In her blog "Let Freedom Ring.. or Type," Stacy has an interesting standpoint on the issue of birth control.. While I'm not a fan of "ObamaCare," I do like the fact that birth control is available on a no-cost basis to people covered by it. This alone should eliminate most reasons for unwanted pregnancy or abortions. I'm not very up to speed on which types are available, but hopefully women have choices on what kind they are able to take as I know certain types affect people differently.

As far as the SCOTUS ruling on Hobby Lobby, I agree with the court especially since Hobby Lobby did not refuse to cover all types but only the ones that directly clash with their religious beliefs. This, in my eyes, does not constitute employers imposing religion on employees. They are still allowing employees that have different beliefs than their own to use birth control as long as it isn't the "abortion pill."

I 100% agree with you that if a person does not like it, they don't have to use it. As long as the issue is not rammed down people's throats, I don't see a reason to complain about it.

Live and Let Live

Although my beliefs line up more towards the right side of the political spectrum, I consider myself more of an independent. I like my rights to my guns un-infringed, my taxes low, and my liberty secured. I also think that abortion is a woman’s choice, stem cell research has tremendous value, and that marijuana should be legalized and taxed. I don’t get caught up with associating myself with a single party because that leads to narrow-minded thinking. I tend to take a straight forward, common sense approach to issues that come up. One of these issues, and the big one hitting SCOTUS, is the one about gay marriage and whether the states have the right to annul gay marriages based on their constitution. 

In America, heterosexual couples that are married count as married in every other state. Homosexual couples should be no different. There is no reason to disband a couple’s marriage because they want to relocate to a state with laws against gay marriage. Doing so would put gay couples in a second-class citizen status which is immoral not mention unconstitutional. 

The Constitution protects the right of citizens to marry and the question being brought to SCOTUS is whether or not gays are included in that right.

“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

It sounds pretty straight-forward to me.

As an aside, I think it’s a little ridiculous why so many people are opposed to gay marriage. The main reasons for which are: “It’s against MY religion” or “You’ll go to hell!” or “Eww that’s icky.” Absolutely ridiculous. These same people are the ones who talk about keeping big government out of people’s lives, yet they want a nationwide ban on marriage between two consenting adults. Pushing their religious beliefs on someone else’s life and expecting the government to back them up is asinine. 

I say live and let live. There’s no logical reason to ban gay marriage and the states have no right to revoke people’s marriages. I predict a victory for the gay community in this case.

 

People need to start grinding and stop complaining.

Raising the minimum wage for the sake of raising the minimum wage is just another way of perpetuating the ‘something for nothing’ notion that has taken grip on our society. The fact of the matter is, minimum wage pay is given for minimum wage skills. I’ve worked in many fields, food service, retail, sales, labor, and government and I can say from firsthand experience that the lower the requirements of the job, the lower your pay. This is why we go to school -- to raise our skill set to get a higher paying job. Imagine this scenario, you go into debt funding your four year education so you can get an entry level position at your dream job paying $15.00/hr. You go to lunch and the guy flipping burgers or manning the fry station makes the same amount with no student loans. Does that seem fair?  I started working my first job when minimum wage was $5.15/hr. I worked hard and in turn was given a raise. This happened several times until I was well above the minimum. There’s no reason I should have been making over $10.00/hr for the job I was doing. I worked hard, but the skills required were minimal and rightly so was the pay.

The issue itself lies in the fact that people do not want to work for their money. Most would rather have things handed to them. If the issue was really about not getting paid enough, the people would find a better paying job or get a second one. Before you say “but Rob, there’s no jobs out there” I’m going to have to call BS. The person could always join the military. Starting salary for a brand new E-1 Private straight out of basic training is $1,546.80 a month. More if they’re married, and more still if they have kids. Most don’t do this though, because they would rather not have to work hard to get paid. "What if I don't want to join the military? There's no jobs locally!" Once again, BS. Within one month of moving to Austin, I found a job paying over minimum wage and I still get calls from employers trying to hire me. 

My colleague mentions that raising the minimum wage will urge people such as drug dealers to get jobs. I disagree. If a drug dealer is making more than minimum wage working their own hours, not having to pay taxes, and getting welfare checks in the mail then why would they work? The money is too good to actually want to make something of themselves. There’s no incentive to do anything else.

"Some say we shouldn't raise minimum wage because it wouldn't help the lowest wage earners because they often are incompetent of doing anything better for themselves than low paying jobs anyway."

I feel quite the opposite way, actually. I fully believe that anyone can overcome their position by themselves with hard work and perseverance given the right motivation. I did it, and I'm certainly nobody special.

