Commentary on Baltimore's Mayor Convicted

I believe that she should be forced from her office. I believe the things she did was wrong. Stealing from the needy of about 1500 dollars is a big chuck of money for freee! As I do agree with my classmate Marsha Sweeney, I also think that she should recieve the normal sentencing and following the rest including community service and therefore. Stealing money is a crime that she can not get away from. Just because she is the mayor of Baltimore does not mean she is able to take advantage of her position. She has to take complete notice of what she did and pay for her wrongful doings. How can a mayor for Baltimore steal from the needy? All the money she recieved was suppose to go towards the needy and she even had witnesses that she stated that it was actually going towards the needy. She even lied. Overall I believe whatever sentence she gets, she needs to rethink about what position she is taking up. The position of mayor only shows the citizens of Maryland a little more about her.

Limit Medical-Marijuana Dispensaries

The Los Angeles City Council delayed a vote on the medical marijuana ordinance asking the officials to return next week with information on how many dispensaries could be close because of the location. Tamara stated that the council members would endict in a vote to reduce the number of store fronts and to push them out of neighborhoods and into industrial areas. With many dispensaries opening, it became a problem that the officials had to pin point. They stated that there were many illegal cash businesses that had little to do with medical care. These new guidelines help benefit the actualy use of the marijuana despenses. For people with actual medical uses of it. They doubted it but considering the new regulations they believe it would work. "Medical-marijuana advocates said they were against "arbitrary caps" on the number of dispensaries, but said the new regulations proved that it is possible to regulate medical marijuana on a large scale."

I agree with putting up a limit or a guideline to selling marijuana for medical use. With LA passing the marijuana ordinance, only people who acutally need marijuana are using it for medial reasons rather than benefiting from illegal cash businesses. I believe that it is not the right thing to do. While dispensaries are being closed down because of the locations by schools and homes makes it easier to get a hold of marijuana and to use it for their own benefits. The limit helps us keep in control of the substances and where it goes.

As If Getting Sick Isn't Stressful Enough

I strongly agree with Courtney about how middle class citizens need health care. Without healthcare what would we do? Like Courtney stated, that there are so many people who do get into accidents who are stressing out about the bill or how they might pay it. Diseases that cannot be cured simply because you do not have the money for it makes no sense. Not everyone is able to pay for healthcare. I believe adopting a single paying health care would solve this problem. The single paying health care would therefore provide health insurance coverage for everyone in the United States, alter the way businesses pay for health care, modify how doctors are paid, how hospitals calculate their costs and budgets, and how much prescription drugs cost in the United States.

Opposing view: Extend jobless benefits

"The day after Christmas, laid-off Americans in every corner of the country will begin running out of unemployment benefits unless Congress acts in the next couple of weeks." There are so many people out there that are jobless as we speak. As the last weeks of the federal unemployment program dissappears, it states that we have hit that long term joblessness record of about 5.7 billion workers who have been unemployed for more than six months. I believe that the only think separating people from living in poverty is the jobless benefits which will soon expire towards the end of this year. I believe without the benefits from unemployment, it would not help us get back on our feet as the economy progresses. Mark Zandi of Economy.com states that "extending unemployment benefits is "vital to support consumers spending and confidence." Without the support for laid off workers, everything would soon fall apart. People who own homes will have to end up putting it up for foreclosures. I do not believe it is the peoples fault for not having a job, times are hard and people cannot afford to pay for their workers, leaving people jobless and no money for anything. People sometimes depend on the help that they recieve. Like it stated "Jobliess benefits may be the only thing preventing their free-fall into poverty."

The American Dream

The American Dream is an idea, built upon the reputation of the U.S. as a place where dreams can come true if you work hard. That concept is something built around a hope that keeps people going. Participation in the U.S. government is something done easily by helping your political party or joining interest groups that represent your beliefs.

People complain that Congress can never get anything done. The way the framers made the government was that things moved slowly. Take the House of Representatives and the Senate, they both have to agree before a bill is sent to the Executive branch. It's a good thing that bills move slowly, it shows that there isn't a concentrated power in Congress forcing it to be more democratic. There is no strong "clique" in Congress that would rule as there would be in high school for example. Most congressmen consider themselves "Independent" and this works very well with our democratic process.

In the Senate there is a something known as a "filibuster" that can stop a passage for a bill and is also a tool to protect the minority. In the American government the minority is protected and helped. The Bill of Rights is a prime example of protection for minorities.

People will critique the government and how it doesn't solve any problems, but I say give the Federal Government a break. Economists can't agree how to solve our national debt, so of course there is going to be problems when agreeing on laws that effect an entire nation. Our government works, and it works quite well.

A pandemic

Dr. David L . Lakey states that the Worlds Health Organization of pandemic alert is at phase 6 which seems to be the highest level. He strongly urges that we need to be ready and prepare for the worst situation as in any natural disaster. H1N1 flu was the new virus everywhere stretching from Iceland to New Zealand leaving the death tolls rising. The pandemic definition reflects its geographical spread rather than the severity of illnesses. Theres many ways he says that you can do to help prevent the flu by good “health practices such as staying home if your sick, covering coughs and sneezes and washing our hands frequently and thoroughly.” The virus is still an unknown and unpredictable substances to the health departments. During the time of the flu we all learned a lot in the last few months of it and its not going away. All DSHS and the local health care departments worked together with the hospitals for support in fighting the virus. All these actions were meant to help protect Texans and all around from the unknown virus.

I believe we are in the middle of a serious virus out there that can easily kill us. Without all the help from the health care departments and DSHS we wouldn’t be able to have any vaccines. I do believe that the actions we must take to help reduce the spread of the flu by taking vaccine distributions and other safely precautions such as washing hands or simply just coving your mouth once you sneeze can easily help prevent any illnesses to come. We need to be ready for what’s worst to come and in the state before it, avoid it in any way possible.

HIGHEST in 26 YEARS!!

The unemployment rate has jumped to its highest peak ever since June 1983. Stating that this is not a good time to quit your current job. Even though the jobless rate rose so much more than they have expected, about 216,000 jobs were lost. They expect the job rate to rise dramaticaly. The economy started to add over 100,000 jobs just to keep the unemployment rate stable. They stated that about 14.9 million people were out of JOBS! Considering how our economy is down, and times are hard, how is it possibly for so many people to quit there job and live without money? Knowing that its already going to be hard to find another job, people still tend to either quit or get fired. The total jobs lost since the recession began in December 2007 to 6.9 million, indicating the biggest decline in ANY post- World War II!

Many Americans began getting so discouraged that they even stopped looking for a job, yet by far the largest number since the Department of Labor started tracking it in 1994.

Experts say that the rebound will be most unlikely. People getting laid off makes it that much harder to get back on their feet just because they got fired for sometimes no reason. Analysts expected businesses to be reluctant to hire anyone until they are sure about our economy's health, hoping to jump into recovery. The government even lost about 18000 jobs.

The job rate is ridiculous. I had thought that the government issued a stimulus that would help people out there get a job? I thought that the money that we received was going towards opening up more jobs and positions so it would help prevent the job loss.