the hope of many that this rationale will be considered moving forward.
The proposed budget cuts have proved very unpopular, and the nation witnessed hundreds of Marches for Science yesterday. In Concord, NH, at least 2,500 people (6% of the city) attended to march, hear speeches from government leaders and Dartmouth College professors, and speak with local science-related organizations and businesses. 6% of people called out of work, cancelled their children’s ballet lessons or soccer games, or chose to give up some other important part of their limited time off to actively protest. Other rallies around the country in Washington D.C., New York City, Los Angeles and more drew huge crowds and notable speakers.
In another attack on the scientific process and quality healthcare, President Trump removed the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Friday due to the physician’s stance on gun violence being a prominent public health concern not matching the ideals of the Trump administration. Murthy was seen by many as a revolutionary leader, and was the first surgeon general to place a large emphasis on gun violence and drug use as primary public health concerns. It is unprecedented to remove a surgeon general before his or her term is over, and in the past surgeon generals have been regarded as nonpartisan as the focus of their work is the health of all American people. Murthy has been replaced by his deputy, Rear Adm. Sylvia Trent-Adams, until a new surgeon general is appointed. This process could take at least several months. Trent-Adams is the first nurse to serve as surgeon general, and was previously the chief nurse of the U.S. Public Health Service. While nurses are an integral part of the healthcare system, it is a fundamentally different training path and nature of work than that of a physician or researcher, and is not a background that best fits the duties of the surgeon general. According to the Washington Post, the surgeon general serves the “nation’s doctor” and  is responsible for highlighting “public health problems and offering data and solutions.” This shift in the area of expertise of the leadership may be coincidental or may reflect a shifting focus in the world of healthcare with less emphasis on research.  
The Trump administration has directly attacked scientific research and leadership by proposing to defund core disease research programs and by removing strong scientific leaders from places of power within the government. Scientific research is integral to progression, survival, and world leadership and there is no question that the proposed budget cuts will wreak havoc on the nation for generations if passed. In a well-circulated Twitter post, leading astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson stated, “Show me a nation with a science-hostile government, and I’ll show you a society with failing health, wealth, and security.”