Judicial Review

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harlow-giles-unger/silence-in-the-court-why-_b_6078220.html


It is arguably the most important question concerning judicial review today. Should judges require the government to offer an honest, reasoned explanation every time it restricts individual liberty, or just some of the time? In a provocative two-part critical review of Damon Root's book, overruled, Professor Kurt Lash argues for the latter view, making an original case for broad judicial difference to assertions of government power that do not implicate textually enumerated constitutional rights. Drawing upon his own extensive study of the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause, Lash argues that that the clause only secures secures rights enumerated elsewhere in the Constitution. He thus praises the New Deal Court for "deferring on matters involving unenumerated rights" while "remaining actively engaged when it came to those rights explicitly enumerated in the Constitution."

This raises valid questions about the difficulty of evaluating the legit actions of the government that difficulty is important to interpreting and applying a written Constitution informed by a broad understanding of individual liberty. Neither the Framers of the original Constitution or the Reconstruction Amendments thought that liberty could be reduced to a handful of protected activities. Consistent judicial engagement in every case involving abuses of government power is required.We do not have a principled jurisdiction, one that protects only enumerated rights and denies the existence of any others, or one that protects all peaceful exercises of individual freedom, in keeping with the comprehensive understanding of liberty held by the Framers. 

This is important because we are learning about the judicial branch and Judicial Review.

Executive Branch

URL: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/executive.html

The Senate's 6,700 page, $40M report on the CIA's participation in torture has apparently never been read by a single member of the Executive Branch of the US Government, because the Department of Justice has ordered them all to stay away from it. Why does the Department of Justice want to keep the Executive from finding out about the CIA's use of torture? Because Senate documents are not subject to the freedom of information requests, but Executive documents are, and the Department of Justice is so deathly afraid of the public discovering official wrongdoing that they have banned anyone from touching the document, so therefore it becomes a subject to clear rules.

I believe that appropriate Department of Justice and FBI officials must read the full 6,700-page Senate Intelligence Committee Study of the CIA's Detention and interrogation program in order to understand what happens and to hopefully draw appropriate lessons. This is exactly what Director Comey promised when he said he would choose FBI officials to read the full, final version of the Committee's Study and consider the lessons that can be learned from it. Director Comey also acknowledged that former FBI Director order FBI agents not to participate in the CIA program. Unfortunately as the executive summary of the study makes clear, the Department of Justice was among those parts of the Executive Branch that were misled about the program, and DOJ officials' understanding of this history is very important to its institutional role going forward.

This is important to what we are learning in class because it teaches me what the executive branches role and how important they are to us. 

Planned Parenthood/Affordable Care Act

URL: http://www.npr.org/2015/12/02/458127720/senators-move-to-tighten-visa-waiver-program-concede-issues-still-exist


Senate Republicans are expected to achieve two goals on Thursday that have long eluded them — they'll pass a bill that defunds Planned Parenthood and repeals the Affordable Care Act. The House has managed to vote more than 50 times to repeal all or part of the health care law, but it's always been tougher in the Senate, where Republicans don't have the  votes needed to pass bills Democrats oppose. This year, they'll have a special procedure at their disposal to get around that. Let's make it very clear — nothing that happens on the Senate floor this week will ever actually become law, because any bill that repeals the Affordable Care Act and defunds Planned Parenthood is going to get vetoed by the president. So, some might ask, what is the value of this exercise? "The value is to let him know and others that there's a big division in this country, and a lot of us don't like it, and the American people don't like it," said Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama.

"Some Republicans say that maybe by holding these symbolic votes THIS week, they'll satisfy their constituents, and that could ease passage of a government spending bill next week."That's the thing about conservative voters: you don't have to actually do anything for them to fall in line. All you have to do is keep them focused on a woman who wants an abortion or the gay guys kissing and they will support you even as you shake the change from their pockets. I have always liked the "it's both sides that are to blame" position. However, at this point in our history, a segment on the right has "gone off the rails". If you follow the problems facing our current legislators

This is valuable information to what we are learning in class right now because we are learning about the House and the Senate. More importantly how they get bills to the floor and how this process goes.

Florida Senate/ State Lines

URL: https://shar.es/1c0FxJ


The Florida Senate rejected a map to create new districts for itself and adjourned Thursday, leaving the Legislature with its second failed session this year. The chamber of congress voted 23-16 against the map that the House had approved, Tuesday. Senators said the maps were flawed and would divide communities. They also criticized a constitutional amendment that they said forces them to put the shape of a district. The vote means lawmakers will leave the state capital with absolutely no agreement and that the courts will make the final decision on how the Senate's 40 districts will be drawn. Voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2010 requiring smaller districts that aren't drawn to benefit parties or incumbents. This is the third time that legislators have been forced to redraw state Senate districts in the past three years.

