Russia

What? People outside of the U.S. have a say in our democracy? Yes. Yes they do. Not legally, they don't, but when it comes to allowing besties Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to share dinner in the White House, there are no laws. It's a well known fact by now that there was involvement of Russian Hackers in the Presidential Election, but the issues resulting from this go well beyond just a minor private infringement. Maybe Donald Trump wasn't supposed to be president. Maybe it was supposed to be Hillary. Maybe. Not likely, but maybe. But this issue goes well beyond just the fact that the results of the election may have been "rigged". This is a matter of the security of our democracy. The message that was sent by the Russians when they hacked the results was that voting doesn't matter. My changing the results of one of the most important polls in history and the determining factor of the success of the human race, the Russians disrupted our democracy. Our government is based on the idea that the people of the country are able to decide their own future. When there is a foreign source interfering with that structure, it becomes useless because now, it is not the people of the country that are deciding how they want their future to go but it is rather the upper class of another country. This is only one problem though. By helping Donald Trump win the election (regardless of whether he helped a lot or not), Vladimir Putin did something of which Trump has to repay him for. So now, in the future, when Russia wants to hurt the U.S. and take advantage of us, all he has to do is bring up the time when he helped our president win the election. Putin has Trump "under his belt". Now, is Obama wrong for expelling Russian diplomats that may have taken part in the hacks? No, he is merely defending the democracy. Is Putin wrong for not "retaliating"? No, he needs to deal with the consequences. The issue is when you look deeper: Putin is trying to keep his interactions with the U.S. after the election until Trump is president to a minimum, because everything will be easier then. Still, the worst part is that Trump is falling for it, calling him "very smart" and accepting his motions.

The U.S. democracy is not something to mess with and once again, despite the huge mess that we have gotten ourselves into, I'm sure that we will be able to recover form it. 

It's been a couple of months and it's practically a new country

I never though I would say this... Trump is our president. He is. Donald Trump. President Donald. I'm speechless. This win-what does it mean for our future? What does it mean for the entire democratic style of our government as a whole? It is doubtful that the values this country prides itself on as are really going to exist anymore. Just look at it: Donald Trump in office. Making a record as quite possibly the most divisive presidential candidate in the history of elections. Now, I've heard reactions from "In your face, we're gonna make America great again!" to "Let's move to Canada". Both, however, are inappropriate for the situation. While the first one only demonstrates the stand-offish and egotistical personality of the Trump Supporters, the second one only gives in to the fearful environment that the Trump Supporters are trying to create. There is no doubt that this election has brought out the worst in people, but it is not longer just the election. The mentality of "I'm superior to all different than me" encouraged by Donald Trump is not going to stop; it's only going to get worse until the end of his four year term. Already, the portion of the country that supports the president-elect has began to repress the opinions of all others, marking them off as "stupid", "unreasonable", "too opinion-based", or "influenced by biased media". Despite the fact that there is no way to get "non opinionated" facts other than to sift through the words of a variety of media sources, 46% of the country believes this. Still, moving out of the country due to fear only encourages Trump's message. The only real way to repair the state of the country is to stay and fight for our diminishing values and to not stop.  Even though this election has told us otherwise, each and every one of our votes matter. In addition, especially after election night, we need to have more faith in each other. It's not that a majority of the country believes in Trump's xenophobic ideas, but it is rather that those who do are spread across the states (which is rendering the electoral college system useless). This election was only a hurdle in the long history in the United States, but it can easily be crossed if the country can unite over dealing with our new president rather than splitting on whether he is right or wrong.

Lies, Lies, Lies, and more Lies

Donald Trump is a liar. A really, really big liar. I don't think we can actually count his lies at this point. Just recently, there was the nonexistent NFL letter, then the Iran trade video he recently just admitted was false. When does this guy end? I'd love to sit here and list all of his lies, but somebody already did that. Instead, I'd like to talk about why these are important. This may be self explanatory, but for certain people it is not. His lies push him into situations in which he has to lie more. He is literally lying his way through his campaign. He doesn't know any facts, he makes them up. Most of what he says are lies to push himself into the presidency. Since he has announced his presidency, I have never seen a day in which he has not lied. Now, do you really think such a liar should be president? How much of the junk that has come out of his mouth do you think is actually going to be in effect once he becomes president. Do you think he's actually going to be able to make Mexico pay for a wall? Does he really think he can make Mexico pay for a wall? It's a fact now: "I’m not going to pay for that f***ing wall! He should pay for it. He’s got the money," Fox (The Mexican President) said. Let's be honest-we all know he's lying but none of us know that more than he does. 


