New Blog C12-4: US Nuclear Arsenal is Expected to Expand

The Huffington Post just recently wrote an article covering President Trump's thoughts of the United States nuclear arsenal. President Trump says that the United States has fallen behind in it capacity of its nuclear arsenal. An anti-nuclear interest group has reported that Russia has 7,000 war heads and the US has 6,800. President Trump doesn't want to have nuclear weapons at all but he has said that if someone has some then we must be leading. All of this stems from the concern of our allies that are neighbors of North Korea and its stockpile. Trump has said the China could very easily defeat the national security challenge that North Korea poses by putting pressure on Beijing to influence Pyongyang's aggressive actions that could potentially lead to war. Trump has said that one possible solution to this is by quickly adding to both Japan's and South Korea's defense. The Obama administration made a new deal with Russia called start which states that come February 5, 2018 both the United States and Russia will not be able to exceed another's capacity for any type of nuclear weapon. There is a big question whether Trump will follow this deal or strike a new one that would allow both Russia and the US to continue to stock pile nuclear missiles. Typically all of these previous actions that were mentioned would fall under the jurisdiction of congress but in situations like today where technology has changed war forever, the president must be ready to declare war and be prepared. Nuclear weapons can do a lot of damage fast and if the decision to go to war was left to congress to debate, the war might be over or the United States would be over powered before they came to a conclusion.

New Blog C12-3: EPA Iron Triangle

The New York Times wrote an article on Wednesday, February 22 about the new EPA director and his connections to major industries. Scott Pruitt, the new EPA director, has been closely connected and involved with major oil and energy industries. Senate democrats wanted to delay his confirmation of becoming the new director until emails between him and major industries were made public by court order. These emails were written in a way that they were congratulating the bosses and interest groups that were battling to roll back Obama-era regulations. Despite the democrat's efforts the Republican were able to gain enough votes to have Pruitt confirmed. Later this week President Trump is expected to release two new executive orders one of them will give the approval for Director Pruitt to go ahead and start rolling back EPA regulations that the Obama administration has made. The iron triangle now within the interests of energy have been made so much stronger now that Pruitt, who is so closely connected with major companies, is the director of the EPA.

News Blog C12-2: Federal Protections of Transgender Bathrooms in Schools Are Withdrawn

Moments ago, CNN caught a breaking news story that the Trump Administration has withdrawn the federal protections of transgender bathrooms in public schools. The administration claims that the protections that Obama tried to enforce fell under Title IX which prohibits sex discrimination. The administration says that the existing guidance did not provide in depth legal analysis of why it falls within Title IX, nor was it put in affect properly. Recently confirmed Betsy DeVos says that this is in the best interest of the schools where it should provide a safe and secure place for students. She says that this is not a mandate, but a moral obligation. Rumor has it though that the word of Betsy DeVos are actually an order from both Trump and Sessions.

New Blog C12-1:Trump's New Order Could Ban All Syrian Refugees

FoxNews has been following the action of President Trump and what his new executive order may contain for "'extreme vetting'". They wrote an article about it on Wednesday, February 22 claiming that the new order will have language that exempts current permanent residents and green-card holders from leaving and entering the country. This is believed to help benefit businesses and also to help international students who may have gone home. The order though is not allowing all visa holders to enter the United States. People who have visas and are coming from one of the seven counties mentioned in the first order would be put on a temporary ban until proper screening measures can take place. The same rule applies for all refugees as well. In addition to the new order the White House has said that the US will only take 50% of the refugees allowed last year. This means that only 50,000 will be admitted into the US and 35,000 have successfully made it so far. This leaves 15,000 for the rest of the year.

News Blog C11-4: Repealing Obamacare

On Wednesday February 8 The Huffington Post

wrote an article following Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and his comments on repealing the Affordable Care Act. Rayna say that he believes and hopes that the legislating for the replacement of the Affordable Care Act will be completed by the end of this year. However the legislating may be completed by the end of the year but implementing is when change starts to happen. Ryan told FoxNews in an interview that it may be until next year that the implementation  of the replacement law will take effect. Part of the replacement law is to lower drug prices by having the government to negotiate with drug companies directly on prices to be paid by the medicare program. While republicans didn't wait long after Trump was inaugurated to start legislating the repeal of Obamacare they did miss the deadline of January 27 which was the date set originally. Nevertheless Republicans want to complete this as fast as possible.

