Readers, readers, readers! How are you? As we find ourselves in the beginning of a new month, I thought it fitting to do a quick political roundup. The last time I did a political roundup it was almost a year ago, didn’t read it? Here it is: Political Roundup…

Mass Shootings

Unfortunately, we are still in the midst of a gun crisis in this country. Currently, there has been over 150 mass shootings in the United States since 2023. Lord knows how many shootings will have taken place by the time your read this post. In my area in the Northeast I often hear of gun violence, some resulting in death and serious injury. At this point, I am not too sure what we can do as a democratic nation to address this catastrophe in a real way.

Paying for Influence

Prakazrel Samuel Michel, better known to the world as Pras from Fugees has found himself in a tangled web of international high rollers. I am still not completely clear on what the overall illegal activities he was involved in. To my understanding, Pras was being paid millions by Jho Low, who illegally secured money from a Malaysian owned fund. Low was using Pras to infiltrate American politics by donating large sums of money to the democratic party in order to gain influence. Unfortunately for Pras, the twenty million dollars he accepted from Low has landed him in hot water with the US government. He’s been found guilty of all ten counts related to fraud.

Interest Rate Hikes

We are still in the midst of inflation. Just as consumers start to see the price of some items going down, others begin to creep back up. The Federal Reserve’s decision to increase to 0.25% has everyone watching with a level of weariness and anxiety. The steady increase of interest rates has left small and mid size local banks on shaken ground. First Republic Bank has met its demise as many are still reeling from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Unfortunately, The Federal Reserve’s raising of interest rates is having a negative impact on the survival of smaller banking institutions. Why does this matter? Small and mid size local banks are more likely to approve small business loans and mortgages to people of color. Historically, larger banks are more hesitant in loaning to small companies and we see marginalized people of color greatly impacted.

Shortage, Shortage, Shortage

I know many of you may have seen short video clips of student fights circulating on social media. It seems like very other day I see a fight on my feed of a student hitting a teacher (and sometimes the teacher hitting the student back). We all heard about the elementary school teacher that was shot by her very young student in Newport News, Virginia. As schools began to wind down on virtual teaching and started bringing students and teachers back on site, we all noticed something: there aren’t enough teachers. Teacher shortages is not an isolated situation. Rather, we see shortages all across the country, across all grade levels and subject areas. For Connecticut (where I live), bilingual education, speech and language, library media and world languages are areas that are in need of teachers. I also know early childhood education has had a drought of teachers and it doesn’t seem like this trend will be easing up any time soon.

Obviously there’s a whole lot more going on in this world of ours, share your thoughts dear reader! Blessings!