News! 1. 6/6/2013 Doug Gross. * Barack Obama believes that there should be internet access in all schools. He wants to provide funds to around 99% of public schools for them to be able to have internet, even in libraries. He says that he wants all American students to be connected online in five years. Usually, adults don’t go for this type of thing they want children to not be so ‘connected’ to the internet. They want kids to not spend so much time on computers, but he almost wants just that to happen. People are becoming way too dependent on computers and the internet, which even libraries are eventually only going to be used just for that. Although Obama is more so moderate, this idea is clearly making him to be a liberal. He wants the change and wants to continue to further the change on technology.

2. 6/8/2013 Maureen Dowd * In this article, she quotes the book 1984. She is talking about how Bush felt about 9/11 and some of the after effects. It turns out that, for seven years the N.S.A was taking information from our phone calls. This all started while Bush was president through a program called prism. Prism would let the F.B.I. and N.S.A. into many social media websites and was able to access all of our information. These people were trying to spot out terrorists, and will go to any means necessary. According to Obama, they necessarily can’t hear the conversations; they are just able to learn about who we call. They also are saying that they don’t collect the information, which doesn’t add up. This show how desperate the country has been since 9/11 has happened. It’s almost as if they are trying to do anything to find what’s not there.

3. 6/9/2013 Mark Mazzetti and Michael S. Schmidt * Edward Snowden who is a former CIA computer technician, opened up and answered questions about the CIA and the doings of it. He had answered questions knowing that he could end up in jail for the rest of his life. People are beginning to question the government and all that it is doing. The people want to know if what the government does is at all right. Snowden wants to show some of the things that the CIA has done to American’s. He only wanted to tell about the absolute wrong things they have done. In this article, it says that with all this recent talk, people have been talking. They’re going to have to start sharing information about what is going on, telling people about the things that they are doing. Having all of this going on, shows that the government needs to change. They have done far too much to American’s in such a bad way.

4. 6/10/13 Michael A. Memoli * Within the past year or so, guns have become a HUGE topic among all American’s. The biggest controversy among them is the gun laws; there are people who don’t think that these laws are being enforced enough. Then there are others who are convinced that we don’t need gun laws. Jeffrey Chiesa was sworn into office today, Monday June 10 as U.S. Senator of New Jersey. According to Harry Reid, Chiesa has taken a number of guns off the streets, including illegal guns. When it comes to the gun laws, he seems to be a good candidate. He is expected to talk immigration reforms for the remainder of the month, and is wanting to expand background checks. 5. 6/12/13 John M. Broder * In this day and age, people are trying to find all new ways to help cut down pollution and bring down global warming. Even though they try to find ways to cut it down, there are still so many different things that are just bringing it right back up and causing it to get so much worse. Now, Obama is making it to where essential everyday utilities, are going to help cut down on pollution. Obama knows that he needs to make a serious change with the way that he does things, there are so many people who don’t agree with his actions. Therefore, Obama wants to take matters into his own hands. He believes that he shouldn’t be needing to do everything, that his senate should be able to see what needs to be done and to do it. 6. 6/14/13 Ashley Parker * John Cornyn, who is a Senator of Texas, wants to make changes on the immigration policies. He wants to make the security more precise, and make things more thorough for the ones who want to become a citizen of America. Democrats think that what Cornyn wants to do is too much. Some other politicians think that what he is trying to do is take down the path for immigrants to become a citizen. That he really doesn’t want to improve the border security. Cornyn just feels that the people need to trust in what he is doing and what he wants. But those are the Democrat’s opinions; the Republicans are completely on Cornyn’s side. They agree with everything that he is saying and want his amendment to be elected. This country has too many different opinions that don’t agree with each other. They are the main roots of all the problems. 7. 