Opinion

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Gun control debate continues to fade

There’s a white fence in the neighborhood of Newtown, Conn. Different from your ordinary yard staple, this one contains 26 pickets, each adorned with the name of a child or adult who didn’t make it out of Sandy Hook Elementary School. It has been nearly a year since 20-year-old Adam Lanza awoke, shot his mother in their home and went to Sandy Hook where his shooting rampage left 20 first-graders dead, as well as six teachers and workers before taking his own life. Last week a detailed report was released of the crime, outlining each event in excruciating detail but still leaving many questions forever unanswered. There is no clear motive or reasoning. Adam Lanza did not leave a suicide note explaining why he chose Sandy Hook to carry out his crime. One thing that remains undoubtedly clear is Lanza’s arsenal of weapons. Armed with an assault rifle, shotgun and pistol, he made his way into the elementary school and fired off over 150 bullets in a span of less than five minutes. That’s one bullet every two seconds. Following the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, there was an immediate outcry over gun control in this country, with debates between Democrats and Republicans, NRA members and anti-gun activists, raging at an all-time high. But with other governmental issues like the shutdown and admissions of NSA spying, the gun debate has slowly receded into the background of discussions our leaders are having.

GOP cannot stop Obama's appointments

Last week, the Senate voted to not allow the minority party to filibuster presidential nominations other than Supreme Court justices. I disagree with this move in principle, as I believe that the minority party should have rights. However, as someone who studies government and has watched as the minority party has acted in a self-serving manner in order to prevent the president from making basic appointments, it is difficult to make a pragmatic case against what the Senate Democrats did. The Republican strategy of blocking every nominee they can in order to prevent the Democratic president from getting what he wants is childish, and impedes the function of government. The minority party, regardless of which party it is, has no right to use politically opportunistic tactics to keep our democracy from functioning as it is intended. While the use of the nuclear option is justified to assure that the president can appoint people to fill vacancies in the government, it would not be justifiable if it extended to legislation.

US must maintain $5 billion commitment to The Global Fund

Much international attention has been given to the people of the Philippines who became victims of a massive typhoon just a week and a half ago. Understanding why aid is necessary and directing efforts toward outcome-oriented solutions is critical.

Use Thanksgiving to actually give thanks

Next week most Americans will likely gather with family and friends to celebrate the annual thanks-giving ritual critical to American culture and tradition: Thanksgiving. The importance of Thanksgiving is being devalued, though, because a certain commercial trend gaining prominence—the ever-famous Black Friday. It is important to retain some sacred values in our society, and Thanksgiving fills that role—it is above both religious and ethnic heritage and can be embraced by all. Thanksgiving’s value is priceless and needs to be cherished. As a society we need to pull back our obsession with Black Friday and rethink our relationship with Thanksgiving.

Mascot bill silences voices

A law that would make it more difficult for people to launch complaints against school districts with race-based mascots is currently awaiting approval in the Wisconsin state legislature. All the bill needs to become a law is Gov. Scott Walker’s approval.

Affordable Care Act solutions continue to be unresolved

As you’ve probably heard, the Affordable Care Act has had a bit of a bumpy rollout. At first, healthcare.gov, the website used to enroll new customers, was having technical difficulties. Individuals were unable to sign up for the exchange through the website. Congressional hearings were held, and the creators of the website were questioned relentlessly. In addition to the website not operating as expected, people were being kicked off their existing insurance plans. This was not exactly what the Democrats had planned, and the Republicans were letting them hear it. So who really is to blame for all of these struggles and what can be done to fix them?

Republican evolution still necessary

Squish! You might remember that sound. That was the sound of the vanquished Republican Party under the feet of Democrats in last year’s general election. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney—a formidable, moderate candidate who ran on the far right to win his party’s nomination lost to President Barack Obama, failing to win nearly all swing states. This, too, was the case in Congress. Democrats won nearly every important seat in the Senate, like that of Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri, where her opponent famously asserted women’s uteruses have magical powers to undo the pregnancies of rape. They even reigned in Indiana, a state Gov. Romney won, after Sen. Joe Donnelly’s opponent made similar comments about these pregnancies being “a gift from God.” President Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress trounced their Republican opposition despite the intense winds of the economic downturn blowing against them.

Black Friday shopping should take a backseat

I love the tradition of Black Friday. On Thursday, I eat a gigantic meal with my family. Thursday night my mom and I look through all the department store flyers for Black Friday deals to decide where we will go and when. We’re up before the sun, eating McDonalds’ breakfast on the go and have waited in countless lines for early bird or door-buster deals. But Black Thursday crosses the line.

Ford's campaign skills may save career

Toronto mayor Rob Ford is currently sitting in the hot seat on the world stage. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past month (pun intended), you know that Ford has some explaining to do. Unfortunately, he has some major substance-abuse issues ranging from alcohol to crack cocaine. Had this been a story dug up about his college or high school years, I would understand his poor decision-making. Rather, he’s accused and confirmed to have used these substances—recently identified through a video is his use of crack cocaine, not to mention his lengthy battle with alcoholism.

