Politics
Women’s History Month: Why Sally Jewell as Secretary of the Interior Could be a Historic Win
Sally Jewell is a one-woman powerhouse. The REI CEO has just been approved by a bipartisan United States Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee by a vote of 19-3, according to the New York Times. Her next stop—a full review by the U.S. Senate.
“She is going to give each member of this committee her ear and her expertise that comes from having managed to pack a host of professional careers – petroleum engineer, C.E.O. and banker, to name just a few – into just one lifetime,” Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, told the committee.
Jewell’s diverse experience has made her a unique contender for the job. In comparison to her possible predecessor, former Senator Ken Salazar, Jewell has no government experience. However, just as Salazar made a historic impact by becoming one of the first Hispanics to earn a spot in the Senate, Jewell’s confirmation would make her the second woman to hold the Interior Secretary position.
An avid environmentalist these days, Jewell, 56, is not afraid to say that she started off as a petroleum engineer for Mobil Oil. Her range of experience provides her with a widened perspective. She has worked as a foreman for drill crews, an investment banker, and is now the CEO of a highly successful outdoor sports corporation. She’s a Jane of all trades—a banker, a boardroom member, and a mountain climber. She takes heed to both economic fronts and conservation efforts.
“She knows the link between conservation and good jobs,” President Obama said during Jewell’s nomination earlier this month. “She knows that there is no contradiction between being good stewards of the land and our economic progress.”
Read MoreThe Young Politica: What’s Next for Student Loans
In my last column, I wrote about how the sequester could deeply impact students of all ages—by cutting education jobs, programs like Head Start, food stamps, and limiting financial aid. Well, once again, kids trying to get an education are at risk of being undercut by the federal government.
The interest rate of new federally subsidized Stafford loans will revert to 6.8 percent from 3.4 percent. The rate subsidized loans, which go to low-income households, was supposed to rise to 6.8 percent back in June 2012, but the rate’s expiration was postponed for a year. This year’s extension lasts until June 30, 2013. If Congress does not act to change the rules or extend the loan rate expiration date, an estimated 7.4 million college students will be affected.
Note that each year the date to change the rate is extended, the federal government loses out on about $6 billion in revenue. But students don’t necessarily have to be the ones paying the price. If there would have been more oversight on the financial aid process, the federal government could have prevented a loss of $200 million in federal student aid fraud since 2009.
What’s a good solution? Rather than postponing the expiration again, the House Education and the Workforce Committee argued that Congress should reevaluate their rate-setting process for all government-issued college loans.
FoxNews.com reports that the Department of Education has also been sending out letters to inform Direct PLUS Loan borrowers that their fees are being raised as a direct result of the automatic budget cuts (or the sequester) that happened after the federal government could not come to a fiscal agreement. Fees for loans issued after March 1, 2013, will have an adjusted loan rate fee—from 4.0 percent to 4.204 percent.
Students are taking more and more hits, but at least they’re putting up a fight.
Read MoreWomen's History Month: New Hampshire's Barrier Breaking Political Leaders
Today’s U.S. Congress is made up of less than 20% of female members—18% to be exact—a far cry from the parity we strive toward. Any conversation about Women’s History Month must include the rather dismal representation of women in American politics across the board.
The Congressional delegation from New Hampshire are the exception to that 20% barrier. Last November, two women won Congressional seats, joining the two women who already held New Hampshire’s two Senate seats. To top it all off, the state’s governor, speaker of the State House, and chief justice of the State Supreme Court are all women as well.
These women have made history by making New Hampshire the first state with an all-female Congressional delegation.
The senators include Jeanne Shaheen (D) and Kelly Ayotte (R). The new Representatives are Carol Shea-Porter (D) and Ann McLand Kuster (D). Let’s not forget about Gov. Maggie Hassan (D), the only female Democratic governor in 2013, state speaker Terie Norelli (D) and State Chief Justice Linda Stewart Dalianis.
While this should be celebrated as a historic win for women and women’s rights, the beliefs of these women are diverse, to say the least. On one hand, there’s Carol Shea-Porter, who stands with EMILY’s List and the National Women’s Political Caucus, among other feminist organizations. And then there’s Kelly Ayotte,
Read MoreThe Young Politica: Students Should Brace for the Sequester
Once again, we’ve waited until the last minute to try and fix our fiscal problems. This time, it’s the sequester that will go into effect on March 1st unless Congress acts. 
If the sequester goes into effect, about one trillion dollars of federal spending will get cut—half of the cuts going towards defense ($42.7 billion). These cuts may cause furloughs in defense sectors (military, airport security) and other cuts may leave many teachers out of jobs.
About $3 billion of sequester cuts will go towards education. According to the National Education Association the sequester will result in:
- Services cut or eliminated for millions of students.
- Funding for children living in poverty, special education, and Head Start slashed by billions.
- Ballooning class sizes.
- Elimination of after-school programs.
- Decimation of programs for our most vulnerable—homeless students, English language learners, and high-poverty, struggling schools.
- Slashing of financial aid for college students.
- Loss of tens of thousands of education jobs—at early childhood, elementary, secondary, and postsecondary levels.
However, the education cuts can be made smarter in a smarter way.
Read MoreThe Young Politica: Scoring Obama’s New College Scorecard
During last Tuesday’s State of the Union address, President Barack Obama revealed the new College Scorecard, which aims to help prospective college students determine which schools would be right for them based on several variables (cost, distance, etc.).
