Blogs: Let me know who you are

Comment on this post and let me know if your URL isn't up.

Class Monday April 7th: Work on your blogs

I'm not sure I'll make it today b/c I have a meeting w/ President Andrews. What I'd like for you to do is work on your blogs and make sure I have the URL to these by Wed. I'd like for someone today to volunteer to be an administrator of this blog and to add those URL's that are already available in class. 5 points on the next exam for whomever emails me first who's willing to do that. (Provided you think you have the web savvy to pull that off.)

SNOW DAY: Wed. Feb. 27th

No class today due to inclement weather. Be safe this week.

Class 2/20: In Computer Lab UPDATED (twice)

Sorry guys, I'm sick. I'd like for you to go to the computer lab and work on getting your heads around what a blog is.

I'll be near my computer so I can take email questions. I haven't worked up the complete assignment on how you'll be graded on this assignment yet and it won't end until the end of the semester. So all you really need to do is start becoming familiar with them and maybe even start an account with blogger.com (it's free).

I'd like for you to pick a social welfare topic, particularly those of you who're in the social work program. If you have a federal issue that's important to you outside of those, then let me know. I'm not opposed to co-blogs, as I mentioned Monday.

You can put as much personal info or as little personal info on these that you want. You don't have to give your full names or anything.

Some blogs to begin looking at:

http://www.dailykos.com/ The leading liberal/Democratic blog in America. Kos talks mostly about politics, occasionally about policy. (The two are different.)

http://www.powerlineblog.com/ a little mor staid and buttoned down (it's a Republican/conservative blog, after all) and not as much traffic. It's not a community the way Kos is.

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/ Another Repub blog, same comments as Powerline. Not a powerhoue community like Kos.

http://pageonekentucky.com/ Leading KY Democratic blog... although he's quite independent.

http://www.conservativeedge.com/ Ky Repub. blog. Take note of all the blog activity on the right... although Conservative edge hasn't updated their site lately, the aggregator is continuously updated and you can get a sense of what drives conservatives in KY and how they write blog entries.



Rather than go to new posts and take a chance on confusing you, I'm going to add to this one.

Some other blogs:

http://www.nccpr.org/reports/blog.htm From the National Coalition for Child Protection. I don't like the length of their posts (they're way too long) but this is a good issues blog.

http://www.dchunger.org/blog/ A DC Hunger/food stamp blog.

http://www.prochoice.org/blog/ a Pro choice abortion blog.

http://updates.zdnet.com/tags/Medicaid.html?t=1&s=0&o=0 I think ZD net is a blog about many issues and this is the compilation of their medicaid posts.

Anatomy of a post: Once you get started you'll want to start posting. The best way to do that is to write your posts on Word or other word processor and then paste. You might lose some of your formatting if you copy from a web site (you'll probably lose your spacing between paragraphs).. FYI.

To create a hyper link you'll just paste the link onto word, then hit enter taking you down a paragraph. Go back to the link and right click on it. If the link is active (it'll probably be in blue letters once it is) you'll have the option to edit hyperlink. Once you get here you'll see the following box: Text to Display. This can change without changing the link. You can make this read whatever you want.

Let me give an example. Let's say you read the following in a linked article. "Hillary Clinton said medicaid is going broke and must be shored up." You'll write something like this: Here's what Hillary Clinton said- "medicaid is going broke..."

You might select the word said and insert the link there, deleting the word said. You can then modify the link to appear as the word "said." I hope that makes sense. Play around w/ it and you'll get it.

Hear LBJ Talk to MLK, Jr

The NY Times has a story with related audio on a conversation between LBJ, the President at the time, and Martin Luther King, Jr., the famed civil rights leader. The conversation was taped as a part of an oval office recording system that Johnson had established. MLK, preumably, was unaware he being taped. The conversation centers on the voting rights amendment to the U.S. constitution that was eventually passed.

The link to the story w/ related audio is: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27tapes.html

Playing Major League Politics Causes Congress to Make Minor League Errors

Commentary later: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2008-02-12-mcnamee-clemens_N.htm

Charlie Cook on the State of the Presidential Elections

Nice piece by Charlie Cook, a straight shooter w/ zero bias:

Up For The Count

By Charlie Cook, NationalJournal.com
© National Journal Group Inc.
Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2008

One of the fascinating byproducts of this remarkable presidential campaign is that so many people, not just political junkies, are watching with rapt attention.

