This post is very true to state that oil companies have much influence in politics, after reading her post i remembered reading a different article on the Huffingtonpost titled "Oil And Gas Industry Exerts Outsized Political Influence In Colorado: Report" about how the oil and gas industry was spending money on state elections, campaigns, and legislative lobbying in in republican and democratic parties. Over the last five years oil and gas companies spent close to a million dollars annually, and also gave roughly $800,000 to help elect Republican and Democratic candidates. The article finishes by stating fossil fuel companies spent $347 million lobbying Congress. That is a lot of political influence if you ask me. Though the article that i read is not solely based on her post, I due believe that her issue is important. America is a nation that is beautiful and needs to step up to the issue more on pollution. America is making some improvements in low fuel emission vehicles. which help slightly with cutting out carbon emissions but as long as Americans need gas and fossil fuel companies keep getting paid and stay powerful it will be a long time before things like this get taken care of...

Background Checks?

The 2nd amendment is something that I believe will never taken away from american citizens. There is always a new initiative or bill being introduced  that argues for stricter gun control laws to make things more difficult for citizens to purchase firearms or not be able to own certain weapons, accessories, and puts limits on what a citizen is able to do with that weapon. The laws seem to all be so ridiculous.
 The most recent issue concerning gun rights comes from the state of Washington and there 2 initiatives that are polar opposites. The initiative 591 would prevent the state of Washington form adopting universal background checks during gun sales. Initiative 594 would establish background checks on all gun sales in the state of Washington. It is said that that both of the measures are not likely to pass due to an alliance between democrats and republicans that declines the initiatives most of the time.
 This initiative from 591 to prevent the adopting of universal background checks I think is ridiculous. I myself do believe in the right to own firearms. But why make all this stink about purchasing firearms. The measure to push for better background checks I think would be good. If you want to purchase a firearm it should be necessary to go through all of the background checks to keep criminals from purchasing firearms and others that are not mentally stable.  Coming from the state of California i grew up in a state that is notorious for there gun laws. Did it stop me from purchasing a firearm? No. There are just more steps and more red tape but its necessary process to make sure that weapons are not being sold to the wrong people. I just had to wait a little bit longer due to these processes. There needs to be universal firearms background checks to further keep guns out of the wrong hands.

A Citizens Legislature: Blog Stage 5

A Citizens Legislature: Blog Stage 5:     If the U.S. government were to legalize the production and cultivation of hemp for industrial use we would see profound improvements to ...

Decriminalize Marijuana

The main focus of my argument is that the United States needs to decriminalize marijuana. Currently marijuana is a schedule 1 narcotic and is in the same category as much more dangerous drugs such as Heroin, Cocaine and Ecstasy. Given this status marijuana has no current medical value use. A recent study by Sanjay Gupta a  neurosurgeon and chief  medical correspondent for CNN published a essay where he apologizes for his firm stance against cannabis. His article entitled "Why I changed my mind on Weed" he goes to say that cannabis has very legitimate medical value and is sometimes the only thing that works.
Yet Federal Legislation outlaws any form of herb that comes from cannabis. No matter how much they want to keep it banned, the growing number in support for legalizing marijuana shows in Gallup's poll published October 22, 2012 showed that 58% of americans are for legalizing and 39% are opposed. With the support of the people now in favor for legalization, the steps that have been made in many of the current states are great examples of how decriminalizing marijuana would help the economy. California saved nearly $1 billion dollars from 1976 to 1985 by decriminalizing the personal possession of small amounts of marijuana. Colorado and Washington just last year made huge steps in making it legal for adults to possess marijuana if over the age of 21. These states are the proving ground of how decriminalizing at the national level will bring in millions. Saving money that would be spent to prosecute users and put them in prison. If we decriminalized marijuana American taxpayers would save more than $1 billion dollars that is used to incarcerate citizens for pot possessions. Also law enforcement resources could be redirected toward crimes that are much more serious.
Further more the  decriminalization of cannabis would give life to many other business's that can make the more that 25,000 products that are made from the cannabis. We need to not look to far into the past and see that the  Prohibition of Alcohol was a failure. With the prohibition of alcohol came increased violence and crime. The same circumstances apply to the prohibition of marijuana, the sooner we decriminalize marijuana, the sooner the we see the senseless laws thrown out, the sooner we will have the interests of the American people heard.

