Trump’s Ban on Transgender people in the military is to go into effect starting on April 12th.
The current version of the law will allow for the military to ban new transgender recruits from joining the military, as well as allowing for the discharge of members in need of hormone treatment and/or surgery.
The case against the ban is still open, however, and the DC Court of Appeals may still decide against the ban. Currently they have only allowed for the injunctions to be lifted.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has suspended somewhere around 23,000 Alabama residents Drivers Licenses due to nonpayment on unpaid traffic tickets. The SPLC argues that such a law is unconstitutional due to the State not first assessing the individuals ability to pay these tickets.
The lawsuit challenges a law that allows a person’s driver’s license to be suspended for unpaid traffic tickets, without taking into account the person’s ability to pay. The law is unconstitutional, and harms thousands of low-income families across the state, according to the complaint. [1]
This is not the first time that the SPLC has fought a similar law. In Mississippi, over 100,000 drivers had their licenses suspended for the very same reason, and SPLC was able to reach an agreement with the State, allowing for reinstatement of suspended licenses, an end to the practice, and waiving of the $100 reinstatement fee in the State for those drivers affected [2].
Sources
Source 2: https://www.splcenter.org/news/2017/12/19/splc-reaches-agreement-mississippi
About a fifth of Americans have no money tucked away for unexpected costs.
About 21% of working Americans said they aren’t saving any money at all, Bankrate found in a survey. Among those who are saving, a majority are putting away less than 10% of their income.
Over the past several decades, household savings in the US have been trending downward. By the Bureau of Labour Statistics’ measure, Americans were saving 7.6% of disposable income in December. Before the 1980s, that rate had mostly been in the double digits.
For 1/5 of all Americans, roughly 65,140,000 people, there is no leverage for any unexpected financial distresses [1]. This trend, similar to the one in the UK where one in four adults have no savings, approximately 16,510,000 people [2], is a dangerous turn for the global economy when it takes place in two of the most influential nations driving global production.
All this, while the distribution of income has continuously increased in going to those with the most wealth within the United States [3], even though the total income for all persons within the United States continued to grow steadily since the 1990’s [4], and similar has been taking place within the UK [5].
Something needs to be changed, as these are warning signs of an impending recession that will affect the entire world fiscally.
The United States seems likely to have another Recession come up within the next few years, as predicted by Economists based on the long expansion of the economic growth experienced by the US since the 2009 Recession that hurt the economy and that the growth eventually leads to a fall, since economic trends are never a straight line and continually raise and lower [6].
More specifically, the slowing of interest rate growth vs. interest rates is likely to spur the Recession, with one expert stating the likelihood within the coming year of having a recession is up to 30% [7].
Sources
Source 1: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/americans-with-zero-savings-at-20-2019-3
Source 3: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/is-increasing-income-inequality-a-myth
Source 4: https://www.statista.com/statistics/216756/us-personal-income/
Source 5: https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk
Beginning on February 26th, the House passed a measure to overturn Trump’s Emergency Declaration, voting 245-182, just 11 days after the declaration was made [1].
Eventually, the measure was moved to the Senate, where on March 14th, 12 Republicans voted for the measure to be moved forward, with a vote of 59-41, passing the Senate but not within a veto-proof majority [2].
From there, Trump announced his intentions of Vetoing the measure, and did so the following day [3].
Now, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, is expected to challenge his Veto in the House, publicly stating that she’d do so by having an override vote take place on March 26th [4].
In this instance, Nancy Pelosi’s vote on March 26th is unlikely to pass, as a Supermajority of 2/3 is needed to override a Presidential Veto, meaning 67 members of the Senate or 290 members of the House, which neither Congressional House met during the vote.
The Emergency on the Southern Border, however, isn’t an emergency at all [5], and will inevitably be forgotten after Trump leaves office.
There is a long process needed to get the land on the southern border, requiring Eminent Domain utilization by the Federal Government, in which the government can seize private land for their own use. This was done during the W. Bush and Obama Presidencies to allow for the Secure Fence Act, against the wishes of many who owned the land, which put the current Border Fence we have lining the most accessible portions of the United State’s Southern Border that is there today [6].
Sources
Source 1: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/431722-house-votes-to-overturn-trump-emergency-declaration
Source 3: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/us/politics/trump-veto-national-emergency.html
Source 5: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/13/donald-trump-national-emergency-border-225781
The Abortion Debate is a long held one in the US, but is predicated on many falseified statistics and information, so we’ve copied some statistics from doctors in the field.
