Is There Still A Separation Of Church And State?

It seems that with every passing day America is changing in one way, shape, or form. Although one constant remains and that is the freedom to practice whatever religion your heart, body, and soul desires. This has been the case ever since the documents laying down the foundation of our nation were written in an attempt to stay away from the tyrannical rule of Great Britain. There is something going on within the Supreme Court and the 14th Amendment in terms of religion, but with the justices on the bench now, it is not all that surprising.

Per The New Yorker, the establishing clause of the 14th Amendment is fading out and the free exercise clause is coming in. Now, this does not mean that it will be written out, rather it means that they free exercise clause is starting to be used by the justices in more and more cases in order to set a precedent. They are beginning to rule that Catholic Schools can receive government funding just like public schools even though they are run by their local diocese. If public schools are able to receive funding for textbooks, transportation, and teachers salaries, then the religious schools should be no different. Judge Kavanaugh stated that if the government discriminates against religious schools solely because of their title, then that violates the free exercise clause. So, does this infringe upon the separation of Church and State? It seems like it may due to the fact that some religious institutions are now receiving government funding, but they are not interfering with an individuals right to pick what religion to practice. The similar cases that are to follow will give us more information because, for now, it is too early to tell. 

Facebook Wants To Shift To Private Networks Which Is The Definition Of Irony

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, said in a blog post on Wednesday that Facebook will shift to a "privacy-focused communications platform...". The news came from an article that was posted by Samuel Axon which talked about the transformation from a public platform, which Facebook has now, to a private platform where not everything that you post will be out on the internet forever. I mean, come on now. The amount of privacy issues that Facebook has had in the past, one of which caused private information of thousands of Facebook profiles to be released, shows that they really did not care about the safety of the millions of people that have an account.

The key takeaway here is that the public platforms will still exist in which people can interact and network with one another, but the instant messaging feature that Facebook has will be on a private server. Why are they doing this now? Other companies such as GroupMe and WhatsApp are already on private servers, so they very well could just be looking at the direction in which communication is going and trying to get on board while making it seem that they are being innovative. The big question here is: will Facebook violate the privacy rights of millions by reading their messages on a "private" server? The answer will remain to be seen and the situation is definitely one worth monitoring.

Things To Know About The United States Supreme Court

The United States is one of the most coveted countries to live in throughout the entire world, but not many know what it takes to run it. Yes, the most powerful position you can have is President, but what happens at the Judicial level? The highest court in the land is the Supreme Court and it is the most powerful judicial body on planet earth. There are nine justices who are (usually) on the bench at the same time and, as a matter of fact, there have been just over 100 Supreme Court justice with each serving about 16 years.

Becoming a Supreme Court Justices is an incredible honor, but the road to even be nominated is an extremely long process. Although, if you are fortunate enough to become one, your work load will unimaginably grueling. One Supreme Court Justice who served said that you really start to do your work when you forget that you are there, which takes a few years. Due to the magnitude of the position that you hold and the building that you work in, it makes sense. Once you do begin to do your work, you won't stop. This is because that the Supreme Court receives more than 100 new cases each week. However, the one bright side to this is that they can pick and chose what cases they take. When it comes to these cases and the amount of time that lawyers are allowed to present their argument, they are only allowed 30 minutes. This is incredibly difficult, so in order to make a compelling argument, they need to have great opening and closing remarks.

The most consuming part of a Justices life is not being on the bench or partaking in meetings, but rather opinion writing in which they give their thoughts on current cases. One of the most remarkable things about the Supreme Court actually comes from the building itself. It is made of marble, which signifies the stability of the decisions that the court makes. So, the Supreme Court has come a long way from when it was the least credible part of our government.

Should The NCAA Become Socially Active?

Even though the National Collegiate Athletic Association is technically classified as an amateur sports organization, it is still one of the biggest "leagues" within the USA. Hundreds of thousands play sports for their college or universities, but none are bigger than college football and basketball. It is extremely popular today for professional teams and athletes within these sports to take a stand against social injustice in order to bring attention to social issues that unfortunately plague our nation, but the NCAA is on the outside looking in. An article from ESPN took a look at the diversity within college's hiring tendencies in terms of gender and race and this can correlate to their stance on social issues.

The article shows that the NCAA has done a good job in terms of hiring and maintaining an equal number of women to men and white's to minorities when it comes to certain positions. However, these positive trends only go so far. When it comes to conferences and not just the NCAA offices, there is a drastic difference that is extremely noticeable. Actually, saying it is extremely noticeable doesn't even do it justice. 28 out of 30 conference commissioners in D1 college athletics are white. If we look at the NCAA as a whole, where we take into account D1, D2, and D3 schools, 84%, 90%, and 93% of the athletic directors are white, respectively. One last thing that is worthy of noting is that within women's athletics 59% of their coaches are male. None of this seems fair to me and it most certainly does not show that the NCAA cares about giving everyone of all backgrounds a fair chance at securing a certain job. There are a ton of colleges that pride themselves on providing a liberal arts education. Well, a part of that is teaching students how to give everyone a fair shot and to accept people of every race, gender, class, background, and so on. These numbers make it seem that even though they teach their students this, the administration of these colleges do not embody it. So, it does not appear that the NCAA is ready to tackle issues of social justice just yet, but if they would like to in the future, then they must give jobs to minorities who are more than capable of assuming those positions.

It is never a bad idea to voice your own opinion on a matter that is of importance to you; I actually implore you to take advantage of that right as a citizen of the United States. Colleges need to keep teaching their students these skills in order to better our society as a whole. It is unfortunate that in the year 2019 we are still talking about racism and acts of social injustice against minorities, but we cannot stop doing so until our nation is finally united.

Sixth Grader in Florida Arrested

It always seems that the strangest news comes out of Florida for some reason. Well, that trend continued last week when a sixth grader was arrested inside his school. Yes, you read that right, a sixth grader. When it was time to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of the school day, the student refused, due to his belief that the flag is racist and the National Anthem is offensive, per an article from NBC News. The teacher, who was a substitute for the day, asked the student a barrage of questions which prompted him to explain his reasoning. Well, the boy became passionate and the conversation that started out in an innocent manner quickly escalated.

At this point, a call was made down to the Principal's office because the teacher did not want to deal with him. When this happened, the boy was taken out of the class and he began to make threats while making his way to the office, which prompted the arrest. Although, there is a policy in place within the school that says a student is given the right to either participate or not participate in the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance. Is this right? It appears to me that if the substitute teacher was briefed about this rule then the entire situation could have been avoided entirely. The student was taking advantage of his first amendment right while talking about the flag and the National Anthem, while also using the right given to him by the school to not take part in the Pledge of Allegiance. Even though he did nothing wrong, he was at the very least punished by the substitute teacher when she paged the office. Is it fair to say that he should have been arrested? Well, that is a tough question that should be answered by an expert in law enforcement. My take is that, even though he made some threats, the kid is in sixth grade. It could have been extremely easy to call his Mom or Dad down to the school to pick the boy up instead of calling in the authorities to arrest a child. Again, as I previously stated, the entire affair was preventable.

Judge Orders Recordings From Amazon Echo in Murder Case

Technology is always advancing and there are no signs of it slowing down anytime soon. The Amazon Echo is a prime example of this due to the fact that you can ask it so many questions and it will almost always have the answer. Well, a Judge in New Hampshire has asked for the devices help in a double murder case due to the belief that it may have recorded the murder happening. According to an article from CBS News that was published in November of 2018, the Echo has already been searched, but most likely not completely. Now there is evidence that suggests the device was listening in while the murder was taking place. Wait, what?

The device supposedly has a wake word that turns it on and in turn records any conversation that may transpire. Now, it is good in this case because it may prove that the supposed murderer actually committed the act. Amazon previously stated that they would not release any customer information without proper reasoning, and surely this satisfies that requirement. However, no one can say that this isn't weird. I mean come on, everyone knows that our devices, such as our smartphones, are listening in on us, but does that make it ok? I can look something up on my laptop, like golf balls for example, and the next thing I know I will have ads and emails popping up all over for golf balls. I get what they are trying to do, but I'm not a fan of it. To me, this starts become a privacy issue. What I look up and think about purchasing is not the business of a search engine and they should not be looking in on that. I applaud the efforts and intent of the Amazon Echo in possibly listening in on suspicious activity, but it does not need to be recording every conversation and storing it deep within the servers of Amazon. Your personal device is no longer personal anymore. You and the company you purchased it from both use it and there is nothing you can do about it. Say hello to the modern age of technological "privacy" because it is here to stay.

Colorado Sports Store That Refused to Sell Nike Closes

One of the most popular business models around is "the customer is always right". However Stephen Martin, the owner of Prime Time Sports in a Colorado mall, thought differently. When Nike introduced that Colin Kaepernick would be the face of their newest campaign, Martin immediately stopped selling any merchandise that had the ever so iconic swoosh on it. The Washington Post wrote an article that explains his decision in detail, but even when you read it, the reasoning is still difficult to wrap your head around.

Being a small business owner in a world that is dominated by cooperations is hard enough on its own, but when you don't give the customers the pair of shoes or shorts that they want because it has a logo on it, then it starts to become a bit intense. I fully respect Kaepernick for using his platform, as well as his first amendment right to free speech, to protest and bring attention to a social justice issue that is extremely prominent within our nation. On the other hand, Stephen Martin exercised his constitutional right of free speech as well, which is also admirable in itself. What is ironic here is that both of these men fully embodied Nike's campaign slogan, which was, "Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.". Kaepernick lost his job as a Quarterback in the NFL because he was a "distraction" while Martin's business has gone under. The cause of this? Standing up for something that was bigger than both of them. So, it appears that even though these men fight for things that are counter intuitive of one another, they are more alike than they are different.

The road has been full of twists and turns for Martin and Prime Time Sports, but the grooved pavement has run out. It started three years ago when protesting during the National Anthem started to take place, which prompted him to cancel an autograph signing with Broncos Linebacker Brandon Marshall. With these protests and social issues only becoming more prominent with each and every passing day, Martin's frustration only went upwards, and the abrupt decision to not sell Nike was the last domino to fall. His business is now closing due to his financial situation. His customers decided to take their business elsewhere, like Dick's Sporting Goods, so they could buy the products that they wanted to and not what an owner decided. Nevertheless, Martin showed how to properly use an Americans first amendment right, even though it cost him his business.