My Final Blog :(

Well Honestly i enjoyed just about every section from Keeping the Republic and Where does the money go? Not trying to be a suck up or anything but everything we went over in class was fluffed with great information that i needed to know. The way the class was ran made me not dislike anything! Erik you know how to keep people's attention which kinda made everything interesting. So i can't say i have a favorite section because every section was my Fav!So i guess that kinda answers the second question also..
Before coming to this class my political knowledge was very very slim. I use to honestly sit around and listen to people talk about political issues and i never had any input because i did not know what to say. After this class i can get politically engaged in conversation. So after this class i can say that i am now well informed about politics and government. I know there is always room for learning more things that we did not cover in class but for the most part I learned so much!
Some of my friends are like i was before i had this class. They really don't know much about politics but they are willing to learn about them. My bestfriend and I were having small talk and i bought up some issues with social security and her feed back instantly was I dont care. So i dont know im going to work on her but i do have a few friends who are clear on politics and political issues going on in today's society. So i guess my generation still has some learning to do, there's always room for improvement and i do feel like learning about politics is not pushed enough in our generation so we do need to fix that issue.
I think that if i get involved and speak up for what i believe in i can make a difference in my country. So that's exactly what i'll do!
This class was excellent! Mr. Rankin your a really really great professor...go ahead and give yourself a pat on the back because you are passionate about what you teach and you do a great job at it! I really appreciate everything you have taught me this summer.....
i remember when i was scared about this course at first because i thought Honors....OOO no im a regular but no this class was amazing and i fit in just fine......

McLean County part 2?

I had an amazing time today at the McLean county Museum. Before going to thw museum i could tell you very little about McLean county but after leaving the information filling museum i can tell you way. I learned so much about the early settlers and how they lived their lives. It is important to appreciate history of where you live because its good to know that our ancestors did a lot work to keep the town up and running. As we all know it is not required to be well informed about history in your county because it is not required of all citizens. Which is a sad thing because i feel like if we knew more about our history some people would value and appreciate the modern way of living these days. I have lived here for about ten months and i have not visited this museum previously because i did not realize how important it is to know about history of the place where you reside. Honestly, if it weren't for this class i probably would have never realized how important it is to know about the history of McLean county or even the county where i was born and raised. At the museum today i found that the Vietnam war room really caught my attention. I liked this room because of all the valuable information that i did not know about the war. For example when it started, how and why....Today was just an information filled day at the museum and i really enjoyed myself!

McLean County

Well i have attended school in McLean County for about 10 months and i don't know much about the county. I learned from my politics class that McLean county is extremly conservative but thats really all i know. I just start researching information about politics in my home town county because this class motivated me to want to learn and be involved about things going on there. So honestly I just began to research my county that I am from. So with that being said its probably because I really do not consider myself a part of this county because i consider where i grew up at home. I should know a little bit more information about McLean county seeing that i will be attending Illinois State for about three more years.But i kno that YOU Erik Rankin...just got recently elected to the county Board....but thats it...

"The Test"

On this scale I am not suprised where i fit. I am politically closer to Nelson Mandela which is pretty cool! I have a democratic family and we never really discuss politics but I do consider myself a part of the democratic party. Their are a few issues that i side with the republican party on. So IDK, i think i am that confused teenager still trying to figure out exactly where I stand as far as political parties but for right now I feel like im leaning more towards the democratic party, im not a hard core democrat but this is the party that i am apart of.
On the Republican party website i feel as if the home page is out right disrespectful. " Democrats are advancing their agenda, you are now under their scrutiny." I feel like they are being very bitter about the presidential elections. I believe that they should focus more on their party on their home page instead of bashing an entire party.
The Democratic party's website is colorful and full of useful information on the home page. It has a lot about Sotomayor on it because this candidate was a smart choice made by the Democratic party.

