That is the question that many Americans are asking after a recent acknowledgement that Guantanamo Bay prisoners may have the option of receiving H1N1 vaccinations, beginning early this month.

Earlier this week Army Maj. James Crabtree stated that GITMO prisoners could have the option of receiving inoculations against the swine flu. His reasoning rests on the fact that H1N1 spreads more rapidly among those living in close quarters, and because GITMO detainees reside in such circumstances, they are at risk individuals. There is also the argument that inmates must receive vaccinations in order to protect the welfare of guards patrolling the detention center.

However, would it not be more effective and widely accepted to instead simply vaccinate the guards on duty rather than extending treatments to 200 detainees? While these inmate doses are not mandatory, the idea that H1N1 prevention mechanisms are available for suspected terrorists, shocked many flu frenzied individuals.

Coinciding with civilian concerns was the announcement that GITMO detainees will not, in fact, receive vaccinations against H1N1. According to an article in Reuters, published this morning, the White House denied, on Tuesday that “any H1N1 flu vaccine is now going to terrorism suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.” Finally the response Americans were hoping for, right? Wrong! Subsequent to that statement was a rebuttal from Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman who stated that “detainees at Guantanamo would receive the vaccine only after active duty troops, deployed U.S. contractors and civilians and civilians working for the Department of Defense.” This sudden revocation of the idea that vaccines would be given to GITMO detainees bears some level of suspicion. I think that many would agree that past and current White House administrations have a knack for promising one thing and doing another.

Concerns from American citizens following this announcement still remain are not unwarranted. Federal officials initially estimated a production of 40 million doses by the end of October. Never the less, they have since rescinded their approximation to 26 million doses. Health officials have combated such facts with claims that there are adequate vaccination reserves. Officials now report an estimated 30 million doses of H1N1 vaccines that have been delivered to the U.S. Yet, health officials also warn that children under the age of nine need 2 doses of the vaccine to ensure adequate protection. Assuming that children receive the majority of vaccinations, this means that really only 15 million Americans can receive the vaccine.

While it has been reported that vaccine production and distribution is steadily increasing, it is difficult to completely side with health officials who assert such a claim when you look at communities that simply do not have enough available H1N1 vaccinations. According to a recent report by ABC anchor Veronique Masterson, numerous hospitals in the border city of El Paso, Texas, find it difficult to secure enough inoculations for health care workers. While the concern lies in the best interest of the hospital employees themselves, there is also concern about the effect on visiting patients. Without protecting health officials who interact with patients who may have weak immune systems or other deficits, we are, in effect putting others at risk.

Our federal government needs to reevaluate its priority lists with regard to who receives H1N1 vaccinations. Cynicism can be a form of prudence, and in the case regarding whether or not GITMO detainees may receive H1N1 vaccinations, I think it is fair to assume that such individuals will, in fact, be recipients of the vaccine. If protecting suspected terrorists supercedes the importance of preserving innocent American civilians, the U.S. government needs to adjust their focus and take a course in proper risk assessment.

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Kathleen Someah previously attended Kenyon College where she studied English and Political Science.  She is currently an intern with a political think tank where she focuses primarily on issues relating to homeland security

In Virginia, it looks as if Republican Bob McDonnell is all but assured an easy victory against his Democratic opponent, Creigh Deeds. A recent Rasmussen report indicates McDonnell has a 13-point lead. This is significant, in a state that went blue in 2006 and 2008, when its Democratic Governor Tim Kaine declared that the “Old Virginny is dead.” Well, the “Old Virginny” (whatever that means) is on its way back from the land of the dead. Or so it seems.

When the Old Dominion voted for Barack Obama in 2008, it was the first time the state went for a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson. In other words, it was a big deal. However, it’s an even bigger deal now that only one year later, the state has apparently had a change of heart. One could call it the ultimate slap in the face for Barack Obama. The state that borders Washington, DC apparently doesn’t like what it’s been seeing from across the Potomac.

New Jersey is another story. The governor’s seat is being battled over by Republican and former federal prosecutor Chris Christie and former U.S. Senator, former Goldman Sachs chairman, and incumbent Governor John Corzine. Corzine should really be a shoo-in for the dark, dark blue state. But again, the fact that the race is neck and neck speaks volumes about the Democrat’s agenda in Congress and the White House.

