August 2020 - Newshacker

What’s Going On In Kenosha, Wis.?

In the late afternoon on August 23, 2020, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a town of about 100,000 halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee, while responding to a 911 call about a domestic incident in the area, a Black man named Jacob Blake was non-fatally shot seven times in the back. The incident reignited the Black Lives Matter protests and riots that had roiled America since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The Southwestern United States’s Water Problem

The mighty 1,540-mile-long Colorado River provides water for over 40 million people in the Southwestern U.S. and is a vital lifeline for people in seven states and Mexico. It has a drainage basin of over 246,000 square miles and it provides water to the cities of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, and many more. However, it has been drying up over the 21st century, threatening millions of Americans’ access to freshwater.

Part of the Colorado River in Marble Canyon, Arizona.

How Demographic Changes Will Affect Future Elections

Many states’ political landscapes are changing fast due to rapid demographic changes, while others that are experiencing a slow, declining population are seeing their political landscapes change much slowly. Today, we’re going to take a look at how demographic changes will affect future elections, especially the Rust Belt and Sun Belt regions of the United States.

Is COVID-19 the End of Standardized Testing?

Here are some completely arbitrary numbers that most students will be all too familiar with (and will probably have obsessed over): 1,600, 36, 5, 800, 4.0, 45. (To anyone not in the know, in order, the numbers are a full SAT score, full ACT score, full AP score, full SAT subject test/sectional score, full GPA, full IB score.) These numbers, and what each student’s numbers are, basically defines whether or not they will go to college, and if so, which ones. However, like just about everything, COVID-19 may be about to change that.

RNC Night 1: Trump’s Party of One, Analysis, Takeaways

The Republican National Convention has just kicked off and Donald Trump is the first incumbent president in over two decades to be heading into the conventions over nine points down in the polls. The convention placed a major emphasis on Donald Trump and his family. A large part of it was fearmongering the Democrats and a large number of claims were downright false.

WaPo Releases Audio of Trump’s Elder Sister Blasting Trump

Maryanne Trump Barry, 83, has become the second in the Trump family to speak badly of President Donald Trump. On Saturday, August 22, The Washington Post released (article paywalled) a series of secretly recorded conversations taped by Mary L. Trump, 55, the niece of Donald Trump and the only other person in the family to speak out against him, while she was speaking with Maryanne.

DNC Wrap-Up: Takeaways, Hits, Misses, Analysis

Today marks a wrap for the 2020 Democratic National Convention (DNC). In the first-ever fully online convention, Joe Biden took center stage to accept the Democratic nomination for president, and vowed to end the “chapter of American darkness.”

The US Presidential Election Process Explained

Updated Dec. 31, 2020. This post has been updated to reflect the situation after the 2020 election.

Many people still don’t fully understand the process of electing a president. And, contrary to popular belief, it is way more complex than it seems at first. So in this post, let’s go through the process of electing a president from start to finish, from nominations, to primaries, to debates, to Election Day, and to the Electoral College voting.

Is Big Tech Too Big?

Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft are some of the biggest tech companies in the world. However, their size, market dominance, manipulative power, and monopolistic behaviors are now once again coming into scrutiny over issues like in-app purchases, monopolistic practices that drive out competition, and prices. Let’s take a look at whether or not big tech really is too big in this post.

Takeaways From Day 1 of the DNC

The first day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) is now over. And in a jam-packed two-hour-long convention session livestreamed from 9 to 11 p.m. Eastern Time last night, over a dozen Democratic speakers made powerful speeches aimed at tying a divided American public together. (The livestream replay can be watched here.)

2020 Presidential Race Updates (Mid-August)

Since the last presidential race update post almost three weeks ago, there have been many changes and updates regarding this November’s presidential elections. Nate Silver from FiveThirtyEight has release its official forecast, mail-in voting is in limbo after attacks by the Trump Administration on the USPS, and lots, lots more.

SCOTUS: Why the Supreme Court Matters (Marbury v. Madison)

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest and most important court of the U.S. It has the power of judicial review and sets precedents for all other court cases in its decisions via common law. However, the power of judicial review, meaning the power to strike down laws, statues, executive orders, etc. that the court finds to be unconstitutional, was not given to the courts in the Constitution. Why, then, does the court have this power?

President Trump is Sabotaging the US Postal Service

As discussed in a previous post, the U.S. Postal Service plays a hugely important role in the United States’ economy and was crucial to the founding of a nation. However, President Trump has been politicizing the Postal Service, cutting funding from it at its most crucial time, and trying to make the service worse, all ahead of the 2020 elections.

Kamala Harris Becomes Joe Biden’s Vice President

On August 11, Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden chose California Senator Kamala Harris to be his running mate and Vice President. The selection carries a lot of implications for the November elections, so let’s look at some of them here.

2020 Senate Race Updates (August)

It’s been over two months since my last post on the 2020 Senate Race. Since then, a lot has changed and there have been slews of new polls. There are a total of 35 contested seats, one of which is Georgia’s special election. (As per usual, I don’t use the tossup characterization, I try to characterize every state.) Let’s take a deeper look at the Senate elections as they stand in August 2020.

Can Texas Flip Blue in 2020?

Texas: a state in the deep South, once part of the Confederacy, and has been staunchly Republican since Jimmy Carter’s election of 1976, is now in play for the Democrats in the 2020 election. The state has 38 Electoral votes, second only to California, is now considered a swing state and is one of the first times it has been in play in recent years. Let’s discuss the politics of the Lone Star State and see what it would take for Joe Biden to carry the state this year.

US History In the Colonial Period

Episode 2: The Colonial Period

In around fifty posts, we will go over the basics of U.S. History and give a brief overview of the main events that occurred from the first settlers arriving in America to the modern-day. This series is based on the AP U.S. History curriculum.

In today’s post, we are going to cram almost 200 years of American history into one post. Continuing on from the previous post, we are going to continue our discussion on the American colonial period. As this section is generally glossed over in most cases, we will only cover the major events of the colonial period.

Dealing With Controversial Statues

There has been a movement recently, in the United States and around the world, to get rid of statues that depicted figures like slave owners, Confederate generals, brutal dictators, and so on. In the U.S., for instance, statues of Christopher Columbus, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and more have come into scrutiny as the country wakes up once again to the issue of systemic racism. Let’s discuss what should be done with these statues.

Should We Reopen Schools?

With schools’ fall semester starting soon, a debate has been ignited over the reopening of schools. Generally, Democrats (being more open to stay-at-home lockdowns and other such measures) are against reopening schools for in-person, on-campus classes, while Republicans (generally against pandemic prevention measures), especially the president and his Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, is very much in favor of reopening schools. However, reopening schools, especially before the virus is contained, and particularly in hard-hit urban areas, is a terrible idea. Here’s why.

COVID-19’s Eviction Crisis

For American renters, a new, looming deadline is approaching. A federal eviction moratorium, listed in the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Stimulus Act) passed back in March, is about to expire. When the moratorium expires, more than 20 percent of the 110 million American renters could be at risk of losing their homes by September 30.

Analyzing Democrats’ and GOP’s Coronavirus Aid Proposals

While COVID-19 continues to batter America, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill continue to debate over the next round of coronavirus relief measures. And the partisan divide and ideology is strong in this one, with Republicans’ bill strongly favoring businesses and Democrats’ bill favoring worker welfare and safety.