Questions Inside Obama's Presidency Made Me Ask

Jordan Loftin 
yellow=question 

"He's the first Nobel peace prize winner with a kill list" (repeated twice)

-What Nobel prize did he win? What do they mean by kill list?

*He was a state legislature 4 years before presidency
*The president making promises he can't keep: "we will get through the worst financial/economic crisis in America"
*"he had to start thinking about this crisis the day after he was elected"... Yeah, work starts early and they are constantly busy

-Do republicans/democrats normally get together to "take on" the president of the opposite political beliefs?

*weird.. why do the president and First Lady dance in front of everyone?
*"what does Obama need to do?" -news lady.. Everyone depends on the president and puts blame on the president immediately when something goes wrong
*Advertising by visibility and going to the senate go trying and sell his argument to the republicans representatives
*roll call votes!!! bills can pass without any minority vote at all
*"being president is understanding the constraints and working the system rather than hanging the system"
*political advisors have a lot of influence

-Is Obama's leadership style more like Clinton's chaotic style or Bush's too decisive style? If neither, what is his leadership style? Seems chaotic...

*loans have strings attached
*advisors can be divided on decision making

-What did they mean by "things have a way of slowing down in congress"?

-What is a summer recess for congress?

*HE HAS ONLY BEEN IN OFFICE FOR 8 MONTHS AND: health care reform stalled, bipartisanship had collapsed, and there was still trouble with the economy
*this is a very stressful job, can you imagine getting "you lie" yelled at you in front of thousands of people?
*define caucus: a group of people with shared concerns within a political party
*one arena the president can act on on his own: military
*dealing with congress is simply too difficult, along with understanding congress
*"it was the right thing to do" -Obama he was thinking he is a delegate or trustee

*national security team: gives their advice on security issues and deal with security crisis: Members à vp, p, and sec. of state and defense

-Only the president could make the final decision on whether to send troops? I thought that was the Patriot Act.. With consent of congress??

-debt ceiling? What does that mean?

*leaders (speaker of the house and the president, etc) must be deal makers and able to persuade

*define bipartisan: of or involving the agreement or cooperation of two political parties that usually oppose each other's policies.

-Grand deal/bargain?

*”dealing with the white house is like dealing with a bowl of jello” –boehner

            -“refuse to be serious”

*Grand bargain failed and was turned to the fiscal cliff

*”if I sad the sky was blue, they said no.” – Obama talking about the republican party trying to get Obama to fail (wow)

*incumbents normally do better the second time around, “he did worse”

*his big line “we are the united states of America!!”

Alan Rickman's Short Battle With Cancer

Snape 

        Alan Rickman, known by most teenagers as "Snape" from Harry Potter, died Thursday after a short battle of cancer. He was only 69 years old. J.K Rowling, the author of the books, was mourning over how shocking and devastating this news was. All the actors added onto how good of a man he was. "Alan was extremely kind, generous, self-deprecating, and funny" said Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter). Alan almost did not take the role of Snape. He had been in Hollywood for two days and said he did not want to do any action movie, but he took the role and was hired partially because he would work for less pay. In 1997 he received a Golden Globe award for best actor HBO biopic "Rasputin". It is very safe to say that this man will go down in history. He was very loved. 

Lawrence Phillips: Suicide?

NFL running back or murderer? 

        Lawrence phillips, an imprisoned former NFL running back, died Wednesday morning after being found unresponsive in his prison cell at the Kern Valley State Prison. He was awaiting a trial on charges of killing his cellmate last year in April. The death of Phillips is being investigated as suicide. Phillips was a star running back at Nebraska and a first-round pick for the St. Louis Rams in 1996, but lasted in the NFL only three seasons. He was sent to a California prison in 2008 after being convicted of domestic violence, false imprisonment and vehicle theft charges. Phillips was found unresponsive at 12:05 am Wednesday in his cell, he was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead at 1:27 am. It is unknown what led the investigators to believe he committed suicide. 

Child Escaped ISIS

"Like Coming Back to Life"  

        "Nasir" is very luck to be alive! He managed to escape from ISIS, he is 12 years old and was being trained to be a suicide bomber. The boy is now reunited with his mother at the Esyan refugee camp in Kurdistan, home to almost 15,000 Yazidis fleeing ISIS. He asked CNN not to broadcast his face or voice, or to disclose his real name. I do not think the picture of the boy is a picture of "Nasir" but a picture of another child who escaped. The leaders of ISIS would tell the little kids how bad Americans were and how bad they wanted to kill them. But something he could say positive about the leaders, was that they loved him. They looked after him better than parents. Throughout the training of these 60 young men, they had nothing but negative things to say about their parents. They said their parents were "unbelievers and their first job was to go back and kill them." ISIS uses and trains child soldiers quite often. It makes me sick!!!  

Gang Rape in Brooklyn: 5th subject arrested

Number 5

       Update on the arresting for gang rape: The fifth subject was found!! His name is Travis Beckford, and they have all been charged as an adult with rape, committing a criminal sex act and sex abuse. All of the subjects names are: Travis Beckford, Denzel Murray, Shaquell Cooper, Ethan Phillip, and Onandi Brown. 

Gang Rape in Brooklyn

Suspects 

        Four teenage boys that forced a father to leave his daughter at Osborn Playground so they could take turns raping her have been arrested, and a fifth suspect is still at large. The 18 year old girl was with her father at the park drinking around 9 p.m. and were approached by 5 males. The males pulled out a gun on her father and demanded that he left. Each of the five attackers then raped the teenager, authorities said. The father said he did not have a cell phone with him and went to a store, begging for help; but the people in the store would not call the police and said the father appeared drunk. The sources also say the father and daughter were drinking beer in an obscured spot on the playground, almost in an effort to hide from the police. By the time the father returned to the park with two police officers, the attackers were gone. The young girl said she cried for help but no one stopped. She suffered cuts to her arms, neck and knees during the assault. The officers claim they could not interview the girl the night of the attack because she was so drunk. She even bit one of the officers, refusing to go to the hospital. The clearly went against the refusal and she was treated and released. On sunday night, four of the suspects, ages 14, 15, 15, and 17 were in custody and charges were pending. Two of the teens turned themselves in and the other two were arrested. One of the subjects is also trying to claim the sex was consensual.

Exploring Congress; How It Works

Senator Cory Booker: democrat from New Jersey:

-     His report card was not very impressive at all

-     He seems to lay very low: he is one of the lowest ranked members of congress.

o   He introduced 14 bills while others are introducing up to 107 bills or more

o   He has 54 cosponsors while others have 894 cosponsors or more

o   He sponsored 144 bills while others sponsored 449 bills or more

o   He introduced 14 bills and got zero of them passed as laws while others are getting 7 laws passed or more

Summaries for the Access to Birth Control Act

-       Committee it came out of: Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 

-       Did not get passed as a law

-       It is only 9 pages: the average bill length in 1948 was 2 and a half pages and now it is 20 pages. (a question that occurred to me: how long is the average bill?)

Explain the Bill: Basically, Senator Cory Booker wanted to show that he is for woman's rights. This bill is for those girls who go into pharmacy's and ask for birth control but get harassed by the pharmacist. Some pharmacist apparently have been known for saying threats such as the pill could make them infertile or that they are out of the prescription. The purpose behind the bill is to not allow people to work at a harmony if they are going to be biased towards these issues. Summaries for the Access to Birth Control Act did not get passed because this situation is very rare and the only pharmacist who would be against birth control most likely are those who are very strong in their religion.