A yet-to-be-seen component of the site is each college’s return on investment (ROI). This will highlight colleges that have the most ‘bang for your educational buck’.
Bill Destler for the Huffington Post, argued that forcing all schools through the same ROI filter may hinder some schools’ ability to compete. Destler does not think all schools are equal. He cites the Rochester Institute of Technology, which has a 10% deaf or hard-of-hearing population.
“…deaf graduates from RIT are employed at a much higher rate than the deaf population as a whole, they still have a more difficult time finding employment and they don’t earn as much on average as their hearing counterparts.”
Should RIT be judged on the same level as every other school when it has this special interest in mind?
The scorecard makes makes macroeconomic sense when the idea is to show students the most affordable colleges. After all, that’s why th
Read MoreMy 5 Fave parts of Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address
The yoga class I took just before last night’s State of the Union (SOTU) address wiped me out. I fell asleep immediately afterward. Which is good because I had a chance to think overnight about the parts that resonated most with me.
I’ve been tough on the president in the past, disappointed with his timidity and unwillingness to set a big bold agenda.
The other good thing about writing the day after is that others have fact checked. And the de rigeur liberal critique as well as Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) really awful other-party rebuttal have been duly hashed and rehashed.
With the benefit of reflection, here are my three favorite parts of the speech.
Read MoreMy 5 Fave Parts of Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address
The yoga class I took just before last night’s State of the Union (SOTU) address wiped me out. I fell asleep immediately afterward. Which is good because I had a chance to think overnight about the parts that resonated most with me.
I’ve been tough on the president in the past, disappointed with his timidity and unwillingness to set a big bold agenda.
The other good thing about writing the day after is that others have fact checked. And the de rigeur liberal critique as well as Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) really awful other-party rebuttal have been duly hashed and rehashed.
With the benefit of reflection, here are my three favorite parts of the speech.
Read MoreThe Young Politica: Harness the Power of Our New Generation’s Tools
During times of political strife—heck, even in times of political triumph—the university has been a place of radical discourse that explores and encourages academic examination of political norms. It’s supposed to be a safe haven for dialogues that aren’t so popular in mainstream USA. For example, the recent controversy over a pro-Palestine forum at Brooklyn College.
We’ve always been the liberal crowd, but in recent years, it seems like there’s been a wane of liberal activism within the university. It wasn’t until the Occupy movement that students were reinvigorated with a passion similar to the student strikes against the war in Vietnam. But unlike the anti-war protests, those protesting with Occupy saw few fruits for their labor in terms of government recognition and reform.
For the past few decades, college students have trended more conservative than their 1960’s and 1970’s counterparts. Thus, more and more American students are calling themselves middle-of-the-road. A recent UCLA study claims that college students’ central political views are shifting left. That means that more students who consider themselves ‘middle of the road’ are leaning towards liberal legislation.
This shift from center may lead to a paradigm shift within what all Americans see as ‘middle-of-the-road’. We saw a victory for the left in the 2012 election because of the youth vote. It isn’t far cry off to say that our views will become the new normal in just a couple of decades.
As we begin to infiltrate political ranks and take on powerful leadership roles, our middle will easily become everyone else’s middle. Consider this: our generation of Americans is comprised of more minorities than generations past. Thus, our voting patterns tend to reflect what will benefit minorities the most.
Is it really any surprise that our middle-of-the-road is shifting left, though? Our generation sees their dreams as one student loan away. They are betting on their futures and the government is betting on them, too. Increasingly, our generation is betting on the future in other ways as well. Investing interest in climate change has gained more momentum than ever in the student community.
Read MoreShe's Doing It: Thank You Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton’s star turn as Secretary of State exemplifies an important leadership lesson.
Sometimes, you win when you lose. And by putting yourself forward toward a big goal, even if you don’t reach it, you usually accomplish much more than if you had aimed toward a lower goal and achieved it instead. And what a legacy!
Ambassador Swanee Hunt wrote this marvelous analysis. But Clinton summed it up well herself, in this memo sent by the White House shortly after the baton was passed to now former Senator John Kerry.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesperson
For Immediate Release
January 31, 2013
2013/0102
STATEMENT BY SECRETARY CLINTON
Presidential Memorandum on Promoting Gender Equality and
Empowering Women and Girls Globally
Read MoreThe Young Politica: The Growing Debate On Unpaid Internships
Internships are awesome. They look great on a resume and they help you hone your craft with real-world experience. As a journalism student, I’ve heard the same advice many times: “Do as many internships as you can.” So I have done internships, both paid and unpaid, for the sake of gaining some experience while I’m still in school.
Within my school and other universities across the nation, it seems like full-time, unpaid internships are a common practice. For many, these unpaid internships are taken at the cost of relocating away from school (e.g. taking a summer internship in NYC) and/or paying for extra school credit. See, that’s a loophole, folks. As long as it is labeled as ‘educational’, an employer does not have to pay its intern. In reality, paying interns is not about thriving, really; it’s about surviving. Many times, a student is not even reimbursed for housing, food, or transportation.
But there’s a group going against the current, telling students to resist unpaid work. #PayGenY, an initiative sponsored by She Negotiates Consulting and Training, argues that most unpaid internships are illegal.
“We have a very simple lesson: influence for-profit employers, university and professional schools to pay interns,” Victoria Pynchon, co-founder of She Negotiates, said.
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