6/17/13 Stephen Castle and Jackie Calmes * In Northern Ireland, a bunch of European Union leaders along with Obama, met to discuss far-reaching transatlantic trade. According to Obama, the relationship between the United States and European Union is the biggest in the entire world. This deal that they’re discussing will be one of the biggest to have happened ever. The E.U. would be able to sell 250 billion dollars’ worth of items each year to the U.S. Obama knows that no matter what they do, there is always going to be people who have different opinions. There is always going to be two sides to everything that they do. 8. 6/19/13 Sheryl Gay Stolberg * Ken Mehlman, who is a Republican once apart of when Bush ran in 2004, has come out of the closet. This could only mean nothing but good things for those who are for same sex marriage. He wants to be able to convince Republicans that same sex marriage isn’t a bad thing at all, and it only makes them look bad for not endorsing it. There is such a large number of gay people, they would get such a huge amount of votes if they were to support gays. There are always going to be people who oppose gay marriage, it’s just going to take will power. Legalize gay marriage, the people behind it need to be willful and wanting to make a change. They need to be able to fight for what they want. That’s really all that it is going to take. There is such a low amount of people who are willing to fight for what they want, which is one of the biggest problems. 9.6/21/13 Michael D. Shear * In one of the spare rooms of the White House, they have turned it into a complete room about immigration. The goal is to secure the passage of the first immigration overhaul. The problem with this is that Obama doesn’t really enforce things. Although he is doing this immigration stuff, he doesn’t make it seem important to other politicians. He doesn’t give them a reason to want to sign the bill, which is only going to end badly and he will have the wrath of the Hispanics. He has brought in a lot of people who are very concerned in this topic. They know what the need to do and that is why they are there. 10.6/26/2013 Manny Fernandez * Wendy Davis who was not well known, now has become a very popular political icon. She is a Texas State Senator, who was expressing her opinion. She was doing a filibuster on the topic of abortion. Davis had to stand for eleven hours, she couldn’t lean against anything, eat, drink, or go to the bathroom, she had to be standing there talking for the full time. She couldn’t stop talking not once, or go away from the topic of abortion. She is a good person for this topic, because she went through a lot as a teenager and brought herself to graduate from Harvard. If the bill would have been passed, most of the abortion clinics in Texas would have been shut down. It was mainly that women couldn’t get abortions after 20 weeks. 11. 6/27/2013 Adam Liptak * Yesterday was a HUGE day for California, the rights for gays to get married were finally given. This is now thirteen states that have same-sex marriage legal. California is one of the more popular states, now it could help the influence for other states to make it legal. Which is something that recently more than ever has been a huge desire for Americans. There are still the republicans who don’t want to legalize same-sex marriage, but their opinions seem to be so little these days. It doesn’t seem like they are trying to have a say in much of anything. Which is only a good thing because usually what they want is not what the majority of people want. The law against same-sex was so clearly violating the Fifth Amendment. Which was one of the biggest reasons that politicians had with it 12. 6/29/13 David G. Savage * A few days ago, same-sex marriage became legal in California, the thirteenth state to make that legal. This caused a new definition of equal justice, and made a huge impression upon all Americans. The only black man apart of the decision voted against same sex marriage, which is a little ironic because just years ago African Americans were fighting for rights and now he didn’t want to give gays rights. This makes little to no sense to anybody. The constitution makes a promise for liberty and equality for everybody. Having laws like this, take that away and make people question the constitution and other laws that were made during this time. 13. 7/2/13 Noam N. Levey * Obama is planning on delaying something that is very needed for the new healthcare law. It would be delayed up until 2015, affecting the large employers who don’t offer health benefits. It shows how much pressure the administration is under trying to put the law out by next year. All American’s were supposed to have access to health care by next year no matter what conditions they were living under. They see that there are more things that need to be added which is the root reason for the huge delay. But Mazur wants to make sure that we know other key parts of the law will still be enforced next year, such as tax credits to help people get insurance who do not have health benefits. This law is making it so that employers who have more than 30 employees, will have consequences for not providing benefits. 14. 