Mandates, Block Grants, Categorical Grants....Oh My!

Okay so I'm sure you've heard of these words before mentioned in class all the time but do you actually know what they mean? Well just in case your like me and you "know" what they mean, let's do a little review! So what are mandates? Mandates are terms set by the national government that states must meet whether or not they accept federal grants. So what that pretty much means is that the federal government pretty much forces the state to comply with what they want done. For example, the drinking age. When the federal government wanted to raise the drinking age to 21 years old there was a state that refused. The government then said that they would not give them the money to pay for a project they needed to complete, but the state pretty much said that they didn't care, they would not raise the drinking age. then the government said they didn't care what the state thought and that they would have to raise the drinking age, whether they wanted to or not.

Now let's cover block grants. What are block grants? Welp, block grants are pretty much just a large sum of money given to a state or local government to fund a specific issue or problem with general provisions. The local/state governments set up more specific granting guidelines within their own jurisdictions, for making smaller grants to various agencies and nonprofits. The local government creates and manages a process to identify local needs and for coordinating the grantmaking process, monitoring and evaluating the outcomes.
And here is a table/picture of current block grant proposals.

TABLE 1. Current Block Grant Proposals

Child Welfare Gives states the option to receive Title IV-E Foster Care funding as flexible grant. Food Stamps Permits up to five states to receive State Food Assistance Block Grant instead of food stamps. Head Start Pilot program permits up to nine states to receive Head Start funding as flexible grant. Housing Replaces Section 8 vouchers with the Flexible Voucher Program, a block grant to public housing agencies. Job Access and Reverse Commute Replaces current project-based program for provision and development of employment transportation services for low-income workers and reverse commuters. Job Training Combines the Adult, Dislocated Worker, and Employment Services State grants to form a single block grant.

Justice Assistance Grant Consolidates the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant, Byrne Formula [Block] Grant, Byrne Discretionary Grants, and Community Oriented Policing Services Hiring Grants to form single block grant. Medicaid Gives states the option to consolidate Medicaid and SCHIP funding into state acute care and long-term care allotments. New Freedom Program Promotes access to alternative transportation methods for individuals with disabilities. Superwaiver Expands authority for states to seek waivers of statutory or regulatory requirements attached to low-income programs, subject to approval of secretary of administering department. Surface Transportation Pilot program permits up to five states to manage formula highway program funds as a block grant.

And last but not least categorical grants. Now categorical grants and block grants have alot of similarities but they also have their differences. So what are categorical grants? Categorical grants are the main source of federal aid to state and local government and can only be used for specific purposes and for helping education, or categories of state and local spending. During the development of the Interstate Highway System, congressional grants provided roughly 90% of the funding. Categorical grants may be spent only for narrowly defined purposes and 33% of categorical grants are considered to be formula grants. Examples of categorical grants include Head Start, the Food Stamp Program, and Medicaid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_grant
http://www.urban.org/index.cfm

Third Parties! :)

Many people are not aware of the third parties and what they represent. There are three main third parties. First is the Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party believe in American Heritage, being free and an idependent lifestyle. Each individual is unique and they want to create a system that reflects that. They also base alot of their believes on moral principle of self-ownership. They believe that the government's only role is to help individuals defend themselves from force and fraud. They have the slogan "Let and Live is the Libertarian way!"

The next party is called the Green Party. they are committed to ecology, social justice and non-violence. They provide real solutions for real problems. The Green Party believes that they have the courage and independence necessary to take on the powerful corporate interests opposed to reform. They have Grass Roots activists, environmentalists, advocates for social justice, and nonviolent resisters. Members of the Green Party devote attention to establishing a national Green presence in politics and policy debates while continuing growth and action at the state and local level.  

The last party is the Constitution Party. It's based on beliefs and thoughts of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights. They believe that major issues are best solved by a renewed allegiance to the original intent of these founding documents. They have seven main principles life, liberty, family, property, Constitution, States' Rights and American Sovereignty.