The race also reflects the shift in American’s attitudes concerning personal finances and taxes. Tax cuts have been the prevalent theme in Christie’s campaign and it appears most New Jerseyans are in favor of that. As well they should be, considering that New Jersey citizens are the highest taxed citizens in the country.

And unfortunately for him, Corzine did nothing to fix that. Nor has President Obama’s push for healthcare reform helped Corzine in any way. When taxes are clearly the main issue, revealing a reform bill that many say will raise taxes on the middle class was largely a strategic misdirection on the part of Democrats who would actually like to see Corzine reelected.

The New York Congressional race in the 23^rd District also has political junkies salivating over poll numbers, party identifications and predictions. Like Virginia and New Jersey, this race has the potential to send a big message to Washington D.C. Yet this race is marked by one stark contrast. The two major runners are Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman and Democrat Bill Owens. Republican Dede Scozzafava was rejected by voters early on, and has already dropped out of the race.

Like New Jersey, this race is in a dead heat, with polls showing Hoffman and Owens with a narrow lead, depending on which one you look at. The remarkable thing about this election though, is that it is becoming the ultimate testing ground for conservative ideals. In recent weeks, notable Republicans from former presidential candidate Fred Thompson, to U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), to vice presidential nominee and former Governor Sarah Palin, endorsed Hoffman over Scozzafava. Why? Because Hoffman truly represents conservative values like limited government, low taxes and individual liberty.

In every way, this race from upstate New York will help redefine the national GOP; a party that has strayed from conservative values for far too long. But that could all be changing now. In 2008, when John McCain (a moderate Republican, at best) won the party’s nomination, advocates argued all conservatives should support him because well, he was the Republican candidate.

But now, having an “R” next to your name is no longer the single qualifier for support from conservatives, as Ms. Scozzafava found out. What matters is principles, ideas and values; not party identification. The mindset of “I’m a conservative first, Republican second,” is making a comeback with the American public, as it should.

Whether it’s New York, Virginia, or New Jersey, each race this year could have a major impact on the 2010 elections. As more and more Democrats in Congress worry about their seats, they are going to be less willing to agree to work with President Obama on certain things like, say, healthcare.

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Amanda Carey is the Editor of The Tiger Town Observer at Clemson University.  She has previously worked for Robert Novak and has been published in Reason Magazine and The American Spectator.

Examining a president’s relationship with the media has long been a study of interest for presidential scholars and political scientists. But no assessment of president-press relations is complete without a look back at the vindictive Richard Nixon. Elected on the heels of enormous public unrest (the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were still fresh in the public’s mind as was the on-going Vietnam War, after all) Nixon’s ascendance to the presidency marked one of the greatest and unexpected political success stories in history.

But Nixon’s presidency was marred by a twisted White House logic that viewed any dissenting opinions, whether they were on the editorial page or the primetime news, as attempts to undermine his message and agenda for the American people. In every instance, Nixon approached the press with a battle-like mentality in an attempt to ensure he was treated “fairly,” at all costs.

Yet it wasn’t just this suspicion and dislike of certain media outlets that characterized the Nixon White House as much as it was the systemized effort to strike back. Nixon, along with aides H.R. Haldeman and John Erlichman and others within the upper echelons of the administration organized efforts to retaliate against news outlets, including public denunciations, lawsuits against CBS, NBC and ABC, wiretapping reporters’ phones, an enemies list and other covert activities.

Fast forward to 2009 and what you have is a new administration, but the same Nixon tactics. Yet this time, the animosity is being directed only at the unfair and unbalanced network that is Fox “News.”

“The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party,” espoused White House Communications Director Anita Dunn recently on CNN. “When he [the president] goes on Fox he understands he is not going on it as a news network at this point. He is going on it to debate the opposition. [Fox is] widely viewed as a part of the Republican Party […] let’s not pretend they’re a news organization like CNN is.”

Senior Advisor David Axelrod also went on the offensive, explaining that Fox is “not really a news station.” “It’s not a news organization so much as it has a perspective,” added Rahm Emmanuel. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs even joined in by specifically targeting Fox’s Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, saying they represented the networks’ unfair coverage. And according to U.S. News and World Report, a “senior Obama adviser” said, “Our hope is simply that responsible journalists will not go chasing after Fox stories as if these stories were legitimate.”

