Elections

Elections can have an influence on people's political beliefs because people seem to choose a politician who has high moral values rather than actually learning about what they believe in. Instead of siding with a politician that has the same individual beliefs, lately in recent elections people have been siding based on ideologies. I have no idea why people would do this because for me I would side with someone who believes in the same things that I do. 

Here is a link to a video about Hillary Clinton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuqwgvpVIYc this video is made from Donald trumps point of view on Hillary Clinton. By watching this video you can tell that Donald trump views Hilary as a deceitful and untrustworthy of presidency and wants her to lose. This was created with emotional values rather then actual facts, this shows us how little the facts rally matter and how people are biased and pick whoever resonates best with there values.

Here is a link to a video on Donald Trump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vST61W4bGm8 This video is also from Donald Trumps point of view. In this video he promises that when he becomes president he will fix America and he also roasts Hillary Clinton and her team saying that everything they do has negatively affected and held back America from making progress. This video is from a very conservative point of view since its coming from Donald Trump and this video was also created by his opinions rather then legitimate facts.

Current events and media exploration

Terrorism is, in the broadest sense, the use of intentionally indiscriminate violence as a means to create terror, or fear, to achieve a political, religious or ideological aim. 
CNN is well known fake news source used to inform the public on current events, yet with bias. This is an article from CNN ¨Texas gunman killed his grandmother-in-law and 25 others at church¨. This article is about Devin Kelly, who killed 26 people at a Texas church including his wife's grandmother. This was the biggest mass shooting in Texas history. This article is relevant because it's about terrorism and it is credible because CNN is a well known news source. This article is biased against guns and they also leave out the fact the the gunman that was an atheist. They use the rhetorical device of imagery to make you feel sad and bad for the people who lost their family's. They argue for gun control and I do not find it convincing because this act was conducted by an active human being who decided to use a gun, guns can't harm people, people harm people. The authors of CNN are liberal which influences the article. 
Fox news is a well known conservative news source. This is an article from their site ¨Texas church shooter Devin Patrick Kelley served in Air Force, was court-martialed for assaulting wife, child¨ This article is also about Devin Kelly who killed 26 people at a church. This article is relevant because it relates directly to terrorism and it is credible because Fox news is a well known source for information on current events. Their point of view is conservative and pro gun. They argue that he did what he did because he was atheist and they mention that and the fact that he also posted a lot about weapons. I find this pretty convincing because he could possibly be atheist because he hates Christians yet also he could have only been after one person and he just ended up shooting multiple people because he could not find the specific person he wanted to kill.  
The media can influence peoples political beliefs by convincing them of opinionated perspectives, made to make them side with their own values and beliefs.

Political Parties and Politicians

I chose the green party for my political party. The green party resonates most with me because I am all for helping to improve and restore the environment and society. The green parties key objectives are to promote peace, ecology, social justice, and democracy. I chose the politician John Barrasso. John Barrasso is a senator who has a long and distinguished career in both medicine and public service, he serves on committees that directly impact Wyoming’s economy, energy interests, public lands, national parks and trade.

This is a link to a blog written on the Greenpeace page here. This blog is about new volunteers and members joining and creating list of leaders to help them improving there cause and keep going. They say that no matter what president trump and other corrupt people do they wont be stopped. This blog is very biased and limited because they all consider anybody who inst helping hat there doing corrupt and do not mention why those people do not want them to do it.

This is a link to a video of a speech given by John Barrasso here. This speech is about democrats doing everything in their power to prevent trump from putting his team in place and taking action on the plans for the various needs of the citizens. John Barrasso thinks that president Trump's plans will work to improve the economy. I agree that his plans will work and improve things in the economy but he is biased only mentioning his views and why he thinks trumps plans will work and he limits the other senators opinions by not mentioning them.

These two artifacts are very different from each other because the Greenpeace blog is against trump because he isn't helping their cause and the speech video is pro-trump saying that the actions he is trying to take are very beneficial for the U.S. economy. The only way these two artifacts are similar is that they both are very opinionated making both of them biased. They also have limitations because they do not mention opinions of the other side.

To answer the question, How might political parties and politicians influence an individual’s political beliefs? They can and do influence and change people opinions because they both can be very persuading and one sided so if there opinions resonate or make sense to you they will influence you to change your opinion and join there side. 

Interest Groups

The issue I selected was the environment. There are various things affecting the environment like climate change, pollution, and sustainable resources including food. I selected two interest groups to research one liberal group and one conservative group. The liberal group I selected is Greenpeace, there main goals are to save the arctic, fight global warming, live toxic free, defend democracy, protect forest, protect oceans, and promote sustainable food. The conservative group I selected is the Institute for Energy Research the main goal for this interest group is to try to study and change opinions on, the economic effects of unlocking federal lands, the true cost of energy, and the diminishing value of solar power.

This is an artifact I found on the Greenpeace page:

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/the-ocean-plastic-crisis/

This blog is about plastic in the ocean and how it is affecting it. It tells you about how much trash is produced and how much of it is released into the ocean annually. It talks about “choking¨ the oceans and shows pictures of turtles with plastic begging to wrap around their heads. It talks about how it kills the animals. It also talks about different types of solutions. This blog is biased because it is written by people who are very pro environment and so it's all about how to protect and save the environment, what everybody's doing wrong, and what everybody should be doing. Although there are also a lot of facts in there about the amounts of plastics and waste. The limitation is that they don't acknowledge that there's other people out there who don't care about the ocean and how much waste they create. 

This is an artifact I found on the Institute for Energy Research page: 

http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/press/people-think-climate-change/

This article is about the taxes on energy specifically carbon dioxide and whether or not the federal government should be trusted with spending money. It's also got sections where they are talking about how the government doesn't do anything meaningful or well. There is also one more section on if carbon dioxide is considered a pollutant. This blog is definitely bias because it is written by people who have a strong distrust in the government and so all they talk about is how the government isn't focusing on the correct things and that they are useless and wasting our money. The limitations are that they don't acknowledge that the government has done things for the environment and for climate change and emissions of co2, also that there is people in the government who are trying to make these problems better known and taken care of.

The artifacts I chose are similar because they both are very biased with similar limitations. They both exclude the opposite views and only talk about what they think and what they want people to start doing. They are also similar because they are both about the environment and trying to do things to benefit the environment. They both talk about pollutants, climate change, and the damage people are doing and how the government isn't working hard enough towards these problems. They also talk about solutions whether it's by roasting the government or asking people to do what they think will benefit them. Some differences I noticed is that Greenpeace is a more ocean plastic pollution based interest group and the other is more of just a research group for pollutants like co2 and other emissions that they blame on the government. 

Young Outsider 1

Hello my name is Nathaniel, I am a senior at Summit Shasta charter school. I have few hobbies mainly skateboarding, playing guitar, and I enjoy keeping fish tanks and other animals. This blog post is about my view on me being considered a young outsider. For those who do not know what a young outsider is in my words it is a person who usually express's unfavorable opinions of both major parties, is skeptical of activist government, views the government as wasteful and inefficient, builds their own opinions off of the two conservative typology groups (Steadfast Conservatives and Business Conservatives) because of their strong support for the environment and many liberal social policies. I agree with the results suggesting that I am a young outsider because I do agree with what in my words a young outsider is and what they represent.