J1

With recent mass shootings there has been a heated debate on gun control laws- just this week the Senate failed to pass a law for background checks. Senator Dianne Feinstein led the push for the assault weapons ban in 1994 and has tried to gain support to bring it back. She has not had much luck in getting fellow democrats to help and said that a huge change from 1994 to now was that the NRA is much more powerful and influential, making it harder to pass any new gun laws.

What are a few things the NRA can do to influence the public and senators? What makes them so powerful?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/us/politics/for-feinstein-gun-control-measures-defeat-was-personal.html?hpw

H6

1) Judicial review is the court's power to determine if acts of Congress and the Executive branch are Constitutional.
2) Judicial review gives the Supreme Court power over the Legislative and Executive branch because it checks up on them by making sure they are following the laws of the land and it is balanced because this does not give the Court the power to make or pass legislation.
3) A writ of certiorari is an order a higher court issues in order to review the decision and proceedings in a lower court and determine whether there were any irregularities. The Supreme Court issues a writ of certiorari when they are deciding whether or not to take the case.
4) Justices rely heavily on previous decisions and if a lower court has reached a stare decisis, meaning "let the decision stand", a Justice could decide to uphold that. Judicial activism is a judicial philosophy in which judges make bold policy decisions, emphasizing that courts can correct pressing needs. If a justice sees that the people are lacking essential legislation, they could use judicial activism to change that.

H3

1.
a) Three characteristics of Supreme Court nominees are ethical behavior, competence, and partisanship.
b) All three characteristics listed above are politically relevant because Supreme Court Justices serve for life and everything they do reflects somewhat on the president who nominated them. Presidents have to be very careful in their nominations because it lasts a lifetime.
c) Elena Kagan proved to Obama that she had ethical behavior because of her former job as Dean of Harvard Law school, he also knew she was competent because of her work as Solicitor General and she was a left-leaning lawyer.
2.
a) Interest groups with ideologies different from Kagan's voiced them to the public and raised money by doing so. Interest groups in favor of Kagan's confirmation made ads that supported her while bringing to light  their agenda.
b) The website of NARAL Pro-choice America told it's followers to urge senators to look into Kagan's stance on Roe v. Wade which influence liberal senators to vote for her confirmation. The Judicial Crisis Network used social networks, which senators have access to, to get the word out about Kagan's extreme left-wing views.
c) Elena Kagan would be one of three women Justices on the Supreme Court which liberal interest groups who specifically work for women's rights would bring to light and help push for her confirmation.

H1

1) Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic justice and third female justice to serve on the US Supreme Court.
2) She is very liberal in her rulings and stands up for inequality in the court system. (While cross-examining the defendant, who was implicated in a drug deal but said he didn't know that that's what was going to happen in his friends' hotel, the prosecutor said: "You've got African-Americans, you've got Hispanics, you've got a bag full of money. Does that tell you--a light bulb doesn't go off in your head and say, 'This is a drug deal?'")
3) Sonia takes cases involving minorities, like the case of the Voting Rights Act.

G15

(a) A balanced budget is a budget with equal revenues and expenditures.
(b) Federal entitlements are guaranteed benefits for people who meet requirements.
(c) One entitlement is social security. Because it is guaranteed no matter how large our governments debt is they have to provide this entitlement, which puts us in more debt because we spend even more money that we don't have. This puts a barrier on the federal government achieving a balanced budget because entitlements make us spend more than we have.
(d) A consequence of a large budget deficit is that we won't have money for government funded programs that are not entitlements.
(e) The GDP for 2013 is 16,335, it is projected we will spend 3808 billion dollars and take in 2902 billion making the deficit 901 billion. In 2012 our revenue was 2469 bil. and we spent 3769 bil. making the defecit 1327. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/tables.pdf

(f) Our nations total nation debt is about $16,532,994,976,487 and counting. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

G12

Substance: The POTUS had a lot to say tonight. Among those things, I felt he mostly stressed 3 things: Medicare, creating new jobs and climate change. He emphasized that he would accept reforms for medicare but would not take away the right of the elderly receiving proper and fair care. Although Medicare focuses on the elderly, Obama was able to connect it to "the children" (which is always a crowed favorite), and recognize that if we create a strong, stable system now then children now will have a promising future when it comes to health care. The POTUS also put emphasis on new jobs. Not only did he announce that big companies such as Ford and Apple were bringing jobs back to the US from foreign nations but also that he wants to create new jobs. He discussed climate change and brought up the fact that recent natural disasters, such as Hurricane Sandy and the many wild fires, are not coincidences  There is hard evidence that there is a cause and we can either ignore it or make it stop. He went on to press that in becoming a more climate-aware nation we could create many, many jobs in the clean energy sector. Benefiting our economy and earth.
Style: Obama is famous for his hand gestures, which were of no lack tonight. He uses his hands to animate conflicting subjects and stress the importance of change but also to recognize progress. I noticed he used the word "our" when describing the nation and government, making him seem more approachable and show that he does not think everything is about him. He used long pauses to create a dramatic effect and leave an impression. He phrased things in ways that didn't show bipartisanship, like when he talked about climate change he never said "global warming", a term disliked by many republicans.
Response: The POTUS received many standing ovations and it was interesting to see the way Joe Biden and John Boehner reacted to what he was saying because they were both directly behind him. There were many times when Biden would be on his feet applauding and Boehner just sat there, emotionless. The camera focused in on many different Congress people, a lot of whom were Republicans and most of their faces, not surprisingly  were also emotionless, like Boehner's. The camera also showed Harry Reed, Senate Majority Leader and the FLOTUS with her guest, the mother of a teenager who had been a victim of gun violence in Chicago. The camera also showed Guests like Tim Cooke, the CEO of Apple, who was all smiles after Obama said Apple would be making Macs in the U.S. once again.

G10

1. What seems to be the most important to the president is Social Security and Health Care. He is probably most concerned with these policy areas because Congress is so split on how they should be handled and Obama wants to stress the importance and highlight how much it would benefit the people to put the most money in social security and health.
2. The most notable changes in spending are Social Security and Medicare. Taking care of people's future seems to be of greater need now more than ever. With millions of troops returning home we won't need to spend as much money on the military and can use the money for the populations well being instead.
3. Congress will most likely oppose the spending cuts to the Agriculture Department and Defense Department, which Republicans (who hold the majority in Congress) are generally against. Congress will also not be happy about the estimated $901 billion dollar deficit.