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/02/25/former_mexican_president_vicente_fox_to_trump_im_not_paying_for_that_fing_wall.html

A Genuinely Bad Person

Donald Trump is a genuinely bad person. While I'm fairly sure that he is going to lose, the slight possibility of his presidency makes me scared. Recently, he kicked a baby out of his rally for crying. This is really quite disappointing. Someone who is running for President of the United States, one of the biggest positions on planet earth, does not have enough decency or control to tolerate a crying baby? I simply don't think that's right. A person who is trusting himself with the futures of millions of people should at least have a temperament calm enough and an ego small enough to handle a crying baby. Now, originally I did not think Donald Trump was a "bad person". I thought he was simply stupid. But clearly, he is a bad person. By simple human nature, baby cries are difficult to ignore. However, it socially and physiologically also causes us, as humans, to protect and care for the child, not kick it out without help. That aside, Trump is also a racist and sexist bigot. In case anybody needs explanation for those words related to Donald Trump, they are hyperlinked to articles. His large ego (that one's only a small sample) blinds him to the point where he uses his success as a businessman (not necessarily bad) as a qualification to take arguably the most important political office in the entire world. Does he really need more advertisement for this? What isn't his fault, however, is his success in the elections so far. No, that is his supporters' fault. So, if you are a Trump supporter reading this blog, I strongly recommend you read this blog so far from the first post up until the most recent one. Hopefully that will change your mind. If not (I never said I sugarcoat), I am extremely disappointed and hope that at some point you will realize that Trump is NOT the right choice for president. If you agree with me, or disagree, please leave a comment below and let me know what you think. 

*Note: This blog post was written at 2:45am so I apologize for the shortness and cruddy writing of this blog post. 

10 Mistakes Donald Trump Made in the Last 8 Days

1. His "lack" of a relationship with Putin.
2. Insulting a gold-star family at a very personal and cultural level.
3. Lying about a "Letter he received" from the NFL asking to reschedule the debates.
4. Picking several fights with Fire Marshalls.
5. STILL not releasing his taxes.
6. His website states that his campaign is "self-funding", then asks for money.
7. Mike Pence demoted "name-calling" as Trump calls Hillary Clinton "Crooked Hillary"
8. He threatened not to pay a hotel because the air conditioning was inadequate.
9. Telling a reporter who was trying to ask a single question to "Be quiet"
10. His untruthful acceptance speech, which was promised to be true.








Sources:
Donald Trump's bad 72 hours
Donald Trump gets a Full Flop for whether he's had a relationship to ...
Is Trump Planning to Skip the Presidential Debates?
Donald Trump's Website Still Claims He's Self-Funding His Campaign
What we know about Donald Trump and his taxes so far
Donald Trump's Running Mate Mike Pence Decries 'Name Calling ...
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/26/politics/donald-trump-hotel-air-conditioning-roanoke/

The DNC and Khizr Khan

The DNC just finished up on Thursday, and a lot happened. Before I start, though, I just want to say that this event was much more civilized than the Republican Convention. of course there were the protests at the start of the convention, but minor protests should occur. That was the original point of the conventions. Even though there was some chaos at the very start of the convention, though, it went very smoothly. By the end, the media had completely forgotten about that first morning. Obama's speech put Hillary Clinton on a pedestal above all, as did Biden's, Chelsea's,  Bill's, and all of the other speeches. One speech that stood out, and with every reason, was one made by an ordinary Golden Star father and mother. Khizr Khan's speech blasted a metaphorical bomb in front of Trump. I personally admire this speech, as he said what needed to be said against Trump better than any of the other politicians. And now that he has gotten his chance from the media, Khizr Khan is not going to stop anytime soon. His words have even frightened Donald Trump and put him into defense mode. But now, as always, Trump's spontaneous remarks have made him look even worse in the eyes of the public, and he is now in even more trouble. He criticized Ghazala Khan's silence by saying "His wife uh, if you look at his wife, she was standing there, she had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say." At this point, Trump is in no place whatsoever to mention women's rights. Trump is also defending against all of the "sacrifices" he has made in life. His hypocrisy is, as always, getting him more bad attention from the media. Still though, he has supporters. And I mainly created this blog to put the real facts in front of those people. So, usual routine this time? Partially. Citizen makes remark against Trump, Trump feebly defends himself, he makes a hypocritical move, media notes that, Trump gets too much more attention, and it all blows over. I don't think its all going to blow over this time, though. The family is putting in a lot of work to make sure that Donald Trump will not become president. As a Muslim gold star family, they have every right and reason to be worried about Trump. They are proving that not all worshippers of Islam are evil and that every race, religion, and country has both good and bad people. Trump is ignoring the fact that there is certainly a part of the population that is afraid of him (I know I am). He does not realize that there are other people are not supporting him and he is making no attempt to acknowledge their reasoning for doing so. At least Hillary Clinton stated that she "has work to do" in building the trust of the citizens. And at least she is even the slightest bit reasonable. 



