Current Events
As a responsible citizen, voter, and Christian, you should be in tune with what is happening in the world around you - especially in terms of government/politics and major local, national, and world events. Hollywood - not so much. Below is a collection of links for you to browse through, broken down by political leanings.
NOTE - On most of these sites, there is space below stories for readers to express comments. Don't go there - it's full of trolls and nonsense no matter which side you visit. It is the only place that ranks lower than Hollywood news. It is a very dark, sad place.
NOTE - On most of these sites, there is space below stories for readers to express comments. Don't go there - it's full of trolls and nonsense no matter which side you visit. It is the only place that ranks lower than Hollywood news. It is a very dark, sad place.
Liberal/Left
"HuffPo" as it is often called, this site presents news from a liberal perspective, along with a lot of liberal commentary.
No, not the hair salon. Named after the "salons" of the French Enlightenment where people would sit around and talk politics and such. Liberal news and views.
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Center-Left
A mainstream (read: left-leaning) "news pool" site like the Associated Press, with an emphasis on business and financial news, and world/politics tie-ins that affect those things.
Generally mainstream, but leans left often enough that I put it here. Current stories are free to read.
Mainstream to left-leaning news that centers around politics at the national level.
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Center-Right
Elegantly simple (retro, even) site run by Matt Drudge, who puts his own conservative spin on headlines which link to a wide variety of other sites for content.
Right-leaning newspaper and website that focuses on news and events from a DC perspective.
The news is generally "fair and balanced," while the opinion sections and shows tend to be conservative.
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Conservative
Founded by the late conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart, another conservative site with plenty of conservative opinion and commentary.
Founded by Glenn Beck, this conservative news site also features a lot of commentary and opinion.
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Friday 11.14.2014 - The Wage Gap
A Modest Proposal for Closing the Gender Wage Gap (Opinion/Satire) - Washington Examiner
- What, according to the author, is the reason for the “wage gap” between men and women?
- Is she being serious about her proposed “solution” to the problem? If not, is there anything we can do to “fix” it? Should we?
Wednesday 11.05.2014 - Election 2014: The Results
Today you will be revisiting RealClearPolitics.com to examine the election results from last night's midterm races.
To begin, open up Microsoft Word and visit THIS PAGE (RealClearPolitics.com). Complete the tasks below in Word, then save and submit your file to Mr. Peyton using the DropBox as usual.
1. The Senate: How did the power distribution in the Senate change? Which states did the Republicans gain (and the Democrats lose)? Which states are still in question (no winner declared yet)?
2. The House of Representatives: How did the power distribution in the House of Representatives change? How many seats changed hands, and who gained/lost them?
3. Governors: Which state(s) saw the governor position change from Republican to Democrat? Which state(s) saw it change from Democrat to Republican? How many total governors from each party are there now, after last night's election?
4. Analysis of the Elections: Browse the headlines under Real Clear Politics Wednesday (including the Editorials section) and select an article that you find interesting. When you find one you like, copy and paste the link in your Word document, read through it, and type up at least a 1 paragraph (4-5 sentence) summary. Focus on what the author(s) are discussing to explain why the election turned out the way it did. What are the crediting/blaming it on? Add one or two more sentences explaining the point of view of the author(s) - is he/she/they happy/sad/angry/etc. about the results, and why?
To begin, open up Microsoft Word and visit THIS PAGE (RealClearPolitics.com). Complete the tasks below in Word, then save and submit your file to Mr. Peyton using the DropBox as usual.
1. The Senate: How did the power distribution in the Senate change? Which states did the Republicans gain (and the Democrats lose)? Which states are still in question (no winner declared yet)?
2. The House of Representatives: How did the power distribution in the House of Representatives change? How many seats changed hands, and who gained/lost them?
3. Governors: Which state(s) saw the governor position change from Republican to Democrat? Which state(s) saw it change from Democrat to Republican? How many total governors from each party are there now, after last night's election?
