More news from down the rabbit hole here. Learned me some history about disclosure waivers granted by the FEC... Did you know that we have, to date, had two? One to the NAACP and one to the Socialist Worker's Party. In both cases, it was because contributors were being harassed for their aid to these groups at various points in time. Well, the TP has asked for the same status because of the harassment of their contributors. (Evidence: the IRS harassing the TP and their contributors last spring.) And right now we have a hung commission...
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Started my morning click-clacking over my keyboard when a friend on FB alerted me to this amazing little info-graphic... about income inequality. I jumped in for the five minutes (and then felt like puking)... and then decided to do some more digging. 'Cause, why not? So he talks about socialism and capitalism... and when I think socialism and capitalism, I think <<CRASH COURSE>> (check this guy out on youtube. Ah---maaaaa-zzzziiinngggg... (fast, but funny. And good) So now that we have that under control, maybe we can talk about what it feels like to be poor? I am all about sympathy, but empathy is so much more powerful. Have your kids play Spent... It's quick, it's easy, it's depressing...
And then once we have set the stage, we can start talking about what the government does with all of this. Perhaps, we can look at this awesome Rolling Stone Article about the history of taxation, which is definitely pulling for the left, no doubt about it. Reminds me of that Will Rogers quote from the Great Depression... "The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy." How do I balance this discussion? Do we go to Mundell and Laffer for the "Laffer Curve" and give supply-side economics? I do think that my Economics Book does a good job giving a fair shake to this theory... So there you have it, folks. Your piece of the American Pie. Our first SCOTUS case on the docket is possibly the most important one to me... Campaign Finance Legislation. OMG. Don't get me started on this one. I will have lesson plans up later in the year as I approach that topic. Probably around early November. I couldn't wait, though. This is one of those issues that just gets me going. Maybe you, too. Frontline did a great job looking at this during the last fall election cycle. That would be "Big Sky, Big Money." It is so good, that I do have my students watch this full episode of frontline. There is so much to talk about in this, but there is a great interview of Jim Bopp, one of the lawyers who brought Citizens United to the SCOTUS.
And just in time for this court case, the Sunlight Foundation released new research on Koch brother backed special interest. |
Photo via Flickr/Ted Eytan
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