Courts and jurries

After viewing 12 angry men, and reading the articles, I believe that it is okay to have 10-2 verdicts from juries. In the movie we saw that number three wouldn't listen to anyone and just wanted to say guilty because he thought the kid deserved it. Number 10 also was biased and wanted to convict the kid because "those kind of people are scum." I think that it would help a lot. When jurors are in the court rooms I think that they should have their cell phones taken away from them. I don't think that people can resist looking for evidence, and some people would have biases based on what they read. I don't have any other solutions other than taking away cell phones while in court.

Earmarks

Congressional earmarks are government funded projects that are of no relevance and do nothing but bring money to the companies or organizations often in their districts. This upsets many Americans because earmarks are a big waste of tax payer money, and that money could be going towards better things like health care. Bucknell University’s “Marcellus Shale Research Initiative,” which was supported by Sen. Bob Casey and Sen. Arlen Specter for $1.25 million each and Rep. Christopher Carney for $1 million. This is an earmark that upsets me because we don't need to research shale. We know enough about shale currently and we shouldn't be wasting 3.5 million dollars of tax money on a project like this. The senators probably say that shale has valuable resources in it. There might be resources but so what, the cost of getting those resources would be way to high, so stop researching it. They might also say it boosts our economy, Obama has tried stimulus already and that did absolutely nothing for us. Those are some reasons I am upset by this earmark, and some reasons why the senators say we need this earmark.

Filibuster

The filibuster is when one person has the floor in the senate and they talk to stall, or stop the others from voting on a bill. The filibuster could be a positive thing in many situations such as stopping a bad bill from being hastily passed, or unjustly passed. The filibuster can be a bad thing when they can ruin a great bill just because one person doesn't like it, or doesn't like the person who proposed it. I support the filibuster because everyone has the freedom of speech and they can positively help the USA. They have helped us multiple times and the founding fathers chose to give the senators the right to use it for a reason, and I support them.