Current Event (Abortion No.2)

1. Tennessee, Colorado, and North Dakota.

2. Tennessee, Colorado, and North Dakota have been getting attention for submitting ballot measures that aim to change the definition of a person within the government and remove rights to an abortion. They would define a person as being a legal personal entity from the point of conception. The article explains that voters will outsmart the highly restrictive measures and vote against them.

3. They have introduced the measures to be voted on this Election Day, November 4th, 2014.

4. Voting polls in Tennessee, Colorado, and North Dakota.

5. Tennessee, Colorado, and North Dakota have introduced these ballots in order to fool voters into accepting extremely restricting measures against women's rights. They want to make it illegal for a woman to have an abortion and possible for a woman to be brought up on criminal charges for having an abortion.

Link to article

Current Event (Abortion)

1. The House of Representatives, bill supported by New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith.

2. The House is expected to pass a bill that prohibits any tax paying dollars to be used for abortion services. People who use governments programs for their health insurance would not be able to buy any plans that cover abortion. 

3. January 28, 2014

4. The Republicans in the House of Representatives are trying to pass a bill that would keep billions in tax-payer dollars from funding any health insurance plans that cover abortion services. They are obviously against abortion and are not only pushing to ban tax dollars from being used for abortion, but also trying to make the first step towards making abortion itself illegal. The Democrats are not expected to take up the bill and the White House issued a veto threat for the bill as well. 

Link to Article

Current Event (5th Amendment)

1) Who - Illinois high school teacher John Dryden and his employer, Jack Barshinger.
2) What - High school was docked pay and reprimanded for informing his students of their 5th amendment right not to incriminate themselves before taking a deeply personal survey.
3) Where - Batavia High School in Batavia, Illinois.
4) When - May 2013.
5) Why - Dryden was only informing his students about their constitutional rights but Barshinger said he broke the rules by influencing the students not to take the survey or lie on the survey, which defeated the survey's purpose of finding the students that needed help.


Link to Article

4th Amendment Current Event

The current event I found concerns the 4th Amendment and is from Newser.com. The article is about a Supreme Court ruling on January 23, 2012. The Court ruled that the FBI, or any police entity, does not have the right to place a GPS tracker on any of a suspect's belongings without a warrant. The opposing side had been depending heavily on a 1983 ruling that the FBI could place a tracker on their car. The Supreme Court disregarded this and ruled in their own opinion. I agree with the Court and it shouldn't be that much of a setback for the FBI to obtain a single warrant.

Link to article

1st Amendment Current Event

The current event that I found is an article from the New York Times. It centers on the 2011 11th Circuit ruling in Texas on  the freedom of speech.  The courts in Texas ruled that anytime a doctor speaks to a patient it is considered "treatment" and not "speech". It specifically centers on doctors asking if the patient owns a gun. The author argues that this is a dangerous defeat of the First Amendment and that it should be challenged as soon as possible, and I agree with the author.

Link to article

9/11 Hero

Benjamin Keefe Clark

Benjamin Keefe Clark is credited with saving hundreds of lives on September 11, 2001. He wasn't a fireman, paramedic, or first responder; he was a chef. He was serving the Fiduciary Trust Company on the 96th floor in the South Tower of the World Trade Center. When the planes crashed into the buildings he took it upon himself to see that the entire floor safely evacuated out of the building. He died going back to assist a woman in a wheelchair. Benjamin Keefe Clark was truly one of the heroes of 9/11. 

Chippewa Indians

Chippewa link no.1

Chippewa link no.2