avicoh1

I just have to say (despite the irrelevant nature of this brief tangent) that I'm going to be moving to D.C. in the fall and I'll be there for the elections and the inauguration... I AM SO EXCITED.

Just had to let all that energy out. I'm practically jumping up and down. Shows what a freaking nerd I am.

1. If it's voluntary, who cares? (Sex slave trade is not included in this blog.)
2. People are going to do it anyway.
3. It would reduce the crime rate because prostitutes would be able to come forward to report crimes without being afraid of prosecution themselves.
4. It would seriously boost the economy. Imagine if we could tax prostitutes! Living in Cook County, which now has the highest sales tax in the nation, I'd really like a Prostitution Tax so I wouldn't have to pay 10% extra on my shampoo.
5. Maybe we could focus on RELEVANT political issues instead of Elliot Spitzer sleeping with a call girl. For example: Is anyone else even aware of the fact that Congress held a secret meeting on Wednesday? NO. In my humble opinion, that's a bit more important than how a politician likes to get off.

CBS apparently has 3 sources saying Spitzer will resign as early as tomorrow in order to avoid felony prosecution. He wants to be able to continue practicing law after he leaves the Governor's office.

I don't like people who cheat on their spouses/significant others. But really, if it's not my relationship, I don't care who has sex with who, unless the relationship impacts the public in some way. As far as I can tell (I might be wrong--I'm not positive), Spitzer's skeezing around with prostitutes didn't impact his performance as Governor of NY or his successful prosecution of a lot of other skeezebags. It's the same case with Bill Clinton--I don't care who he sleeps with as long as it doesn't interfere with his presidency.

But when it comes to Giuliani's affair, which led him to relocate the NYC Response Center to the WTC, and McCain's (alleged) trist with that lobbyist, I start to have a problem. Not with the sex, but with the fact that the politicians are allowing themselves to be influenced in their politics by something they very much should not be influenced by.

Again, I'm not sure if Spitzer's affair(s) leaked over into his job as governor.

But Clinton was impeached for perjury, the only crime Spitzer has been accused of (so far) is financial, and Al Capone never went to jail for murder.

Obama has now won 29 contests to Clinton's 14, 1,385 pledged delegates to Clinton's 1,231. (This excludes Michigan and Florida, and Superdelegates.) Obama's WY win was by a large percentage margin, but only a net gain of 2 delegates (at last count, he got 7 and she got 5). Yet when I open up by Google homepage, everyone from Reuters to the New York Times to the BBC lead their headlines with "Obama Defeats Clinton," or some paraphrasing of that. It seems like just being able to say "I won this state" is a huge success-- Clinton took full advantage of that after the March 4 primaries. So if either of the candidates wins the next couple primaries, even if it doesn't give them a huge delegate lead, the DNC might decide to just tell one of the candidates to drop out... Is that fair? (Rhetorical question.)

New York Times reporter Michael Luo reported this today: "An anti-war group, Campaign to Defend America, announced Wednesday it has begun a $1 million advertising offensive against Mr. McCain, ahead of the general election. The ads, starting in Ohio and Pennsylvania, paint Mr. McCain as offering a third Bush term and use the tag line, “McSame as Bush.”"

I have to say, this would help either candidate, but it would help Obama more... seeing as how he has opposed the war from the start. (Please don't come back with any of that "he wasn't in office so we don't know what he would have done" stuff--he was very vocal in his opposition, and we KNOW how Hillary acted.) Either way, it didn't take long for groups to start fighting the Republican nominee.

Now that John McCain is officially the Republican nominee (thought we've known that for a while), the Democrats are only hurting themselves. By maintaining this divisive campaign, Hillary is hurting not only herself by making herself look like a fool, Obama by slinging mud at him, but also her party. The more she beats down Obama, the more the Republicans will have on him in November. Polls have consistently shown that Americans believe Obama has a far better chance of beating McCain than Hillary, and the math is against Clinton. If the places were reversed, I do admit that I might not be saying this because I'm an Obama supporter. But I'm not writing this blog because I don't support Hillary--I'm writing it because I do support the Democratic Party. I think she's being selfish, and I think she's hurting all of us.

