Possible Candidates for 2016 Presidential Elections

            The elections of 2016 will be a huge year for both Democrats and Republicans in politics. They will not only be fighting for Congress seats but also will be fighting for the White House in Washington, D.C. Who might be the candidates for the both sides? Nobody is quite sure but what we do know is that there are some big names that might be making their case to become the next President of the United States of America.

The biggest name that I can give you for the Democrats that might run for the presidency is…..Hillary Clinton. She has been a huge icon around the world in diplomacy for the United States and she just stepped down from the Secretary of State position under Barack Obama. She is also married to former President, Bill Clinton, which might give her a bigger advantage against all of the other candidates in the running for the coveted spot in the White House. With her knowledge on worldwide affairs she is a strong and tough opponent for the rest of the candidates that plan to get in on the race. Even though she might not have officially gotten in the race she is a strong favorite to run for President. Sadly, I couldn’t really tell you who else would run for President out of the Democratic Party but there is definitely a lot of candidates that will be coming out of the Republican Party.           

 Even though none of these candidates are set in stone they all have hinted towards a Presidential Campaign. The biggest Republican that might be running for President of the United States is Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie. He has been a huge icon for Republicans everywhere and has gone through a lot with the state of New Jersey. When Super Storm Sandy hit the East Coast last year it devastated the state of New Jersey. But he united his state and they have been rebuilding ever since. He is a huge conservative that would like to cut the deficit in half and lower the debt (just like every other Republican)

           

Other Republican Candidate is Senator Marco Rubio from the state of Florida. He has been the face of conservatives everywhere around the country. He has tried to pass law after law helping out the Republicans and has done everything in his power to shut down the ObamaCare bill, which is very respectable to Republicans everywhere.

           

            These next couple of years is going to be tough for both sides of the aisle in D.C. But hopefully no matter who wins the election in 2016 they can lead this country to power once more and make this country the best in the world once again.

           

NSA Cutbacks

Barack Obama is thinking about cutting back the Nation Security Agency spying program. This is after the National Security Agency was accused of spying not only on other countries officials but also on American citizens. I have talked about this topic before but with the new situation that has been presented I feel like it is a good idea to talk about it again. Is this a good idea by President Barack Obama? Or could it lead to more harm than good?

The NSA was designed to help military intelligence force and to help catch any person who was a threat to national security. But there has been reports saying that they have gone as far as listening to normal peoples phone calls here in America. Yes, this might be a problem but has it ever really hurt and body? It is not like they are listening to everybody’s conversations and they are not using it against anybody. It is keeping our nation safe to say the least and I believe that any cut backs in funding for the National Security Agency could lead to high threats for homeland security.

All-in-all, the National Security Agency is in business for the safety of our own people. They are not doing it to just spy on some random phone call or read some useless emails that a business has received. They are there to make sure that this nation stays as safe as it is now and works to keep it like that. This nation might have to be on high alert and be suspicious of everybody if there is not a higher power like the NSA doing that for us.

So far the NSA has caught countless amounts of terrorists who have plotted to hurt people and destroy buildings and even towns across the nation. Without the intelligence from the NSA the Underwear bomber who planned to blow up a plane a few years back might have gotten away with his plan. Also, they helped stop the bombing that could have happened in Times Square in New York City if they would not have listened to someone’s phone call or read a particular person email. All I am saying is that they are doing this for our own good and without this agency the United States might be in big trouble. More bomb threats, more attacks on American civilians, and even mass shootings could be more frequent if the spying program is reduced or even suspended. 

Gay Rights Have Gotten Out of Hand

In the recent years, gay rights have been a huge topic in the United States. Gay marriage has been legalized in many states, including where I am writing this blog here in Iowa. I am not for or against it but more neutral than anything. I’m not for gay rights but who am I to tell someone they can’t live that way here in America? People take this way of life way out of context. People are also very touchy when someone speaks their opinion over this highly debated topic. But is it really even worth the fight in the first place?

            This great country was based on freedom of speech and freedom to do as you please to be successful or happy. Our founding fathers even said that we all should seek “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”, no matter what that may be. This can be directly associated to gay rights. If a gay couple can tolerate a man and a women being married, then everybody else should do the same. A lot of people these days take offense to the stupidest thing. A perfect example is from a college on the east coast who had to change the names of Christmas trees to Holiday trees because it offended other people. Like I said before we all have the right to believe and think the way we want and nobody has the right to tell us otherwise. We shouldn't judge other people’s beliefs as long as they are not hurting others or disturbing people.

            Now a lot of people say that they do not agree with gay marriage is because the Bible says it is not right. They believe that gay marriage is just plain wrong and that they aren’t accepted in the World of God. This might be the stupidest thing that any one person can say to another. A true Christian would believe that God loves everybody no matter what they do or how they live their life. This is what makes me doubt that we will all survive this world. When people say that to other all it is, is an excuse.

            No matter what you might believe, it is not your job to tell someone how to live their life. If gay people can deal with everyone else why can’t we all deal with their beliefs? People need to see that times are changing. These people who decide to live this lifestyle aren’t hurting anybody. They are just trying to live a normal life like you and me and we should all accept that. 