Sources: 

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/07/31/khizr-khans-speech-ghazala-khans-comments-and-donald-trumps-replies/

http://www.cnn.com

The RNC (Trump Edition)

       I don't know quite what I saw happen over the last week. This was really a mess. I've never seen a less effective campaign attempt, and there is no surprise that it came from the republican side. In case you haven't picked up, I am a COMPLETE democrat. And not surprisingly, I hate Donald Trump. A while ago, my friend, John, stated, after reading my first blog post, that Donald Trump was definitely going to be the next president, and that the entire Democratic Party was completely divided. While I feel like this occurs during any election within any party, this especially happened in the Republican Party. This week. On Monday there was the Melania-Obama plagiarism thing. Which made everyone mad. On Tuesday there was Chris Christie, the *official* nomination, and "LOCK HER UP!!!". On Wednesday there was Ted Cruz and the weight of the entire convention came down to Ivanka and Donald last night. Cruz, though, represented a very central issue of this division. Not all republicans want to vote for Donald Trump: a lot hate him. I've met more people who say "I am a republican but I can't bring myself to vote for a man as horrible as Donald Trump" than people who are voting for him. Earlier, I was just mocking Trump's hour-long speech with my republican friend. This is why our founding fathers warned us so strongly against parties. They are being used to divide the American people rather than unite them. Still though, everything is a mess. Now a lady is being kicked out of the crowd for simply expressing her opinion and a man nearly kicked off of the stage because of his views. Isn't this absolutely defeating the purpose of the constitution, and the country? Of course, I fully support advancing the constitution with the times but there are some things that no amount of development should be able to take away from us. This is why I hate Trump. Sure he's a sketchy businessman, a jerk who hates minorities, and in no way qualified to be president. But he is also trying to run for a position in which he will literally be able to destroy the world. And he knows that he isn't qualified. So why is he running? Money. Attention. Admiration.




Sources: 
http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/07/20/republican-national-convention-recap-in-90-seconds.cnn

Donald Trump vs. Bernie Clinton

It's been almost two months since my last blog post. Posts will definitely become more frequent now that finals are over and I'm on summer break. That aside, there has definitely been a great amount of political news over the past few weeks. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the presumptive nominees for their parties and the competition is mostly between them. What gets me, though, is that Bernie Sanders is still in the race, which is unreasonable at this time considering that it is now 100% impossible for Sanders to win the nomination. He needs 919 more delegates, if Clinton gains absolutely no delegates from now forward. In total, there are 84 delegates left. Of course there are also super delegates but even those will not propel Sanders far enough forward as to clinch the democratic nomination. So it's definitely time for Sanders to drop out of the election, while he is consistently insisting that he "is in until the end." However, Sanders' reasoning is quickly becoming clear. He recently agreed to a "truce" with Hillary Clinton. Sanders isn't in it for the presidency now, he is in it for the defeat of Donald Trump. Trump reached the needed delegate total before Clinton, and he was able to focus all of his energy to fighting just her for quite a long period of time. However, Clinton still had Sanders to worry about. But more recently, Sanders has made his speeches about how horrible Trump is more than anything else. This means that Trump now not only has to battle Clinton on the political battlefield, but also defend against the consistent feed of attacks from the entire democratic party (specifically both of the democratic candidates). Another theory that has been brought up was that Sanders is attempting to stay in the race in the case that Clinton has any negative findings (from the FBI... or anything else). This is also very possible. I'm hoping that Sanders will be dropping out of the election soon, because he is simply wasting money by staying in it. However, it is also important for him to stay in, as being a presidential candidate is the easiest and most effective way to get widespread media coverage (which is definitely not a concern for Trump).


