Traveling As Backpackers

Traveling is so liberating. It gives you a new perspective on life and a chance to experience many new things for the first time. You also get to learn new cultures and meet new people whose lives are entirely different from yours. But since money is a big factor when it comes to traveling, most people consider it as a luxury. Hence, only a handful gets to travel as often as they want.

However, it is time to change this misconception. You can travel even though your budget is limited. If you haven’t heard of the term “backpacking” yet, it’s high time you include it in your vocabulary and probably even your life. With some preparation and lots of guts, you can travel to your dream destination with nothing but your backpack on.

Every person should at least try backpacking even if it's just a one-time thing. You'll be surprised that the world has so much to offer so why not get out of your comfort zone. But before that, here are a few tips that beginners should take note of.

Pack Light

Backpacking can be considered as a vacation, but it's totally different. Basically, you just live off on a few basic things as you travel. When backpacking, always pack light by bringing the things that you really need and you can replace. Don't take sentimental and expensive stuff with you because they're just going to cost you overweight luggage fees.

(Via: http://www.travelerstoday.com/articles/43401/20170321/beginners-guide-start-backpacking-adventure.htm)

And you’d be surprised at the many success stories of backpackers who already traveled the world while we are still here daydreaming about it.

Johnny Ward is living the dream.

The travel blog he started as a broke backpacker called OneStep4Ward developed into anonline marketing firm that he can manage from anywhere in the world. He built himself a career that granted him the flexibility to travel for 10 years (and counting), and visit every country on Earth. Not to mention the $1.5 million he's earned along the way.

Ward spoke to INSIDER via email about how he made it all happen, one step at a time.

Johnny Ward didn't come from money growing up in Ireland.

He grew up on welfare in a single-parent household with his mother and sister. He moved to England to study International Economics, then decided to travel the world after graduating.

He funded his travels by teaching English in Thailand, and spent two years backpacking around Southeast Asia on a budget of about $10 to $15 a day.

(Via: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/this-33-year-old-travelled-to-every-country-in-the-world-and-made-15-million-a7663126.html)

See, traveling through backpacking is a great way to see the world if you are short on money but have a lot of time in your hands. This is also a great way to imbibe a new culture as you really interact with the locals and even hold a job for a certain period of time. If you want to hit the road and commune with nature as much as you can, there is no need to spend lots of money on gears you’ll seldom use because you can just simply rent them out.

The biggest barrier between most people and a backpacking trip isn’t the physical exertion, the time off, or a fear or bears: it’s the cost and difficult of obtaining the necessary gear. If you don’t already own a backpack, tent, sleeping bag, etc, purchasing all of that isn’t just expensive, it can also be colossally overwhelming.

Now, a new startup wants to make renting all the necessary stuff easy, and it's offering to ship the equipment anywhere with an address. 

For just $68 per day, CampCrate will mail you a box containing a backpack, sleeping bag and pad, tent, headlamp, water filter, and JetBoil stove. Couples can rent gear for two, for $120 a day. When you’re finished, just drop it off at a post office—CampCrate covers the shipping and provides a pre-printed label. The only other things you’ll need are clothing, food, and a map. 

“There’s other gear rental services,” acknowledges the company’s founder, Chad Lawver, “But I think we’re the first to make it this easy.” 

(Via: https://www.outsideonline.com/2167706/want-go-backpacking-now-its-easy-anyone-rent-gear)

If you have a passion, go for it. There will always be challenges and limitations but you can always work your way around if you are passionate enough. Nothing compares to the feeling of being in a place you’ve only seen in books or on the web before. Indulge yourself in these little luxuries and discover more of what you are capable of along the way. Go out and travel as much as you can and have wonderful stories to tell to your grandkids someday.

The following article Traveling As Backpackers Find more on: The PodBlaze.com Blog

source https://www.podblaze.com/traveling-as-backpackers/

Wildlife in Danger

When we talk about critical issues involving Mother Nature and environmental conservation, we only think of their effects on humans (especially climate change and global warming). However, we fail to include our non-human friends because as usual, we are too preoccupied with ourselves.

The wildlife is the first to suffer in the case of a natural/ man-made calamity or disaster. They are not as ingenious as us in getting ourselves out of trouble. So as the more superior species than that of our furry and flighty friends, it is but our responsibility to think of their welfare and well-being because obviously, they can’t think for themselves and these environmental issues are our fault in the first place.

Efforts to save some of England’s rarest species, including the shrill carder bee and the chequered skipper butterfly, from extinction are being backed by £4.6m in lottery funding.

Little-known and exotically named insects such as the bearded false darkling beetle and the royal splinter cranefly, as well as plants including the prostrate perennial knawel and interrupted brome are among the 20 endangered species being targeted for action.

A further 200 threatened species will also be helped by the funding from the National Lottery, including pine martens, large garden bumblebees, lesser butterfly orchids and hedgehogs.

The money will support the “Back from the Brink” initiative to bring together leading charities and conservation bodies in the first countrywide coordinated effort to safeguard species from extinction and deliver conservation measures across England.

The scheme aims to boost conservation efforts in 150 key habitats and landscapes, and recruit and teach more than 5,500 volunteers the skills they need to study, identify and look after threatened species.

(Via: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/31/funding-boost-to-help-save-englands-rarest-species-from-extinction)

The threat of climate change hurts the wildlife more than it does to us. Droughts leave them thirsty and dying. Floods can kill them too. They have no urban jungle to shelter them from the elements or a supermarket to provide food when they are hungry. When the trees stop bearing fruits and the crops start growing, the animals will soon die too.

For long, Nigeria has rested on an erroneous notion that our wild animals were plentiful and not under any threat of extinction, however, following the recent publication of the IUCN red list of globally threatened species which revealed that 148 animal and 146 plant species found in Nigeria were threatened at various degrees including some species near extinction, we hope it is not too late to right the wrongs. Out of the very large landmass that Nigeria boasts of, we are not assured of the functionality of our seven National Parks, we are not sure they really are a refuge for what we have left of our wildlife population, we are yet to see wisdom in prioritising our wildlife heritage, we have chosen not to take a cue from smaller countries like Gabon with 13 well-managed national parks, Egypt with 25 national parks and Kenya with 23 national parks only aside game reserves, wildlife sanctuary and other forms of protected areas in countries like Botswana, South Africa, Tanzania and Madagascar are clear examples for Nigeria to follow.

"100 Cross River gorillas remain in Nigeria", "There are approximately 450 savanna elephants in Nigeria", "Fewer than 50 lion remain in Nigeria","Value of illegal wildlife trade is 50 - 150 billion USD per year", "Over 56 billion farmed animals are killed by humans every year", "Half of world's wildlife was lost in last 40 years", "100,000 African elephants were killed in last three years for their ivory", "Less than 7,100 cheetahs remain in the wild", "Population of birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish has declined by 52 per cent globally between 1970 - 2010" waking to read these and many more anti-wildlife true statistics tell that the time for urgent action is now.

(Via: http://allafrica.com/stories/201703300629.html)

It is high time we acknowledge the connection between environmental deterioration and wildlife extinction. Even though we may never see the extent of damage our abuse and neglect is causing to the wild, it does not mean that the problem is not real.

If we don’t act now, it may be too late for some of the endangered animals nearing extinction. We’ve seen it over the years. More and more animals disappear from the face of the planet forever. The most recent are the African Black Rhino. We somehow managed to wipe out every single one of them and it is a depressing thought as any. Let us get our act together and save the planet along with everyone else living in it.

Wildlife in Danger is courtesy of The Pod Blaze Blog

source https://www.podblaze.com/wildlife-in-danger/

The Media: The 4th Estate

The media is the voice of the people. They show the public what is happening in their surroundings and tackle all issues that affect society - big or small. From politics to entertainment, the media gives everyone a glimpse of what’s happening behind-the-scenes in every event and keeps us up to date on the past and current issues.

Traditional media dominated the world in yesteryears. But as the world evolves and our technology improves, other media outlets have sprouted that have even a wider reach than that of conventional. Nowadays, the media makes use of social media and the Internet in reaching out to more people and they can be accessed 24/7, which is unheard of in the past.

Facebook and Mozilla are among the companies and organizations launching a US$14 million fund to promote news literacy and increase trust in journalism.
The nonprofit, called the News Integrity Initiative, will be based at theCity University of New York. It will run as an independent project of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
Others contributing to the fund include Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and the Ford Foundation.
Recent polls show the public's trust in the news industry at a low.
False news and misinformation, often masquerading as trustworthy news and spreading on social media, has gained a lot of attention since the 2016U.S. presidential election. Companies like Facebook are trying to address the issue.

(Via: http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news.php?id=87023)

Media not only tackles local issues but even global ones too. The world keeps getting smaller because the web bridges the distance among people. The issues get interconnected as well and may even unite nations against a common enemy: terrorists, for instance.

U.S. media outlets say terrorist groups have been testing explosive devices that can be hidden in a laptop and that can evade some commonly used airport security screening methods.

CNN and CBS said Friday that U.S. intelligence officials had told them militants with al-Qaida and Islamic State have been developing innovative ways to plant explosives in electronic devices.

The news organizations said the new intelligence suggested that the terror groups have obtained sophisticated airport security equipment to test how to conceal the explosives in order to board a plane.

They said the intelligence played a significant role in the Trump administration's recent decision to prohibit travelers flying out of 10 airports in eight countries in the Middle East and Africa from carrying laptops and other electronic equipment onboard in the cabin area.

(Via: http://www.voanews.com/a/terrorist-groups-testing-laptop-bombs/3791946.html)

Without the media, the public will be lost on issues of national and global interest. They give us context on the moves and decision of the state. And if you want some entertainment, they got that covered too. But when it comes to U.S. news these days, it’s hard to decipher which one is legit and which one is for leisure as Donald Trump as president has definitely changed things a lot.

Before most people are out of bed, Donald Trump is watching cable news.

With Twitter app at the ready, the man who condemns the media as "the enemy of the people" may be the most voracious consumer of news in modern presidential history.

Trump usually rises before 6 a.m. and first watches TV in the residence before later moving to a small dining room in the West Wing. A short time later, he's given a stack of newspapers — including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Washington Post and, long his favorite, The New York Post — as well as pile of printed articles from other sources including conservative online outlets like Breitbart News.

The TVs stay on all day. The president often checks in at lunch and again in the evening, when he retires to the residence, cellphone in hand.

It is a central paradox of the Trump presidency. Despite his fervent media criticism, Trump is a faithful newspaper reader who enjoys jousting with reporters, an avid cable TV news viewer who frequently live-tweets what he's watching, and a reader of websites that have been illuminated by his presidential spotlight, showcasing the at-times conspiratorial corners of the internet.

No recent president has been so public about his interest in his media coverage, nor seemed so willing to mobilize the powers of the federal government based on a media report that he has just read, heard or watched.

In fact, the power of Trump's media diet is so potent that White House staffers have, to varying degrees of success, tried to limit his television watching and control some of what he reads.

(Via: https://www.usnews.com/news/entertainment/articles/2017-03-10/media-the-enemy-trump-sure-is-an-insatiable-consumer)

It is true indeed that the media is still a powerful and influential entity in the world today. World leaders seek the media’s attention when they run for office and still make use of them when reaching out to the people when in office. Even though at times many complain that the media may be biased but still they show the people the different sides to a story, so we have an idea what’s happening to the world at large.

