Monday, May 23, 2016

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria that is commonly known as ISIS is a group that has seized control of land stretching from Northern Syria to Central Iraq. The group officially was started in 2004 as al Qaeda in Iraq before rebranding into ISIS just two years later. The goal of ISIS is to put governing structures in place to rule certain territories and conquer certain groups to gain support for their values and what they want.

This question is then asked. What has the United States done to try and control ISIS? The answer is the United States does not have a real plan of attack on what to do and don’t really know what they should do. The United States has done some minor things but nothing has really been effective. In order to stop ISIS in what they are doing the United States should provide support to the Iraqi and Kurdish forces, form a stronger bond with the American Muslim community, and work closely with Iran in defeating ISIS. That would include passing the nuclear deal with Iran and trying to solve the conflict in Syria.
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Wednesday, May 4, 2016

In California Case, Justice Breyer Assails Capital Punishment
This article was about Justice Stephen G. Breyer was unhappy with his colleagues because they decided to not challenge California’s death penalty system. Justice Stephen G. Breyer has found briefs related to California’s death penalty that he calls “unreliable, arbitrary and plagued by unconscionably long days.” Justice gives a criminal case example of the dysfunctional system that is in place at the moment by talking about a man by the name of Richard D. Boyer, who has cited the stress of his long wait on death row after being sentenced for murder in 1984. Justice Breyer has emerged as the court’s leading critic of the current regulations of the death penalty that is in place.
Throughout the article Justice Breyer stressed that the long wait in between death sentences might make people execute themselves which violates the 8th amendment. Justice Breyer strongly suggested that the precedent that California has at the moment is not the best possible way to handle these issues. Richard D. Boyer had a case back in the 90’s that was rejected, but because of Justice Breyer’s recent complaints and good points the legislative court did not reject the reason for having another case.  I think this article is related to our recent unit because all the details throughout the article are about trying to get a court hearing for the death penalty and our subunit was about all the different types of courts. I think this article is most related to legislative courts. I also think that this is an interesting topic and obviously there are different opinions on what should happen which makes a good debate.