Political Cartoon #4

http://politicalcartoons.com/cartoon/b68c1aae-4b68-4b7b-9350-8cd59b2e9032.html

I chose the political cartoon called "Santa Obamas Lap" drawn by John Cole. It was published on 12/18 by The Scranton-Times Tribute.
This cartoon is talking about how much Obama has on his plate, and how there are still many people looking for jobs. In the cartoon, Obama is dressed up as Santa and there is a boy asking for a job for Christmas. Obama is saying that he will give him a health care bill, military escalation in Afghanistan, and legislation to combat global warming, but never says anything about a job. The cartoon is showing that Obama is doing things for these other issues, but forgetting one of the most important ones.
I agree with this message in the fact that Obama does seem to be working more with these other issues than unemployment. Unemployment is a very big issue, but I don't know how much Obama should be getting criticized yet. He still has time to fix this problem. It's a hard problem to be fixed, but I think he is trying. He obviously has a lot of issues to handle right now and I think he is just making his way down the list, even though unemployment should probably be higher on it.

Favorite Holiday

My favorite holiday would have to be Christmas. I love the season, it seems to last longer than any other holiday. Everyone is so happy and giving during this time. I love finding gifts that I know my friends/family will like, and I enjoy getting presents on Christmas day for myself, too. I like how there's special music that you only get to listen to once a year and it seems to brighten people's days. Also, we get out of school for a while for this holiday. For Christmas eve, we go to church and my family comes over and we eat a yummy dinner. Then the next morning we wake up pretty early and all open up presents together. Can't wait, only five more days!

Holiday Decorations in Public

Well since I'm Christian, I personally don't mind all the religious symbols/decorations that are displayed in public. Most of the symbols displayed seem to be Christian, considering it is the largest religion in the world. I don't think it is a bad thing to display these decorations because Christianity is a universalizing religion that anyone can be a part of, its not singling a certain type of people out. People should respect what others' believe, and if they don't agree then they can just ignore it. I don't get offended when I see menorahs or Jewish stars around, I respect the people who think these things are holy. There haven't seemed to be any major problems because of the publicly displayed symbols and they don't seem to be hurting anyone so I think they're okay. It probably wouldn't harm anyone to throw in a couple decorations from other religions just to include more people, though.

Politican Cartoon #3

http://politicalcartoons.com/cartoon/80c768ea-5509-4008-a95d-b10d75c688e7.html

I chose the cartoon "Obama Recieves the Nobel" by Adam Zyglis. It was published by The Buffalo News on 12/10/2009. This cartoon deals with Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize last Friday. He is the third president of the United States to win this prize. The committee said it honored Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." Obama said he viewed the decision less as a recognition of his own accomplishments and more as "a call to action."

In the cartoon, it shows Obama looking at his prize, and the Nobel Prize is crossed out to say NoBush Prize. I think this cartoon is trying to say that we might be giving this prize to Obama just because it's not Bush in office anymore. We now have a good president who seems to be taking our country in a positive direction, where a lot of people did not feel this way about Bush. We might just be so happy that it's Obama and not Bush, we decided to give him the prize.

I kindof agree with the cartoon's message. I think that Obama will eventually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, but not quite yet. I don't think he's been in office long enough or made enough changes to deserve the award yet. People might just have a sudden rush of happiness that we're starting off with a good president after Bush that he deserves some recognition. I think the Nobel Peace Prize is more of an honor for what someone has accomplished, not a "call to action", they should have already performed the action. He shouldn't get the prize for his efforts but more for the results.

Political Cartoon #2

http://politicalcartoons.com/cartoon/86b4a9d5-7b8b-4f91-9b9c-85e50eca86d5.html

This cartoon is called "Obama Job Program". It was drawn by Jimmy Margulies and published by The Record of Hackensack in New Jersey on 12/4/09.
This cartoon deals with two different issues, Obama's efforts of creating job programs and sending more troops over to Afghanistan. It's saying that Obama has created 30,000 job opportunities...they're just in Afghanistan. The cartoon shows a long line of people going into an unempolyment office, waiting to try to get jobs by getting sent over to Afghanistan.
I agree with this cartoon's message, because I think we need to be focusing more on the jobs we can create for people here in the United States rather than in Afghanistan. I don't know yet if I think sending so many troops over is a good idea.

Question 2: Health Care Bill

The Health Care Bill is currently being debated in the Senate. It has already been passed in the House but has been under debate for the past four days in the Senate. There are still a lot of things that need to be fixed in this bill, and I don't think everyone will be able to agree on it. I don't think this one will get passed and we'll have to try to get another one passed.

