Sunspots (https://sunspots.cornellsun.com/category/politics/page/4/)
Trump has a new scandal every week. Actually, it’s probably more than that. I mean, really, it would be a lot more productive if all the newspapers stopped writing about Trump and just formed a separate, side newspaper that only reports on Trump. There’d be enough material to fill an issue every day. Guaranteed.
Part of President Donald Trump’s unorthodox approach to his presidency is his perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict. He recently declared that the conflict may be solved in ways other than a two-state solution, bucking several decades of U.S. policy. Many groups, both inside and outside Israel, have blasted the president for his views. A two state solution may sound like a reasonable resolution to the problem since it establishes two states for two peoples. However, the realities on the ground prevent such a solution from being implemented smoothly.
We tell tales of democracy: tales of a system in which all receive equal voice. Representation exists on all levels and if you speak, your voice will be heard. Yet, in many ways, when taking a closer look, these tales become myths. On Friday, a district court in Texas ruled that several districts in the state had been illegally gerrymandered. The court found that state lawmakers participated in discriminatory districting, violating the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause of The Constitution.
With an open mind and two sides of the story, you’re bound to learn something new. Welcome to the zoo! This is a blog where both the Republican and Democratic viewpoints are represented. The blog is not meant to sway you either way necessarily, just to present both sides of the story. You may not agree with the whole article, but hey, you’re likely to agree with half!
On March 7th the CIA made headlines across the nation when Wikileaks released 8,761 sensitive documents and several hundred million lines of code from the CIA’s cybersecurity division. Many of these leaked documents were fairly mundane viruses and malware, the type you might get from torrenting media, but a few were much more impactful. It turns out the CIA has been able to break into nearly every major tech firm’s phones, applications and operating systems, and can turn these smart devices into bugs and recording technology by accessing their microphones. Wikileaks also revealed a CIA program that copies the “fingerprints” of other hacking groups, raising questions over the investigations surrounding Russian influence in the elections. Outside the international community though, there has been relatively little hubbub about the leak.
On January 25, the U.S. Department of Education initiated its sixth inquiry into alleged mishandling of sexual assault investigations by Cornell University, in accordance with Title IX of the United States Education Amendments of 1972. While seemingly well-intentioned, the Department of Education’s aggressive application of Title IX is a disquieting assault on the United States Constitution and individual rights. Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. In 2011, the Office of Civil Rights heavily expanded Title IX’s interpretation by disseminating the “Dear Colleague” letter. This communication, which was distributed with the noble intention of reducing sexual assault on college campuses, directed universities to evaluate sexual assault cases based on the “preponderance of the evidence” standard, as opposed to the “beyond reasonable doubt” standard, which is used for all other criminal cases.
Most people probably think at this point that Trump is not very competent. It certainly seems to be a reasonable conclusion, considering the non-stop flow of fiascos – Muslim ban, Jeff Sessions, now the Obama wiretap tweets – all in his first month or so. Now, I’m not saying Trump isn’t stupid, but I’d like to consider an alternative: that Trump is in fact extremely competent, that his staff is competent and that they are all in league with Putin. Let’s see how well this theory holds up to stress. I mean, for me it’s hard to totally dismiss the Trump team after they managed to win the general election with no pre-existing reputation in politics (outside the birther movement).
With an open mind and two sides of the story, you’re bound to learn something new. Welcome to the zoo! This is a blog where both the Republican and Democrat viewpoints are represented. The blog is not meant to sway you either way necessarily, just to present both sides of the story. You may not agree with the whole article, but hey, you’re likely to agree with half!
Last week, Donald Trump did something that broke decades of history and infuriated much of the media. It was also one of the least surprising decisions of his presidency. When Trump prevented several media outlets from attending a private White House briefing with Sean Spicer, he simply followed through on a campaign promise. After all, Trump engages in a self-declared “running war” with the media. In order to win his war, he seeks to limit the effectiveness of certain publications in covering him by cutting off their access and delegitimizing their sources.
President Donald Trump is arguably the most controversial and polarizing figure in politics today. Take Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. She was the first Cabinet-level appointee in U.S. history to require the Vice President to cast a tie-breaking vote during the Senate confirmation. Lost in the mud-slinging confirmation process was a fact-based discussion of Republican ideas about education, particularly compared to those of Democrats. It is important to understand that DeVos’ predecessors at the Department of Education were not able to markedly improve the state of public school education in America.