Blog Assignment 8

Dear Margarita Triana,

Wow, I completely agree with your point you made in your post "Blog Stage 7." If you are interested, you can read my "Blog Assignment 7", and I made the same argument on the same topic as yours. It really is ridiculous for the President of one country to say that he did not expect a lot of work and miss previous life. He even mentioned that he thought it was going to be easier. I really don't know what he was expecting.

Did you see the interview of Donald Trump where he said: "There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea, Absolutely"? He made a very dangerous statement without any thought given. I do not understand why he thinks that the war is only going to be between the US and North Korea. If that war happens, it becomes a global war with all the nuclear power, etc. His diplomatic policies or strategies are really "undiplomatic."

I also agree with your point about what Donald Trump promised to change in his first 100 days. I feel like this is almost every president's problem to set the goal too high or never keep their words on their policies. I liked your last powerful statement.

Blog Assignment 7

President Trump, for one of his negotiating strategies, tends to take a very extreme position which sometimes turns into a complete different position. It seems like Trump is hoping that the others to break their wills and move into the direction that Trump wants. If his strategy does not work, he reverse his own policies.

For example, Trump argued that "NATO is obsolete, because it's not taking care of terror" in 2016, and he changed his word in 2017 to "It's no longer obsolete." Regarding Syria civil war issue, Trump mentioned that "Syria is not our problem" before his election, but in 2017, he takes some action to Syria and ask other nations "to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria." Again, in 2015 he mentioned that he simply does not like export-import bank because "it is unnecessary", but in 2017 he changes his position by saying "Actually, it's a very good thing." 

In my opinion, Trump often makes remarks that comes out of his mouth without filter that are very extreme, and which are very likely to bring an issue and attention. I wonder if he is even taking his presidential position serious because, from one of his interview, Trump says that he loved his previous life, and he now has "so many things going. This is more work than in [his] previous life. [he] thought it would be easier." I find this an absolute nonsense. What kind of person thinks that President life is easy? This is not a game... Trump needs to watch out these extreme remarks unless he has a clear position.

Blog Assignment 6 - comment

Hello Kat,

First off, I really enjoyed reading your post! Your writing made me chuckle few times :) It was a very interesting topic and I agree entirely with your point. When I first learned about redistricting and gerrymandering in high school, it was really shocking to me at first because I grew up in another country where the president is directly elected by plurality vote. It definitely is a problem that the legislatures are abusing their power for their own benefits. I feel like this system makes some voices not to be heard. The minorities in each district might think that it is meaningless to vote because they know that they would not be able to win. So I agree that redistricting is deterring people from voting.

One thing I was worried is how to solve this problem. I thought it was a good solution to make a law that states the district lines are drawn based on population only, not on politics. However, the legislation is proposed by a member of the Congress, and the Congress consists of more Republicans than Democrats. So it is questionable whether there will be some sort of political factors when regulating this problem. Anyway, like you said, redistricting and gerrymandering are really needed for well-functioning democracy.

Blog Assignment 5

In 2016, the Obama Administration allowed transgender people to use the bathroom matching their gender identity, not the biological sex. This was one of the supportive law that shaped the way to the non-discriminatory society. Not only this law ensured the equal right to transgender people by prohibiting discrimination against them using sex-segregated facilities but also showed support to any minorities in the society.

However, after the Donald Trump was elected, this situation is completely changed. As of March 31, 2017, fifteen states have issued legislation that would restrict the use of bathroom based on the sex assigned on at birth. In Texas, the bill also prohibits local government from passing non-discrimination ordinances related to restroom access I think this clearly states that this new legislation is a discriminatory law. They say that the purpose of this bathroom bill is to ensure the safety of women by preventing male abusing the law to break into the women's bathroom and to minimize the possibility of rape, etc. This is an absurd explanation because the man who is going to rape a woman will break into the women's bathroom no matter what the law is. Also, it considers transgender people as dangerous, possible criminals. Heterosexual, homosexual, transgender people, queers, and other minorities should be treated equally and be given same rights.