If this doesn’t reek of an organized, Nixonian push to discredit a privately-owned news network simply for presenting different views, what does? There is no evidence yet that proves Axelrod and Emmanuel are another Haldeman and Erlichman team; but though the Obama administration’s tactics aren’t as extensive, the same mindset that plagued the White House in the early 1970s is afflicting the White House again.

The only difference today is that the rest of the mainstream media isn’t rising up in outrage against the Obama administration. The White House pool, to their credit, did stand up against the administration when it tried to exclude Fox from interviewing Kenneth Feinberg, but that’s been the extent of their action on behalf of their fellow network. During Nixon’s day everyone from Time Magazine to the Washington Post to the New York Times was writing negative editorials about the president because of his attacks against the media.

But just like what happened with Nixon, President Obama will soon find out that any strategy that involves attacking media networks isn’t going to produce positive results. Obama is going directly against his promise for bipartisanship and reaching across the aisle. Instead, it seems as though his new era of politics is one intent on shutting down the opposition. That’s not what the American people voted for.

A recent Gallup poll showed Obama’s approval ratings at 53 percent. This is especially telling considering the decline in his popularity since July is the steepest of any president at the same stage of the first term in over 50 years. An organized, systematic attack on a news network won’t help those numbers. If Nixon were still alive, he would attest to that fact.

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Amanda Carey is the Editor of The Tiger Town Observer at Clemson University.  She has previously worked for Robert Novak and has been published in Reason Magazine and The American Spectator.

During Obama’s campaign for the White House, he stressed the importance of a transparent government. Today it appears that he has retracted such a commitment. As the debate on health care reform progresses we are seeing the renunciation of more and more assurances. The most recent is Obama’s pledge to conduct the health care debate in an environment that is open to the public. One may argue that there is a multitude of open dispute on the issue. Yet, as the Senate vote on the bill draws near, three Democratic lawmakers continue their discussions behind the veil of closed doors.

Senators Reid, Dodd, and Baucus have spent the past week, not in the view of American citizens, but rather in a room with two other senators, deciding the future of Americans. This is not an issue of who is deciding the future of our nation’s health care policy, but rather how politicians are proceeding in the debate. Secretly adjusting the bills to wed opposing arguments is not a democratic form of the legislative process.

As of yet there are no plans to televise the roundtable dialogue on CSPAN, as President Obama once pledged. And while chairmen will continue to regularly brief lawmakers about their arguments, there remains no actual public disclosure of what is concretely said inside the chamber.

The health care bill is a form of legislation that directly affects citizens of our nation. It is not a proposal which has indirect impacts on Americans, but rather, is a measure which has the potential to greatly impact our generation and generations to come. Obama did not have to guarantee constituents complete access to the health care debate. He was not coerced to run his campaign on the pledge of full transparency. However, he did, and for a President who prides himself on fighting for the people of the United States, it only seems justified that he should follow through with his promise.

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Kathleen Someah previously attended Kenyon College where she studied English and Political Science.  She is currently an intern with a political think tank where she focuses primarily on issues relating to homeland security.

On September 17, the House passed legislation to overhaul the college loan system. The bill, introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and supported by Obama, ends government subsidies to banks and other private lending companies for college loans. The Democrats who pushed for the bill’s passage, say it will free up $80 billion; half of which, will go toward increasing the amount of money in the Pell Grant program.

Other provisions of the bill include roughly $10 billion toward improvements for community colleges and a myriad of other spending initiatives for preschool, elementary, and high schools. Sounds like noble enough goals, right?

Actually, as noble and honorable as this bill sounds, calling it such would be a great misnomer. Throwing money at a problem has been the go-to-solution for presidents in recent years, but there is little to show for it.

President George W. Bush had his College Cost Reduction and Access Act that increased Pell Grants and cut student loan interest rates. Before that, President Clinton had his own initiatives, calling for a $1,500 tax credit for students who committed to going to community college for two years and maintaining a “B” average.

The fact is Washington has been trying to spend its way out of mediocrity in education for years. Yet the results don’t add up. The Department of Education estimates that the U.S. spent $667 billion on K-12 schools during the 2008-09 academic year alone. That’s up from $553 billion the previous year. And that number is only getting higher, especially with the $100 billion from the stimulus bill that was allotted for education.

Yet despite this massive amount of funding, reading scores on nationalized tests in elementary schools have stayed relatively the same since 1970. Furthermore, the New York Times recently reported that only about half of teenagers that enroll in college end up with a bachelor’s degree. Among advanced countries, only Italy has a worse graduation rate.