I feel that states should have the right to create their own city lines due to voting and districting. If the maps were drawn incorrectly then there would have been a reason for the maps to be rejected. I'm not as optimistic that those people will be significantly more important than these people.The amendments to our constitution pulled the soul out of map drawing, pulled the soul out of districts. Now we fall into the hands of a court. Nobody wins under that scenario. By blaming the amendments, rather than themselves, they are simply preserving the extinction of their opposition to the gain of the people and engaging in the very conduct that Florida voters clearly wanted to eliminate from our state.

This has to do with what we are learning in class because we learned about gerrymandering and drawing state lines.

Battle in Social Media

URL: http://graphics.wsj.com/elections/2016/facebook-gop/

This week in a Republican presidential fight filled with crazy moments, the contest on Facebook looked like a two-man race between businessman Donald Trump and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson. But data from the social media platform suggested that Tuesdays Republican date offered a bigger opportunity for other candidates to build momentum, particularly Senator Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.The Wall Street Journal partnered with Facebook to analyze campaign-related interactions on the social media platform from March 1 to Oct. 31. You could see within the social media conversations there was a measure of interest in each of the candidates that holds more than a passing resemblance to the national polling picture.

After reviewing the data that Wall Street and Facebook collected you can really see the difference in popularity between the 5 candidates that were being reviewed. Ever since he joined the race in June, Mr. Trump has been the driving force of the campaign discussion on social media. I don't really see how he can be so popular amongst people in my opinion, but he does create a lot of controversy and that can make people popular in the media. Another that seemed interesting to me was Ben Carson  whose biggest Facebook moment came with his September comments on being against a Muslim in the White House, which were followed by a five-point header for him in national polls. To me this is more of a Republican/Conservative view, unlike Donald Trump who sometimes seems to go against his own views.

This article shows how important primary elections are, and that today social media has a great influence on candidates more than in any other past years presidential debates. This also gives people a way to express their own opinions, and track political opinion.

NRA/ Interest Group

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/opinion/who-the-nra-really-speaks-for.html?ref=topics&_r=0

Last Thursday the President was angered and made a public speech about the slaughter in Roseburg, Oregon. He made a very slight reference to the National Rifle association (an interest group), asking if the association properly represented their own views. People have to realize how big of a role the NRA plays in representing the 2nd amendment. The NRA contains over 4.5 million members and counting which include all gun owners -- hunters, sportsman, collectors and any ordinary American who keeps a gin for self defense. There was a recent poll saying that ninety - two percent of gun owners wanted a back round check for all people who would be purchasing guns. Then in April 2013 the Senate wanted to create a bill just to support this, but the NRA was in full swing just to prevent this bill from passing. So does the NRA really represent the people that the group contains?? 

I think that the NRA doesn't really support the people that are part of the group. If there was a poll taken that ninety- two percent of the population in the group suggested that there be a back round check on gun owners then the NRA should be in full support and they better not be against a bill that supports Brady checks. Then again there is the opposing side considering the federal law requiring licensed gun dealers to notify the beaurea of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives when a single purchaser buys two or more handguns within five days. The A.T.F. knows that multiple purchases are an indicator of trafficking, and that traffickers can evade the law by making a single purchase from five, 10 or 20 different gun stores. So this is saying that the process of a back round check is unnecessary when we have something so similar already in place. My theory is that there are those odd mass murders that could be possible if there weren't simple back-round check on people.

This is relevant to what we are learning because we are learning about interest groups and the NRA. The NRA is an economic interest group.

Interest Groups

URL: http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2015/10/report_devos_family_michigans.html


Report: DeVos family, Michigan's 'most potent interest group,' spent $4.9M in 2014 elections

There are plenty of interest groups who give money to politicians who are running for the house or the senate. This week Michigan found the interest group that has given the most highest amount of money to fund in state political candidates and committees in 2013 and 2014. "... The DeVos family is the most 'potent interest group in state politics' said Rich Robinson of the Michigan Finance Network..." Next to him in second place is the Bernstein family who gave over 2 million dollars towards Richard Bernstein's campaign to run for State Supreme Court, which he successfully won. In addition the DeVos family has been ranked one of the most philanthropic families in the entire country. 

Because this country is founded on many basic freedoms there are people who have become very wealthy as well. Also because of these liberties, people are able to give money to the political causes or politicians that they like. There are not many rules on how much they can give but the donors do need to let the public know how much they gave. This kind of giving is both good and bad. People should not be restricted from giving to others but at the same time I wonder how people who do not have money can be represented. Even if poorer people  join groups of other people, it still takes money to fund an operation. That means that politics depends a lot on money and that is not such a good thing.

