ThE MESSENGER - Franco-American School of New York

12OPINIONNovember 2012How Super PACs Are Changing The ElectionBy Mathieu SalzIntercoursA Column That Strives Not To Include Mature SubjectsBy Michael Anderson and Armand LatreilleWhy We Hate the First TrimesterSummer is but a distant memory as the first trimester rages on, dragging withit countless numbers of faceless and nameless victims. Here are twenty reasonswhy we hate the first trimester:During this past election, Super PACs hithard on both candidates. The Super PACs thatsupported Obama lashed on Mitt Romney becauseof a video made in May. As a direct result,Mitt Romney, feared that he would lose the voteof the middle class and the poor because of a videothat surfaced recently. The video quoted him saying,“My job is not to worry for these people [inreference to those who do not pay income tax].I’ll never convince them they should take personalresponsibility and care for their lives”. Super PACsthat supported the Obama campaign had beenspamming the airwaves with ads saying somethingalong the lines of “This man doesn’t care abouthalf of America, why should we elect him?”On the democratic side, multimillionairesand billionaires united against the president andspent a collective $390 million on Karl Rove’sAmerican Crossroads, filling swing states with advertisementsfunded by anonymous donors.Super PAC stands for Super Political ActionCommittee and they have the power to giveunlimited corporate money to a candidate. Theywere formed after The Supreme Court’s 2010Citizens United decision; which allowed independentorganizations to spend unlimited amounts ofmoney on a candidate. Today, they use this moneyto win over “Swing States,” which are states whereno candidate in an election has a real grip.An even closer margin developed this year:the newly-dubbed “Swing Counties,” the battlefielddistricts of a state that could tip the balancefor the entire state and change the elctoral college.They are very important because since no candidatehas a stranglehold on them, these parts of thecountry influence the election the most.Both of these scandals have been leadingvoters of each candidate to doubt their choice. SuperPACs are also an unfair advantage to the personthat discovers interesting information fromthe prior to election time. It is also unfair becausea rich man with Super PACs can considerable influencethe election and a poor man can not makean add and can have no influence what so ever.An example would be George Soros who gave onemillion dollars to the Obama campaign.And since the election was won not bypandering to Swing States but rather by targetingSwing Counties, this redefines the importance ofSuper PACs in the election of the man who willhave to fix a country in trillions of dollars in debt,Middle Eastern problems, bad diplomacy withsome countries and some amendments that bringsback progress to a couple of year. The election isan important one, one of the most important in acouple decades, and the man chosen must be ableto make good decisions, export good diplomacyand fix the economy. This is why Super PACs areunfair, giving an advantage to the one with the informationand the one with the money. And theycan drastically change the country by helping electthe wrong person using cut-throat political ads.The satirist Stephen Colbert has his own Super PACto raise awareness of the dangerous organizations1- Summer is a time of neuron-degeneration, meaning your brain has becomemuch less disposed to learning and retaining massive quantities of information.2- You forgot simple stuff like how to calculate l'hypoténuse or la derivéede f(x).3- You know that first DS de maths is coming up.4- It's so damn cold, but not that snowy idyllic kind of cold. You lose anysense of time as the days get shorter and you wallow in soutien as the sun sets.5- Having to listen to everyone's seemingly awesome stories from summer,how they went to Barcelona and had so much fun.6- The first trimester means new resolutions, means slaving over (useless)homework because it’s a new year and you’re a new person.7- After puberty, no one looks their best right after summer.8- You start off the trimester super organized, lose all of your pens after aweek, and it's back to the same old routine, hollering "who has paper" in classby week three.9- A new year means more work means less catching up on Mad Men andBreaking Bad.10- As you move up the ranks, you get more work and get one year closerto the Bac.11- First trimester, or, “Managing life on 6 hours of sleep.”12- That very long period between the 2nd week of school and OctoberBreak.13- Pumpkins. Freaking pumpkins everywhere. Geese. Geese everywhere atthe park.14- Waking up and pretending like people will actually care about whatyou’re wearing and whether or not you have bathed recently (except if you’rewearing sweatpants. Just stop it.)15- Cold hands when you come back from GC because of that icy wind.16- Going to the deli and having 15 people in line before you.17- Procrastination. Welcome back.18- Oh Starbucks— the joys and perils of caffeine life #bachelier S problems.19- That first wake-up call when you get 10 on your synthèse.20- The sad realization that many more all-nighters, horrendous math tests,underwhelming Saturday nights, mind-numbing classes, unimpressive gradeslie ahead.Yet, the second semester gets even worse. Until then, keep sipping thatcoffee, putting off that essay, and wishing it were break.