Blog Post - "New Sec of State??"

1. The Senate Foreign Committee has 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats. 
2. Since Republicans control the Senate, they get to decide committee assignments. Naturally, they will thus ensure that Republicans are the majority in every committee, but since there is only a narrow majority of Republicans then there is not going to be a huge majority in any committee. 
3. All 10 Democrats have said they will not vote for Pompeo, and Republican Rand Paul has said the same. Unless one of them changes their mind, that means Pompeo will not get support from a majority of the committee.
4. The GOP can still bring his confirmation vote up to the full Senate floor regardless of the committee's decision, and it will do so. He will probably squeak through the Senate because two Democrats have said they will support him, making him Secretary of State.
5. Both of the Democrats are from states that Trump won easily, so they want to appease their voters. 
6. He is a West Point and Harvard Law School graduate, he is an Army veteran, and he was a three-term member of Congress who won important spots on the House Intelligence Committee and the Select Committee on Benghazi. He was also the CIA Director. 
7. He distorted intelligence about Russia during his tenure as CIA Director, and he seems to just be a Trump crony. He has also received support comparable to Tillerson, who many see as one of our worst secretaries of state ever. 

Blog Post 3.5 - "It's Lammy!"

1. Alexander co-sponsored a bill with Democratic Senator Patty Murray to stabilize the Affordable Care Act's insurance marketplaces. The Trump administration worked clandestinely to undermine the law, and Democratic leaders said that anti-abortion demands were untenable. Finding middle ground became like "wandering in a lot of gunfire is what it is." 
2. To Gregg, Alexander is a governing person, a person who likes compromise, in a time of nihilistic, populist extremism. 
3. He wanted to focus more on his policymaking role. He felt he was just heading a "parade that's already formed," and not really taking positions on policy. 
4. Alexander walked across the state of Tennessee and interact with people in their own communities. Outside of his campaign, the current administration was involved in an ethics scandal.
5. His aides think Obamacare is terrible, horrible, and basically evil. 
6. Rather than publicly criticizing the president, he would get some of his colleagues and have a personal and private intervention. 

Blog Post 4.4 - "Protests & Town Halls"

1. One in five Americans have protested in the streets or participated in a political rally since the start of 2016. 
2. Women's rights drew the most protesters. 
3. Republicans see recent protests as more violent and divisive than protests of the 1960's even though they have been peaceful. In general, protests are seen as more violent and activists as more extreme. 
4. 83% of those who have protested say they will vote, whereas only 62% of those who have not protested say they will vote in the midterms. 
5. Town halls are intended to be events where representatives can speak directly to their constituents, and constituents to their representatives. Town Hall for Our Lives is specifically for gun control legislation and intends to organize a town hall for all 435 representatives. 
6. Town halls have historically been the staging grounds for political pressure on other topics like the Affordable Care Act in both 2009 and 2017. This may indicate a transformation in the way people think about gun control as an issue to actually go and vote for. 
7. In 2017, town halls were used to put pressure on lawmakers to not repeal Obamacare, making the Affordable Care Act more popular and leading to its survival. 

Blog Post 4.3 - "This Week in Civil Rights"

1. A new question will ask which members of a household are US citizens. 
2. Asking about citizenship will provide more information about the people in the United States, and more information is good. This question had been in every census except the 2010 census. 
3. People believe that the Trump administration will not use that data for good reasons but is instead part of a movement to bring America back to before the civil rights era. The question might also scare people away from answering the census. 
4. The count would be decreased if they don't answer, which means their congressional apportionment and federal funding would be smaller.
5. Federal law prevents the Census Bureau from sharing information. 
6. The administration is right that the question used to be part of the census, because it was part of the long-form census until very recently. However, its critics are also correct because it was not part of the short-form census, so the majority of respondents did not answer that question since the 1950's. Basically, it's been on one form of the census every time except 2010, but it has not been on the mandatory census since 1950.
7.  The DOJ says it needs to know where eligible voters, specifically eligible minority voters, live to better enforce the Voting Rights Act. Therefore, they need to know who is a citizen. 
8. In 2016 and 2017, the Census Bureau could not conduct field tests because Congress did not properly fund them. 
9. Democrats are worried that many Latinos will be worried that their data will be shared and therefore won't respond to the census, further marginalizing that population and decreasing Democratic seats in Congress. 
10. There is an initial mailed census survey, and then census takers visit individual houses that did not respond to the initial survey up to six times. If that didn't work, then they would get information from neighbors, or they would assume that the household looks like the nearest available neighbor.
11. African-Americans, and particularly African-American men, are typically undercounted, as are Latinos. 
12. Usually, census questions go through a pretesting process, but the 2020 census is already past that stage, meaning the question probably missed that entire process.