New Blog C11-3: Gorsuch Disagrees with Trump's Tweets

On Wednesday evening CNN wrote an article following Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch and his thoughts on Trump's tweets. Gorsuch says that he is "disheartened" and the comment "demoralized" the courts. Gorsuch had a meeting with Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal to talk about the tweets. Gorsuch claims that any attack on a federal judge is an attack on the court system. Senators are looking at ways that Gorsuch can be independent from the president and he may just have shown one way. Coming out and speaking for his colleagues and showing his thoughts of the president was a great way to prove to senators that Gorsuch may not be as bad as some Democrats believe. Gorsuch has been keeping fairly quiet since he was nominated but his communications director confirmed his comments and remarks to Blumenthal. Gorsuch has been meeting with senators on both sides of the aisle since he was nominated and even more so with Democratic senators from states that voted for Trump. Blumenthal was later asked if he would vote for Gorsuch and said that he would wait until the Senate Judiciary committee finishes its hearings and then he will decide. Blumenthal and Gorsuch had about a 40 minute meeting and though they talked about the things that they both love they also talked about reproductive rights, workers rights, and consumer protection issues. Blumenthal said that he did not receive specific answers and was disappointed. that is why he is deciding to wait till all of the hearings on Gorsuch are finished before he decides.

News Blog C11-2: Rogue Twitter Accounts

NPR has looked into why rogue Twitter accounts have been popping up all over the place. All of the accounts have a similar mission which is "'unofficial resistance'". There have been rogue accounts for specific parks and even organizations like NASA. Many accounts were initially claimed to be run by members of the organization but lately they have been altered to remain anonymous. "Fake" accounts have always existed for celebrities, movie characters, and even some that have impersonated a North Korean News Service. The point of these accounts is to prevent a media black out. They are preventing Trump from putting out fake facts but tweeting about real ones.

News Blog C11-1: Revenge of the Bureaucrats

In Politico's article on January 23 they asses the public opinion of the executive order that will freeze most federal agencies from hiring. The Trump administration is trying to shrink the size of the government by cutting out bureaucrats. The easiest way to cut federal workers is to reduce the budget that agencies receive. Cutting angry bureaucrats in D.C. is not the only problem that Trump will have to worry about. 85 percent of bureaucrats are outside of D.C. meaning that his administration will have to deal with many angry Americans. Secondly cutting out bureaucrats in D.C. will lead to a problem for Democrats. Democratic workers in the nation capitals don't have a large market to select jobs from. The ones that are close to retiring plan on taking an early retirement if they are to be cut.

News Blog C10-4: Trump's Supreme Court Pick

The New York Times wrote an article following up on President Trump's promise to make a Supreme Court nomination by the end of the week. The court has had a vacant seat for nearly a year now and the justices have been avoiding to hear cases that they know would end in a 4-4 deadlock. President Obama nominated Judge Merrick B. Garland to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia, but Republican Senators had refused to hold the confirmation hearing. Democrats are ready to apply the same tactic and have said that they are willing to leave Scalia's seat open indefinitely if one of Trump's nominations do not fall within the legal mainstream. The top three candidates in the running currently are Judge William H. Pryor Jr, Judge Thomas H. Hardiman, and Judge Neil M. Gorsuch. All three are  conservatives currently serving on various federal appeals court. Jay Sekulow, the chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, believes that no matter how hard the Democrats questions Trump's nominee in the end they will be confirmed.

New Blog C10-3: Norwegian Air Now Services the U.S.

Back in early December USA Today wrote an article about approving Norwegian Air to start servicing the United States. Pilots, flight attendants, and many of the unions in the aviation industry strongly oppose this decision. The Norwegian Air subsidiary will be stationed in Ireland which makes many in the aviation industry to believe that Norwegian Air is cutting corners. They believe that they are taking advantage of safety and labor laws as well as hiring Asian crew members for "below-market wages". This decision come the the Open Skies between the U.S. and the European Union and Norway. The agreement that was passed by Obama says "'opportunities created by the agreement are not meant to undermine labour standards or the labour-related right and principles'". Some argue that in the end this will be good for the economy because Norwegian Air has already ordered $18.5 billion in Boeing aircraft. Also the new international flights will require more connecting flights domestically but also to expand on some of the international airports.

News Blog C10-2: Will President Trump be Sued?

Starting Saturday January 21, 2017 President Trump was violating the Constitution but receiving payments from foreign leaders to stay at the Trump hotel. The New York Times wrote an article addressing the situation and about a possible law suit to follow. President Trump is not allowed to receive any type of payments from foreign leaders. The reason that the Founding Fathers wrote this is because they did want our elected leader to be accepting bribes. The Supreme Court can address this situation in two ways. The first is by strict interpretations. Meaning that Justices Scalia and Thomas would say that President Trump is violation the constitution because it clearly states that elected officials may not revise money from foreign leaders. Another way the Supreme Court can also look at it is but the Founding Fathers intent. The intent was that we did want our elected officials to be bribed because then they would not be public servants to the American population rather than other countries. There is a couple interesting aspects to this case and one of them is who has standing. Standing is what allows the plaintiff to sue. In this case the American population has standing but how would that be tried in court? The other very interesting aspect of this case is that if President Trump is found that he has violated the Constitution many wonder what will be his punishment? Impeachment can be one of them but with the Republicans controlling the House and Senate getting two thirds to agree will be very hard.