Welfare Nation

Welfare in this country needs a major overhaul.

Take a look at these statistics:

• Total amount of money you can make monthly and still receive Welfare....$1000
• Total Number of U.S. States where Welfare pays more than an $8 per hour job....39
• Number of U.S. States where Welfare pays more than a $12 per hour job....6
• Number of U.S. States where Welfare pays more than the average salary of a U.S. Teacher....8
• 26.9% of welfare recipients are on welfare for 2-5 years. 19.6% are on for over 5 years.
• The top 10 hourly wage equivalent states have a range of $11.11 to $17.50 an hour. For doing nothing.
• Total government spending on welfare annually (not including food stamps or unemployment)....$131.9 billion.

That's $131,900,000,000


As someone who has worked since 15, this is appalling. There NEEDS to be changes. One of which is mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients. There needs to be mandatory drug tests similar to what Maine Gov. Paul LePage is pushing. Piss hot? No check. Drug use is 50% more common in households that depend on welfare. It's a sick cycle of cashing a check and spending it on drugs and we tax payers are footing the bill.

There needs to be stricter policies regarding work. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) requires recipients to be working within two years of receiving benefits. People need to take personal responsibility for their well-being and the well-being of their families.

Now, I do understand the need for welfare. Some people legitimately need assistance and they should get it. There are a select few, however, that take advantage of the situation and that needs to be addressed soon.

Hillary Deletes Emails

In a post on The National Review, Andrew C. McCarthy writes about Hillary Clinton's deletion of "personal" emails from her time as secretary of state. McCarthy thinks Clinton should be punished for deleting "files without completing an inventory and enabling State Department record retention officers to review her claim of privacy." According to 18 U.S.C. § 1001, it is a crime to falsify or withhold information from the federal government when such information is within its jurisdiction. Clinton did not allow the State Department to go through the documents before deleting them, instead she had a team of her own lawyers query the emails based on search terms that may have not been all inclusive. (More on that here.) Even though she turned in for review 55,000 pages of emails, they could easily have been altered with little to no evidence because the original electronic files have been deleted. McCarthy goes on to state that Clinton's willful disregard to the aforementioned rules implies that she is in fact guilty of a federal crime.

McCarthy should know what he is talking about since he is a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and had to go through the same sensitive information protocol that Clinton is going through now.


I agree with McCarthy on this issue. Had a normal (i.e. not politically tied to POTUS) citizen done the same thing, the DOJ would be all over it. I was bound by similar rules while in the Army. I've seen many people get hemmed up for unauthorized transmissions via government communication systems. The punishments were swift and brutal. The rules concerning government communication should be the same for everyone using the system, even Clinton. That being said, I really don't think anything will come from this. It will get swept under the rug and people will move on the next big controversy.

Supersized America

Tom Toles of the Washington Post posted an editorial called Oversize Question. In this article, Toles argues that America's childhood obesity problem has an underlying issue and that it needs to be found. Not only that, he refers to a graph that shows how childhood obesity has been on the rise in multiple countries.

The graph linked to in the article shows the BMI increases over time in different countries. BMI is a measurement of weight relative to height. It doesn't consider variables such as muscle mass or water weight which can lead to a skewed measurement.

I wholeheartedly agree that obesity is on the rise. In America for sure, however for other countries I can only rely on data. Just today, I saw a McDonald's commercial where happy meals now come with a Cutie instead of fries. Good on them for catching on, but it doesn't change the fact that the kids are eating processed crap with a piece of fruit. The change needs to be made, however with our country's reliance on quick and easy, it's an uphill battle.

What makes the green grass grow?

Yesterday (12 Feb, 2015), CNN.com posted an article that outlines our President's request of congress to formally authorize military force against ISIS. It summarizes Obama's hopes to get formal authorization from congress to approve a "systemic and sustained campaign of airstrikes," along with humanitarian aid and training for indigenous personnel. However, he makes it clear that, once again, ground troops will not be deployed, saying they're "not necessary for us to defeat ISIL."

The request limits the time that the President (Obama and the next) has the authority to wage a conflict against ISIS to three years and with no sustained ground operations.

As to be expected the Democrats and Republicans have differing views. Republicans want less restrictions placed on the President, while Democrats think the proposal is fine as it is.

In my opinion, airstrikes will only get us so far in the "war on ISIS." As someone who has trained foreign ground forces, I can say that it's one of those things that sounds good on paper, but isn't so feasible in reality. Also, until we have robots fighting for us, "ground troops" will always be required to win a war.

I encourage you to read the article and form your own opinions on the issue.

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