7/5/13 Christopher Drew and Scott Shane * When Edward J. Snowden was working with the NSA in 2010, he learned the skill of being a hacker. Looking at the skills that he was, shows a perfect representation of how he was able to go into the computers at the NSA and gather together much classified surveillance documents which he leaked last month. Although his resume hasn’t actually been publicized, the people who actually have seen it share a lot about it. They say that his skills just kept growing and he is somebody that they really need, which makes them feel even more embarrassed over having to admit this out to the public. He took a job in Hawaii to gain access to lists of computers that have been hacked all over the world. The fact that he was able to gain access to a large sum of important documents and just walk out with them, shows how little security we have. They make such a big point to let the people know how great everything is and how wonderful technology is, but then something like this happens. Showing that maybe this tech savvy world isn’t as great as some make it to sound. 15. 7/7/13 Eric Lichtbau * Looking through different rulings, it is clear that the nation’s surveillance court created a secret body of law for the NSA. They do this so the NSA can track terrorism and cyber-attacks. The FISA court, foreign intelligence surveillance court, has almost become a strange parallel to the Supreme Court. The judges expanded the use of terrorism cases of a legal thing called the ‘Special Needs Doctrine’. It was originally adopted in 1989, so they could allow drug tests on railroad workers. Having the NSA collect and go through the lot of the things that us as Americans do, is still within the fourth amendment. Therefore it wouldn’t be very easy to make it stop, there is not much of a problem with it. It is only very slyly not breaking the law, just like drunk driving check points, and airport screenings. They aren’t justifiably wrong, but it’s very close. 16. 7/8/13 * Going back and reading through the details of the case, it makes it seem so odd that Zimmerman was let. Several of the 911 calls had stated that they saw the white man upon Trayvon. Which completely contradicts everything that most of the other people have said. I don’t understand why they haven’t taken this into account or tried to go deeper into this. Some people are speculating the fact that if it were to be swapped, Trayvon be the killer, he would be tried as guilty. Due to the fact that most people believe the judicial system is racist and corrupt. They know if they play the race card, it’ll automatically be called against and they will lose for even thinking that. At this point in the case, they don’t know what the decision is going to be. It is still all up in the air. 17. 7/9/13 Trip Gabriel * The American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit against Pennsylvania on the fact that they don’t allow same sex marriage. The couple that started this, has been together for 22 years and has two teenage daughters. The 23 plaintiffs have all gone through many events throughout their lives. The couple just wants to be able to get married and share the same legal rights as straight couples. In Pennsylvania they only recognize marriage between a man and a woman, not same sex. Just in the past year, six states have legalized gay marriage. The ACLU plans to file against two other states. New Jersey, Hawaii, and Illinois are ready to pass the same sex marriage law. Some of the supporters believe that if more states legalize same sex marriage, that it will eventually influence the Supreme Court when it has to take up the issue of a constitutional right of same sex marriage in the next few years. But the people that are against same sex marriage are using the same strategy to try to add Indiana to the 29 states that have a constitutional ban. The couple who has started this talk about how they talk to the teachers of their daughters every year to talk about their family and make sure that any questions are answered. 18. 7/14/13 Adam Nagourney * Yesterday was a very tragic day in the court. George Zimmerman was acquitted in the Trayvon Martin trial. It has been on debate for over a year now, the killing of Trayvon Martin. It has been much speculated due to the fact that there were two witnesses, and one is dead. The only things the cops could really go off of was from whatever Zimmerman had to say. Therefore it must have been insanely difficult for them to decide anything other than Zimmerman being not guilty. It is heart wrenching seeing as how there is only a few things showing that Trayvon was the one who provoked it. They found him on top of Zimmerman, Zimmerman had a broken nose a lacerations on the back of his head. To me, even if it was self-defense, he had absolutely no right to shoot him. It’s kind of ironic, that Zimmerman got away with murder in Florida. When maybe a year possibly longer, Casey Anthony lo had gotten away with murder in the same state. It’s quite sad, that Trayvon doesn’t even have justice for his family to feel a little better about. 19. 