Yesterday, March 30th, 2017, this bathroom bill was repealed in North Carolina. I think this law should be repealed in every state. This is clearly a discriminatory law that should not exist in 2017. I agree that protecting people's safety is important, but the bathroom bill was a wrong step towards discrimination and it should be stepped back and find another solution.

Blog assignment 4

On March 6, President Trump signed a revised immigration executive order suspending six major Muslim countries from immigration. Regarding this second executive order, the cable news such as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC hosted guest discussions. Nina Mest, a researcher at Media Matters for America, points out the problem on March 8 in her commentary called "When Discussing Trump's Muslim Ban 2.0, Cable News Largely Excluded Muslim Guests Again." 

The intended audience for this editorial is those who are interested in Trump's executive order. Mest claims that the news ignored Muslim voices when the executive order affects them directly. For example, CNN had 2 Muslim guests out of 32 guests and FOX News had 0 Muslim guests out of 17 guests. The guests who were invited mostly include journalists, anti-immigrant, politicians, and some of them included white supremacists. This ignorance in news has been around for past few decades. This also happened after the mass shooting in Orlando in 2016. Mest points out the need to feature Muslim and refugee voices with all the "anti-Muslim hate crimes and an administration attempting to implement government-sanctioned discrimination." 

This illustrates the reality of the current American society; the voices of minorities are hardly heard. Islamophobia exists and the hatred already went beyond a certain point.The  I recently watched a Youtube video comparing reactions of people to a white and a Muslim woman. They both asked the random person to keep their bags while they go to the restroom, and the reactions were completely opposite. While people were nice to the white woman, they acted negatively to the Muslim woman. Some cursed at her and called out her terrorist even though the Muslim woman was crying. About 20-30 people were around, but only 1 person helped when she was bullied by people. Especially the news media, which have to be impartial and deliver the accurate information to people, should not have ignored the Muslim voices. I agree that there needs to be an improvement and fairness in the media.

Blog assignment 3

On February 23, Nicholas Kristof, the columnist of New York Times, wrote an editorial titled "Trump Voters Are Not the Enemy."  The intended audience is those who do not support Trump or those who overly criticize Trump supporters. Kristof tweeted a warning to Democrats because they "sound patronizing when they speak of Trump voters" and got several responses from people. He quotes some responses and gives three reasons of why he think it is shortsighted to be furious at the entire Trump voters. First is that stereotyping Trump supporters as misogynist bigots is unfair because many of them are Black, Latino or Muslim. Second is demeaning Trump "feeds the dysfunction of our political system." Lastly, he says "it's hard to win over voters whom you're insulting." Until I read these reasons, I quite agreed with his idea because being separated in two by political reason intensifies the hatred among people and it is unnecessary to continue meaningless fight between supporters. Reasons people supports certain candidates vary. It could be because of the favor of certain economic policies of one candidate, hatred of other candidates, etc. Nevertheless, his reasonings are weak.Where is the statistical proof? I looked up and found that there is a clear statistical evidence showing racial divisions between supporters of each candidate. Also, second and third of his reasons are two ambiguous and too opinionated without any clear explanation. While I understand why Kristof had to write this editorial, to warn the ironic situation of people who are otherizing, his reasonings were too weak to support his claim.

Trump's action after court defeat

The New York Times published an article about Trump's action after a court defeat, called "Trump Vows Quick Action to Stop Terrorism After Court Defeat." He insists his executive order and says that he will keep fighting for it. Trump argues that he will use another method to prevent terrorists from the United States. In my opinion, his executive order of banning people from certain countries was a rash and thoughtless decision. I totally agree that the president is responsible for keeping Americans safe from the terrors, and it is true that most terrorist groups are from a certain region. However, the problem is that he used the wrong method. Merely banning the people from certain countries entering our country will not solve that problem. It would rather increase the hatred among the world and within the United States. Trump should have proposed a thoughtful procedure of strengthening our security. He is so narcissistic, stubborn, and immature in a way to say that "Americans should blame a judge, who blocked his executive order, if there were a terrorist attack." Disagreeing with his idea does not make a person to be blamed on or a "disgraceful, bad high school student." Yes, he really said those words. This article is worth reading for us to re-think about the destination, purpose of an action, and to correct the path to get there.