4. Analysis of the Elections: Browse the headlines under Real Clear Politics Wednesday (including the Editorials section) and select an article that you find interesting. When you find one you like, copy and paste the link in your Word document, read through it, and type up at least a 1 paragraph (4-5 sentence) summary. Focus on what the author(s) are discussing to explain why the election turned out the way it did. What are the crediting/blaming it on? Add one or two more sentences explaining the point of view of the author(s) - is he/she/they happy/sad/angry/etc. about the results, and why?
Thursday 10.15.2014 - Election 2014: State of the Races
There are few if any places you can go online to get better, more condensed information about American politics than RealClearPolitics.com. Though it does employ its own writers to produce original content, its real strength is the fact that it pulls together so many different sources (like polling agencies and opinion columns from many well-read publications, as well as video segments from major news networks). Today you are going to be browsing this site to explore the current state of the 2014 midterm elections and find out who's winning, who's losing, and why (at least according to the headlines).
To begin, open up Microsoft Word and then visit THIS PAGE (the RealClearPolitics Election 2014 page). Complete the tasks below in Word, then save and submit your file to Mr. Peyton using the DropBox, as usual.
1. Click on BATTLE FOR SENATE to bring up the current election map for the Senate. How many from each party are in the current Senate?
2. Click on SENATE NO TOSS UPS to see how many seats each party would have if the polls were all right and the election were held today. How many would the Democrats have? How many would the Republicans have? Which party would gain seats, and how many would they gain? Which party would end up controlling the Senate after the election?
3. On the left side of the page, near the top of the list of links under the heading STATE OF THE UNION, click on Obama Job Approval. What percentage of those surveyed approve of the president's job performance based on the RCP Average? What percentage disapproves?
4. Also under the STATE OF THE UNION heading, click on Congressional Job Approval. What percentage approves of the job Congress is doing based on the RCP Average? What percentage disapproves?
5. Go back to the main page (click the RealClearPolitics logo in the top left of the site) and browse the latest headlines, most of which will be opinion columns. Explore a couple of them to see what people are saying, then answer this question to wrap up this assignment: Based on your analysis of the poll numbers and headlines, how do you predict the election will turn out for the Democrats? How about for the Republicans? Explain.
6. Save your Word document with your answers, then send it to Mr. Peyton using the DropBox.
To begin, open up Microsoft Word and then visit THIS PAGE (the RealClearPolitics Election 2014 page). Complete the tasks below in Word, then save and submit your file to Mr. Peyton using the DropBox, as usual.
1. Click on BATTLE FOR SENATE to bring up the current election map for the Senate. How many from each party are in the current Senate?
2. Click on SENATE NO TOSS UPS to see how many seats each party would have if the polls were all right and the election were held today. How many would the Democrats have? How many would the Republicans have? Which party would gain seats, and how many would they gain? Which party would end up controlling the Senate after the election?
3. On the left side of the page, near the top of the list of links under the heading STATE OF THE UNION, click on Obama Job Approval. What percentage of those surveyed approve of the president's job performance based on the RCP Average? What percentage disapproves?
4. Also under the STATE OF THE UNION heading, click on Congressional Job Approval. What percentage approves of the job Congress is doing based on the RCP Average? What percentage disapproves?
5. Go back to the main page (click the RealClearPolitics logo in the top left of the site) and browse the latest headlines, most of which will be opinion columns. Explore a couple of them to see what people are saying, then answer this question to wrap up this assignment: Based on your analysis of the poll numbers and headlines, how do you predict the election will turn out for the Democrats? How about for the Republicans? Explain.
6. Save your Word document with your answers, then send it to Mr. Peyton using the DropBox.
Thursday 10.02.2014 - What is Congress Up To?
Congress is busier than you probably realize. They are constantly proposing new legislation and debating and amending existing legislation. OpenCongress.org is an excellent resource to examine what exactly Congress is up to. You can browse legislation by issue, senator/representative, committee, etc. When you log in to a computer, open up Microsoft Word and create a new document. Number your document 1-3, and complete the steps below. When you are finished, save your document and upload it to Mr. Peyton using the Dropbox.