However, that same New York Times article went on to praise President Obama’s education bill, saying that taking the practice of student loan lending out of private companies and transferring it to the government is a good thing. Why? Because it would ensure that more people have access to higher education, since the government wouldn’t be so stringent with their rules and requirements in order to qualify for a loan.

The graduation rate in America may be dismal, but the way to increase it is not by throwing more money at young adults, enticing them to enter college. Increasing demand for any product only increases prices for everyone. That lesson is taught in any basic economics course. But maybe Obama was sick that day.

Probably the most disturbing aspect of this bill is that its sole purpose is to increase access to college by making it more affordable, by increasing student loans. Yet this approach was tried once before with the housing industry, when the government decided that it was a basic, American right to own a house.

We saw what happened next. For a while, the housing industry boomed and thrived, but then that bubble burst, resulting in banks closing and thousands, if not millions of people swimming in debt.

When it comes to education, the result will be the same. Increasing access to college will not raise graduation rates. If anything, it will just increase drop-out rates. And when everything is said and done, there won’t be more people with college degrees; just more young people saddled with enormous amounts of debt. As if the burden of paying for social security and a possible universal health care system weren’t enough.

President Obama and the other proponents of this new bill need to realize that education is not a right. It is not the job of the federal government to ensure that everyone make it through college. Nor should any individual be forced to finance another’s college education through taxes. Whether it’s elementary, high school, or preschool, flooding the education system with money is not a panacea for low graduation rates and poor test scores. The sooner those concepts are grasped, the better. Or else we may be on the road to a collapse of the education bubble. 

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Amanda Carey is the Editor of The Tiger Town Observer at Clemson University.  She has previously worked for Robert Novak and has been published in Reason Magazine and The American Spectator.

Politicians over the past eight months left “the people” rolling in the dust while scrambling to pass stimulus bills, climate acts, and universal healthcare despite popular opposition. But politicians sacrificed personal liberty and Constitutional integrity at the door of expansive power long before President Obama’s reign. Indeed, “the people” have become a long since forgotten constituency, and the Tea Parties’ populist streak reminds both the left and the right not of William Jennings Bryan but the Constitution itself.

During an economic recession where the needs of the working class are the most pronounced, Republicans focused rhetorical efforts on cushioning corporate taxes and the insurance industry and Democrats tastelessly mock citizens at town halls. Liberals wander far from personal liberty and dub the Constitution a “living document.”

While conservatives experienced a comeback to Constitutional principles in recent months, the past eight years render the Republican Party as deviant as the Democrats. Neither party convincingly recalls the people they supposedly represent.

In the 2008 election cycle, Sarah Palin spoke to the people in a way Americans could resonate with; she spoke about jobs, spoke about values, and spoke about personal liberties. In true populist fashion, Palin promised relief for the lower classes. Yet rather than calling for government intervention in farming like 1890’s populists, Palin envisioned a break from federal meddling in individual lives like 1780’s founders.

Just like the infamous People’s Party of the nineteenth century, Palin represented a faction of America that repels modern elites. And just like the failed People’s Party, Palin never received the desired national mandate to represent the needs of a distressed group.

But in history lies our hope.

The populists gained political success after their party’s dissolution because the two major parties eventually realized the necessity of populist claims. The Tea Party movement does not claim partisanship or party status, but it is clearly a political platform that cannot be silenced until a major party recognizes its appeal to American principles and halts the tyranny of expansive government.

Tea Party passion is young and contagious, and instead of letting it quietly inspire and then quietly expire, conservatives must facilitate its pandemic spread. The Republican Party should gather the movement’s sentiments under the platform of prudent restraints on government power. The spirit of democracy in these demonstrations is empowering, rambunctiously awakening the Republican Party into a state of action rather than concession. Republican politicians should rile up their constituents, adopt an undignified attitude of excitement, and ride the wave of Constitutionalism into Congress.

Pinstriped suits and slicked-down hair are all well and good on progressive elites, and while conservatives may not benefit from adopting Representative Joe Wilson’s lack of decorum exemplified by his notorious heckling during Obama’s healthcare speech on Wednesday, spirited democracy built off the Tea Parties’ enthusiasm is back in style.