The Media: The 4th Estate See more on: podblaze.com

source https://www.podblaze.com/the-media-the-4th-estate/

Why Code Testing Is Crucial

Computing is the way of life. That is the reality of our world today. Everywhere you go, computers run our life, from major industries, companies, offices, and organizations, everything is computerized. Considering how important computing is in our modern life, we need to remain vigilant to ensure that computers use the right codes all the time.

The Internet of Things managed to connect everyone on the web seamlessly. Wherever you are in the world, you can access the same stuff as someone living in other corners of this planet. And considering how gullible people may be at times, they will often believe the first thing they see on the net even without verifying it first or one mistake can cost someone his/ her job, money, life, or something else.

As systems in industrial, automotive, medical, and energy markets that involve human life and limb are connected to the IoT, the stakes get higher and the pressure for safety and reliability increases. While hardware can be physically isolated and protected, once the system is connected to the Internet, it becomes exposed through software, which forms the “soft underbelly” of the IoT. And if they’re not secure, they can’t be considered reliable or safe. That means the battle for safe and secure devices takes place on the field of software.

Producing safe and secure code has a number of dimensions. On one level, code that’s functionally correct—it does what it’s supposed to do—can still contain openings that a hacker can take advantage of. On another level, the code must be functionally safe in that it follows rules to prevent injury or damage, and it must be functionally secure in that it contains mechanisms such as encryption that prevent access.

(Via: http://embedded-computing.com/guest-blogs/testing-is-the-only-way-to-assure-that-code-is-correct/)

Coding testing is a crucial aspect of technology since more and more are at stake every day. Even hospitals rely on technology in saving lives or in carrying out various medical processes – from documentation to actual medical procedures and surgeries.

Ran Yingying, a former state television presenter, is also the wife of Chinese Boxing Association flyweight champion Zou Shiming. Recently, Ran drew attention for posting the test scores of her 6-year-old son’s commercial genetic test, which had come up with a series of figures covering everything from his ability to learn languages to music appreciation, athletic ability, interpersonal skills, and aptitude for mathematics.

“It looks like the son of China’s most successful boxer did not get his father’s sports genes,” Ran wrote, mostly in jest. Her post was forwarded tens of thousands of times, with many commenters saying they want to perform similar tests on themselves or their kids.

Such genetic tests have become so popular that in late 2015, 22 experts in the fields of genomics and sports science published a statement in the British Journal of Sports Medicine saying that no child or young athlete should be subjected to genetic testing to spot athletic talent or boost performance. They concluded that the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of these commercial tests is “simply far too weak to back their use.”

Public demand is running high regardless. With varying levels of scientific support, startups are already offering a wide array of genetic tests, be they screenings for health risks or predictors of personality.

(Via: http://www.sixthtone.com/news/code-and-capital-genetic-testing-china)

Even in a controversial field as genetic testing, computing and coding testing play a major role in making things happen as safely as possible, especially that human lives are at stake.

Risk might be mission critical, such as software on a scientific robot crawling another planet, or risk might be associated with sensitive financial information.

In the first example the integrity of the software is paramount; it is hard to fix something on another planet. In the latter example both quality and security are important, with security perhaps paramount.

There’s also a fundamental difference in how quality and security are each regarded. A quality assurance test at the end of a production cycle will tell you whether a software product is stable enough for release – a simple “Yes” or “No.” Whereas a security test will be vaguer – “It depends” – and in the race to market, that result may be overridden by management. Quality code may not always be secure, but secure code must always be quality code.

(Via: http://www.information-age.com/quality-software-security-123465456/)

There is a lot at stake when it comes to computing nowadays. Coding testing and security is a must because we are not only dealing with sensitive information but the number of people and organizations relying on these systems are far too many now that technology runs the world. A minor error in the coding of these data can prove to be disastrous, so there is just no room for error at all.

