A Commentary

I agree with this post, our government has no idea what they are doing when it comes to the war on drugs. The original post points out the amount of money that is wasted on this so called war. For example, recently a home was raided with a warrant based off of helicopter photos of some “shrubs” that were believed to be marijuana plants. The time, money, and effort that the narcotics team used to bust this “grow house” where there was not actually any marijuana testifies to the case that the government is miserably failing at the war on drugs. When looked at logically first of all how would a judge agree to a warrant based off of images that are not clearly marijuana plants? Second, why are these drug squads worried about marijuana of all drugs? Finally, the drug cops true intentions could be questioned since it is not uncommon for them to be corrupt and rob them while they bust them. The simple fact that 16 states have decriminalized marijuana and made it possible to purchase purely for medical purposes, while on the national level it is still considered just as bad as heroine or cocaine, should be enough to discredit our government’s policy on drugs.
That is one small issue concerning marijuana when we have way worse substances flooding the nation. If you were to research other foreign drug policies, mainly European ones, it is easy to see the difference immediately. Some of these differences are lower crime rates and overall less harm to the society since the government is regulating the drugs and ensuring clean equipment and environments for the drug users among their communities. Our policy as the original post points out is to incarcerate them until they are rehabilitated which generally does not work as seen since it is a viscous cycle in which the government really does no such rehabilitation or the cycle would not exist. The $15 billion dollars spent incarcerating drug offenders and raiding innocent people’s homes should be used to actually rehabilitate the true drug addicts who need help not John Doe who has had 8 surgeries and wants to smoke a joint over taking terrible pharmaceuticals.

Today, another internet privacy bill was passed by the House 248-168. This one is called CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) and it essentially makes it easier for the government and corporation to share "cyber threat data". The whole world experienced the majority of people’s outrage when they tried to pass SOPA and PIPA and now even Obama has threatened to veto CISPA according to The Washington Post. The main purpose of the bill was to help pass this data easier and avoid more regulations creating a stronger defense by allowing the data to flow easier. All that could be useful, but at the cost of people’s civil liberties, it becomes unacceptable. For example, the government and AT&T (who was one of the companies in support of CISPA) should not be able to look at and store all the information from each and every person’s internet (whether it is view history or personal information etc.). All US citizens have civil rights that protect them from situations like this but because they are searching through “cyber threat data” they may think it is necessary and does not violate any such rights. I firmly do not believe that is the case and that the governments’ partnership with private corporations is a sure sign that the people’s best interest are not at heart. 

Just another government FAIL!

This commentary clearly outlines a problem that a particular community college is facing and there is adequate reason as to why it speculates about this becoming a national issue. The problem which the college faces is federal budget cuts requiring them to not offer as many classes as they could and as a result students can not go get in to classes they need. This generation is already facing difficulty by making the average time to graduate 5 or more years, just imagine if this were to add to that. Community colleges play a vital role in our nation by being a stepping stone to four year institutions and helping students continue their education and graduate. The solution is simple, allocate more political and government funds to community colleges allowing them to offer more classes or open new locations. By doing this we can ensure opportunity of education to any people that desire to do so and not at higher costs as the Santa Monica College was forced to do.  For example, Austin Community College is a perfect model of how community colleges should function as cheap affordable quality education convenient for everyone.

Is Iran another Iraq?

It should not be news to anyone, that Obama is considering declaring war on Iran if Israel attacks. The claims of doing so are based on intelligence of an Iranian nuclear program. Our government continues to focus their efforts abroad rather than tackle the national problems we are continually facing. The New York Times talks about, a "classified war simulation" that resulted in American involvement due to the Israeli attack. The results troubled many of the officials that had the classified clearance to observe them. The conclusion was that an Israeli strike would have "dire consequences" to the troops and the region. Now consider the war on terror with Iraq and how the government was under the impression there were nuclear weapons when in fact we did not find any. How many troops were lost just to find that out? How much money was spent fighting for a cause that did not exist? With this evidence, stating the enormous casualties from this war and experience with a similar situation such as Iraq (a war we are still fighting); how can our government find it rational to declare war once again while we face some of the hardest national issues to date? 

If you don't know now you know!

In an editorial published by USA Today, the author makes an argument that all people should know more about what is going on behind the scenes in elections, specifically with the political campaign donors (specifically the super donors “who are responsible for nearly 25% of the money that has flowed into Super PACS from the beginning of last year”). I feel the author has adequate reasoning to hope for disclose donors on Super PAC ads and know who the donors behind the candidates are. The author talks about how vital the donors are to each candidate’s likelihood of winning, for example, it is mentioned that “At least 10 donors gave at least $1 million apiece to Mitt Romney, which helped him buy enough negative ads to squash Gingrich in the Florida primary and keep his own bid alive.” The author also mentions about how stockholders and members are told by the corporation or union how much they spend on political campaigns and where so why can’t the candidates do the same? This editorial was meant for every single individual that doesn’t want to be “kept in the dark” about what’s really going on and I completely agree with it since people deserve to know the full unbiased facts of everything before making a decision and voting on something so important as who will run our nation for the next 4 years.

Obama "doing his job"

On Friday, February 10, 2012, BBC published an article regarding Obama's new policy that according to him "saves lives and saves money" The policy requires health insurance companies, instead of the employer, to offer contraception directly to the employees of religious-linked institutions if it is requested. The reason this is such a big issue is the fact that the Catholics see this as impose on religious institutions’ constitutional right to freedom of religion. The sad thing is that the nation is about to vote for Obama again in the 2012 elections. This will ensure more government control of our lives and this was only one small example of it.