My 18-year-old, fairly apolitical son was recently grilling me about the race, and I found myself saying that there had not been such a weird and turbulent presidential campaign in my lifetime.

In fact, I told him I doubted I would ever see one like it again.

One candidate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., saw his campaign decimated last summer, but he rose from the political dead, a feat nobody anticipated eight months ago. Apparently politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

When former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., could not fill the vacuum in the GOP contest, it allowed McCain to come back to life.

While many conservatives watch in an apoplectic state, McCain is now conducting a mopping-up exercise in his roller-coaster, nine-year quest for the Republican nomination. All McCain needs to do is get past former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the chronically underfinanced challenger who has held on with grit and strong communication skills.

Even in this bizarre year, it's hard to imagine how McCain could possibly lose the nomination.

In dealing with McCain's success, Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham, among others, have passed the denial stage and are currently coping with stage two: anger. We can expect bargaining, depression and finally acceptance to follow.

But in the end, there is nothing so divisive going on within the Republican Party that an official Democratic presidential nominee won't cure.

Polls showing McCain running roughly even with Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., with no other Republican remotely close, will ultimately bring all but the most hard-headed conservatives around.

On the Democratic side, while many expected a very competitive contest, who could have expected this?

With Obama's sweep this past weekend, he has effectively pulled even with Clinton in the delegate battle and he is building a formidable advantage in money. If Obama's fundraising remains at this level for long, that alone could change the delicate balance in this evenly matched contest.

Obama was expected to win the bulk of the delegates in the Nebraska and Washington state caucuses as well as the Louisiana primary, although his victory in the Maine caucus was considered to be less of a cinch. He is also expected to prevail in today's Chesapeake primaries in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

This should give Obama a respectable advantage over Clinton in terms of delegates. But Clinton is expected to be strong in Ohio and Texas on March 4, which should swing the delegate advantage back to her, albeit narrowly.

Given Obama's fundraising, wins this past weekend and likely strength today, he is very likely to end up the Democratic nominee if he can diminish or even thwart Clinton in Ohio and Texas.

With more than half of the pledged delegates to the Democratic convention already picked, and given the vagaries of the proportional representation system Democrats use, it's hard to build up a significant delegate lead. But once a lead is built, it is very difficult to overcome.

Colby College political scientist and delegate selection expert Anthony Corrado calls Wisconsin's Feb. 19 primary "the gateway to Texas and Ohio." Indeed, Wisconsin will likely play a decent-size role, as it bridges today's primaries and the March 4 Buckeye and Lone Star state primaries.

If Obama's winning streak continues through Wisconsin, it's entirely plausible that his momentum going into Ohio and Texas will prevent Clinton from having a sorely needed victory week. Should that happen, it would be quite hard for Clinton to get back in the race.

One school of thought is that if Clinton wins the number of delegates she's expected to in Ohio and Texas, she probably can win the nomination without having to depend on the disputed Florida and Michigan primaries. However, if Obama prevails, Clinton probably won't have the clout to force the issue on Florida and Michigan. In that case, those primary wins will become moot, and Obama will win the nomination.

A different view is that, considering Florida and Michigan are the third- and fifth-largest delegations to the Democratic convention, this issue must be resolved, no matter what the race looks like.

Another question is whether superdelegates are truly free agents or whether they have some moral or ethical obligation to follow the vote of their respective states. Inevitably, they'll have to make their own choices, and we shall see which way the superdelegates turn.

This race is so close that small things loom large. It's one amazing contest.

-- Charlie Cook is a NationalJournal.com contributing editor, weekly columnist for National Journal magazine and the founder and publisher of the Cook Political Report.

