Philippines

On November 3rd a devastating Typhoon hit the Philippines. Typhoon Haiyan's death toll is feared to be over 10,000, it is one of the most powerful hurricanes known to ever hit earth. It was followed by 30 foot storm surges and major flooding, a huge issue in a tropical climate.  The hope is is to prevent what happened in Haiti, the deadly cholera outbreak following the 2010 earthquake, from repeating itself. Allowing water to sit in a hot humid climate is sure to result in disease.  I believe that the first step to prevent disease and a greater death toll is to get the people clean water, food and shelter. Many charity's are already working on this. Many more are using this as a way to make money. Charities are the best way to provide relief as long as you do your research and make sure the charity you are donating to knows what they are doing and plan to use 100% of your money on relief efforts.  Charity Navigator is a good place to look for what charities are supporting issues you would like to help with. Three charities who are giving 100% of donations to help in the Phillippines are Action Against Hunger- ACF USA: a charity committed to ending hunger and malnutrition, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee: they have many partners including UNICEF and are bringing water, food, shelter, and medicine to everyone they can, and Architecture for Humanity: a charity that works on designing and reconstructing areas that have experienced disaster.  The foremost concern for charities is going to be how to get these people clean drinking water. My idea is to set up multiple water filteration centers around the areas where people do not have available drinking water. They would be able to go there to fill up water jugs each day and take a shower every once in a while in disease free water.
Source- http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3268#.UolTjMu9KK0

Political Participation FRQ

2) The most common form of political participation is voting. However there are other ways one can participate in the political process such as protesting and running for office. Each form of participation has it's advantages. A few of the advantages of protest include immediate public attention and low costs. Immediate public attention can be very beneficial in cases such as the civil rights protests because you have no choice but to notice what is going on. Running for office can also be beneficial because it gives you direct influence over the agenda and people usually listen to government leaders.

Government Power essay

Federalism is a way of organizing a nation so that two or more levels of government; local, state and national, have control over the same area or people. The supremacy clause says that the laws of national gov are supreme over state laws. Given that the government is acting within its limits. However, the state and national governments have powers separate from each other. Power of the national government is increased by things like categorical grants and federal mandates. Categorical grants increase to power of the national government by giving a state money that can only be used for specific things and have a lot of strings attached so the state has no choice in how to spend it. Federal mandates also increase the power of the national government by forcing the state to comply by threatening to take something away. An example is state drinking age and fedral highway funding. The government told the states that they could choose their drinking age but if it is under 21 they will not fund their highway system.  Block grants and the tenth amendment have been used to increase the power of the states. Block grants increase state power because the fedral government gives the state money with few restrictions. The tenth amendment restricts government power by saying the fedral government only has rights stated in the constitution and states that states have individual power from the government 

Saturday Night Massacre

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Watergate and the Saturday Night Masacare

Photo By: William Dalquist

Constitution Essay

Our constitution has directed the government for over 200 years. This is only possible because we have been able to ammend the constitution both formally and informally.  Two routes through which one can formally amend the constitution, although less common because of how difficult it is, are congress and states. Congress can propose to change the constitution and if 3/4ths of the delegates agree, it will be ratified. Also, if 2/3 of states call a national convention and 3/4ths of the states agree at the national convention that they want to make a specific change to the constitution then it will be ratified. Some examples of this are the amendments, such as prohibition and the repeal of prohibition. The states were the ones who asked for the repeal of prohibition. Two ways to informally ammend the constitution are the Supreme Court and circumstantial changes. Judicial review came about durring Marbury vs. Madison this allows the Supreme Court to decide whether something is constitutional and if it is not, informally change the constitutions meaning. Circumstantial changes are changes that have to be made as a result of change in society such as media or suffrage.