Supreme Court Justice

After surfing the web for hours I have found some very interesting information on Ms. Sotomayor. I researched several articles but the New York Times has a lot of valuable information for this specific blog and you can find that at http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/sonia_sotomayor/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=sonia%20sotomayor&st=Search. As we talked about in class picking Sotomayor was a very smart move for the President. This would benefit the democratic party and make the repbulican party look pretty bad if they do not clear her, seeing that the hispanic vote is up in the air for the republican party and the republicans do not need to make a mess with the hispanic vote. Ms. Sotomayor is a moderate and has a lot of unanswered decisions on a few major topics such as abortion but from what i see leans over to the liberals a little bit. She was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, to a Roman Catholic family. Her father died when she was eight years old, a year after Sotomayor was diagnosed with diabetes and her mother worked very hard to raise her and her brother. Sotomayor graduated from Princeton and Yale University and as an outstanding background for a judge. Reading this article i can tell that the author seemed somewhat pleasing to the fact the President Obama choose this woman. The article goes through her child hood, work ethic and it explains some of her court cases and talked about where she stands. President Obama called up a few of her colleagues to make sure the rumors were not true about her being hard to get a long with. Her colleagues said that she is a very strong woman and she goes by the book and she is definately not hard to get along with. Many conservatives have shown some criticism about statements that she has made about her ethinic background and sex. If the republicans are smart they wouldn't oppose her for the supreme court justice. Ms.Sotomayor's background gives this court more diversity that it needs. She has a lot of strong work background 54 years old, served as a prosecutor, corporate litigator and federal district judge before joining the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York.

A Day With Congress

Well as we talked about in class today Congress goes through so much bickering and appointments. Looking at their schedule it really confuses me. The appointments set up between the house and senate seem to over lap one another. I can tell that things can get really hectic especially when something needs to get done. Meeting overlap meetings and discussions overlap discussions. Its a big headache. It took Congress two hours to discuss Inouye amendment number 1133. I feel like that is way to much time being spent on funding for Guantanamo. A bill needs to be passed by one o'clock and I really do not see how this is done with so much other stuff on the agenda. We discussed in class how congress filibusters certain issues because they do not want them to be passed so this is the exact thing that is happening with this bill. What really upsets me is the issue with "guns in the park" which got 28 democratic votes and the article read that they wanted this to be rejected and probably knew this would be rejected in confrence, but voted only so some can say they are "pro gun". I do not see how congress looks out for the people when they are voting only for their personal reasons on the issue. They are not voting pro gun because they are actually pro gun which is very silly to me. They spend so much time bickering back and forth my question is when do they actually sit down and get things done for the people? Senate has two meetings and a business meeting going on at 9:30. How are they voting and discussing important things when everything is scattered around. I do understand that things are hectic and the job looks like it can be demanding from the schedule but I think Congress could get a little more organized. Committees and Sub committees spend a lot of time over looking and revisiting certain bills which is fine but they should spend less time doing this.

Cook County

I was born and raised in the West Suburbs of the Chicagoland area. I spent most of my life in the small town of Bellwood, Illinois. I lived in Bellwood for a total of 13 years. Bellwood has a population of about 20,000 people. Sadly I am just as uninformed about my local politics as well as national politics. While browsing through the web I found out about some of my local elected officials. You can also find this infomation at http://capwiz.com/yo-demo/officials/congress/?district=07&azip=60104&state=IL&bzip=2172
I represent the County of Cook District seven. Cook County was created on January 15, 1831 by an act of the Illinois State Legislature as the 54th county established. Browsing the web i could not find more detailed information about statistics and things going on in Cook county but I know from living in Bellwood that the crime rates and robberies have risen since the past. Living in Bellwood is almost scary now because a lot of the guys that i spent elementary and high school years with have turned into gang members and it has been so many shootings and deaths in our neighborhoods. A few years back Maywood, Illinois had reached a high so high that it was in the New York Times. They compared the killings with Brooklyn. Maywood is our sister town as well as Hillside, Westchester, and Broadview. All of these towns are in a financial crisis. Homes are being foreclosed, people are losing their jobs, and the crime rate are on the rise.

Richard Durbin is our state senator and Danny Davis is our state represenative. Representing Senate in District seven we have Karen Yarbrough for our State Represenative. I applied for a General Assembly scholarship my senior year in high school so i did know a little information about Ms. Karen Yarbrough, i visted her website at http://karenyarbrough.com/MyRecord.htm a few times looking for information on the scholarship so I did find out information about her then and i know a bit more about her now. Karen has been doing hard work since 2000 when she was selected to be a member of the Illinois
House of Representatives and State Representative for District seven. Karen has a really impressive background and just by looking up information for her I can tell that she is really interested in what she does. She emphasizes the importance of educational funding, economic development, protection and care for children and seniors, crime prevention and having a healthier state.
Richard Durbin is our state senator and by looking at his background information i can tell that he is a well experienced and respected individual. In 2006 Durbin was elected the post Assistant Majority Leader. In 2004 he was elected minority whip. Durbin is currently fighting for improving health care, gun safety, fighting for farmers, and working for fair tax code. Durbin is a leader who will continue to fight and do amazing things for Illinois.
With these officials being in our local leadership positions, hopefully things will get better in our towns and from now on I will never be in the dark about who my local officials are.
Jasmine Price