New Budget Deal

Congress might actually come to a compromise in the next week over a budget deal that would keep this country funded and going through the next fiscal year. This is after Republicans and Democrats were at a stalemate for over a month back in October. Is this just another fluke that will bring conflict next year or is this entire thing for real and might actually some progress in Congress?

It always seems like there is fighting in Washington D.C between the two parties in Congress. They normally can never come to an agreement and it leads to many problems that have led to shutdowns for the American government. They have embarrassed this nation and we have lost the trust of nations around the world. But after months of arguing and conflict it seems like they have finally come to terms on a deal.

The two sides must have agreed on terms for the highly anticipated ObamaCare health care law and have also came to terms on a budget that will hopefully cut spending over the next ten to twenty years. This is a deal that will bring this country back to its reign as best country in the world financially and economically and will bring back respect that we held before the financial crisis hit a few years ago.

Gun Laws in the U.S

There has been a lot of speculation over gun laws in the past few years. I have talked about it before in one of my first blog posts but with the school shooting that occurred in Colorado I feel like I should discuss the issue once more.  According to CNN, an 18 year old high school student entered his high school on Friday with a shotgun. He shot one student and then turned on himself, taking his own life. He was allegedly trying to confront a teacher over a disagreement and was stopped before being able to get to the teacher. This has just brought up more issues over gun control laws here in America and a lot of people believe that there needs to be better and more restrictive laws to try to control or even stop these attacks.

                People for some odd reason believe that the guns are the issue in these shooting. That is simply not the case. The gun cannot pull its own trigger. Also, our own Constitution says in the Second Amendment that every United States citizen has the right to bear arms and use them. Now our founding fathers definitely didn’t look this far in the future and they would not have predicted what would be happening these days but that law should never be changed. Maybe instead of worrying about the guns we should worry about the people. These people that are committing these crimes are mentally unstable and need to be helped. Like I said, it is not the guns fault for all of these shootings it is the person behind it.

                States around the nation are pushing for laws on harsher back-round checks for people trying to obtain a firearm license. This would never be a problem but the biggest thing about it is that if this does pass and is put into effect what are the chances that they go farther and change more things over time? The National Rifle Association (NRA) is the biggest organization against gun control. They believe that if all people can be taught to use firearms safely, there should be no problem with guns in the country. I totally agree with this. If all people are just taught to use guns in a safe manner there should never be any issues with guns. That is why we need to focus more on the mental state of people and not the guns itself because without a person pulling the trigger the gun is useless.

                This topic will never go away. There will always be people fighting for both sides of this conflict. But what people need to realize is that no gun can be used without a human being behind it and that it is never the guns fault when something horrible happens like it did in Colorado on Friday. 

The Wasting of Hard Earned Money

During the War on Terror in the Middle East the United States has spent billions of dollars to help and supply Iraq with weapons and reinforcements. You would think that all of this money that we have spent to help has gone to good use right? Wrong! According to FOX News, the United States spent almost half a billion dollars on planes to give to the Iraqi Air Forces that were never used. All of these planes are now sitting in a “junk yard” and they are not being used at all. This is a major problem that needs to be resolved so we never waste money like this again.

            This is just another thing that the American Government has wasted money on in the past decade with our tax dollars. The government wastes millions or even billions of dollars to pay for things that we don’t even get to see or use. A few examples of such waste would be Obama’s trips around the world. According to zerohedge.com, the trip for Obama to go to Africa a few months back cost the American tax payers almost 100 million dollars! Also, we have left over 7 billion dollars’ worth of military equipment in Afghanistan alone. This is outrageous, especially when the U.S is in so much debt anyway. We could use that 7.1 billion dollars toward our debt or give it back to the people in some way shape or form. The other sad thing is, is that those two situations of money waste is just the beginning. I bet the United States wasted close to 100 billion dollars a year on things we don’t even need. If we just saved that money over a ten year period or even longer it would help alleviate the pressure on our debt and help our economy.

            The solution to this problem is quite simple (for normal people at least). We either cut all of this unneeded spending or just make the governments, that we gave money to or supplies to, pay it all back. Now I know that the money for the trips are gone forever but we need to get back as much money as possible. With all of the help that we have given Iraq and Afghanistan it would be common courtesy to pay us back the money that we gave to them anyway. American soldiers fought and died for these countries and we deserve some compensation for that.

            People wonder why our economy is so bad right now. First, it’s because none of our politicians can agree on anything and the second reason is because we are spending too much money of things that we just simply do not need. We may not be able to fix the differences between the two sides of Congress but we can all agree that we need to cut back on our spending or else we will be in another depression that could be worse than the first. 

ObamaCare still Lacking

Throughout most of the last half of this calendar year ObamaCare has been the center of attention in politics.  I have written about it before and it has had some major issues that have taken a few months to figure out. But according to FOX News, the top officials who were creating the ObamaCare website knew back in August that there would be delays on the launching of the website. This is a problem because the entire nation didn’t know there was going to be delays until two weeks prior to the launch of the site and it created tons of problems in Washington and around the country.