1. Click the Issues tab and look for an issue that you are interested in and/or passionate about (either search for the issue using the search bar, or scroll through the issues list on the right). It could be abortion, health care, immigration, taxes, etc. Click on that issue and browse through the legislation that comes up. Find a piece of legislation that intrigues you and click on it.
2. For Part 2, go to the search bar in the top right (under the Register and Login buttons) and search for "constitutional amendment." You may be surprised how many different amendments have been proposed to the constitution. Browse through the results and find one that interests you. Repeat the bulleted steps from Part 1.
3. For Part 3, look up one of the people that represents you (either senator, or your representative). Indicate which person you chose in your Word document. When you get to his/her page, click the number beside "Sponsored Bills" to see what he/she has been up to. Browse for a piece of legislation that interests you, and repeat the bulleted steps from Part 1 again (except this time you can omit the primary sponsor, since it should be obvious who that is this time).
1. Click the Issues tab and look for an issue that you are interested in and/or passionate about (either search for the issue using the search bar, or scroll through the issues list on the right). It could be abortion, health care, immigration, taxes, etc. Click on that issue and browse through the legislation that comes up. Find a piece of legislation that intrigues you and click on it.
- Copy the bill number, short title, and full title, and paste it into your Word document.
- Scroll down and find the OpenCongress Summary. You may need to click Read the Rest to view the whole summary. If it is super long, just grab the first big paragraph or so - enough to get the point. Copy it and paste it underneath what you pasted earlier.
- Next, indicate in your Word document who the primary sponsor of the legislation is - including his/her party and state.
- Finally, indicate where this legislation is in the lawmaking process (Just introduced? Sitting in a committee? Voted on? Etc.)
2. For Part 2, go to the search bar in the top right (under the Register and Login buttons) and search for "constitutional amendment." You may be surprised how many different amendments have been proposed to the constitution. Browse through the results and find one that interests you. Repeat the bulleted steps from Part 1.
3. For Part 3, look up one of the people that represents you (either senator, or your representative). Indicate which person you chose in your Word document. When you get to his/her page, click the number beside "Sponsored Bills" to see what he/she has been up to. Browse for a piece of legislation that interests you, and repeat the bulleted steps from Part 1 again (except this time you can omit the primary sponsor, since it should be obvious who that is this time).
Thursday, 09.11.2014 - President's Strategy to Combat ISIL/ISIS
Last night, President Obama addressed the nation with a rare prime time speech in which he presented the case for American military action against ISIS (or ISIL), and the four-part strategy he intends to follow to achieve the goal of stopping and eliminating the threat. For this current events assignment, create a new Word document, then follow the directions below and answer the questions. When you are finished with the questions, save the Word document and submit it to Mr. Peyton using the Dropbox link (top right of this page).
1. What is "ISIS," what does their abbreviation(s) stand for, how did they get started, what is their goal, and how are they trying to achieve it? Visit THIS LINK to browse through some information, then type up a short summary.
2. What is President Obama's plan for dealing with ISIS? There are four parts, as outlined in the shortened video of his speech found at the beginning of THIS ARTICLE. List these four parts.
3. The author of the above article (Byron York) presents five possible "bad" outcomes of the president's strategy. Do you think any of York's proposed outcomes are most likely, or do you think the president's strategy will more or less work? Explain.
1. What is "ISIS," what does their abbreviation(s) stand for, how did they get started, what is their goal, and how are they trying to achieve it? Visit THIS LINK to browse through some information, then type up a short summary.
2. What is President Obama's plan for dealing with ISIS? There are four parts, as outlined in the shortened video of his speech found at the beginning of THIS ARTICLE. List these four parts.
3. The author of the above article (Byron York) presents five possible "bad" outcomes of the president's strategy. Do you think any of York's proposed outcomes are most likely, or do you think the president's strategy will more or less work? Explain.