And just 'cause I don't like the woman, today reminds me of this great clip: Sarah Palin pardoning a turkey, and then giving an interview right in front of the continuing slaughter. I love the look of the guy behind her..."Um, should I wait? Does she realize how incredibly ironic this is? Well, they aren't paying me to stand around..."
Thursday
Happy Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm personally thankful for a lot of things...really too numerous to mention...but I think it can all be summed up thusly: I'm thankful for living in this nation, at this point in history, born into a position to help be an element for change.
Wednesday
What My Blog Is All About
Recently there's been some drama as an indirect result of what I do here...and in the course of said drama, it became clear to me my object might not be as clear to the readers as it is to me.
My goal with this blog is to provide information. I strive to keep things fairly balanced, in that I present both sides (as with my post on the casino amendment in recent weeks, for instance). I do this by reading what one side says, then summarizing it on this blog with links. Then, I do the same with the argument against the issue.
Do I put in editorial comments now and then with these summaries? Yes. Yes I do, especially when I feel passionately on a subject. I'm not claiming to be completely unbiased or that I'm presenting a white-washed, edited-by-my-boss product. However, I try to do my best to keep them from clouding the position summary.
After I've done the informational segment, I generally go into detail what I feel on the topic and why. That's just my opinion...I usually work in a line to the effect of "That's my take, now go read up on it yourself." I don't think I've ever presented my little soap box messages as the truth on a subject, nor have I posted ONLY my opinion and passed it off as information.
It's pretty simple. A lot of people do what I do...and really, the professional services do it better (which is why I link to them all the time). But what a lot of the professional news companies can't do so well is present issues with a local perspective, from a living room that probably isn't much different than yours.
That's what this blog is all about.
Tuesday
Senate Votes for Cloture on Health Care
On Saturday night, the US Senate voted on cloture for their version of the healthcare bill, allowing it to move onto a real debate without fear of filibuster.
The concern on a controversial bill like this is once it hits the Senate floor for debate, a Senator opposing the bill filibuster it. This would prevent the bill from even being debated, never mind voted on. All the opposing Senator has to do is speak on and on about whatever occurred to the Senator (once, a Senator filibustered by reading a phone book). No one wanted to bring it to the floor until they had achieved cloture, a procedure where 3/5 of the Senators had voted in the bill should be debated without being filibustered.
They pulled it off though, those crafty Democrats. 60-39. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats voted for cloture after threatening not to. Bernard Sanders of Vermont also sided with the Democrats.
Now onto Step 2: Debating, amending, and passing the bill. This is where you come in!
Write, call, or e-mail your Senators. In Ohio:
George Voinovich, Republican
Washington, DC Office 524 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 | |||||
| (202) 224-3353 Central OH 37 West Broad Street Room 310 Columbus, OH 43215 Phone: (614) 469-6697 Fax: (614) 469-7733 Southeast OH 78 West Washington Street P.O. Box 57 Nelsonville, OH 45764 Phone: (740) 441-6410 Fax: (740) 753-3551 Southwest & Dayton Area 36 East 7th Street Room 2615 Cincinnati, OH 45202 Phone: (513) 684-3265 Northwest OH 420 Madison Avenue Room 1210 Toledo, OH 43604 Phone: (419) 259-3895 Fax: (419) 259-3899 Northeast OH 1240 East 9th Street Room 3061 Cleveland, OH 44199 Phone: (216) 522-7095 Fax: (216) 522-709 Fax: (513) 684-3269 Sherrod Brown, Democrat Web Contact Form Washington, DC Office 713 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC
|
Thursday
United States Senate Race 2010
So Senator George Voinovich is retiring at the end of his current term, after two terms serving in the Senate. While I haven't always agreed with how he's represented my state, one cannot argue the Senator has dedicated his life to working for the people of Ohio with integrity...something of a rarity in today's day and age, or even any age.
Rest assured, I'll be watching for developments and doing some looking around!
That said, now we need to pick a new United States Senator from Ohio to join Sherrod Brown. Neither party has a clear candidate yet...and I haven't heard about any third party candidates throwing their hats in the ring yet. Here's what we have on the platter so far.
Democrats:
Lee Fisher, currently the Lieutenant Governor.
Jennifer Brunner, currently the Secretary of State.
Republicans:
Rob Portman, not currently holding a government position but well experienced at the federal level
Tom Ganley, President and CEO of the Ganley Automotive Group and has never held public office.
I'm not personally seeing any clear leaders...Rob Portman has more experience, but it was all with the Bush Adminstration...and that may very well hurt him if the party is trying to distance itself from those philosophies. Brunner has a higher profile than Fisher, but I'm not sure if that's a help or a hindrance just yet. The primary races should be quite interesting :-)
Rest assured, I'll be watching for developments and doing some looking around!
Tuesday
Congressional Race 2010
So currently, Pat Tiberi represents the 12th Congressional District here in Ohio. It's a wide ranging district, from the Northwest of Delaware all the way down to the East of Reynoldsburg. Rep. Tiberi is in his 5th term serving the district, which means he's been in office for nine years or so now.
According to his reelection website, Tiberi hopes to use his new position on the Ways and Means to promote his agenda on retirement security, making healthcare affordable, and tax reform. Before, Tiberi was on the Financial Services panel, and played a role in drafting legislation that made it easier for people to purchase homes.
According to Brooks' website, her strengths are a long history in the state (biographies I've read emphasize the fact her family is 10 generations American or so), fiscal responsibility (helped Franklin County maintain a AAA bond rating), expanding access to healthcare and good jobs, and promoting green policies.
Over the next year, I'll be keeping an eye out on these two and how their race is going. Digging into records, keeping up with news, all that fun stuff. So keep an eye out!
Thursday
Loyal Opposition
Did you know the House of Representatives managed to pass a bi-partisan healtcare bill? No, serious! They did. They had members of both parties vote in favor of it, and managed to pass the damn thing!
Well, they had one Republican lawmaker vote in favor, and passed it by two votes.
If that's not seat-of-your-pants governance, I'm not sure what is. And it sure as hell isn't bi-partisan.
I'm not 100% sure who's fault it is this bill isn't more of a consensus. It's easy to blame one side (the Democrats are railroaded the minority party) or the other (the GOP is refusing to play ball on principle). Really, it doesn't matter who's fault it is. 'cause
The big contentious deal with this bill (as I saw it...correct me if you see it differently, please) was the public option. I understand that. I respect that.
It's totally legitimate for conservative lawmakers from both parties to say, "Nuh uh, no way. That's totally unacceptable for a whole bunch of reasons, and if you have it in the bill I'm not voting."
The next logical step is the introduction of a bill or two that are viable alternatives. And sorry: "viable alternative" doesn't mean "ideologically opposite" which is how it's been taken to mean in the last ten years or so. If you make your answering bill too far away from the original, negotiation is pointless...and I believe the GOP lawmakers know this when they introduce bills. The idea of loyal opposition is just lost on lawmakers these days.
Loyal opposition: "applied to the opposition parties in the legislature to indicate that the non-governing parties may oppose the actions of the sitting cabinet ... while maintaining loyalty to the source of the government's power."
While the idea was initially used to allow the minority parties in the British parliament to disagree with the majority party without being accused of treason, it can be applied in a slightly different manner now. While the Republicans cannot currently push their own agenda as effectively as they like (there are penalties for losing elections), they should be staying loyal to the concept of effective governance.
That's what both sides are forgetting about, that they have a job to do. It's all well and good to stand by principles...but we have problems to solve, people, and being pig headed isn't helping anyone.
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