The politics of Sonia Sotomayor
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22980.html

BEN SMITH & JOSH KRAUSHAAR the authors of this article both set a tone of support for Obama's nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Although they definitely included several different quotes from republicans on the opposing side, thier ultimate stance was quite clear. The article speaks about the positive national implications that may come from this nominee. Although in a large portion of the article it refers to how much Obama has pissed republicans off, it seems that he may have touched and won the support of both women and hispanics as well as a wide variety of other liberals.

This article does really touch on her backgroud or merit but it definitely touches on her ideology. It portrays it to be pretty liberal with a huge emphasis and belief of racial identity. It seems as though she has made bold statements in the past arguing that a hispanic woman could make better decisions than a lot of "white males". Although we discussed in class the relatively moderate stance that she has the idea that I got from this article is that she is relatively liberal. The most obvious portion was that that argued how much this nominee will help the democrats and if she was simply moderate it wouldn't make too much of a difference.

I feel that Obama's nominee is definitely a good one and although in class we spoke of her moderate stance in politics I feel that if nothing else a statement on how diverse and far America has come is definitely enough. I feel that this is more important than an extremely liberal judge being added to the Supreme court. This is a huge stride for both women, hispanic people, and our nation as a whole.

Blog #3 (Congress)

First off... I had absolutely no clue Congress dealt with such a wide variety of issues, especially in one day. There schedule is crazy and the types of bills that they oversee have such little effect on our daily lives. That is definitely one thing I learned from this website. I mean you always assume that congress passes bills that have significance in your everyday life but through my observations I have learned most of them will never even effect you. My previous knowledge of Congress was that they pass laws such as no texting while driving or no cell phones while driving. Through observation of that website they deal with issues on how small bussiness effect the economy and hearings to examine pension plans and such. I also saw a bill that was about a national missing childrens day. I just never knew the jobs of congress were so detailed and intricate.

Another extremely interesting aspect of Congress that I was completely unaware of is the separtation of certain issues amongst different subcommittees and committees. The way I envisioned it was the house or senate sitting around in a group discussing different bills. In no way is this true. On the website there are a list of several different subcommittees and committees assigned to certain issues. Considering the amount and different types of bills and issues that congress deals with daily this method seems much more efficient.

Overall, I don't really think I would like to be a part of Congress. I think it is definitely way too much responsibility for the amount of compensation received. That is not to say that some people are not so passionate and patriotic that they would like to play a role in decision-making, however, this would not be something I would enjoy. The different issues are so broad and almost repetitive seeing as though it takes so long to simply pass a bill. I'm really glad that I took a look at this website because it definitely opened my eyes to a new perspective on congress. It has caused me to have a great deal of respect for their hard work and broad range of responsibilities, however, I no longer look at the career in the same lime-light that I once did, from a personal standpoint that is.

Blog 2

The County that I currently reside in is Cook County and was established in 1831. It was the 54th county established in Illinois. Cook is an urban county and makes up the upper northeaster section of Illinois. Eight hundred local government units exists within the boundaries of Cook County. In addition, cook has a population of 5.3 million people. The State Representative of Cook County is Deborah L. Graham. Graham is a democrat and holds a Bachelors of Arts in Bussiness Adminstration from Robert Morris College. She was born and raised on the west side of chicago and was avidly involved in community service. She is currently a proud member of the AFSCME which assists with the relocation of individuals and bussinesses. A few of her committee assignments include; Committee of the Whole, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation and Motor Vehicles. The State Senator of Cook County is Don Harmon. Harmon was Born in Oak Park, a suburb of chicago and Graduated from Unversity of Chicago with a J.D. and M.B.A. He is currently married with three children. A few of Harmons commitee assignments include; Property tax reform, Environment and Energy, and Judiciary (chairsperson).

Neither of these two have been in the news as of late...

Post 1 Article Response

Link to article: Steel vows to take Obama 'head on'

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22709.html

This article was relatively straight forward and spoke about, Micheal Steel, the Republican National Committee Chairman and his desire to confront president Bush 'head on'. This article demeans the democratic approach to selling Obama to our nation in the previous election and states that in the future its approach to take on Obama will be speaking powerfully, truthfully, and directly. In addition, the article also states that Steels advisors have advised him to take on less popular democrats like Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. Instead, however, Steel states that he is going to take on the president directly with dignity in order to confrot the policies that his party believes are wrong. His plan for the republican resurgence is to speak to the American people about the American Dream. I thought this article was relatively interesting, however, I do not believe that there will be a republican resurgance and I definitely agree with Steels advisors when they tell him to attempt to confront other democrats that are less popular and liked by the American People. In general, I think steel is confident due to his dislike to some of the policies that obama has supported and feels to be backed by his party. This makes sense, however, I do not believe he has a chance against Obama.

In this particular article there was not too much information that I didn't understand. Overall it spoke of the simple concept of a republican resurgence for the next election. One thing, however, that I did not neccessarily understand was the authors reference to the anti-tax "tea party" protest. I am not very informed on that particular topic.

Brief Intro

I am currently a senior at Illinois State University. I am a Criminal Justice Major with a minor in both Psychology and Political Science. I play on the Women's Basketball team at Illinois State so that is pretty much the large majority of my life. Besides that I just like to have a good time! My expectations of this course are simple, try and retain as much knowledge as possible. Hopefully a lot of the information I learn will fill in the holes that I have of political science and the government. I know a decent amount about the government. I have taken a couple political science classes that have kind of given me a base but there is still a lot that I do not know and I definitely do not really keep up with the news or current events.