Political Cartoon #1

www.politicalcartoons.com/cartoon/07574716-7b29-4d8d-a5c2-2622791c6a28.html

I chose the cartoon Health Insurance Rate Increases by Wolverton. I chose this cartoon since the Healthcare debate has been such a big issue lately. This cartoon was posted on 11/22/2009 by Cagle Cartoons. This cartoon is talking about while the Senate is debating the Healthcare Reform, big health insurance companies are raising the insurance premium prices. The public is being forced to buy these healthcares for outrageous premium prices, because if they don't and something happens to them, they won't be able to afford their hospital bills.
I agree with this cartoon's message because we really need to do something about the healthcare reform. People should not have to spend ridiculous amounts of money to be covered, and there shouldn't be anyone who isn't covered. If someone gets sick or gets in an accident, it is immoral to not give them treatment because they can't afford the expensive bills.

New Principal

I think our new principal should be experienced and friendly. He needs to love kids and everything about high school. He should be involved with the students in many ways. He should attend sports games, drama plays, musical performances, etc. He should interact with both students and teachers and even create some personal relationships. He should be understanding and give appropriate punishments. He should keep the entire school informed about what is going on and be accessible.

Free Response

Before taking AP Government, I knew almost nothing about politics and about world affairs. After being in this class for just one quarter I feel so much more knowledgable. Now I atleast know some things about our government, political campaigns, etc. Usually I am so out of the loop on what the big issues are in the world, but now I actually have an idea of what is going on. I know things about what is going on in the United States, Iraq, Iran, etc. It's great!

Current Event 6: Months into Obama's presidency, promise of 'change' is a slow go

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/11/04/obama.promises.index.html

This article talks about all of Obama's promises and how he hasn't made much progress on them. Some issues that Obama is up against today are the war in Iraq, immigration reform, new financial market regulations and a game-changing energy bill. Obama has many issues to address, and he has made some progress on the health care reform and the economy. The Pulitzer Prize-winning website Politifact.com tracks more than 500 Obama campaign promises, with majority of them rated 'no action'.

I think some people are being a little too hard on Obama and expecting too much. He's already made some progress on two big issues, he can't be reforming everything at once. I'm hoping that he will step up and continue to make progress during his term. There are a lot of issues these days in America, it's hard for one President to handle all of them. On the other hand though, I don't think Obama should've made so many promises if he's going to have trouble fulfilling all of them. He shouldn't get the American people's hopes up and then let them down when he doesn't do what he said he was going to do.

Virginia Governor Race

As of right now, Republican Robert F. McDonnell holds a seven point lead over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds. Supposedly McDonnell is ahead 50% to Deed's 43%. At first I didn't really like McDonnell because of the college thesis paper he wrote, but I've grown to like him remembering that his paper was in the past. I think that McDonnell is still going to pull out the win because Deeds stumbled on the debate question when he admitted to intending to raise taxes. The people of Virginia don't want to spend any more of their money attempting to cover the state's transportation needs so I think people will vote against Deeds giving McDonnell the victory.

Current Event 5: Obama declares H1N1 emergency

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/24/h1n1.obama/index.html

President Obama has called a national emergency to deal with the H1N1 influenza virus. He signed the declaration late Friday and announced it on Saturday. Millions of people have been infected with this virus that began in April. At least 20,000 have been hospitalized and more than 1,000 have died. Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Thomans Frieden, says that 46 states have reported widespread flu transmission making it the peak of the flu season. The flu season at this time of year is "extremely unusual". About 18 million doses of H1N1 have been made, about 11 million of them have been distributed in the United States.

Considering all the vaccines that have been made and we still don't have enough for everyone shows that this is a serious problem. The number of illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths is way too high. I'm really glad that Obama is finally doing something about this crisis. A lot of people we know, friends and schoolmates, are even getting swine flu now. We need to take steps to get rid of this flu, it is getting out of control.

Current Event 4: Iranian official blames deadly bombing on 'U.S. actions'

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/10/18/iran.suicide.attack/index.html

In Iran, a man blew himself up in southeastern Iran on Sunday and killed at least 29 people and wounded 28. Five senior officers of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed in the attack. Iran blamed the U.S. for this supposed terrorist attack. Parliament speaker Ali Larijani said, "We consider this recent terrorist act to be the result of the U.S. actions and this is a sign of their enmity". The U.S. replied that the accusation was completely false. The United Kingdom also said they were sorry for Iran's losses and they had nothing to do with the attack.

