Nobody Hearts Huckabee

John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. One of these three people will almost certainly be the next leader of the free world. With the recent primary results streaming in, it seems that Hillary is on the ropes. For quite a while she was considered to be the obvious choice for the democratic nominee, on every thing from her left wing policies, right down to those hideous pants suits. Barack Obama, the hopeful contender to be the next communist leader of Cuba, has been taking all of her key voting demographics. These include women, hispanics, and the middle class. he now has 1,319 delegates to Clinton's 1,250. This sudden campaign strength has been compared to the election of 1948, where favorite Thomas E. Dewey lost to underdog, Harry S. Truman. Meanwhile, on the GOP side of the campaign, is a man who is seemingly more at home at the DNC than in the NRA. This is the Republican powerhouse, John McCain. McCain is a ringer to win the Republican nomination because of his growing number of delegates, 918 to Huckabee's mere 217. This victory is assured despite those who accuse him of being more a liberal thn a conservative, his campaign skullduggery, and a New York Times article that stated he has been cozying up to lobbyists. To this timid observer, one thing is for sure in this upcoming elcetion, nomatter who wins, we all lose.

8th Grade Hate Crime

In Oxnard, California, Lawrence King, 15, was shot in a junior high school computer lab by a fellow student. Prosecutors are calling it a hate crime because a few weeks earlier, King publicly stating that he was gay. After he said this, other classmates had harassed him, including 14-year-old Brandon McInerney who shot King. The incident shocked both residents of Oxnard, a middle-class laid back community north of Malibu, and civil rights groups. David Keith, spokesman for the Oxnard Police department, said that there has never been a school shooting, let alone one relating to a hate crime.
The California Health Survey of 2005 stated that junior high students are more likely to be harassed by fellow students because of sexual orientation or gender identity then those who are in high school. This fact is also true for schools around the country. Mr. Davis, executive director of the Transgender Law Center, said that more and more junior high students are coming out or expressing different gender identities at young ages. He also said, "Unfortunately, society has not matured at the same age".
Prosecutors charged Brandon as an adult with murder as a premeditated hate crime and gun possession. If convicted, he faces a sentence of 52 years to life in prison.

Hate crimes have been a part of American society since the early colonization of the states. African Americans have also been a victim to these hate crimes. The Civil Rights Movement was a time for the African American community to try to prove to the United States as a whole that skin color does not matter. Hopefully everyone in the world can see that there is so much more worse things going on in the world than a person's skin color, sexual orientation, or how they act.

Nuclear Threat to the Navajo

A nuclear power industry is taking over lands near a Navajo reservation. Residents of the Navajo Nation are still suffer from the effects of the radiation threats from more than a thousand gaping mine sites abandoned after the cold war arms race. Do to decades of uranium mining and the negligence of the mining companies to clean up the sites, there has been evidence of increasing number of cancer and disease that are spreading. Some of the horrible effects that are caused by these mining industries are that open mines leaching contaminated rain are running into the drinking water tables, wind is blowing radioactive dust, homes are being constructed from uranium mine slabs, and children are playing in radioactive swimming holes and ground pits. However, Tribal elders finally forbade mining, alarmed at the sudden rise in cancer deaths and the House oversight committee is rightly demanding a coordinated five-year remediation plan from the agencies most involved. Many criticize the government for their insult to the injury; they have not overlooked the cleaning of the old mines, and they are already talking of building new ones. Only God knows the effects, dangerous, and deaths that could be caused to the Navajo Native American who already been through so much abuse in their past.

In the 1800’s there was an overwhelming amount of people immigrating to America. After reading “the Jungle,” a true story which follows the life of a family from Lithuania, one would be shocked at the horrors which the immigrants had to face. In Chicago at that time, the meat industries would exploit and take advantage of these people who come in search of jobs and opportunity. The book describes how shabby apartments were built on top of a trash land fill of the meat industries, and flies would infest the skies. The smell was intoxicating and the children would be seen playing and eating from the trash. In both cases, powerful industries can be seen abusing and exploiting the vulnerable disregarding there dignity and rights.

3 Trillion Dollar Budget?!

On Monday, Feb. 4, President Bush revealed the 2009 federal budget for the United States. With the budget at approximately 3.1 trillion dollars, it is at a record high. Bush states that the new budget will let America flourish economically and protect the military. Bush showed his Cabinet the budget which was on a computer, and it was transferred to Congress electronically. He also stated,"It's a budget that achieves some important objectives. One, it understands our top priority to defend our country, so we fund our military as well as fund the homeland security. Secondly, the budget keeps our economy growing."

Bush added that Congress needed to establish a $150 billion economic plan that would expiring tax cuts permanent, which in his opinion would boost money for education, housing, and health care. Bush's budget plan is not popular to the beliefs of most others in politics, but Bush assures all that if his plan is followed, by 2012 there should be a balanced budget. The majority of the new money being spent is for defense, mainly the military. Some say Bush is trying to go out with a bang.

Democrats Flood States With Ads as Tuesday Nears

Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have unleashed advertisements in nearly all the 22 states that have Democratic presidential nominating contests on Tuesday. Combined, their advertisements add up to a costly $19 million dollars. These advertisements are the most ambitious and geographically expansive television effort in a presidential primary. On the Republican side, Senator John McCain and Mitt Romney have a far more restrained advertising effort that started just this weekend and is focusing on a handful of states and national cable television. Mr. Obama, of Illinois, has run advertisements in 21 of the 22 states that will hold Democratic primaries or caucuses. Mrs. Clinton, of New York, has run advertisements in 16 of those states. His campaign has aimed advertisements on different issues at particular cities in an effort to tailor his message to the concerns of voters. The advertising strategies reflect strategic calculations by the candidates as they navigate the different Republican and Democratic delegate rules. Previous to this, no presidential campaign has come close to this amount for advertisements. The Bush campaign in 2004 had $5 million dollars in advertisements to win votes for states.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/us/politics/03ads.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin