"The U.S and Iran" by Tanner R.

 White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Sunday February 21st that the United States has started talks with Iran over the return of at least five American hostages. He called the country’s imprisonment of dozens of dual nationals in recent years, including several Americans, a “complete and utter outrage.” 

Sullivan said these things In an interview on CBS News' "Face the Nation" show. In the same show he also states that it was a "significant priority" of President Joe Biden's administration to get the Americans "safely back home.” When talking about the hostage deal he stated that “We will not accept a long-term proposition where they continue to hold Americans in an unjust and unlawful manner.” He said this type of proposition is a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

Sullivan added that President Biden is using diplomacy to prevent the Iranian government from acquiring nuclear weapons. However, Sullivan said no talks have begun with Tehran     (Capital of Iran) about the U.S. rejoining the 2015 international pact to restrain Iran’s nuclear development program, which Iranian officials maintain is for peaceful purposes and not the development of nuclear weapons. Biden has also came out and said that the United States was driven to “reengage in negotiations” to rejoin the pact that former President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018. 

In addition, United Nations watchdogs found uranium particles at two Iranian sites it inspected. This very seriously endangers the efforts by President Biden to rejoin Iran’s nuclear pact. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Sunday that the US cannot rejoin the nuclear pact until it lifts economic penalties. Washington DC said Tehran must take the first step by complying with the accord and limiting nuclear activities.

With tensions rising between the two countries, do you think that the two will come to an agreement? Both are very serious problems and both pose a threat to the U.S. Do you think President Biden and his administration will be able to fix these potentially war starting problems?

Links: 

https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-starts-hostage-talks-iran

https://nypost.com/2021/02/21/white-house-begins-communications-with-iran-over-hostages/ 

"COVID-19 Updates" by Jameson H.

Just in the last few weeks, we have seen a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases all around the country, and all around the world. As we can see, the numbers are changing daily. They are rising more and more as the days go by. The questions for this are coming a little bit earlier than normal, but do you think the masks are helping with this situation at all? Do you think people are taking social distancing seriously?

President Joe Biden has issued that his administration is ready to ship even more vaccines to health centers. According to Politico, the Biden administration will “allocate 1 million doses to community health centers.” Politico also says that they will “first choose community health centers that serve large populations- such as those that serve more than 2,000 patients who are 65 or older.” Personally, this is a good thing because it will not only be supplied to the patients who need the vaccines, but also to the health care workers who need the vaccines to keep fighting for us. 

Do you think what President Biden is doing is right for the American people? Do you believe that he is trying to make a difference? Is he truly helping us?  

https://www.politico.com/news/joe-biden

“Trump’s Second Impeachment” by Kirstyn M.

 

The Constitutionality of impeaching a former president has been called into question now that the time of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial has arrived and Trump is out of office. In fact, Trump’s main defense for his upcoming trial is that now that his term has expired, he can no longer be impeached. There have been a variety of arguments by constitutional scholars, with one of them being that “the Constitution envisions impeachment only as a tool for proceeding against a president while he remains in office,” essentially saying the purpose for impeachment is not punishment, but removal. However, the majority of constitutional scholars believe that the impeachment of Trump is constitutional, with more than one hundred fifty of them signing a statement saying “the Constitution’s text and structure, history, and precedent make clear that Congress’s impeachment power permits it to impeach, try, and convict former officers, including former Presidents.” In addition to his, the House impeachment managers’ brief stated that presidents do not get a free pass to carry out high crimes near the end of their term. The best rebuttal to the unconstitutionality of Trump’s impeachment was that the Framers understood that the impeachment of former officials in England and the early American states was accepted widely. 

Politico released an article stating that Trump’s second impeachment trial will be different than the first for the reason that the Democrats are not pushing for witnesses during this trial, unlike last time. Apparently, they find that their “experience as witnesses to the Jan. 6 insurrection” is all the evidence they need. The trial isn’t expected to last over a week, but that depends on whether witnesses are brought in or not. Senate Minority Whip John Thune said that “Both sides would kind of like to wrap it up fairly quickly.” This past Thursday House Democrats called on Trump to testify but the move was rejected by Trump’s legal team. 

What do you think? Is it constitutional to impeach a former president? Are witnesses needed in the upcoming trial, or would it just delay the process further?

Links:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-risks-of-trumps-impeachment-trial

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/07/democrats-trump-second-impeachment-466152

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/07/politics/trump-impeachment-trial-this-week-state-of-play/index.html

"The 46th Presidential Inauguration" by Jameson H.

 

The 46th Presidential Inauguration was one like no other. Joe Biden is now the 46th President of the United States. He beat former President Donald Trump and it was as if no time had passed on the historic morning of January 20th that the Trump family left the White House in Washington D.C, for their home in Florida. To say the least, he wasn’t the best sport about leaving town. He said that he wanted to leave his dignity intact. If that was the case, he would have stayed in Washington D.C, and watched President Biden be inaugurated like the bigger person, but instead he skipped town and basically destroyed the image of the Republican Party. 

According to CNN, President Biden ended his first day in office “with a note of hope and optimism”. The day of his inauguration, he wanted unity for both of the parties in politics and wanted everyone to cooperate and get along. He showed everyone that we can get along, but there are still things that are left to be considered by the Republicans thinking that he can’t do the job. 

This brings many questions to this topic. Does it seem like the Biden Administration can take on this challenge from a huge transition of power? Can Pres. Biden take on this responsibility? Do you think he will make a change in this country and if so what kind of change?

Links:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/20/politics/joe-biden-presidential-inauguration/index.html

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/01/20/inaugural-address-by-president-joseph-r-biden-jr/ 

“Distribution of Vaccines” - Tanner R.

 In December, the idea that safe, effective vaccines against COVID-19 had been created in less than a year seemed too good to be true. It was an amazing feat in such an angry and sad time, and it was a great light in the darkness. It didn’t take long for that to sour because of the many delays of distribution and the questions surrounding the vaccine. 

There’s more than one problem causing the distribution problem. There have been several reports of health officials and hospitals struggling with a lack of resources. On top of that there is a huge challenge of the logistics of this humongous task. This is all taking place during riots and a presidential change in power that America will likely never forget. The Trump and Biden Administrations have differing ways of distributing the vaccine. 

 The Trump administration focused on delivering millions of vaccine doses to loading docks. States and localities were expected to take over from there with little support, guidance or money. He was prepared to be much more loose with the distribution, while the Biden administration, by contrast, sees a broader mandate for the federal government, helping states organize their vaccination efforts, and seeing the vaccines all the way through to the vaccinators. 

There are many people that are at risk having to wait for these vaccines that keep repeatedly being pushed back.  Plus when they got there the states were not immediately prepared to distribute at the scale the public demanded, even when they did get expected amounts of vaccine. All of these things have created a perfect storm to make the worst situation possible. 

Do you have a solution to this? Do you think President Biden will take the necessary actions to have a better and faster distribution of the vaccines?