Remarkably, Republicans are shaking it up on the political scene, adopting a populist tone in the healthcare debate, recalling the importance of bills that are read before they are passed, speaking at Tea Parties, and embracing the “blessings of liberty” that they temporarily forgot. Congressional Democrats decry the recent rumbling of the republic as backwards and ignorant, but condescending attitudes toward a democratically motivated people can only endanger Democrats’ chances of reelection.

Moderates balk at masses of people waving “Obama is a socialist” signs, and some Republicans are less than thrilled about the media’s belittling coverage of the Tea Party movement. But how is worrying about the Republican image with a media obsessively declaring the demise of the Right going to help us? As Barry Goldwater reminded those skeptical of democratic protests, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Faced with an authoritarian administration adamantly fixing harnesses around the economy and civil society, conservatives obtain virtue by acknowledging and then legitimizing America’s desire for liberty.

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Rachel Wagley is an undergraduate at Harvard University where she serves on the Executive Board of the Harvard Republican Club.

But though the summer has been winding down, the debate around healthcare reform has not. That much was evident by the fact that protests at town hall meetings on said subject persisted throughout the August recess. That’s right. Despite (or maybe because of?) being derided, disparaged, and disdained, Americans turned out in overwhelming numbers to protest the Obama so-called “plan” for healthcare.

So what does this say about the current political climate? Are we finally- as Nancy Pelosi would have you think- uncovering the fascist Nazi underground in America? Or is the total lack of support and enthusiasm for government-run healthcare a product of racism in America?

If that connection doesn’t make sense to you, that’s because well, it doesn’t. Yet some on the left believe that opposition to Obama’s vision of universal healthcare stems from a deep-rooted inclination toward racism, a fascist fringe, and lies spread by radicals on the right.

Race simply doesn’t resonate with Americans like it did 50 years ago, despite what countless politicians, journalists, and other various pseudo-intellectuals say. We do after all, have our first African-American president, and Hispanic Supreme Court Judge. Making an immediate jump to racism when faced with criticism over public policy doesn’t make the left sound intellectual, just ignorant.

And ignorant is exactly how Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) sounded when of the town hall protests, he said, “It is a fascist tactic. That’s exactly what they did in Weimar, Germany.” It’s interesting that Nadler would bring up the city of Weimar- the birthplace of the German constitution that made it so easy for Hitler to come to power in the 1930s. Shortly after Hitler’s ascendance, he all but physically destroyed the constitution, and launched a campaign to silence all opposition.

That is fascism. Middle-class Americans protesting, or even disrupting town halls is not; disorderly, sure. But fascist? Even when you do include the fringe elements of the protests, it is not even close to the lengths Hitler went to stifle the other side. But, is silencing those in favor of nationalized health care even the goal of these protestors?

The Americans protesting are there to simply get their voices heard. And after a drawn-out war, unpopular president, and the trillions spent on bailout programs, it’s no wonder these protestors feel they must take drastic measures to get their representative’s attention.

But the reaction by the Democrats in Congress who in theory, are supposed to answer to their constituents, has been troubling. Instead of listening to the concerns and engaging in honest debate, the left resorted to attacking the messengers rather than the message.

But more than anything, the national debate about health care reveals a fundamental distrust of the government that was present even last November. If Americans had really wanted an ideological shift to the left, they would not have voted for Barack Obama, who during the campaign supported tax cuts, the war in Afghanistan, off-shore drilling, ending earmarks, and a string of other moderate stances.

A recent McClatchy headline asked, “Why is America So Angry?” The answer is because Americans wanted a president and Congress who would restore the country back to the not so distant past, when the limited government was somewhat expected from Washington. But instead, they got a president who continued the runaway spending, took control of General Motors, proposed a massive tax increase disguised as environmental policy (cap & trade) and wants to nationalize health care.

But pushing something as radical as the public option so soon has done little but reveal the dark, ugly side of American politics: aggressive (but understandable) outrage on one side and name-calling and intolerance on the other.

Meanwhile, President Obama is responding to this unprecedented outpouring of vocal outrage and dissent with the only tool in his arsenal he seems to have mastered: a speech to Congress loaded with more rhetoric. But words alone will do little to placate the unrest at home, especially when the record shows his actions don’t correspond with his speeches. The president has awakened a sleeping giant in the conservative movement. The sooner he realizes that, the better.

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Amanda Carey is currently a student at Clemson University where she is editor of the newspaper The Tiger Town Observer.  She has been published in Reason, The American Spectator and previously worked for Robert Novak.