Healthcare.gov : "a new success" declares the White House

Good Evening readers!

I hope everyone had an excellent Thanksgiving and holiday weekend. Also occurring this weekend, Sunday to be exact, the White House announced to the press stating that they had made day and night alterations to the new Health Care website.

The Website, which was an utter disaster when first created, is in direct correlation with the Affordable Care Act.    In October, when millions of people went on the site to compare insurance plans and benefits, they were met with slow pages, misinformation, or just frozen pages. Now, the White house and other Democrats are very optimistic about the improvements made. However, many Republicans are still having their doubts about the program itself.

Democratic Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey said, "It sounds like the front door has been opened successfully now."

On the other hand, Republican Senator Bob Corker from Tennessee said, "I don't know how you fix the many fundamental problems of this program."  

According to the White House, the website has undergone hundreds of software upgrades, expanded the sites capacity, and improved the metrics of the site.

For the people that were supportive of the Affordable Care Act, this is music to their ears. For others, they are still questioning the program as a whole and want others to follow along as well.

Thank you for reading this week's post. I would love to hear your comments or opinions on this matter so please leave a comment. I hope to see you next week.

John Kerry:Adding more to his long resume as Secretary of State

Hello Readers!

I hope everyone had a great week and a good two weeks off from the blog. Tonight, I will be discussing John Kerry and his most recent activity as Secretary of State. Prior to Kerry becoming Secretary of State, he was a senator from Massachusetts and he was also the 2004 Democratic nominee for President.

Sunday, Kerry a long with members from Iran's government cut a deal that could shut down Iran's nuclear program for more than six months. Kerry said himself that the agreement, "impedes the progress in a very dramatic way of Iran's principle enrichment facilities and parts of its program and ensures they cannot advance in a way that will threaten our friends in the region, threaten other countries, threaten the world."

Many people on both sides of the isle have commented on this deals and the have come with mixed reviews. Sen. Robert Menendez, a democrat from New Jersey, stated "Given Iran's history of duplicity, it will demand ongoing, on-the-ground verification." I believe this is incredibly true. Kerry, along with the rest of America has their hands full on this one. Iran has proven to be very dishonest in their behavior. We can only hope this is slowly changing.

Please comment with your opinion on this matter! Have an excellent week and we will see you next week!

 

Colorado splitting up?

Hello Readers!

I hope that everyone had an excellent week. Tonight, I will be discussing the recent talks of the state of Colorado breaking up into two states. The supporters of the secession believe that the Democrat-controlled Legislature did not care about their needs/ rights. If you do not already know, the sale of recreational marijuana became legal in Colorado starting last January 1st. Along with this, the legislators passed a strict gun-control law that angered residents as well.

After all the debating and arguing, 11 counties in Colorado held a vote to decide whether or not to secede and form the 51st state. Unfortunately for the people who supported this, the secession attempt did not pass. But, isn't this the beauty of the system? If you do not agree with a piece of legislation, you can attempt to change it. This is beneficial to Americans as  a whole and shows why we truly have a fair and equal government. The vote matters.

Thank you once again for reading. Please leave your comments or opinions on this matter. Have a great week and I hope to see you next weekend!

Virginia's Governor race heats up

Good Evening Readers!

I hope all of you had a great week/weekend. Tonight, I will be discussing the very important race for Governor of Virginia. There will be three candidates appearing on the ballot this year. The first candidate is Democrat Terry McAuliffe who is a businessman and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The second candidate is Republican Ken Cuccinelli who is the Attorney General of Virginia. The last candidate is Libertarian Robert Sarvis who is a lawyer and businessman.

This race is drawing national political attention for multiple reasons. The first reason is all the star power surrounding the candidates. President Obama recently gave a speech endorsing McAuliffie. The second reason is who is at fault for the government shutdown and Tea Party politics. Many people are pointing fingers at either the President or the extremist Tea Party members for the shutdown. Cuccinelli is backed by Tea Party members so this could possibly hurt his chances with some voters. The last reason is Virginia being a huge swing state. Virginia is always a toss-up state in presidential years and that’s what makes this race so important.

Regardless of all the hype and information that surrounds these candidates, what really matters is voter turnout on Election Day.  Thank you for reading tonight! If you have a comment or opinion on these candidates, please comment. Hope to see you all next week!

Obama's Middle-East agenda explained

Hello Readers! 

I hope everyone had an excellent work week. Tonight, I'm going to be talking a little bit about the the middle east and the thoughts of President Obama and the National Security adviser, Susan Rice. I know I have been very curious about the stir up in the middle east the past couple of years. More recent than not, I personally haven't heard much about the Middle East. Hopefully this helps a little bit.

Susan rice said in an interview with the New York Times, that the middle east  team has scaled back their previous agenda in the region. This new action is in direct correlation with the inconsistency in the region. President Obama believes that now is a good time to reassess how we, as a nation views the region according to USA Today. What this new "low key" agenda could mean is less focus on Egypt and Libya, and more focus on higher profile nations.Hopefully this reassessment of policy can help to bring stability to the regions without military intervention.

Thanks for reading again! Please leave a comment or leave your opinion on this issue! Have a great week everyone!

Shutdown Exposed

Good Evening Readers!

I hope everyone had a very productive week. The government has been shut down for a full 18 days and luckily, our elected officials have finally agreed on something to temporarily resolve this issue. I saw a very interesting statistic the other day about the shutdown that really left me scratching my head.

During the shutdown, supposedly 17 percent of the Government was actually shutdown. The reason for this 17 percent being shutdown was that it was considered non-essential to the government. I'm not a math major, but doesn't that leave only 83 percent of our government as essential?

The question I keep asking myself is why are the taxpayers of America paying for non-essential programs if they aren't necessary? I don't know if I have an answer.If this is the case, this is an incredible waste of our tax dollars. Has our government become too large? Are some of the programs we have truly non-essential?

 I would love to hear your opinions or comments on this matter. I hope you all have a great week and thank you again for reading! I hope to see you all again next week!

Today in history: October 13

Hello and welcome readers!

On this day in history, the continental congress approved the creation of a naval fleet in 1775. This proved to be more than a monumental move for the continental congress for multiple reasons. If you didn't know, the continental congress was created by delegates that were called together from the various 13 colonies. This became the governing body of the US during the American Revolution. 

The main goal for the Navy was to intercept British materials and to disrupt British commercial operations. Due to lack of funding, the initial fleet was an assortment of merchantmen. You can only imagine how successful they actually were going up against a dominant British fleet.

This decision wasn't just a great one for the well-being of the country. It was a step forward in the independence of the US. 1775 was the year that Congress created an organized military. They created an army, navy, and marines. This created hope that they could survive and fight off their enemies!

Thank you for reading and I hope to see you again next week! Please feel free to comment!