This article is relevant today to our class studies on interest groups. Interest groups are a part of the way that we the public can participate in government and politics here in the USA.

Citizenship/ Immigration

URL:

http://www.dailyrepublic.com/news/fairfield/40-in-fairfield-take-citizenship-oath/

Citizenship is a big thing for someone who has been striving to come to America all their lives. This week like many others, there was a naturalization ceremony for new citizens of the United States. These men and women all took the Oath of Allegiance during the ceremony as well as being welcomed to the United States by Solano County Supervisor Erin Hannagan. All new citizens worked very hard to get to this point. Sometimes citizenship can take months and even years depending on where you live, and your record. It is also very limited to how many new citizens the US can take in each year so this ceremony only included 34 once immigrants, representing 20 different countries. All these people at the ceremony were given a code and welcomed by government officials. The idea of citizenship didn't hit all these people until Hannagan said, "You now all have the right to run for my job." For most of these immigrants they were not used to being treated this way and were welcomed happily into the family. 

There is nothing wrong with immigration that is what makes America the greatest country in the world. That is doing; it the correct way of becoming a citizen and going through the process and being able to assimilate into our laws. Illegal immigration is a different thing; breaking the law and coming into the country illegally and demanding that we should give you money and work and more importantly that we should bend to your demands. But the  liberal left wing democratic machine loves the illegals and are pushing for more of them. I do like the idea that when you become a citizen legally you can register to vote. The liberal left are not making this country any better they want to see us become a 3rd world country. 

I can relate this to what we ar doing right now because our recent unit has been on acquiring citizenship.

School Prayer // Football

URL:http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/10/14/exclusive-football-coach-says-will-defy-schools-prayer-ban.html

There has always been plenty of controversy about religious freedom and what the limits of the subject are. Joe Kennedy, a high school football coach in Washington that leads a group of boys at Bremerton High School has done something like plenty of other schools have done before. The boys at Bremerton kneel down on one knee and pray before every game, and each time Joe Kennedy would lead this prayer praising God no matter what the end result of the game was. This was not something new, the coach had done this for years and some students had started to join him voluntarily. So he decided to take it a step further and have a post game prayer.

Our family is a Christian family that believes in God and also prayer to God. Prayer is an expression of our faith and our identities. We pray at home during our meals. Most of the time we also bow our heads and say verbal prayer before eating meals even out at a restaurant. From our family's perspective, there is nothing "unlawful" about public prayer.

This article is about the freedom of religious expression. Like in many other cases, this involves a public school and some type of group in the school that wants to do some public prayer. Usually the public school would say that prayer is not allowed because of the separation of church and state. But the Constitution does say that we have the right to religious expression, but the Constitution says that the state is not to establish any religion. These are usually the 2 sides to the argument in cases like this article.

Fair Pay Act of California Bill Passes

URL: http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-84642428/

The issue of equal pay between men and women has always been a topic in lawmaking. For example, at this year's Oscar awards one of the winning actresses spoke about equal pay in Hollywood and the speech made a lot of news. This is the issue in California's "Fair Pay Act “which just passed. This bill is better because it is not just against gender discrimination but guarantees equal pay to women for doing "similar" work as men. In the article, it says how Jennifer Lawrence will get the same profit sharing as Bradley Cooper for the movies they do together.

This issue is important in Hollywood because many actresses are famous and whatever they say gets lots of attention. But there is also a problem for the employers "because it shifts the burden of proof to employers, who will have to justify the differences in compensation between male and female workers." This situation makes it a lot more difficult for them to hire workers under this new circumstance. I like the idea that popular actresses are giving this topic a lot more attention because this issue is important but at the same time it shouldn't be hard for business owners to follow the law. 

This article is related to our studies because it is about laws that protect from discrimination. The Fair Pay Act of California is supposed to give more protection for women against wage discrimination. A law against discrimination is about protecting the rights of one group, like women, from being treated unfairly by another group, like a business or employer.

Kim Davis/Pope Francis

URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/pope-francis-added-to-religious-liberty-debate-by-meeting-with-kim-davis/2015/09/30/4a5fb380-679c-11e5-9ef3-fde182507eac_story.html

Pope Meets with Kim Davis -- Pope Watchers are asking what did Francis mean?

This news article is about the Pope meeting "secretly" with the Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis during the Pope's recent visit to the USA. Kim Davis made other news recently because she went to jail for refusing to sign same-sex marriage licenses, and signing marriage licenses was her job as a government employee. The article interviews different people who have different opinions about this meeting and are wondering why the Pope met with Kim Davis and her husband. Unlike the Pope's other public appearances, the meeting with Davis was private and the Pope's representatives have said very little about it.