                It would have been a hundred times better to delay the website before hand and not right before the launch of the health care website. It created havoc and if they wouldn’t have launched it at all there wouldn’t have been any more problems than there are now. One thing that could have made them launch the website was the pressure from other politicians and even the people to get the ObamaCare program up and running. But what good does it do when the website doesn’t even work in the first place? Wouldn’t the White House and the President be happier if they got it right the first time and didn’t have to delay and fix the ailing website? I would think so. But Obama’s ego got in the way again and all it did was hurt him and the entire Democratic party as a whole.

                I am not even a fan of ObamaCare in the first place. So with this delay for the website it just makes me even more disapproving of the entire idea. I cannot even imagine how angry some people are that need health insurance through this plan and can’t get it because of this. All I know is that this entire plan is costing us more than it will give back. The website is costing more than it should and more and more money is being taken out of the pockets of Americans and health care costs are just going to get higher and higher as the government pays for these types of programs.

                All-in-all this entire plan just isn’t going to work out. If our own government who should have the best website designers and tech crew in the world can’t even get up a website than how can we do anything else. The time and money that we have spent on this is too much and it is going to hurt this nation’s economy as the years go on. 

R.I.P Nelson Mandela

According to ESPN, former South African President, Nelson Mandela, died at the age of 95. The former President changed the world on his views of civil rights and has made sports the big thing that has united his country. He also changed the law on Apartheid in the nation of South Africa and became a figure head for equality of blacks and whites.

                Nelson Mandela was a young civil rights activist in the mid 1900’s and spoke against the ruling of the segregated government of Apartheid that South Africa had adopted. Upon being arrested for his outspoken nature he was sentenced to life in prison. He spent his first fifteen to twenty years without much recognition but then people rallied around his wrongful imprisonment and started supporting the anti-Apartheid movement. This received world-wide attention and pressure from the United States and other countries around the world.  And after twenty seven years Nelson Mandela was set to become a free man.

                After getting out of prison Mandela rose through the ranks of South African politics he was elected President of South Africa in 1994. Mandela was stuck with a hard task to reunite his country after all of the fighting over civil rights. But there was one thing that Nelson Mandela believed that united every person no matter who they were. That thing was sports. Nelson’s favorite sport was rugby and it was a huge sport in South Africa, so Mandela pushed to get the 1995 World Cup of Rugby to be held in his own nation. After long months of consideration the country of South Africa was set to host the World Cup. As the games progressed South Africa’s team won round after round to make it to the final and after a couple weeks of competition, the Rugby World Cup was theirs! This entire situation brought the country together. For the first time, whites were riding on buses and cars with blacks and nobody was judging over skin color and there was no fighting. This event is what finally brought the nation together and Mandela had done his job as a President.

                Even though Nelson Mandela only served one term as President of South Africa, his legacy will never be forgotten. He brought South Africa out of the depths to become one of the richest nations in all of Africa. He also brought equality to the nation after he abolished Apartheid. He is said to be one of the greatest men of all-time. It just shows that no matter where you start in life you can always finish on top and that nobody should ever give up on their dreams and aspirations no matter what the case may be.  

Fast Food Workers on Strike

Around the United States, McDonald’s fast food workers are striking over how much that they are paid. The employees are for the Federal Government to raise the minimum wage level to 15 dollars an hour. This is almost double of what they make now. Is it worth it to even give them this money or should it be rejected altogether?

 

            I believe that all of this is complete nonsense! What makes these workers think that they should get paid twice as much as they are making now? Yes, I do understand that nobody should be living in poverty for working full time and I do agree that the minimum wage should be raised slightly but definitely not by more than a couple of dollars. Granted I am a little biased because I work for a little over minimum wage but that isn’t my living. I’m in high school I really shouldn’t be getting paid any more than that in the first place. I do understand that these people need to live off this money that they making$15,000 a year, sadly, is definitely not going to get you far in the United States. Maybe if minimum wage was raised slightly from $7.25 an hour to $9.50 or $10.00 an hour they could consider it. But what the workers are asking for is way too much and most people who do make over minimum wage don’t even get close to $15.00 an hour.

 

            Democratic Congressman, Keith Ellision, supports the idea that these workers should be getting paid more, he supports the cause by saying that, “In the richest country in the world, no one working full time should be living in poverty.” This is 100% accurate. Like I said before, nobody can live comfortably while only making $15,000, it just can’t happen and it does need to be addressed by the American government.

 

            With some Senators and House Representative supporting this idea of a higher payment maybe these fast-food workers will be heard for the first time. This could maybe get into Congress and approved to make these workers happy in the long run. But in my opinion, I do not think that any of these workers have a shot of even getting close to the amount that they are looking for. They will be lucky to even be heard let alone get this passed into law. And even if it is passed somehow by Congress, food prices would go up for customers at these restaurants and jobs could even be lost because companies won’t be able to afford it if the minimum wage doubles in the near future.