Saturday, January 23, 2010

Let's Start With The Facts.

Now, assuming you live in the US...
here's what you should know:
President- Barack Obama (D)
Vice President- Joe Biden (D)
Secretary of State- Hilary Clinton (D)
Secretary of Finance- Tim Geithner (D)
Secretary of Defense- Robert Gates (R)
+A bunch of other secretaries that nobody really cares about. Just kidding. Well, not really.
Speaker of the House: Nancy Pelosi (D)
House Minority Leader: John Boehner (R) ...Who aparrently claims you must pronounce his last name "Bay-ner." Even though it is clearly pronounced "Boner." I would claim that too.
Senate Majority Leader: Harry Reid (D)
Senate Minority Leader: Mitch McConnell (R)
House of Representatives: 256 Democrats, 178 Republicans
Senate: 57 Democrats, 41 Republicans, 2 Independents (That one I'm a little unsure of because of the recent election of Republican Scott Brown in the formerly very liberal state of Massachusetts to fill the open seat left by the late Ted Kennedy.)

Major Issues include...
Health Care: The President is trying to get a health care reform bill passed with the goal of making health care more affordable and available to all Americans.
The "Recession": Depending on what you believe, it is or isn't getting better. The unemployment rate for the entire country is roughly 10%. Now... to put that in perspective, it was 5% in 2007. So yeah, that's kinda a big deal. The stock market is improving, generally. And the world hasn't ended yet. Which is all good news. Oh and catchy words like "recessionista" got invented.

Vocabulary, just because people always ask me what certain stuff means.
Liberal: Technically, "a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of certain civil liberties." In English, basically people use it to describe Democrats.
Conservative: "A person who generally likes to uphold current conditions and oppose changes." And that one is used to describe Republicans.
Bipartisan: When 2 political parties work together and cooperate on something. Awhh, that's really really rare.
Lobbyist: Someone who works on behalf of any organization or company or group of people and goes to politicians and tries to get them to vote a certain way on a certain thing according to what their group would prefer.
Red Tape: Government procedures or rules that make stuff really hard to do. Or at least do quickly.
Bill: A proposed change to any given law, or an idea for a new law. Which basically has to go through some super technical messy process to be passed.
Swing Vote: The vote in an election that is undecided and could swing the election one way or another. Usually the Independents. Since an Independent really won't be elected President. No offense. Although I think they know that.

Political Parties You Never Knew Existed:
Marijuana Party, Boston Tea Party, American Nazi Party (Which by the way, I didn't believe existed. But they have a website. One that just made me really really angry. That's horrible. I don't approve.) But sadly enough, no parties besides the Democratic Party and Republican Party truly have a large enough base to be elected. The Independents have a little more authority than others, but still. Although I can't say I'm upset our next President won't be from the American Nazi Party.

I really hope nobody dislikes me now that I disapprove of the Nazi Party. Then again, I don't particularly care if Nazis don't like me. Speaking of people disliking me, let me clear some things up. Someone commented that I sounded a little condescending. Now... I can see how what I'm saying could be taken that way. But I don't think I'm better than anyone else. I really don't. I think I'm privileged to be raised the way I am. Not many people have done homework in the back of a committee hearing while their Dad testifies. And I don't understand why everyone can't have the same passion for politics as I do. So I'm sharing. And attempting to fire people up about the issues. So that they, along with me and many others, can make a difference. Because yeah, this is a relatively unheard of blog with 2 posts. But who said it could never become more?

PS: I Google like everything. haha. Not that I didn't already know some of this.

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