*Note: All delegate counts were at the time of writing.


Sources:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/democratic_delegate_count.html

https://news.vice.com/article/bernie-sanders-and-hillary-clinton-talk-truce-after-she-wins-final-primary

One vote won't count... right?

It's only one vote... I'm not going to really make THAT much of a difference... right? WRONG. One vote can be a lot. In some cases, as is with Bernie Sanders, every vote matters, because every vote could give him another delegate. But even when the race isn't so close, a vote will always matter. In the United States, 83% of people are registered to vote, but only about 53% actually do so. And the turnout rates can be as low as 15% during the primaries. Now, while one voter will make a very slight impact on this number, they will still make an impact. And then there's the concept of mass-population ideas. If you are contemplating not voting, you are probably thinking that you don't have to dedicate all of your time towards such a small difference. However, there are 47% of people that think like that. And if that 47% of people actually voted, it is very likely that another candidate would be elected. This is ridiculous! The time and energy is worth it, because slowly, one by one, everyone will end up getting together and it might ACTUALLY make a difference. Now, voting is a privilege and a duty, not another thing that someone HAS to do. There are many countries, well over fifty, in which citizens are not allowed to vote. Women were fighting for this right into the 1900s. This is a right that so many fight for. And at the same time, so many people are taking this for granted. The right to vote should be appreciated and utilized, because so many people don't have it. The fact that so many people overlook this duty as citizens is absurd; a low voter turnout should not be a problem. Almost everybody has a political belief, and the best way to make the belief a reality is to vote it in. As Michael Jackson once said: “If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself then make a change.”

What's your opinion on voting? Let me know by clicking on the blue "comments" link and leaving a comment below!

Sources: 

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/06/u-s-voter-turnout-trails-most-developed-countries/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/21/democracy-index-2013-economist-intelligence-unit_n_2909619.html

Presidents and Such

With all the debate happening nowadays, it seems like such a hard thing to know what is going on with the presidential election. Well, we all should know-we are after all the people that are going to be affected by all this mess. It's just so hard to keep up. Well, let me just throw my ideas out there.

First of all, I am fairly sure that Hillary Clinton is going to be our next president. Donald Trump, as unfiltered, outspoken, and lacking of political knowledge as he is, will somehow manage to win the Republican primaries, as he already has a sizable lead over Ted Cruz. Hillary Clinton will beat Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries as she has a very large lead over Bernie at the moment. Bernie would have to win almost all of the states by a fairly good margin for him to be able to beat Hillary Clinton at this point. So, in the general election, it will be Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. I am sure that Hillary will win, as many of the people I have met have enough reason to dislike Trump. Remember, Both of the Democratic candidates will gain 95%+ of the Democratic vote, but Trump, as of right now, only has about 60% of the Republican vote. Many Republicans are only voting for Ted Cruz because they really, strongly do not want Donald Trump in office. This decision basis will lead to many of those 40% of Republicans going over to the Democratic side. Let’s say about 10%, just to be generous. Now Hillary Clinton already has half of ten, which is five, in addition to her 47.5% Democratic votes. She now has 52.5% of the vote, which is over 50%, and leads to Donald Trump having less than the majority at 47.5% now. On a similar basis, even if Bernie Sanders wins, the same thing is going to happen. Now, if Ted Cruz wins, it will be a tighter race, but Hillary or Bernie can still win because a lot of Trump supporters are strongly against Cruz and Kasich, and the Democrats will get those voters. So, the Democrats win either way. Sorry, Republicans.

So, what’s your opinion? Who do YOU think will win, and why? Leave an answer down below in the comments.

Now: Here are some fun facts.

-Are you a Democrat or a Republican? Well, there’s a good chance it’s neither because a Gallup poll shows that 42% of voters consider themselves independent.

-75% of Americans think that Donald trump receives too much media coverage.

-He has gotten $2 Billion of free media coverage just by being himself.

-The voter turnout in 2012 was only 53.6%


*UPDATE: Bernie Sanders is now only about 400 delegates behind from Hillary Clinton, so his victory is quite possible. 

Sources:

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/06/u-s-voter-turnout-trails-most-developed-countries/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/11/independents-outnumber-democrats-and-republicans-but-theyre-not-very-independent/

http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/31/media/trump-media-pew-survey/

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-number-of-undecided-voters-in-the-us-wont-stop-shrinking-2015-6