Helping the Tea Party Out!!!

          In the HUFFINGTON POST Mark Gongloff points out that Government Shutdown helped the Tea Party in certain ways. THe Republicans did back down after a 16 day shutdown that ended with raising the debt ceiling and averted financial default.  But this agreement will fund agencies through mid-January.  He secondly states that the harsh spending cuts are still in place and that recovery from this recession is the weakest since 1948. These cuts will affect areas like medical and science research funding and services that help the poor, sick and elderly. 

          He then argues that if the U.S. continues doing what it is doing the rating could be Stripped and force investors to not invest and cause issues with the global market. John Chambers the global head of S&P said, “If the government does discontinue debt-servicing, unless it is cured immediately, it goes into ‘selective default’,” which is the lowest S&P's 20 grades of untrustworthiness. There is only one other country is Selective default and that is Grenada. With this rating the world’s superpower is now second best.

          His final argument is that the government shutdown will continue to hurt economic growth. The Study by Macroeconomic states that the government crisis has cost the U.S. economy about 900,000 jobs and raised unemployment by 0.6 percent. With both sides seeming to never come to an agreement, I think that come the middle of January both political parties are going to be at a standstill once more. I believe the biggest problem with the the government is the political parties not being able to agree with there own. A Fox news poll was taken shortly after the shutdown had begun and made clear that The republican party clearly has issues within its own ranks. Being prior military gave me a very good experience of what it is actually like to be be furloughed and not get paid. The people at the highest political position should be figuring out how to fix our problems rather than fight. 

residential impact of poor urban farming ordinance

After reading an article, “Urban farms with slaughterhouses not suitable for single family zoning,” by the Editorial Board at the Austin American Statesman, I was left on the fence line about in that I agree with most, but not all of the authors’ side. When it comes down to the current urban farms ordinance that states urban farms can raise chickens, one would assume that if you are raising chickens, there will come a day when you are to slaughter and clean the chickens in an effort to be self sustainable. However, the lack of specification of restrictions, (or lack there of) in the current ordinance seems mindless in my opinion. 

In specifying that slaughter houses be permitted in the ordinance, so long as restrictions are specified as well would indeed be an improvement and the thought of The Planning commission standing deaf to the objections of homeowners is wrong and needs to be addressed. Is The planning commission to simply out rule any slaughtering of chickens in residential neighborhoods? Not without a strong wave of opinion from the other side. Do we as individuals not have the right to raise and grow our own food? To know where and how it was raised?

I do however agree with the Editorial Board in that “a commercial slaughterhouse goes too far.” I say , though, commercial slaughterhouse. As far as slaughtering and cleaning chickens that an individual has raised on his own farm, it’s all part of self-sustainability. But what is sustainable about a commercial “urban” slaughterhouse?

“a commercial slaughterhouse goes too far.”

Poor and Middle Class Suffer

After reading the Los Angeles Times article on the top 1% getting richer. It starts out by stating that there is at least 1 group of americans that have found a path through the harsh times. That  group would be the rich. While the poor and middle class numbers keep rising, the gap between the rich and everyone else is unbelievably large.
Even though the countries poor and middle class struggle to get by on wages that are barely enough to support there family. House Republicans are saying that it is time to cut 40 billion from federal food stamp program.

With that being said it is ridiculous that the Republican party is spending so much time trying to destroy any hope that could help the poor and needy by doing away with something that so many families that are not fortunate enough to be able to buy groceries on there own. To make things better they should have a bill that would set work requirements to those who wish to benefit from the Food Stamp Program. Our government needs to work together to employ more Americans and close the gap between the rich and poor.