7/15/2013 Mark Mazzetti * A while back Obama’s administrations had said that they wanted to send extra protection and troops to Syria with hopes of reversing ‘the tide of war’. But after many interviews with officials, the plans are now getting to be very limited. The administration is planning to use the CIA to train people to go in, but this could take months. The actual numbers to be sent are totally unclear at this point. All of the countries involved have been very eager for America to take part in arming them. The ones being trained, rebel forces, are being over powered and having to rely on light weapons. 20. 7/17/2013 Jonathan Weisman * The senate leaders agreed to preserve the filibuster that was made for confirmation votes on Obama’s stalled nominees. This was made for seven nominees, the vote was 66 to 34. Which was for Richard Cordray whose five year term had gone up for a couple of months now. They needed help to stay and have it be okay and not breaking rules. Which is exactly what this filibuster had done for them. They are now making it to where the nominees who are very well at their job and can be there for longer than their term. Which is something that should have been a ruled for quite some time now. 21. 7/19/2013 Kate Zernike * This is something that should be everywhere. The fact that it is legal for the government to search through what we do on our phones, and what we do on the internet is absolutely absurd. New Jersey, has now made it illegal for the police to be able to search through phone data. The New Jersey police will now gave to obtain a search warrant for it. A lot of people are now speculating that this case may end up being in front of the United States Supreme Court. It may not be the government but it is a start. 22. 7/22/2013 Mark Landler * Obama is wanting to make changes that is going to help and reinvigorate the nation’s economy. Which is something that is completely needed, we have been in a crisis for quite some time. I don’t remember a time when we weren’t struggling to be honest. Obama will begin a major address on economic policy at Knox College on Wednesday. He wants to make it a point that he is going to pave a new path for the economy that is going to help everybody and everything. He is doing more than just the economy, he is going to be making other small speeches and is going to start moving forward on other policies that he has previously talked about. 23. 7/23/2013 Annie Lowrey * President Barack Obama has been in the talks lately with wanting to begin his new plans for the economy. He has been a lot more serious with it the past couple of weeks and is now moving forward with it. Obama has started using the phrase ‘middle-out’ with this. It means the new way that they are going to take on with shaping up the economy again. One of the best things that he is doing is raising taxes against the wealthier of people. Which is good because they are the ones that re screwing everybody else over. 24. 7/24/2013 Jonathan Weisman * Republicans are trying to figure out every possible way that they can see what is wrong with what Obama wants. They want to gut out all of his plans and find the bad things of it, as if they are perfect. Obama is preparing to deliver a speech in Illinois, while the republicans are sending all this negative stuff to programs that Obama is going to promote. Which is going to make them not like and begin to not support him. It is just terrible because he means so well and he is trying to do things that is going to help America, but the Republicans just bring him down. But I am sure if we had a Republican president, the democrats would be doing the same thing to him. 25. 7/25/2013 Jonathan Martin * Obama was making a speech the other day, and made it super clear how the economy and the country aren’t where it could be yet. Although he didn’t really say anything all too bad, a lot of people are taking this as such a horrible thing. Because he didn’t necessarily need to remind us of how bad our country, but to me I don’t see at all how this is bad. Liberals believe that the democrats need to push away from the center, because they need to reduce income disparity. There are a lot of things that need to be done and they see that. The democrats are trying and it will take time, Obama is a human, he says things that he doesn’t realize is bad at the moment. He shouldn’t be talked down upon for it. 26. 7/26/2013 Richard Perez Pena * This is another article that has nothing to do with politics but, it seems to fit well since we are going to be applying to colleges soon. This is the first time since 1999 that college enrollment has gone down, and it has only gone down by two percent. It has only gone higher, so the fact that it declined is such a huge thing. ‘Gaining admission to middle-tier institutions, will most likely get easier.’ Now it’s not quite understandable, but this seems like such a good thing. We have had all the stress of not being able to get in because they are overcrowded, but this is giving us hope. Obama is challenging colleges to lower their tuition, because high prices are turning people away. Their response was giving more discounts and faster degree programs. A few colleges had to make drastic decisions when they didn’t get the numbers that they had wanted, making them pay more money to try and bring people in. Another college in Boston was calling families from far enough away as Italy, for new students. 27. 7/27/2013 Jonathan Martin * Conservatives are very suspicious of Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, and became more so suspicious when he all of a sudden embraces President Obama after the hurricane Sandy debacle. Christie made it almost seem like 9-11 was at fault of those who have questioned surveillance efforts having trampled civil liberties. It is very clear that Christie supports what the NSA is doing, and any person who is trying to crack down on terrorism. He thinks in a way, that anybody who is against what the NSA is doing, will end up regretting that and it will be at their expense. 28. 7/29/2013 Jonathan Weisman * The whole rebellion against the things that NSA is beginning to do with phone logs, began because of a couple from Michigan. What they are doing is beginning to draw support from Democrat and Republican leaders. They are beginning to look like they are going to be unstoppable. On Wednesday in the White House, there was talk that they were going to stop funding what the NSA is doing, but then they kind of became more comfortable with the idea. By August, there will be a bill ready and presented to Congress to be able to sto the NSA taking our phone logs and going through them. 29. 7/30/2013 Rachel Donadio * Although this isn’t an article that has to do with politics or anything, I thought that it fit well with a lot that has happened over the summer. Pope Francis has said that he is not one to judge priests on being gay. Having the Pope say this, can be totally influential among all the religious people who are ignorant to homosexual people. The saddest part of him saying this, is that the ‘Vatican Experts’ were quick to try and make it appoint to the fact that Pope Francis didn’t say it was okay to act on homosexual tendencies, since those are a sin. In all reality, gay people shouldn’t be judged because in the bible it says something like only God can judge you. People are too ignorant with religion. 30. 7/31/2013 Charlie Savage and David E. Sanger * Senators in either party are beginning to fight back against the NSA on them taking people’s phone logs. It’s honestly quite scary, to even think of the fact that they’re able to see who we have been calling. They shouldn’t be allowed to do that, because it is our right to have privacy. The people who are against what the NSA is doing to people, don’t see at all why they are doing it. But to be perfectly honest it is totally unclear. They are wanting to track terrorists, but by them going through all of our recent phone calls, that is an invasion of our privacy. If there are people who are talking to terrorists, they are obviously going to be sly about it. Even if they see some clues, or something to make them suspicious, they aren’t totally sure about any of it at all. 31. 8/4/2013 Julia Preston * There was a protest with nine Mexican immigrants who tried to cross the border with no valid paperwork. Most of the nine who were apart, grew up in the states without legal status. There are some lawmakers who praise the group for their bold civil disobedience. A democrat of California got a document signed by 32 people for the nine to stay in the United States. There are many debates going on about them staying. Some people believe that what they did was wrong and it is going to put us Americans in danger. When in all reality we say we want to treat everybody with equality but we really aren’t giving them as much freedom and equality as we say we are. 32. 8/5/2013 Ron Nixon * The TSA is beginning to want to enforce security in other places than airports. They had a swarm of officers at the Amtrak station. They are now beginning to be at sporting events, concerts, and many other public events. Not everybody is happy about this new change of security, which is odd because this is only for their safety. They are trying to prevent terrorist attacks from happening throughout places that there are a lot of people. We are unaware if the TSA actually has stopped any terrorist attacks because that is confidential, which is what makes people weary of them. 33. 8/9/2013 Ron Nixon * The Postal Service is slowly not losing as much money. As the United States economy begins to improve, they are seeing a great deal of improvement with use of the Post Office. If there wasn’t health fund payments required, they would have made over 660 million dollar profit. To be able to increase in revenues, the USPS has begun to ask Congress if they can start with the shipping of Wine and alcohol, which is now forbidden. A bill has passed recently that letter delivery will no longer continue shipping on Saturdays, the shipping of packages will still continue with six day shipping though. The post master general is confident that the USPS will continue to rise.