Nevada and South Carolina Primaries: Could Trump Be Our Next President?

This weekends primaries began to narrow down the candidates in this election cycle. Business mogul Donald Trump won the South Carolina primary by 32.5 percent, and Senator Marco Rubio barely overcoming Ted Cruz by 22.5 to 22.3 percent in a tight race for second place. In the Nevada caucus, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won by 52.6 percent to Senator Bernie Sanders 47.3 percent.

The race for the Democratic nomination is still really close to call, but on the Republican side, Donald Trump may win the nomination. An interesting observation by USA Today noted that since 1980 Republican candidates that won both New Hampshire and South Carolina end up winning the nomination. Out of the three candidates that became the nominee, two became president (Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush). This begs the questions; could Trump be our next president?

Trump doesn't seem to be getting much competition from Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio as they're struggling to catch up. Jeb Bush has suspended his campaign and John Kasich and Ben Carson are trailing too far to be a credible threat. This election cycle has proven to be unpredictable in both parties, and it just might be possible that Trump could win the presidency.

Bernie Sanders Landslide Win in New Hampshire - Political Revolution?

Bernie Sanders once again proved not to under estimate him in this election. A landslide is an understatement, beating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by 22.4 percent in the New Hampshire primary. Sanders is also the first Jewish candidate to win a primary in New Hampshire.

What does this major win mean for his political revolution? For starters, it goes to show the momentum Sanders is building. His campaign is proud that his coalition isn't built from wealthy campaign contributors, but from everyday Americans. Sanders has also received three million individual contributions in donations, a record in American history.

It could be that Americans are feeling the Bern, considering that he's closing the gap between Clinton nationally by 7 percent. We'll see how far his political revolution can go with the upcoming primaries.

Flint's Water Crisis

We've all seen the pictures of the brown turd-like water from Flint, Michigan, but what really happened there?

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder was elected into office in 2011, and he immediately gave multi-billion dollar tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations. It's too long of a story to explain how this neoclassical theory, or "trickle down economics," or "neoliberalism" doesn't work, but basically cutting taxes for the rich does not benefit the poor or middle classes. There's 40 years of data of this failed economic policy. (If you're interested in this topic I suggested the book "The History of Neoliberalism" by David Harvey.) Anyways, if the state government cuts taxes for the wealthy, that's a loss of revenue, therefore, the government must compensate by cutting benefits, programs, and other "cost saving" methods that essentially affect the poor and middle classes. Wanna guess what one of these "cost saving" ideas were?

You guessed it! Switching Flint's fresh drinking water from Lake Huron to the toxic Flint River. All of this could have be prevented by following the federal law of adding an additive that protects the water from lead pipes so that lead won't be leaked into the water, but the governor didn't want to spend $9,000.

This switch happened in April 2014 and the media is barely picking up on the story with limited details. The effects of lead and other toxic elements for humans have already caused deaths in Flint. If you want to know more about the effects and epidemic of America's water crisis (how Flint is only the beginning), watch Erin Brockovich explain it in this video.

It's also interesting to note that Governor Snyder's chief of staff, Dennis Muchmore, has a wife Deb Muchmore, who is the spokesperson for the Nestle Company in Michigan. Nestle has also been sucking Lake Huron dry.

For more information of this water crisis, read Michael Moore's article. He's also a Flint native.