Pope Francis has been called the "People's Pope" because he acts very humble, for example, he decided to live in an apartment instead of living in a Vatican mansion. He is also vocal on many social issues like immigration when he spoke before the US Congress. A lot were surprised when they learned that he met with Kim Davis because some people think that Kim Davis is a criminal because she is a government employee who did not obey the Supreme Court and she is an enemy of social justice, but is she? The pope most likely met with her because he supports her right to "conscientious objection"as a Christian and she is just upholding her religious conviction which is also her right. The pope was said to say something like "Stay strong" to Kim Davis. After all, the pope is a Christian first and in fact he is a church leader who is sworn to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.

This article is about the civil liberties of the right to conscientious objection and the right to religious expression versus the duty of government employees like Kim Davis to follow what the Supreme Court ruled about same-sex marriage.

Volkswagen/ Clean Air Act

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/25/business/dealbook/thepotential-criminal-consequences-for-volkswagen.html?_r=0

The Potential Criminal Consequences of Volkswagen

This article is about the car company Volkswagen and the recent discovery by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that Volkswagen violated the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act is a government ruling on air pollution and car companies are required to certify their cars pollutants or emissions by doing official tests before they receive a "certificate" to be able to sell the cars. Volkswagen was basically caught cheating on the EPA tests because as it turns out, the cars ran one way on a test but ran differently (more polluting) when owners would drive them on the road. Volkswagen is accused of using a "defeat device" because what they did basically "defeat" the testing. This was done by using the complicated software and coding that is used to run car engines.

In my opinion, Volkswagen is cheating the government and its customers. They are lying to consumers, and falsified information about their products. Because the software is so complicated it shows that the way they cheated was by design. It's hard to believe that the leaders of Volkswagen did not know about the cheating. In fact, with the CEO resigning it shows that the car company not only cheated but has been cheating for a long time under the encouragement of their influential leaders.

This issue relates to government and politics because the Clean Air Act was passed by the US government as a law that is supposed to protect the environment and the public health. It is also a regulation of a private business sector because the law says that auto makers have to certify or test their vehicles and show that they are "clean" before they can sell to the public. Government makes laws to protect some people (car buyers) by regulating the actions of other people (car makers).

Lewisville Whataburger

URL:http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2015/09/16/lewisville-whataburger-dont-serve-police/

This past Tuesday night two local police officers from Lewisville, Texas walked into a "Whataburger" to grab something to eat. Expecting to get served, they were rudely turned down by one of the male workers stating, "We don't serve police". The two police officers left the fast food restaurant. The next day one of the police officers that witnessed the situation went onto a radio talk show and reported what had happened the previous day. The company "Whataburger” quickly caught word of the whole incident from news reports. Quickly, the fast food restaurant fired the employee that did not serve the police.

In my opinion this event is an example of a product of recent rising racial tensions between white law enforcement officers and African Americans in general. Such tensions were the source of unrest typified in recent large-scale riots in Ferguson MO and Baltimore MD. 

This event is relevant to our study of government and politics because it represents a negative side of the state of race relations in our country. In the US, some people may have the idea that we have now grown out of racism and the modern times, where the world is made smaller by technology and progress is more peaceful between race groups. Clearly, there still are tensions among races and cultures, and this is important to understand as part of both government and policy-making. Some people may believe that America has been successful at integrating cultures. Events such as those in Lewisville show that we still have a long way to go.

California Drone Bill Veto

Article URL: http://www.wired.com/2015/09/jerry-brown-shoots-drone-privacy-bill/

This past Wednesday California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill on regulating drones from flying. This bill passed in the state Assembly with votes of 56-13 and then votes from the Senate, 21-12. These votes would've banned low flying drones from going onto private property, which most land owners wanted. "Drone technology certainly raises novel issues that merit careful examination. “This is what Jerry Brown wrote in his official veto message. The governor of California would like to look at things a little more closely before anyone gets too worried about this situation. Although some people took this as a shock, the drone industry was more than happy with the governor’s action. Then there are the citizens who believe that they have their right to privacy because it is their property and they should have that right, and quite frankly they would find them, quite frequently, annoying and nonsense to the environment.  There are the two types of people in this kind of situation, one: the neighbors who find the drones to be an invasion of their privacy; and two: the type of people who see the drone industry as flying moneybags. Most people are in it for the money, and drones are the big things now. There are plenty of people in the tech industry in California. I feel that Jerry Brown is appeasing the people so that they are able to keep their jobs and by keeping them happy will keep him in office.  This is a good example to our study in government because it’s about a law, the fact that it was vetoed, and that there were people for and against the law.