News Blog C10-1: Trump's Inauguration

Following Donald Trump's inauguration and the false claims about crowd size the Huffington Post followed up with an article about the White House and media overage. There were several claims that news outlets edited pictures of the national mall to make the crowd sizes of Donald Trump's inauguration look smaller than Obama's. It is true that the crowd sizes were smaller compared to the inauguration of 2009 but not as small as some of the pictures depict. Trump's Chief of Staff Reince Priebus says that they are not so much as mad about the smaller turn out than the fact that the media is trying to delegitimize the President in one day. The White House has claimed that there is a running war between them and the media and that they will be aggressively stance with news organizations.

News Blog C9-4: The Future of the Media Room

The Huffington Post wrote an article yesterday about the future for the media in the White House. An AP poll last April showed that a staggering six percent fully trust the media. The press room in the White House was remodeled t be what it is now from the old White House pool. It has also become the new home for critters like rats and cockroaches. All of this makes it seems that Donald Trump may get rid of the press room in the White House. After all only six percent of Americans fully believe in the media, but a number as small as six percent can be deceiving. Seven percent of the American population is on Twitter and as many may know by now President-Elect Donald Trump is quite active on Twitter. With Trump using Twitter using twitter to reach the American people some feel as to what purpose does the media have in the White House if the future President can do it from his desk. The reasoning is logistics. The press room is just a couple steps away from the Oval office but also the drive way for political guests is just right outside of the room as well. Based on these few reasons it is believed that the room will not go away because the business man that Trump is, he sees that space as valuable. He might place carrying rates on seats in the room so that news corporations would have to spend money to buy positions where they could be asked for questions.

New Blog C9-3: Jeff Session Confirmation Hearing

Politico wrote and article review of Senator Jeff Sessions confirmation hearing for his nomination of being the next Attorney General. Red state democrats are having trouble backing Sessions based on his voting record of Violence Against Women Act. In 2013 Sessions voted no to renew the act which was first drafted in 1994 by current Vice-President Joe Biden. Many democrats are concerned by this because Sessions is the head representative of all members of the Justice Department and they are worried that this will make the country look unconcerned about the topic. Sessions doesn't need any help from the democrats to get confirmed but republicans are angling to hope get moderate democrats to back Sessions.

New Post C9-2: Legitimacy of President Elect Trump?

FoxNews wrote on Saturday, January 14 about another one of President-Elect Donald Trump's tweets. This time the tweet was directed towards Georgia's Representative John Lewis. Lewis was a leader in the civil rights movement and also participated in the "Bloody Sunday" march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama. Lewis claims that Trump is not a legitimate president and has decided to boycott the inauguration. The President-Elect responded by tweeting that Representative Lewis should focus on correcting his violence district than falsely accusing the election. Many democrats and civilians from the district tweeted pictures of the fifth district and claimed that they were proud the be living in the fifth. Once again it is so surprising how only 7% of Americans on twitter can make a discussion appear in the news headlines. I have heard that many other Democrats are to boycott Trump's inauguration with Lewis. This makes me wonder why they would do this. Constituents are mad at their representatives because it shows that democrats are not willing to work together and this could cost members of congress their seats. The GOP already controls both the House and the Senate and for Democrats to be questioning the legitimacy of the new president can't be helping all that much.

News Blog C9-1: Dylan Roof is the First to be Federally Charged

On Wednesday CNN did a follow up article on Dylan Roof who will be federally charged for hate crimes. Dylan killed nine people in a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. Dylan will be be the first defendant of a federal hate crime to be sentenced to death as recommended by the jury. Roof will have 14 days to appeal his sentence and if he does so he will appear in appellate courts to have automatic hearing to decide whether his sentence stands on legal grounds. Death penalty cases are notorious for their complexity because of all of the appeals and the processes that they must go through. Roof didn't have a defense attorney during any part of the penalty phase so it is expected for Dylan to appeal his sentence. Appealing his current sentence will not e only opportunity that Dylan will be back in a courtroom. The State of South Carolina is expected to press charges of their own with the death penalty as well.

Iran Government

Iran is a unitary Islamic republic with one legislative house. It has a mixed system of government that  several bodies dominated by the clergy oversee the executive, parliament, and judiciary. The Assembly of experts chooses a leader from a qualified group of shi'ite clergy based on personal piety, expertise in Islamic law, and political acumen. The leader will then appoint officials, members of the judiciary, and military leaders, along with the members of the Council Guardian. In Iran's constitution, which took affect in 1979, recognizes the creation of political parties as long as they do not violate the principles of independence, freedom, national unity, the criteria of Islam, or the basis of the Islamic Republic. Iran went from a single-party state to nearly 100 parties immediately following the revolution. In order for a party to become official they must get a permit from Interior Ministry meaning that the government oversees party formation. New parties are mainly formed by breaking away from other parties because they were wither too left or right in one specific issue.