blog 3.3- impeachment and the public

1. 7 
2. FiveThirty Eight/ Ipso's found the move support for removing Trump, Monmouth found the most opposition for removing Trump 
3. 83.9% of democrats and 8.4% republicans
4. Americans were evenly divided (49 percent to 48 percent) on whether to remove Trump from office, but they approved of the House’s decision to impeach by 7 points (53 percent to 46 percent).
5.  They may support his removal because they believe that Vice President Mike Pence (who would take over if Trump is ousted) would make a better president 
6. The people who end up voting in elections tend to be a tad more Republican than the adult population. 
7. There is a notable gender gap, though: 89 percent of men said a woman could get elected while 9 percent disagreed, but women were less convinced, at 79 percent to 20 percent.
8. eduacation because the polls underrepresented white voters without a college degreee 
9. Sixty-nine percent of Americans do not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned, but the public does support many restrictions on abortion that have been implemented on the state level

blog 3.2- soctus 2020

1. Both Trinity Lutheran and Espinoza involve state constitutional provisions that prohibited those states from spending money to “aid” churches and other religious institutions — the first cases involved Missouri’s Constitution, while the more recent case emerges from Montana
2. Justice Elena Kagan noted during oral arguments in Trinity Lutheran, the Missouri constitutional provision at issue in that case might be read to prohibit the state from providing “police protection or fire protection” to churches. That is, if a church caught ablaze, the fire department would be required to let it burn.3. they argue, is “this means that the student may be forced to choose between attending a school that accords with her beliefs or receiving thousands of dollars in government benefits.” States, they claim, “cannot condition an individual’s receipt of public benefits on her ceasing religiously motivated conduct.”4. According to US Census data, states spend an average of $11,392 per year on each public school student.5. “Denying a generally available benefit solely on account of religious identity imposes a penalty on the free exercise of religion that can be justified only by a state interest ‘of the highest order,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the Court in Trinity Lutheran. 6.There’s little chance that a conservative Supreme Court that appears eager to expand the rights of religious conservatives is going to hold that cases like Espinoza are too hard to decide7. The core question in the Pennsylvania cases, however, is not whether the Constitution gives such religious objectors a right to deny contraceptive coverage to their employees.8. As the Supreme Court held in United States v. Lee (1982), “when followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes which are binding on others in that activity.”9.  Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014), which held that the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) allows many employers that object to birth control to offer health plans that do not include contraceptive coverage. In May 2017, Trump issued an executive order instructing his administration to “consider issuing amended regulations, consistent with applicable law, to address conscience-based objections to the preventive-care mandate.” A few months later, the administration pushed out new rules granting a broad exemption to employers with moral or religious objections to birth control. Among other things, these rules exempt both nonprofit employers and for-profit employers that are not publicly traded, if those employers object “based on its sincerely held moral convictions” to contraception.10. President Trump’s election, and the appointment of archconservative Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court’s vacant seat, seemed to ensure that conservatives would prevail as soon as a case like Zubik reached the justices again. As a general rule, proposed regulations must undergo a process known as “notice and comment,” where the text of the proposed rule is released to the public so that anyone with an interest in that regulation may comment on it. The Trump administration bypassed notice and comment, although it did put the rule through this process retroactively after it was already in effect.

Blog Post 3.1- Tensions with Iran

1. General Soleimani was an important target for the airstrike because he led Iranian covert operation and intelligence and was one of the country's most revered military leaders.
2. “General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,” the Pentagon said in the statement. “General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more.” They also said "This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans." 
3. Large public displays of mourning began in Iran Friday, and the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and president, Hassan Rouhani, vowed “revenge.”
4. President Donald Trump threatened to attack multiple Iranian sites if the Middle Eastern nation strikes any American people or assets in a series of tweets Saturday, as Iran mourns the loss of a top leader, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US airstrike in Iraq on Friday. If Iran follows through on the  promise of revenge, the US will target 52 sites within the country “some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture,” Trump wrote. “Those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!”
5. The Trump administration already faces questions about the legality of its attack on Soleimani, and Sunday, Iranian officials accused Trump of threatening to carry out war crimes against the country. “Having committed grave breaches of int’l law in Friday’s cowardly assassinations, [Trump] threatens to commit again new breaches of JUS COGENS,” Javad Zarif tweeted, with “jus cogens” referring to the norms of international law. “Targeting cultural sites is a WAR CRIME.”
6.Soleimani’s death has united Iranians across the political spectrum as they undergo three days of national mourning to commemorate the leader deemed a hero. State news outlets allotted their entire broadcasts Friday to commemorate him, and comedy films and concerts were postponed, Al Jazeera reported. Tens of thousands of mourners filled the streets of Ahvaz and Mashhad Sunday, where Soleimani’s remains were transported for public processions. Mourners in Baghdad Saturday chanted “Death to America” and “We will take our revenge,” according to the Associated Press. 
7. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Sunday morning Iranian officials are planning an even larger retreat from the broken nuclear deal than originally planned. The country has already begun stockpiling uranium and exceeding enrichment limits imposed by the agreement, and Sunday afternoon Iranian officials said the country will no longer abide by any of the commitmentsoutlined in the deal.
8.The Obama-era deal between the US, Iran, Britain, France, Russia, China, Germany and the European Union put tight restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program and in return, eased some international sanctions against the country.
9. The administration continued to impose more sanctions targeting Iran’s ability to trade and acquire currency and its oil exports in efforts to pressure Iran to negotiate what it said would be a new, better nuclear deal. Iranians have retaliated by bombing oil tankers, shooting down a US military drone, and slowly ramping up its missile activities, among other moves.
10. Iranian government made it clear it planned to stop adhering to some elements of the nuclear deal by stockpiling more low-enriched uranium than the agreement allows. Many of the other parties in the deal had tried to keep it alive, but failed to effectively combat the US’s sanctions. 
11. The Iranian government is adhering to most parts of the deal except the stockpiling of the uranium and they are no longer limiting nuclear weapons making.