1. Life: For all human beings, from conception to natural death;
2. Liberty: Freedom of conscience and actions for the self-governed individual;
3. Family: One husband and one wife with their children as divinely instituted;
4. Property: Each individual's right to own and steward personal property without government burden;
5. Constitution: and Bill of Rights interpreted according to the actual intent of the Founding Fathers;
6. States' Rights: Everything not specifically delegated by the Constitution to the federal government, nor prohibited by the Constitution to the states, is reserved to the states or to the people;
7. American Sovereignty: American government committed to the protection of the borders, trade, and common defense of Americans, and not entangled in foreign alliances.

http://www.lp.org/
http://www.gp.org/index.php
http://www.constitutionparty.com/

Abortion

Abortion is an age old issue that aot of people feel strongly about. Some people feel that it is murder while others feel that it's your right and decision. Now according to the law it is your right and decision to terminate your pregnacy. In the constitution it says that you have a right to privacy. Now privacy is no where mentioned in the Constitution , but the Court argued that it could be inferred from "penumbras" cast off by various provisions of the Bill of Rights. There was a case that made the "right to privacy" famous, in the Roe v. Wade case. It made the decision if a right to privacy is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate a pregnacy. The case had the view that a woman has the first three monthes of the pregancy to abort or terminate the pregnacy. The Court was accused of trying to decide when human life began , at the moment of conception, at the moment of birth, or somewhere in between. Many critics felt that life begins at conception, and so the human fetus is a person entitled to the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. People who felt this way began to use slogans such as "right to life" and "pro-life". But the Court had the view that no one can say for certain when human life begins but what one can say is that a woman is entitled to choose whether or not to have a baby. Then people with those views came up with the slogans "right to choose" and "pro-choice". Well after many trials and struggles the Court in 2007 upheld a law that bans certain kinds of partial birth abortions. The law does not allow an abortion in which the fetus, still alive, is withdrawn until its head is outside the mother and then it is killed. But the law does not ban a late-term abortion if it is necessary to protect the life or physical health of the mother.
    


Now me personally I am completely against abortion. I feel that under no circumstances is it okay to murder your own child. Some people don't like to or want to use the word murder. But truth be told....that's exactly what it is! People want to argue over if it counts as a person or human being. But if people would stop and really listen to themselves they would realize how ridiculous that sounds. We all know that when your pregnant there's a life in your belly and it grows into a a child, teen and adult. This is no secret, everybody knows it but yet people want to act like it's not a "person." But if it's not a person or human being what is it then? I just think that it's wrong on every level. And the abortion rate has increased greatly with the rise in teens getting pregnant, many of them getting abortions to "erase" their mistakes. When really their just making another one, many "mothers" will actually tell you this. There are many people who regret their decision of abortion and have to live with the consequences and emotional scars for the rest of their life. I understand that things happen but I just do not even think abortion is an option. If you do not want your baby there is the option of adoption, which not only helps your sitiuation but fulfills someone else's dreams and wishes of having a child. So this is how I feel about abortion. I have much more I could say about this issue but I'm going to stop now because I can literally go on and on. (: 

http://www.teenbreaks.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion

Global Warming

The phrase "Going Green" has become a common term over the last couple years. People from all walks of life are becoming involved in helping the environnment. We see celeberties on television promoting recycling and even kids in school planting trees as a class project or experiments. Protecting the envioroment has become the main priority of many thanks to a little thing called Global Warming. Global Warming is an increase in the earth's atmospheric and oceanic temperatures widely predicted to occur due to an increase in the greenhouse effect resulting especially from pollution. Scientists have spent decades trying to figure out what is causing global warming. Scientists know that several greenhouse gases are responsible for global warming, but greenhouse gases arenot all bad. The atmosphere has a natural supply of greenhouse gases. They capture heat and keep the surface of the Earth warm enough for us to live on. Without the greenhouse effect, the planet would be an uninhabitable, frozen wasteland. But to much of the greenhouse effect can be bad. Industries took off in the mid-1700s, and people started emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases. Fossil fuels were burned more and more to run our cars, trucks, factories, planes and power plants, adding to the natural supply of greenhouse gases. The gases, which can stay in the atmosphere for at least fifty years and up to centuries, are building up beyond the Earth's capacity to remove them and, in effect, creating an extra-thick heat blanket around the Earth.



Now, I think global warming is a very serious issue. People really need to recycle and reuse things and just cut down on pollution. Whether it's throwing away your garbage or switching to a more efficient or "green" car. As a result from these greenhouse gases is that the globe has heated up by about one degree Fahrenheit over the past century, and it has heated up more intensely over the past two decades.
Now you may not think that one degree sounds like alot but if you consider the fact that the difference in global average temperatures between modern times and the last ice age,was only about 9 degrees Fahrenheit. You would see that one degree makes a big difference, especially since the unnatural warming will continue as long as we keep putting extra greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

http://www.edf.org/home.cfm
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/

Building a Mosque at Ground Zero???

