The two articles I chose to read about related to Donald Trump’s tax problems. I felt as if Donald Trump would be an easy topic to write about since there has been so many different biases revolving around him in general. The first article I read is called “House Republicans stake out a privacy defense of Trump’s tax returns.” It began with the House Republicans stating the wrong-doings of finding out private information pertaining to Donald Trump. They considered it as a “waste of time” and “weaponizing the law to target a political foe.” The republicans tried to also include how it would create further problems with other political leaders. They stated how everyone has a right to privacy no matter what position you hold in the government. Privacy had an enormous relation to tax evasion in this article. Other republicans such as Illinois Republican Rep. Darin LaHood stated how it was “a waste of time and energy and resources” to reveal any information regarding Trump’s taxes.

However, the democrats responded by stating how it has been an important decision by presidents that have lasted as long as four decades to reveal their tac information after former president Nixon’s tax scandal. Richard Neal, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee stated that he would try to get President Trump to reveal the information using the IRS code 6103. The debate went back and forth as the Republicans ended with the argument that the IRS should not be used as a political tool since that has severe repercussions just like what happened with Nixon.

The second article I read also related to President Trump’s tax record, but it also directly compared it to Nixon’s tax scandal when he was president. The article titled, “Trump’s tax returns draw comparison to Nixon’s forgotten tax scandal”. Here, they immediately compared Trump to Nixon as they try to get their hands on Trump’s tax information. Democratic Rep. John Lewis, ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee reminded everyone listening of a time where they were in a similar situation as we are in now. John Lewis talked about how Nixon stated he was not a crook, however, it was revealed that he owed almost $480,000 in tax and interest. This resulted with questions about a presidents right about revealing information such as their taxes and if a person in that position should pay the full amount of taxes that they owe regardless of who they are.

Both these articles discussed about Trump’s tax problems and included former President Nixon’s event but in two different way. One gave the point of view of both the Republicans and Democrats while stating numerous arguments from both sides. The topic of Nixon was briefly stated but was not elaborated on as it should have been.  While the second article displayed a video about Democratic Rep, John Lewis discussing about an event that occurred four decades ago and directly comparing it to the situation they are in now. The first article was more informative than the first and gave a better perspective on what the situation actually was rather than comparing it to an event that was tragic in the United States’ history.

Brook Gladstone’s article on “The Influencing Machine” does show severe biases on news reporters and journalists. It mainly comes from trying to get their reader’s attention as well as trying to sway public opinion. They have the power to do that with their misleading articles and misleading photos and videos that they show on the news. They also include their own opinion or do not show the other side’s argument in a heated debate. There is a lot of bias on the new but the public have yet to see that. News reporters and journalists have concerned themselves with trying to get the best news to the public in the most wrongful way. I felt like Gladstone, perfectly displayed what our current media is like nowadays.

I agree with Neil Postman’s view of the news and media especially when it comes to television. They must find different ways to catch the audiences attention and trying to appeal to everyone is extremely difficult. This leads to the news displaying images and videos that do not cover the full story. According to Postman, the news would rather display a burning ship rather than a ship on its on in the middle of the ocean. In the viewer’s eye, the burning ship is more interesting than the ship at sea itself. Due to this, the news cannot fully explain the background story of where or what the ship as it would not appeal to everyone watching at the moment. They do not concern themselves with the story itself, rather they concern themselves with the images and videos that would capture our attention.

The blue feed red feed project shows liberal and conservatives attacking each other nonstop. Either at specific people such as representatives and higher power, or at the laws and actions done by one side or group. They began most of their headlines with one group enacting an attack on something they believe in and how it would harm the country. Or they began with person’s action harming society as a whole.

https://globalnews.ca/video/4936427/trumps-tax-returns-draw-comparison-to-nixons-forgotten-tax-scandal

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/07/politics/trump-tax-returns-hearing-congress-house-ways-and-means/index.html

 

The way Millennial have been perceived, have been through the eyes of other generations. They compared their lifestyles with the current generation we have now. Their responses are more explicit than implicit since they judge this generation’s life through their own eyes. The articles by both Joel Stein and Anne Helen Peterson presents both negative and positive aspects of the Millennial generation that are true.

Stein’s article, Millennials: The Me Me Me Me Generation talks about narcism and how “narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their 20s as for the generation that’s now 65 or older, according to the National Institutes of Health.”(Stein). I do not fully agree with this statement since not everybody in this generation shows a sign of narcism. However, that characteristic is true in some people. They need that closure from others in order to show themselves as important. This is explicitly true on social media nowadays with celebrities and people who have thousands or millions of followers. Stein also states “The problem is that when people try to boost self-esteem, they accidentally boost narcissism instead”(Stein). I believe that this statement is true since this occurs at a young age with children that are babied by their parents throughout their childhood. Kids are told that they’re better than everyone else in their school, or friend groups. This gets stuck in their head and progresses with them as they grow up. The way the kids acknowledge and process this information can be taken as negatively. In addition, what they’re parents tell them is another factor in not only boosting their self-esteem but also boosting their narcissistic behavior. Also with the amount of technology that were exposed to, kids tend to follow their role models online which could typically be a bad influence for them.

In How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Peterson, burnout is described as being over-worked and dealing with an excessive amount of responsibility. At least that’s how I saw it. Peterson states “It’s also about the psychological toll of realizing that something you’d been told, and came to believe yourself, would be “worth it” — worth the loans, worth the labor, worth all that self-optimization — isn’t.”(Peterson). All the work we put into out lives in order to expect something great to happen doesn’t occur at all. I believe this is true because we never know what the future holds for us and while were currently trying to study to get a degree in a specific field, it can be worthless in the end.

The word “adulting” is also used and described as the realities of life since  “you have to pay bills and go to work; that you have to buy food and cook it if you want to eat it; that actions have consequences. Adulting is hard because life is hard…”(Peterson). This generation has been called lazy due to the lack of knowledge of doing these things or just being lazy to do it. I don’t agree with this statement because not only is adult life hard, we also have to worry about the other aspects of student life such as loans, scholarships, internships, and careers. Expectations have risen tremendously that we can no longer do the bare minimum in order to succeed in life. Other students have advanced in their life to where everybody else must catch up or else they wont have a successful future.  There are many things that we have to include in our lifetime in order to succeed and as expectations rise throughout the years, the more work students have to do in addition to adulting. As Peterson stated, “While writing this piece, I was orchestrating a move, planning travel, picking up prescriptions, walking my dog, trying to exercise, making dinner, attempting to participate in work conversations on Slack, posting photos to social media, and reading the news…” (Peterson) and much more. We have ever so increasing responsibility put on our lives and we must keep up with it. So, its not that students these days are being lazy, its more of a matter that we have to catch up on everyones level of responsibility and action in order to fulfill our life goal and meet the new bare minimum.

According to these two articles, I dont fully agree on both, but there are some aspects that are true in this generation. So, I’m not sure if I consider myself a millennial. There are some reasons to show myself as a millennial but other reasons that do not correspond to who I am.