The blog post Why Code Testing Is Crucial is republished from https://www.podblaze.com

source https://www.podblaze.com/why-code-testing-is-crucial/

The Prevalence Of Poverty

We see a lot of beautiful and interesting things on the web lately. Even on the mall, lots of nice stuffs are on sale. Popular celebrities sport all the latest fashion, from clothes, shoes, and accessories to going to all the hottest events and locations. We surf the web and see all these things daily that we temporarily get blinded by what we see mistaking it for real life.

Unfortunately, there is another side in life we seldom see highlighted on the web or by media but is everywhere around us. When we go out of our homes and travel to work or school each day, we see poverty all around us. This reality is especially true in developing or third world countries where people can barely make both ends meet. Even earning enough to buy food for the day is a struggle for many families and the homeless are often ignored.

It is a shocking – but sadly unsurprising – statistic that “one in four households struggles to eat well regularly” (Report, 31 March). Young Women’s Trust research shows that half of the mums under the age of 25 have to skip meals to feed their children, and a quarter have used food banks. This is not just about “eating well”: this is the most basic form of poverty, and it’s having a devastating impact on young families. It is less astonishing when you consider that those under the age of 25 are not entitled to the national living wage and receive lower benefits; from tomorrow, 18- to 21-year-olds will have their housing benefit removed.

(Via: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/31/food-insecurity-is-the-most-basic-form-of-poverty)

Food insecurity remains to be a constant dilemma for these people, something that many of us take for granted each day. Come to think of it, the food industry waste tons and tons of food from restaurant/ fastfood leftovers to foods beyond their expiration dates that are actually still safe to eat but just goes to waste.

Food poverty needs to be understood in its social context in order for long-term solutions to be found. It is this kind of fine-grained ethnography which enables connections to be made between the state and its policies, the market, and the voluntary sector.

While wages have risen very little if at all in most sectors and benefit entitlements have often been cut, some people turn to food banks as a coping mechanism. In the UK today, the main food bank charity, the Trussell Trust, has more than 400 such centres and there are likely to be at least as many independent food banks. They rely on long-life food donated by the public in supermarket and school collections.

(Via: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/an-anthropological-perspective-on-food-poverty-in-uk/)

Wherever you are in the world, most of these poor families are not educated and have a hard time looking for a better paying job. Many of these people work manual hard labor just to earn a few measly dollars daily. For them, no work means no pay too. Getting sick is not an option because their family will starve. And as if the reality is not bad enough, news about governments cutting back on the funding of several basic government services can even push them farther below the poverty line.

A government shakeup of welfare payments being introduced on Thursday will push a quarter of a million children into poverty while wiping thousands of pounds off payments for bereaved families, according to research.

Analysis for the Guardian reveals that a family whose third child is born before midnight on Wednesday could be up to £50,000 better off over 18 years than one whose child is born on Thursday.

Meanwhile, a terminally ill man has told the Guardian that his wife and children will see tens of thousands of pounds wiped off their bereavement benefits if he survives beyond this week’s welfare deadline.

The man, from Barnet in north London, who spoke under the pseudonym Alan in order to protect his family, hit out at the “callous and brutal” reforms that will limit payments to widowed parents from many years to a maximum of 18 months.

The crunch for families celebrating a new birth or grieving the loss of a parent is a result of changes coming into effect on 6 April. They were announced when George Osborne was chancellor and are being enacted by Theresa May’s government. One of the changes means all households that have a third or subsequent baby will – aside from a limited set of exemptions – no longer be able to claim child tax credits.

Policy in Practice found that more than 600,000 families – championed as the “just about managing” households, which the prime minister vowed to protect on her first day in government – would be hit by the child welfare cuts, while many more could be affected by other cuts.

(Via: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/02/welfare-shakeup-will-push-a-quarter-of-a-million-children-into-poverty)

Poverty is a global concern affecting millions of people from different countries all over the globe. Even if it is not highlighted in the news daily that does not mean it’s not real. Many families struggle with putting food on the table and in providing other basic life necessities.