Immigration reform could decrease the US budget deficit

Stagnant budget negotiations indicate that no “grand bargain” will be reached to lower the federal deficit. The United States does have a long run budget problem, but that budget problem is not nearly as large as many have made it out to be.

Lincoln's effort brings us hope

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. These are words that, as Americans, we have all heard, and with the 150th anniversary of the “Gettysburg Address” being yesterday, Nov. 19, we should remember them now. These words clearly have enormous weight in the United States. But these words are more than mere words, they are the very pillars that support the American ideal.

Millennials are not socially stunted by social media usage

House should not impeach Eric Holder

Student segregated fees are an essential part of students' tuition

Despite how ridiculously expensive tuition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison gets, one thing I will not gripe about paying is the student segregated fee that all UW-Madison students pay equally regardless of residency, year or school. UW-Madison’s segregated fees are taxes that are tacked onto our semester tuition that add a little over $1,000 to our overall tuition and fees annually.

Voters must hold Congress accountable

Yes, indeed, two weeks ago, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, released the 2014 working schedule for the House of Representatives. Down nearly three weeks from last year, the House will work—drum roll please—113 days next year. No, this is not a typographical error. Your patriotic, dedicated, democratically elected members of Congress, while enjoying a cushy $174,000 salary and gold-plated healthcare benefits, will work for a total of 113 days next year.

We need to again abide by the 'Responsibility to Protect' Agenda

?Israel and Palestine at West Bank. Assad administration in Syria. What common factor can be identified in relation to international forum? A failure of collective action. To be more specific, it is a failure of the United Nations Security Council perpetrated by Veto. Disputes from both of incidents could have been condemned early with resolution and halted if a veto power was not exercised by P5 countries in the UNSC

Letter: Criminalization of marijuana an unnecessary continuation

Regarding Ryan Bullen’s Nov. 11 column, the drug war is largely a war on marijuana, by far the most popular illicit drug. The days when fear-mongering politicians can get away with deliberately confusing the drug war’s tremendous collateral damage with a comparatively harmless plant are coming to an end.

Stop sharing sensational 'news' online

Recently, a story about the Salvation Army circulated on Facebook that said the nonprofit hates the LGBTQ community. It even mentioned that the Salvation Army wants gay people to die. A member of the charity spoke on its behalf, and pictures of posters composed of hate speech coordinated with the article. I read it, I have heard about the Salvation Army’s stance about LGBTQ community in the past, I was horrified and I chose to share it. It was the most shared thing I have ever posted—multiple friends gave in-depth comments and shared it themselves.

Student income-based achievement gap could be bridged with reform

The U.S. federal government has been governing from crisis to crisis. A symptom of this outside of the large (and ever growing) negative impact on the economy is that Washington has not been able to work toward solving problems that plague this country. At the top of this list is the growing discrepancy in academic achievement between wealthy and poor students. One-point-two mill. children drop out of high school every year or one every 26 seconds. That student who drops out is eight times more likely to go to prison and is not eligible for 90 percent of the new jobs created. More than half of those dropouts come from less than 15 percent of the nation’s schools. A large number of these schools are in urban environments and are made up of largely minority populations. Standardized test score differences between wealthy and poor students rose by 40 percent from 1976 to 2001.

There should be a cap on campaign spending in elections

This past week my mother forwarded a link to an article published in The New York Times. She did not mention anything about the content of the article besides the fact that it was about the Koch Brothers funding political advertisements. I expected to read about the Koch brothers paying for advertisements in a gubernatorial election or a mayoral race in a large city. After all, these two brothers are notorious for lucratively funding conservative political action committees, and they were the second largest contributors to Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign for governor in 2010. To my surprise, this article had nothing to with the gubernatorial election in Virginia or the mayoral election in New York. Rather, this article was about city council elections in Coralville, Iowa. The article detailed how Americans for Prosperity, a political action committee largely funded by the Koch Brothers, had become involved in these races. In a town of approximately 20,000 people, the two Koch brothers, each valued at $36 billion, were trying to influence the election with their money. This was shocking to me. Typically, these elections are not highly contested and they normally go unpublicized. This changed with the Koch brothers. Outside help was being brought in to run candidate campaigns and candidates were being forced to change their platforms. One candidate had planned a campaign on smaller issues such as painting the water tower. However, after Americans for Prosperity came to town, everything changed. Central debates of the campaign were shifted toward issues that pertained to Koch Brothers’ business interests. To me, the Koch brothers’ goal was clear. As much as they tried to disguise their intentions, it was clear control was the end goal. They wished to control government and create policies favorable to their interests. Apparently, no election is too small to buy.