              So you may have heard about Muslims wanting to build a Mosque at Ground Zero and all the controversy surrounding it. You may also know that Ground Zero is where the Twin Towers used to stand, which were hit in a terrorist attack on September 11. Now what you may not know is what a Mosque is. So a Mosque is a place of worship for people of Islam or Muslim faith. Which pretty much means its like a church where Muslim people go for worship. So this all may be starting to all make sense to you as to why there's some controversy on wanting to build a Mosque at Ground Zero. If you don't get it then let me break it down for you. The terrorist attack was commited by a group of Iraqians and in Iraq the dominant religion is Muslim. So when the Muslim's decided they wanted to build a Mosque at Ground Zero many people were outraged and said it shouldn't be aloud. Now the reasons as why it shouldn't be aloud may be very arguable, but there's this little thing called the Constitution and within the Constitution there's this thing called the Bill of Rights. Now within the Bill of Rights are Amendments. One of those Amendments states that people have the "Freedom of Religion." So there's not to much people can do to stop them from building a Mosque, but people always try.

                                                      

             In the picture above a guy is holding a sign that says" A Mosque at Ground Zero spits on the graves of 9/11 victims". Sad to say alot of people feel this way and I can understand why, I just don't completely agree with it. According to the Constitiution Muslims have freedom of Religion in this country, therefore they should have the right to freely express that right or build a Mosque at Ground Zero just as any other religious group would build their place of worship on Ground Zero. So if the Muslims really, really, really want to build there, they should be able to. Is there any law that stops them? No. But to me its a matter of respect and a conscience decision. It's not llike the whole Muslim culture sat down and decided to hit the the Twin Towers but rather it was decisions that were made by people of the same faith and backround. So, No. The Muslims should not be punished for what happened, but it happened and they should accpet that and respect it. With the Muslims knowing what happened on September 11th and them making the conscience decision to build a Mosque there, I think they know exactly what their doing and by doing this they are accepting all the reprecussions that come with it. What do you think? Leave a comment! :)


Sources: http://humanrights.change.org/blog/view/building_a_mosque_at_ground_zero

Is Cheerleading A Sport???

Arguments have started over whether or not universities can consider cheerleading a sport. Judge Stefan Underhill ruled that Quinnipiac University violated the law when it pulled funding from its women's volleyball team to support a competitive cheerleading squad. In his ruiling Judge Underhill wrote "I conclude as a matter of law that Quinnipiac University discriminated on the basis of sex during the 2009-10 academic years by failing to provide equal athletic participation opportunities for women." The volleyball team was very upset and actually sued the school, saying that redirecting money intended for women sports only and giving it to a cheerleading squad violated Title IX. Now, I know you're probably thinking,"this is ridiculous and what is this Title IX??" Well, Title IX is a civil rights legistlation that mandates men and women's athletic program to recieve equal funding. So the volleyball team was pretty much saying that cheerleading is not a sport so it shouldn't be included in the equal funding. The school said that modern competitive cheerleading is a sport and therefore it should count the squad members as female athletes. But the Judge went on to say.....

         "Specifically, I hold that the University's competitive cheerleading team does not qualify as a varsity sport for the purposes of Title IX and, therefore, its members may not be counted as athletic participants under the statute," Underhill wrote in his decision.
         "Competitive cheer may, sometime in the future qualify as a sport under Title IX; today, however the activity is too underdeveloped and disorganized to be treated as offering genuine varsity athletic opportunities for students,"

Okay, so I completely disagree with this ruiling, I think cheerleading should be classified as a sport. Now some people feel the same way but are afraid that it will take away from other sports funding. So I don't think the problem is the judge, or the University but rather Title IX itself. I agree with some of it but not all of it, it should be updated or revised. It says it must meet specific criteria to be considered a sport under Title IX. It must have coaches, practices, competitions during a defined season and a governing organization and it must have competition as its primary goal -- not merely the support of other athletic teams. These things are understandable but cheerleading is so much more than just "supporting other teams" but there is competition invovled. I mean have these people not seen Bring It On 1, 2 and 3!! Okay so even if they haven't seen the movies and don't want to classify cheerleading as a sport, cheerleading still deserves proper funding. I mean, what makes football or basketball more "athletic" than cheerleading anyway????

Sources:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-cheerleading-sport-quinnipiac-university-squad-title-ix/story?id=11219913
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/21/federal-court-rules-cheerleading-sport/

Is Cheerleading a Sport?