Unfortunately, many governments today are making drastic budget cuts that will reduce funding for basic government services and subsidies that can potentially affect millions of people. Poverty will likely remain a prevalent issue of our times if the government fails to make lasting solutions for this problem. Empowering the people is the first step to totally eradicating poverty but governments all over the world fail to do this and get caught up in the many myriads of controversies that define politics from then and now.

The Prevalence Of Poverty Find more on: OnlineCloudBackupServices.com

source https://www.podblaze.com/the-prevalence-of-poverty/

A Generation Of Tech And Social Media Obsessed Youth

We live in a world where a day doesn’t pass by without people checking in on their various social media accounts. Everywhere you look, everyone is holding a phone (usually a smartphone) in their hands and their whole world revolves around it. Some even show off a different online persona than who they really are in real life, leaving everyone confused even themselves.

And as such, has its pros and cons. The dangers of too much tech, Internet use and the obsession with social media may not be obvious at first but they are there – slowly affecting the way you think and see things, even that of your priorities.

Amid an opioid epidemic, the rise of deadly synthetic drugs and the widening legalization of marijuana, a curious bright spot has emerged in the youth drug culture: American teenagers are growing less likely to try or regularly use drugs, including alcohol.

With minor fits and starts, the trend has been building for a decade, with no clear understanding as to why. Some experts theorize that falling cigarette-smoking rates are cutting into a key gateway to drugs, or that antidrug education campaigns, long a largely failed enterprise, have finally taken hold.

But researchers are starting to ponder an intriguing question: Are teenagers using drugs less in part because they are constantly stimulated and entertained by their computers and phones?

The possibility is worth exploring, they say, because use of smartphones and tablets has exploded over the same period that drug use has declined. This correlation does not mean that one phenomenon is causing the other, but scientists say interactive media appears to play to similar impulses as drug experimentation, including sensation-seeking and the desire for independence.

Or it might be that gadgets simply absorb a lot of time that could be used for other pursuits, including partying.

(Via: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/health/teenagers-drugs-smartphones.html?_r=0)

While we may think that this newfound obsession with technology isn’t as physically destructive as vices like smoking, drugs, and alcohol, the opposite is actually true. Too much technology and social media in our lives not only exposes us to harmful blue light and messes up with our sleeping patterns, it also has a damaging effect on our psyche.

The troubling practice of self-harm among young people is increasing along with their ever more widespread use of the Internet and social media, according to consultant psychiatrist for children and adolescents Dr Nigel Camilleri.

Speaking with The Malta Independent on Sunday, Dr Camilleri said: “I think self-harm has always been there but it has been more hidden. But nowadays, with social media and the Internet, there has been an increase.”

Figures published by the National Statistics Office this week show that people aged between 16 and 24, the youngest group in the study, use the Internet the most. In fact, over 98 per cent of Maltese youths were found to use the Internet.

“There is always a reason behind self-harm,” Dr Camilleri explained. “Most people do it as a coping strategy. There is a release of endorphins, so it is addictive, but then you feel guilty afterwards.”

There is too much freedom for the youth these days to browse the Internet and be exposed to sites that are not always good for them. Even the more popular ones like Facebook aren’t always free of criticisms.

When asked whether he believes growing up these days exposes young people to an avalanche of perhaps impressionable news stories that leave an impression on them, Dr Fenech observed that it would probably depend on the personality of the individual.

“There are some people who would be predisposed to a certain code of ethics, who would see violence and detest it even more. And then there will be those who have a less ethically-sound background and would thus find it more acceptable,” he said.

(Via: http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2017-03-19/local-news/Youth-self-harm-seen-to-be-increasing-with-heightened-social-media-and-internet-use-6736171789)

Anything in excess is not always good. We have been told about that time and again yet it somehow slips our mind every time and we fall into the trap of obsessing over the next big trend.

Parents should be wary about the interests of their children and exercise some form of parental guidance when necessary. Your child may hate you at first when you censor some things from them on the web but over time they will realize that it is for their own good. That is probably the best recourse to overcome the dangers of too much technology in our modern life when almost everything can be accessed with just a click of a button.

