TAX TIME

1. Liberals want a progressive tax to protect the poor and conservatives want a flat tax to promote tickle down economics and to create a "simpler" tax system
2. if there are less tax brackets, there are larger amounts of money someone can have and still pay the same taxes as someone with significantly less money
3. 7
4. Reagan made only 2 tax brackets
5. Bush had 3 Clinton had 5
6. 34
7. 2
8. near the end of Eisenhower's presidency, it was 91% with over 2 million minimum
9. Carter Presidency had the lowest, fam, with 0.5 percent and 5,000 dollars max
10. Wilson m where it jumped from 26 brackets to 55

Struggles in Government

1.Trump has made made many promises to repeal Obamacare during his campaign which hurried the schedule up quite a bit
2. they blame the democrats for not supporting the bill at all in the voting process
3. he says that Obamacare will eventually explode and when it does, the democrats will come crawling back asking for a deal
4. because early on there were many problems with the website and with states passing laws and reforms to limit the effectiveness of Obamacare
5. Obamacare still did relatively well, but not at the beginning.
6. he is keeping in touch with the people through twitter and giving out info about important happenings in the world of politics
7. he doesn't want the blame put on him
8. since trump himself is not making a good image for himself, he needs as little criticisms directed toward himself as possible
9. well, the republican allies will have to try and work harder to avoid future problems and that means more support toward trump
10. Bannon doesn't really like Paul Ryan but Trump and Ryan have to grudgingly work together in order to pass legislation.

Trump and Civil Rights Protections

1. Jeff Sessions
2. they want to promote more officer moral and safety, most likely to prevent further controversies, they'll have less federal control over the police
3.they will prioritize "keeping communities safe"
4. the attorney general will review all department activities now and overview persecutions and investigations if need be
5. they say they want to lawyers to have more time to review the agreement considering the Sessions memo
6. if they do not abide, their funding might be cut

Impact on Civil Liberties

1. it helps fund civil legal-aid programs that provide legal help to the poor

2. they have govt funding instead of just relying on themselves which can be risky at times

3. the poorest states like Tennessee

4. Civil liberties cases or domestic violence, health care cases and the like

5. the cases they win reduce future costs for hospitals and police officers so that excess can go to other programs

6. they site rules barring them from lobbying for or against legislation.

7. rural areas have less lawyers and are much more impoverished 

8. the 6th amendment gives everyone right to counsel so this is just a govt program granting more people this right

9. since there are public defenders already there, people can just rely on them instead of the govt.

Judicial Drift Measured

1. Judicial ideology, as in whether it leans left or right
2. they tend to shift more to the left
3. as in former correspondent Linda Greenhouse; when justices are first appointed, there is a lot of pressure for them to not toe the line, but as they serve longer, this pressure goes away and they can be more centrist.
4. when judges are first appointed, they want to fit in to their party so they hold onto beliefs pretty strongly but this grip fades as time goes on and they become accepted.
5. no one really remembers rulings on conservative matters, but more liberal ones like Brown v Board go down in history and are generally celebrated.
6. republicans show their distaste for Roberts because of his general shift to the left and his decisions on the affordable healthcare act
7. i think the most realistic is the greenhouse effect because i know that old people don't really care about other peoples' opinions as much when they grow old and i don't see why justices in the SCOTUS should be any different.

Introducing Neil

1. he is working in the 10th district as an appeals court judge
2. he is a solid conservative and the republicans fillibustered Merric Garland, so its sort of like payback
3. based on his views against assisted suicide, people guess that he will be against abortion rights.
4. he backs religious beleifs going against legislation be that christians against medicare funded contraceptives or native americans agianst unfair treatment
5. he sides with the defendents in criminal law cases and expreses concern with overcriminalization.
6. 99.986 percent
7. that most of them are usually questions pertaining to one of the polarizing issues of today.
8. well, Anthony Kennedy will now have a comfortable conservative side with a much weaker liberal side, so he will have to make tougher decisions on that.

Trump's plan to destroy chapter 14

1. he heightened awareness on climate change and put restrictions on coal
2. he has to write an executive order right back
3. he has to do the opposite in the same way
4.  he spent a lot of time suing the Obama administration over legislation passed but the court rejected most of the cases
5. they can kill by majority vote certain rules that Obama passed
6. he could cut the EPAs budget and prevent them from enforcing rules and regulations
7.  pollution will rise and coal burning will too causing health issues but improving Virginia's economy

Cory Booker and Donald Trump

1. it portrayed him as a flip flopper when in the public eye and that this action shouldn't come as a surprise.

2. he is tied pretty heavily to big money and the high prices on EpiPens are a big earner for pharmaceuticals 

3. he said that he was unsure about the safety issues that this amendment could cause

4. he receives most of his money from pharmaceutical companies, big surprise that he would want to keep them earning money 

5. Booker also makes a lot of money from wall street and the proposed deal would drop his portfolio massively

6. he probably did this to get some of the heat off his back because of his shady investments in big Pharm.

7. this could push him away from getting close to the executive branch which could harm his goals of becoming big in politics.

8. his ties with big pharm could make him unpopular if he tries to juggle the interests of his constituents with those of his Pharm buddies.

9. twitter

10. most of those who he nominated are either die-hard conservatives or people who will keep the 1%'s interests in mind.

11. because his giant public figure would distract from some of the shady deals that the republican majority in congress will try and slide past

12. he wants to seem open minded but still keep his party first in a position of power

13. they will probably have more power than before since they know what they are doing and trump does not. 

Congress and Trump

1. Many activists took to social media to air their anger about the abuse of power and to call for an end to this ruling. Trump even spoke out against this ruling. The GOP eventually overturned the ruling.

2. It makes them seem less tyrnnical while still having a firm grip over the power of congress.

3. All the GOP has wanted to do over Obama's presidency was to stop or stall everything liberal that tried to pass through congress.

4. He is willing to throw them under the bus to look good

5. whenever he has to make a challenging decision to either empower his party or help his image in the public eye

6. they are making themselves major trump supporters to gain his favor

7. they will most likely see them as abusing their power and their newfound positions to get whatever they want

First Day of Congress

1. the congress wants to destroy or partially-destroy obamacare. The Ethics Council would probably not let them do this out of caring too much for the people.
2. Now under the total control of the republican party, congress is taking over the ethics office that was previously independently-run.
3. they actually endorse this bold move, saying that it will actually improve ethics.
4. beacause their investigations have ussually been more intrusive and serious than the House Ethics Committee
5. They launch investigations with a six member board and they look into any matter in congress that could violate their ethical code.
6. if it is a major partisan supporter, which ever side the spokesperson could support would be able to take it easy, knowing that they have that going for them. like, they could pass some really unethical legislation through.
7. the republicans will most likely either force their way or get publically called out to the point where they have to reclaim their movement