Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Sidestepping ObamaCare

A Wendy's franchise in Nebraska has slashed their workers hours so that they are not required to pay health benefits as stated in the ObamaCare plan to their employees. The new hours that they are cutting down to for a full time employee is only 28 hours a week. The excuse given by Gary Burdette, Vice President, is that the Wendy's franchise simply does not have enough money to provide health benefits for everyone involved. Under ObamaCare, health benefits have to be given to those working 32-38 hours a week, so Wendy's is only just skimming the hours off to avoid ObamaCare completely.
This reminded me completely of when we learned about Walmart in class and how badly they treat their employees with their hours and healthcare as well. The fact that big companies like that can get away with this is disgusting, there needs to be more outlash!

Biden taking charge

As seen in recent news, the White House is thinking about new ways to enforce gun control and new laws. Biden has been speaking out largely about this, being very determined along the way. He has said that executive powers could be used to curb gun control, working without congress in order to get this under control as fast as possible.
Biden will directly hear from the other side of the gun control debate on Thursday, tomorrow, with the nations leading gun lobby.
The administration though says that mental health and the entertainment industry will be under scrutiny as well. Our vice president does have a meeting scheduled with representatives from these very industries that glamorize violence.
What do you think is the biggest problem in controlling violence nowadays? Gun control laws, mental health, violence being glamorized or something completely else?

Friday, December 14, 2012

Elementary School Shooting

This is a very hard topic to write about, the shooting in Connecticut that just recently happened. Reading this article about what happened made my stomach churn and made my eyes water. First, before we delve into everything behind it, I just want to clarify the facts.
The shooter is dead, although nobody knows who killed him. There is no factual evidence yet that there was a second shooter and nobody knows if the shooter shot himself. This took place at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newton. Police officers believe that the shooter might be a father of one of the students attending the school, thought a motive of his is not yet known. This man had two guns and he frightened and took many lives.
There are many loose ends in this case and many facts missing. Not a lot is known about the shooter. But what is very known is the fear of the students. The teachers tried to keep them calm, they are only kindergartners and showed fear at the big bangs. One of the teachers took her students into a bathroom and locked it, trying to keep the students calm. This teacher might have saved their lives and the fact that she could keep calm is amazing. At least 26 people were killed in this shooting, 18 of which were children. The school shut down all the schools in the district to ensure future safety of more children.
Who in their right minds would ever take the life of a young child? Those children had so much more life to live, they had amazing places to go. These children are innocent and probably don't even know much about guns or shooting, yet a gun took their lives. A sick disturbed man took their lives.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Walmart: Good or Bad?

In survey class, we have gotten two contradicting views on Walmart. I'm not sure which one to believe anymore. The first source we got about Walmart was the movie. The movie portrayed Walmart as a corporate giant that's ruining lives and ruining our economy. In the movie, the employees and managers of Walmart told us how this great big company treats them. According to employees, Walmart suggested that the employees use government help for money, instead of just giving raises when appropriate or giving appropriate wages to begin with. They chased away employees to get help elsewhere. They made employees stay over time without the overtime pay, they hired immigrants to clean the entire store at nights, they got rid of smaller "mom and pop" businesses. In this movie Walmart was portrayed as the enemy. It didn't just seem to hurt Walmart employees though, all these employees getting help from the government is really just money from us. Our taxes get used to help these people, when there company and employer could just treat them fairly from the start.
Then we got an article in class titled "Wal-mart is Good For You"
Whoa, completely different idea right? According to this article, a recent study said that Wal-mart benefits our economy. "Wal-mart accounts for almost 6% of retail and food sales in the U.S." And despite being ever viewed as the enemy in manys eyes, still five out of six americans shopped there and 81% of people said it was a good place to shop. These people believe that Wal-mart benefits the economy because it 'awakened' the industry to work just as hard to serve lower prices to consumers. It also says that about 90% of its employees are on a health care plan, completely opposite from what the movie stated.
Which side are you taking?

Thursday, October 25, 2012

$$$

Money money money, it's a big factor in these races. This race is said to end up being the costliest campaign in history. Both parties are said to have topped or be closed to topping 2 billion dollars worth of costs with ads, direct mail, and all the other forms of getting their words out.
Both president Obama and Romney were at 1.5 billion at the end of September. And although Obama has not yet provided us with the amount of money his campaign has cost for the month of October, the Romney campaign has said to have raised 111.8 million in the first two weeks of the month.
They both have their fair share of donors, whether they wealthy or smaller donors. People are committed to this campaign and committed to their parties.


Politics on the defense

As bad as this might sound, sometimes this type of stuff grabs my attention better than the hard hitting cold facts. The headline of this article was "Kids know the 'other guy' is a bullshitter Obama tells Rolling Stone."
The exact quote out of Obama's mouth was, "They look at the other guy and say, 'Well, that's a bullsh-ter, I can tell.'"
Romney and his advisers fired back, saying that it is sad that Obama has to take his comments so far on the defense now. They are stated as saying that the only thing Obama has left in this race is insults and rude comments.  He has also, according to this article, coined a term called "Romnesia". He uses this term to address his opponents flippy flop on issues to appeal to voters.
Obama is making many little remarks like so, and I find it sad that he has to go to that level. I find it sad that at any point, any candidate has to get so testy. This literally is the version of adult political bullying. It is not a good role model aura to give off, from two people that are in the running to run our entire country.
In the first political debate, Romney was the same way. More on the defense, more insults and snappy comments fired. I know this is the way to win, put down your candidate, but I really wish that the childish behavior was left behind, so we could actually get a more mature race for our leader. Would you disagree or agree with the idea of the candidates getting a little childish at times?

Obama claims to have lead, but may be wrong.

With this election coming to a boil pretty soon, voting is to happen in a matter of only a week and a few days, whoever is pulling ahead is vital information. Obama said in an interview with NBC that he still has the lead over Romney, but he may have been mistaken. A poll shows that Romney is pulling in 47% of voters compared to a 45% with Obama. Although this gap can be quickly filled, it is a very close race.
Obama had a stronger point with woman, more woman supported him. But Romney slashed his 16 point lead, turning int into a tie among the woman. In turn, Obama smashed Romney's 13 point advantage amongst men to a mere 5 points. It is obvious that Obama's loss amongst the woman population is bigger, and the president try to make a comeback from that. He brought up how Richard Mourdock said that a baby during rape can be something "God intended to" Romney's campaign although, even though he is pro life, states that he wouldn't force a child in cases of rape and incest so he furthered himself from the comment. Obama's team is trying to connect this comment to Romney though, trying to get his advantage with Woman voters back up.
As this race comes to an end, things are getting heated and things are getting close. May the best man win. Who do you think that man should be?