Everybody has probably heard about the ridiculously high incarceration rate in the U.S. So here are some interesting facts:

Between 1999 and 2005 the number of adults ages 18 to 29 in prison or jail rose from 745,200 to 843,228, an increase of 13 percent. In the last year alone, numbers rose by nearly 20,000;

Up to one-third of youth are reincarcerated within a few years after release;

In 2004, about 20% of prisoners in state prisons were there for drug-related offenses; In 2006, about 53% of prisoners in federal prisons were there for drug-related offenses;

According to the American Corrections Association, the average daily cost per state prison inmate per day in the US is $67.55. State prisons held 249,400 inmates for drug offenses in 2006. That means it cost states approximately $16,846,970 per day to imprison drug offenders, or $6,149,144,050 per year;

Department of corrections data show that about a fourth of those initially imprisoned for nonviolent crimes are sentenced for a second time for committing a violent offense;

The U.S. nonviolent prisoner population is larger than the combined populations of Wyoming and Alaska.

More than 9.25 million people are held in penal institutions throughout the world. Almost half of these are in the United States (2.19m), China (1.55m plus pretrial detainees and prisoners in 'administrative detention') or Russia (0.87m). Keep in mind that according to the US Census Bureau, the population of the US represents only 4.6% of the world's total population.

States spent $42.89 billion on Corrections in 2005 alone. To compare, states only spent $24.69 billion on public assistance.

Since the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug users, the Federal Bureau of Prisons budget has increased by 1,954%. Its budget jumped from $220 million in 1986 to more than $4.3 billion in 2001.

According to a report on prison growth by the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center, "Every dollar transferred to a "prison community" is a dollar that is not given to the home community of a prisoner, which is often among the country’s most disadvantaged urban areas. According to one account, Cook County Illinois will lose nearly $88 million in federal benefits over the next decade because residents were counted in the 2000 Census in their county of incarceration rather than their county of origin.”

In the 1980s, while the number of arrests for all crimes was rising 28 %, the number of arrests for drug offenses rose 126 %.

I got these stats from http://www.drugwarfacts.org/prison.htm

I have to say, I have never heard anyone say "I can't stand Obama." Hillary is a different story--I've heard "I hate her," "she's worse than the Republicans," "she's the devil," and "I just can't vote for her." (Note: these are not necessarily my personal views--just comments I've heard from others.) I haven't only heard these opinions from Republicans and moderates, but even from staunch Democrats who may agree with Democratic policies far more than Republican ones, but just can't stand Hillary. Some of the most liberal people I know would vote for McCain over her! Of course, there are many people who dislike Obama, but (so far) I personally have not encountered a single Democrat, liberal, or moderate who would refuse to vote for him should he become the nominee for reasons other than pure political ideology. If Hillary can't unite her own party, or even hold on to even the strongest Democratic base, how could she ever win Independents and moderates, let alone Republicans who are ready to vote outside party lines? Without that huge Independent/moderate voting bloc, no nominee can win the presidency.

Hillary seems to be getting a bit desperate here, or at least far less self-assured than Obama. He says "As Commander in Chief, I will..." or "When I am President of the United States..." and sounds much more "Yes I can and yes I will," not "Yeah, maybe I could, maybe I will." Clinton seems to be avoiding nearly all questions except for those regarding health care, and on that topic she just won't let go. Maybe I'm biased due to my support of Obama, but he seems far more presidential than she. Clinton has interrupted or talked over both Obama and the moderators several times, and repeatedly attempts to point out faults in Obama's policies and criticizes his campaign tactics. However, every time he comes back and corrects her and points out that she is, in fact, using tactics even dirtier than his. Obama seems far more polite and dignified than Clinton. I think this is going to make at least a significant difference. After someone like George W. Bush, one of the worst speakers in the history of the White House, America wants someone eloquent, someone dignified, someone who truly cares about what his or her constituents want.