President Barack Obama made fun of the Republican candidates for President for their complaining over perceived unfairness in the last GOP primary debate hosted by CNBC.
“Every one of these candidates says, ‘Obama’s weak, Putin’s kicking sand in his face. When I talk to Putin, he’s going to straighten out,'” Obama said to a group of Democratic Party supporters at a fundraiser in New York City Monday. “And then it turns out, they can’t handle a bunch of CNBC moderators. If you can’t handle those guys, I don’t think the Chinese and the Russians are going to be too worried about you.”
Obama also used humor to defend his record in numerous area including on climate change where he said that opposition to climate science would be like ignoring the advice of 99 out of 100 doctors.
WATCH: Snarky Obama attacks GOP over “weakness” (Video: NBC News)
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Cover Photo Credit: Steve Jurvetson/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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So What Exactly Did The Government Do With Your Money Last Year?
Paying taxes fucking sucks.
Even if you deeply believe in your patriotic duty and understand that your tax dollars are going to make the nation run, it still really hurts.
Of course, like anything else, we might feel a little better about hacking off a sizable percentage of our yearly earnings if we actually knew where the money goes.
Well thanks to the National Priorities Project, we now have a better idea of how your money is spent by Uncle Sam.
Just take a look at this handy infographic that the group created:
The biggest chunk of your tax dollar goes to Healthcare spending but is closely followed up by spending on National Defense.
Less than 4 cents of every one of your dollars that go to Washington is spent on Education.
Pretty crazy when you think about it.
Tell us in the comments what you think is the most surprising about this and share with your friends!
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us
Photo Credit: National Priorities Project
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Militarism Is Back In Vogue Around The World And It Should Scare The Shit Out Of Us
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, published its most recent report on world wide military expenditures earlier this week.
Two headlines of the report pop out as significant.
The first is that Saudi Arabia has overtaken Russia in military spending, with $87.2 billion to Russia’s $66.4 billion, being behind only the United States and China, at $596 billion and $215 billion respectively. The second is that, beyond the Western Hemisphere and Africa, worldwide military spending is on the rise.
These figures can be paired with known geopolitical trends and instances in order to project what particular actors may be thinking, as well as what is the world’s security zeitgeist.
First, the somewhat surprising figure of Saudi Arabia overtaking Russia in defense spending.
Russia has been working to modernize its armed forces through: professionalization, doctrinal evolution, and working to achieve technological parity with the West (particularly, but not exclusively, in electronic warfare, unmanned vehicles, and force projection).
Indeed, Moscow has been consistently increasing its defense spending since the 2000’s, into the current year.
However, in real terms, the Russian military budget has remained largely stable. This is due to the fact that the Ruble is approximately half its value at the onset of the Ukrainian adventure.
A Ruble just isn’t worth what it used to be.
As a result, Russia’s modernization efforts are slowed for the foreseeable future, perhaps to be completed in the 2020s.
This is in contrast with Saudi Arabia’s large scale investment in weaponry to balance against Iran.
This is most noble in the three year old Royal Saudi Strategic Missile Force, first displaying this deterrent power in 2014, as well as procuring nearly $1.3 billion in American munitions.
These purchases seem to indicate that Saudi intends to keep Iran at arms length in the event of hostilities, utilizing its overwhelming number of missiles.
Iran in turn, due to the lifting of EU and US sanctions, will likely attempt to counter these Saudi gains.
Of course, Saudi and Russia are not the only ones preparing for conflict.
Asia leads the way in new defense spending, with $436 billion in new spending region wide.
This is driven in large part China’s need to deter American intervention in its periphery. Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam also increased their spending in response to China’s bellicose enforcement of its territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Afghan National Army soldiers drill in Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan, November of 2008. Photo Credit: Afghanistan Matter/Flickr (CC by 2.0)
Europe is also continuing its trend of increased spending, in light of the Ukraine Crisis. NATO’s biggest European spenders, Germany, France, and the UK, did not drive any growth.
But some of the Baltic states have built up their militaries.
This is likely due to the perceived threat of future Russian attempts to secure buffer space against the stronger alliance members, and unease about the Americans honoring their security agreements.
The outliers also a tell a story of the global arms buildup.
The Western Hemisphere is largely conflict free due to an end of the Cold War, and other imperialist interventions into Latin America largely subsiding after the Roosevelt administration’s attempt at being a “good neighbor”.
American hegemony over the region is uncontested.
Africa, despite being rife with conflict in: Libya, the Sinai, the West Coast, Somalia, Sudan, and the Congo, is largely devoid of great power politics. Thus, large scale trends of regional military investment are not necessary.
These trends seem to indicate that military spending is increasingly becoming an acceptable investment of revenue in light of perceived dangers for nations from activist states.
This is potentially worrying, as periods of militarism tend to precede periods of conflict.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us!
Cover Photo Credit: Quinn Dombrowski/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Student at University of Miami Wore a Tiara Every Day For 8 Years
You may know her as “Tiara Girl” on campus. Annie Rudd, a senior at the University of Miami, has worn a tiara on her head every day for the past 8 years.
August 25, 2007, was the first day she ever wore a tiara at her 13th birthday, and the last day she left the house without it.
“The tiara was just too good of a look to let go,” Rudd said. “I don’t even realize its been 8 years of my life. It sort of just became my thing, and it worked.”
Before even realizing it, wearing a tiara became a daily routine.
Now 21-years-old, Rudd will graduate soon from UM with a major in psychology and a minor in art. She hopes to purse a master’s degree in family and marriage counseling.
Annie Rudd
Annie Rudd
In 2012 , Rudd was featured on lifetime’s reality show “Prom Queen,” crowned prom queen at Miami Beach Senior High School. At University of Miami, Rudd has become a sort of local celebrity to students at the campus.
“At UM, I’m known as Tiara Girl,” Rudd said. “We have this Facebook page called UMiami Secrets and they would post about me a lot. There was one that said, ‘OMG I just saw tiara girl for the first time. Now I know how Hogwarts felt when they first saw Harry Potter.’”
Annie Rudd
She never leaves the house without her tiara, she may forget but it never takes more than a few steps out of the door to remember.
“It’s basically second nature.” Rudd said. “I don’t even realize its on when I go out, but people will give me ugly looks sometimes. Some people don’t get the tiara and assume the worst, but once they meet me they understand I’m not stuck up.”
For Rudd, the tiara exemplifies that she enjoys everything life has to offer and lives with no regrets. Her story is a reminder that it’s okay to be who you are without living in fear of what others think of you.
Annie Rudd
“The tiara is a great conversation starter,” Rudd said. “Meeting and making friends is super important at our age. It’s all about the connections we have later on in life.”
Rudd said that although she enjoys the tiara as a fundamental part of her life, some people don’t take her seriously as a result.
“People definitely think it’s a little immature, but I don’t care. I only have one life,” Rudd said.
The tiara isn’t coming off anytime soon.
“I definitely can’t see myself not wearing it, it’s just a part of my identity now,” Rudd said. “It’s all a learning experience. I like it and that’s all that matters. There’s nothing to regret about it.”
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