This makes me sad to know that Iran would even think that the U.S. would have anything to do with this attack. They didn't seem to have any specific reasons so I don't understand why would they would point their finger at us. The United States condemns the act of terrorism and mourns the loss of innocent lives, I don't think we wouldn't cause that.

Biggest political issue facing Virginia

One of the biggest political issues facing the state of Virginia today is transportation. The Metro going into Dulles is a good idea, but also very costly. Also, our highways are becoming overcrowded and we are in desperate need of additional ones. Building new highways and Metros are very expensive, so where do we get the money from? In order to be able to afford these new transportation systems, the government would have to tax the people even more. They would have to tax us and/or charge more at our toll booths. We would be having to pay a lot more money to the government, are the new roads worth it?

Current Event 3: Obstacles Ahead for Obama's Gay Rights

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/11/obama.gay.rights.reax/index.html?iref=newssearch
President Obama gave a speech Saturday night about gay rights. He is pushing Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. Even his own party is having doubts about this movement, not sure if they're going to have enough supporters. Obama does not support same-sex marriage, but he thinks that they should get similar rights and protections as everyone else.
I didn't know that gay rights was something that Obama pushed for. I think he just gained even more supporters by giving this speech. I also think that gay people deserve the same rights and protections as everyone.

Obama's Grade

I would probably grade Obama a B right now. He's been doing a little better than average at everything and I give him a little extra for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. As of the war, he's creating treaties with other nations, but Americans are still dying overseas. He's made progress on the Healthcare issue, signing new Recovery Acts and providing health care for children. He is doing okay with the economic downturn helping people save their homes. There are still alot of unemployed people out there, though.

Political issue I am personally interested in.

One political issue that I am personally interested in is the debate between whether or not gay marriage should be legal. Some say that it should be illegal because of religious reasons and tradition. Marriage has always been man/woman, why change it now? I think that gay marriage should be legal, because why does it matter who people fall in love with? They're just choosing a partner to spend the rest of their lives with, it shouldn't matter what gender they are. It should only depend on what makes that couple happy, as long as they aren't harming anyone else. It annoys me how gay people can only get married in certain states and their marriage is only legal in some places, also. They should be treated just like everyone else, because they don't choose who they are attracted to, it just happens that way.

Current Event 2: 8 U.S. troops killed in battle with militants in Afghanistan

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/04/afghanistan.troops.killed/index.html?iref=newssearch

This article says how Afghan troops in Eastern Europe open fired on American troops on Saturday. 8 troops plus two other members of the Afghan National Security Force died, which is the largest number of Americans to die because of a single day hostile action in more than a year. At least 13 Afghan police officers were captured in the attack and the fighting lasted about 12 hours.

Troops over in Afghanistan is becoming a big issue these days. Americans are getting killed everyday. Obama had talked about taking troops out of Afghanistan, but then he also wants the Americans to do their job over there. The military officers say that in order to do that, they need to keep getting more troops. The more troops we send over, the more Americans that die. Is it worth losing so many American lives?

Current Event 1: Iran tests missiles amid nuclear tension

I read an article on CNN.com about Iran testing missiles and other nuclear warfare. Iran has been running tests code-named "Payghambar-e Azam 4" or "The Great Prophet 4". Missiles were fired around the country Sunday. They have tested short-range missiles, medium-range missiles, and plan to test long-range missiles. The U.S and Israel believe that Israel is seeking nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear energy program, but Iran denied this.
Iran becoming a nuclear power is making the United States nervous for several reasons. This could unbalance the world's power, and we aren't exactly sure of Iran's intentions. We are afraid that they might try to use their weapons on Israel, who we are strong supporters of. Iran's nuclear weapons could cause great chaos and destruction.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/09/27/iran.missile.test/index.html

Poilitical Party

I don't know much about politics, and I would normally just choose the candidate whose morals and values I agree with, their political party not affecting my decision. But if I had to pick a political party, I would probably say I am most closely aligned with the Green party. The Green party is based on the principles of environmentalism, grassroots democracy (giving power to the people in the community), nonviolence, and social justice causes. I agree with all of these principles. I am concerned about the conservation and improvement of our environment. People should be more environmentally aware and careful. I think the power belongs to the people, and we should be able to make decisions that are going to affect us directly. I believe that nonviolent revolutions and protests can be just as effective as violence and war but without all the casualties. Lastly, I believe that all people should be treated equally no matter their ethnicity. Everyone deserves equal treatment and opportunity. All these principles are very important to those people of the Green party and to myself.