The phrase “late-term abortion” is medically inaccurate and has no clinical meaning. In science and medicine, it’s essential to use language precisely. In pregnancy, to be “late term” means to be past 41 weeks gestation, or past a patient’s due date. Abortions do not occur in this time period, so the phrase is contradictory.
…
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, abortions after 21 weeks make up less than 1.3% of all abortions in the United States. This means that abortions that occur beyond 24 weeks make up less than 1% of all procedures.
…
There are many reasons why women may need to access abortion later in pregnancy, including maternal health endangerment, diagnosis of fetal abnormalities or restrictive laws delaying earlier access to abortion care. Those exceptionally rare cases that happen after 24 weeks are often because a fetus has a condition that cannot be treated and will never be able to survive — regardless of the gestational age or trimester.
It’s this exact reason that it’s nonsensical to legislate these cases: Nobody arrives at the decision to have an abortion after 24 weeks carelessly. Rather, it’s the rare case of rapidly decompensating maternal heart disease or a delayed diagnosis of anencephaly, where the fetus forms without a complete brain or skull, that bring people to these decisions.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/06/health/late-term-abortion-explainer/
Washington D.C. is an area that denies a common American Tenet:
No Taxation Without Representation.
Democrats want to change that.
A new Bill, H.R. 51, is a Bill advocating for the addition of Washington D.C. as a new, 51st state, giving the population of somewhere around 715,000 people the right to have Representatives and Congresspersons, thus giving them a voice in the Nation through representation [1].
The full process requires a Joint Resolution after the writing of a new State Constitution, then the signature of the President [2], which is unlikely to happen unless there is a new Democratic President in the Oval Office come 2021, as the state will almost certainly vote Democratic.
When it comes to Puerto Rico, it seems likely that Statehood will also be on the table in 2020. It’s been a point to visit the island for a few 2020 Democratic Candidates, such as Julian Castro and Elizabeth Warren, while Bernie Sanders named Carmen Yulín Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, as a co-chair to his campaign [3].
It seems the 2020 election will majorly dictate the future of America and who is in it.
Sources
Source 1: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/democrats-push-to-make-washington-dc-the-fifty-first-state
Source 2: https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/how-do-new-states-become-part-of-the-us/103-448157125
The Defense Department has signed a memo stating that it is moving forward with a plan to stop Transgender individuals from serving in the military if they require hormone treatments or surgery for transition.
The plan is expected to take effect on April 12th, but critics point out that the Pentagon’s own studies contradict the need for this policy:
A 2016 Pentagon-commissioned study found that any impact on cost or military readiness from having transgender troops would be marginal. It estimated there were around 2,450 transgender troops at the time [1].
The policy was allowed when the new Supreme Court allowed the ban to take place, overruling the ruling by the lower-courts [2].
Sources
Source 2: https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/22/politics/scotus-transgender-ban/index.html
The Democrats passed H.R. 1, also known as the ‘For the People Act’, a massive bill that attempts to clean up our voting structure in the US. The Bill was passed on party lines, with none of the Republicans in the House voting for the Bill.
by doing the following:
Mitch McConnell, however, has stated he will refuse to let the Bill come for a vote in the Senate, effectively killing the Bill.
Republicans also had complained about wanting the bill to state only Citizens would be allowed to vote, a non-issue, since it’s already illegal for anyone but Citizens of the United States to vote in Federal Elections due to the Federal Voting Rights Act, and only Green Card holders are allowed to vote in State and Local elections, and even then, depending on the State laws in which they reside.
Sources
The United States and other foreign countries are lagging behind when it comes to establishing equal rights for women in today’s day and age.
There is so much more that can be done.
” Belgium, Denmark, France, Latvia, Luxembourg and Sweden scored full marks of 100 in the bank’s “Women, Business and the Law 2019” report.
…
But countries in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa averaged a score of 47.37, meaning the typical nation in those regions gives women under half the legal rights of men in the areas measured by the group.
…
The criteria analyzed were: going places, starting a job, getting paid, getting married, having children, running a business, managing assets and getting a pension. Those were broken down into questions such as: “Can a woman travel outside her home in the same way as a man?” and “Is there legislation specifically address domestic violence?”
Overall, the global average came in at 74.71 — an increase of more than four and a half points compared to a decade ago. But the score indicates that in the average nation, women receive just three-quarters of the legal rights that men do.
The United States scored 83.75, placing it outside the global top 50. The United Kingdom achieved a score of 97.5, Germany measured at 91.88, and Australia scored 96.88. “
Source
https://edition-m.cnn.com/2019/03/02/europe/world-bank-gender-equality-report-intl/index.html
Truthful not Neutral 