The following post A Generation Of Tech And Social Media Obsessed Youth is available on podblaze.com

source https://www.podblaze.com/a-generation-of-tech-and-social-media-obsessed-youth/

Will Trumponomics Make America Great Again?

To Make America Great Again – that is the bold (vague) promise from someone who is generally a newbie in politics. Donald Trump has high hopes that his win will help the country overcome its many economic woes and reclaim its former glory. Now, the nation is not just plagued by threats from terrorists and a recovering economy but that of a declining quality of education and healthcare.

In response, Trump and his troop came up with Trumponomics – the Trump-brand of economics that wishes to impose tax breaks, trade deals reforms, and defense and infrastructure developments. While most of these policies only managed to raise the eyebrows of many, it seems as if they are also far from helping the ordinary Americans for they will soon be deprived of basic services. Even the arts and the culture and the environment are not exempted and will lose funding and support from the federal government.

In his first address to a joint session of Congress, President Trump outlined a three-part economic plan. First, he called for an increase in military spending—his budget would reportedly raise it by about 10 percent, or $54 billion, while cutting similar amounts from agencies including the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. Second, he called on Congress to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Third, he reiterated his support for tax reform, which, if it follows his previous proposals, would cut taxes by almost $10 trillion, with the benefits largely accruing to corporations and the rich.

Together, these three proposals would represent a dramatic shift away from the policies of the Obama administration: from diplomacy to weaponry, from environmental protection to national-border protection, from public-health spending to private health spending, from eight years of favoring redistribution to a period of falling taxes on the rich, and from a term of falling deficits to the re-emergence of large deficits.

On paper, Trump’s economic policy looks like a profound re-imagination of the government’s role in American life. But in political terms, each leg of this three-legged stool is wobbly.

(Via: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/trumps-tax-plan/518283/)

By not getting enough support from the Congress to eventually repeal Obamacare, the Republicans decided to let go of it for now and pursue other more important issues such as tax reform – albeit with a heavy and disappointed heart.

In a stunning defeat for Republicans, House Speaker Paul Ryan on Friday canceled a vote on the GOP bill to replace Obamacare because he did not have enough votes from his own members to pass the legislation.

"We came really close today, but we came up short," Ryan said at a news conference after he pulled the bill from the House floor. "I will not sugarcoat this: This is a disappointing day for us. Doing big things is hard."

Ryan and other Republican leaders said they will now move on from health care to tax reform, Southwest border control and other issues, essentially giving up on their No. 1 legislative priority for the foreseeable future.

"Obamacare is the law of the land," Ryan said. "It’s going to remain the law of the land."

The failure to pass the bill is a major blow to both Ryan and President Trump in their efforts to rack up Republican accomplishments now that they control both Congress and the White House. It was the first big legislative test for Republicans since they won back the White House and retained control of the House and Senate in last fall's election.

It also underscored just how divided the Republican Party is, with factions of hardline conservatives and moderates rebelling against their own leadership.

Repealing and replacing Obamacare was a major campaign promise made by Trump and scores of GOP House members and candidates in last year’s election. But they were never able to agree on the best way to achieve their goal.

(Via: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/24/house-obamacare-repeal-vote/99573690/)

While many Americans (especially from the poorer and rural sector) believed in Trump’s promise of bringing back the nation’s former glory, many of them are now disappointed that the policies he is pushing for does not or won’t likely work for them at all. Almost all Trump policies have little regards to the overall population and may only benefit those who are wealthy, which is probably why even the Republicans can’t unite and pass the new health care law. So, let’s see what Trump has to say to the nation at large when he faces everyone for his first major address to the nation.

The following post Will Trumponomics Make America Great Again? was originally published on The Pod Blaze Blog

source https://www.podblaze.com/will-trumponomics-make-america-great-again/