Tidbits: Be a Fed Chair and Create Your Own Polls

We'll come to these but I wanted to park them here lest I forget:

http://www.frbsf.org/education/activities/chairman/

http://www.bullitics.com/content/index.html

Karl Rove on Super Tuesday Primary Night

Karl Rove's analysis on the "Super Tuesday" primaries offers a nice glimpse into a few of the foundational asepcts of the policy pyramid, namely culture and society. He talks about the component states of America. Between the lines you can probably get a sense of these component states' differing views on public policy. He also talks a bit about the racial composition of Ameirca, a part of society. Finally, and again, only between the lines, you can get a sense of the cultural differences as you look at Huckabee's success in certain states. (FYI, it can be hard to differentiate with bright lines culture and society since the two are related. Don't get too hung up on deliniating the two.)

Here's the analysis:

Polls Depend on Who's Taking Them

A bill moving through the KY legislature highlights the fact that not everyone chooses to have a say in the political process. The bill would require drug testing for welfare recipients. If they test positive, they face the risk of losing benefits.

An unscientific online poll at Hazard TV station (and Chanel 27 affiliate) WYMT showed more than 90% of the voters believed this bill should pass: http://www.wkyt.com/polls?pollID=13968092

Whatever your feelings on this bill, it's likely that quite a few people on welfare won't be exicted about peeing in a cup on a regular basis just to keep their beneifts coming. And it's probably say to safe that more than 10% of the folks in Eastern KY (although you could be anywhere in the world when you take this poll given the fact that it's online, I should point out) are on or have friends or family who're on welfare. Yet their perspective is silent in this survey.

Public Opinion and the Presidential Election

For a look at the Presidential polls, go here: http://realclearpolitics.com/polls/

Federalism and the Presidential Election

Here are snippets of a column that ran on Fox News re the Presidential election and Federalism:

No matter the outcome in Iowa this week, the show of democracy that it represents should make us proud. Polished politicians have been obliged to bow down to the common sense of common people and to the power of the single vote.

This kind of bottom-up politics doesn’t happen anymore in Europe. Here, in the old continent, elections are now fought and won almost exclusively on television, in newspapers and in big partisan arenas.

National politicians in Europe certainly don’t eat in diners. They don’t ride in buses, visit fire stations, or chitchat with the regulars over coffee and donuts. And who would blame them? Certainly not the presidential hopefuls beating the pavement in Iowa! Right about now, you can bet Hillary, Mike, Barack, Fred, Mitt and John are getting tired of staged town hall meetings, downtown walking tours, artificial meet-and-greets, and corny church socials — where candidates are always expected to be on a first name basis with everyone.

American politicians do this dance because they still have to. And for the good of democracy, that’s the way it should stay, even as money and media threaten to take humanity out of the election process once and for all.

Not everyone in America agrees. In fact, some political activists are expressing outright disdain for the tradition of giving little states big roles. Chuck Rocha, a worker for John Edwards’ campaign (the champion of the middle class), told USA Today, “the bad part is 100,000 people in a little state called Iowa may be picking the next president.” Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) recently grumbled to the same reporter, “This is a cockamamie system to nominate someone for the most powerful position in the world.”

If you listen to political commentary this week on traditional national media outlets, you will hear much of the same. Scorn for Iowa, because it is only Iowa — and not California, D.C., or New York — is reminiscent of the kind of complaining we hear every four years after the general election, especially when the outcome is close. Some big states hate the fact that they can’t win the general election on their own. They begrudge the electoral system for forcing the presidential candidates to give so much attention to “flyover states” like Ohio, or “ghost towns” like the state of Maine.

At the heart of such discontent — both with the campaigning in Iowa and the electoral system in general — is a misunderstanding of American democracy and the federalist system established by the U.S. Constitution. The president of the United States was never meant to be a national mayor who is to decide what’s probably best for the greatest number of people regarding all things social and political. Instead, the federal government (of which the president is only a part) is to do only those things that have not already been entrusted to the States (oops!). This limitation of federal power was not a random afterthought of our founding fathers. Nor is restraint of power replaceable with another model of governance. American federalism and the importance it gives to local initiative flows from the universal ethical principle of “subsidiarity.” This principle of justice demands that a higher level of government should not do anything that a lower level could do just as well.

I hope these reflections give us pause this week when we are tempted to mock or tire of the admittedly forced and sometimes artificial behavior of our national politicians as they submerse themselves in the daily lives of residents of Iowa, New Hampshire, and beyond. Certainly each of these presidential hopefuls would prefer to run a campaign from the comfort of a home office, but thankfully, at least for the time being, hanging out in Washington doesn’t make a president.
Whoever the eventual party nominees of 2008, they will be better off for this up-close contact with ordinary people and with the interests, needs and autonomy of individual states.

Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,319710,00.html

Structural Foundations of U.S. Government: The International System

While the United States has never operated in a vaccum and has always had to position itself to respond to events overseas, today that trend is especially strong. Because of the power of weapons, the ease with which non-state (i.e. private) actors like terrorists can acquire them, and the relative ease by which these weapons can be shipped into this country, many believe Americans can't wait for threats to approach us here at home. Instead, we have to be very active in the affairs of other nations lest we find its too late to respond.

A great book that discusses these trends is Shield of Achilles by Philip Bobbitt, a professor of Constitutional Law and an expert on International Relations. Here's snippet of a book review that brings this home:

"This chaotic situation has led political thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic – Philip Bobbitt in America, Robert Cooper over here – to demand a total paradigm shift in our approach to international order. Globalisation, they argue, has meant the end of the territorial nation state and the advent, they argue, of 'market-states' or nation-states whose power transends territorial boundaries. With that power goes – or should go – responsibility for the maintenance of order among impotant and backward 'pre-modern' states, not only moral but prudential responsibility for rescuing their populations from starvation, enforcing human rights, and ensuring that they do not spawn bellicose dictators or provide safe harbour for terrorist and pirates." – Financial Times [London based publication similar to our Wall Street Journal]

What Does the Constitution Mean

Currently a case is before the Supreme Court that argues that a D.C. gun ban is unconstitutional as it violates the 2nd Amendment. The U.S. Court of Appeals said it was and now the parties are asking the Supreme Court for their wisdom. You might think that the court wouldn't be interested in arguments about policy, such as whether this ban is a good thing or a bad thing, and that all they'd be interested in is what does the constitution say. But you'd be wrong.

The court does take policy reccomendations into account, along with arguments about the text of the constitution, the original intent, etc. This can be confusing and causes many to say "the constitution says whatever 5 [of 9] U.S. Supreme Court Justices say it says." Not a bad rule of thumb, when you think about it, but I don't want to give you the impression the Supremes are just flipping coins on these important matters.

Here's an article that talks about some of the policy stuff: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=657155&category=OPINION&newsdate=1/22/2008

You can find out more simply by reading this Wiki article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Preventing a Recession: The Fed Tries to Stave Off Disaster

Some of you following the news may have heard all the talk about the Fed, or Federal Reserve Bank, cutting rates as well as the proposed stimulus package that President Bush is attempting to get through Congress. We’ll cover these topics later in the semester, so you may want to pay attention to these stories when you see them and hear them on the news.

Here's a good article that talks about what the Fed is trying to do and what it’s historically done. Ben Bernanke, the subject of the article, is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, one of those bureaucracies we talked about in the first class. He replaced Alan Greenspan who retired last year.

FYI, Fed action falls into a category known as "monetary policy", that is policy that seeks to control the supply of money through the cost of borrowing. The fed cuts interest rates, it's cheaper to borrow money for banks, banks can lower their rates for borrowers, and more businesses can borrow and do more business... thereby growing the economy, in theory. Or there are times when the Fed wants to do the opposite and actually contract the supply of money and increase the costs of borrowing so as to slow things down. Think of these as the gas pedal and the brakes. Both have uses.

Fiscal policy, on the other hand, falls into the realm of spending by the government. This includes actual spending as well as tax cuts or tax increases. Both can be used in efforts to brake the economy or to give the economy some gas. Since politicians want to be reelected, there aren't many instances where they deliberately hit the brakes on the economy, regardless of the need... such as inflation, which we'll get to later...

Welcome to the Course

Just want to welcome everyone to the class. This is a subject that I love- as you can probably tell- and I spend a lot of time thinking about. I hope some of that will transfer to you.

By all means, please ask questions, disagree, agree, complain... whatever it takes to communicate with me. I'm very approachable.

This blog will be a site where I hope you can post commnents about the material, questions, etc. You can do anonymously or publicly. Please keep it civil as I reserve the right to delete offensive material.