If you're following me on FB or Twitter, you'll know I posted an article last week summarizing the Ukraine civil war/civil unrest (depending on who you talk to). Here is a great resource to sum it up in three minutes for the inquiring minds who wish to know. And if you're not following me on FB/Twitter, what gives?
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This morning the SCOTUS is hearing NRLB v Noel Canning, a case spotlighting the power of recess appointments and whether or not pro forma sessions can prevent them from happening. Specifically, when the Democrat controlled Senate failed to achieve permission from the Republican controlled House to adjourn, the Senate reconvened once every three days only to state that no business would be heard during the next business day three days later. These thirty second sessions are the essential question before the court: Can the President legally complete a recess appointment during this time period? The POTUS contends that these sessions were a fake, and that he can get his recess appointments to take hold. Opponents are critical of this assertion, stating his actions were unconstitutional. An interesting legal question for sure. If you are on the hunt for more background, check out this seven minute clip from NPR, or coverage from SCOTUSblog. I didn't misspeak. Half. Certainly makes class warfare and the debate over the role of social services in America stink of a conflict of interest.
This past week, Center for Responsive Politics released their most reports that crunch the 2012 personal finance disclosures to tell us that 268 of 534 members of Congress are north of $1M. Our wealthiest? Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Ca), who was worth around $474M last year. This is great for playing a fun game... what are your Representatives and Senators worth? I found out that my Senator Mark Warner has millions to the tune of 8 figures. And at a minimum, to answer my own semi-question, we can at a minimum gawk at their wealth, and watch to see how that impacts their votes. And perhaps, an extended analysis through some pleasure reading. Did you hear about Lawrence Lessig's new book? Here's a little excerpt to wet your whistle. I love this interactive video feature from the Wall Street Journal. It goes through the political and personal impact of Obamacare in 2014 in a first person role player video. It's kind of like a game, but kind of not.
It's a good way to get to know what is going on now that we are through the drama of Obamacare enrollment. Kind of. There are so many times in this lovely course of mine where I feel like my head is in a vice grip. Here is one of those instances. I have to remember, as I reach for my bottle of Advil, that things are intentionally complex because there are so many damned rule breakers out there. Primaries. They are... awful. So, the GOP is trying to figure out a way to be more relevant and responsive to voters today. So, they have proposed a new primary system to compress the primary calendar to such a degree that all primaries are wrapped up by June, to preserve advantage to the big six early primary states, and allow our less financially solvent and less well known candidates time to cozy up to party deep pockets and the media. A slight tweak from 2012... and maybe they can reign in the rebellious Sunshine State, who has undermined primary aims of the RNC for the past two election cycles. Must be all the orange juice. Here's a smidgen more on that... Conceptualizing a world with 7B+ people is HARD. I have no point of reference for what a BILLION people is, save China and India, and since I've never been in a room with all the Chinese or Indians in the world at once, it's still pretty rough for me. Let's be real. I've never counted past 100 without getting a bit bored. But I can count to 100. So let's conceptualize the world today in 100. Sounds lovely. Toby Ng makes this possible by creating a 20 poster series that parses up the resources, religion, literacy, birth, death, etc in a bunch of different ways. Best of all, you can purchase the postcard series for just under $25. Cool for a bellringer exercise at the beginning of class. GREAT for when you start talking CompPol. I hate when I am late to the party, but better late than never. Enjoy this next 14 minutes, because I know how much you like PACs. Especially now that they make money off of all of those hard earned donations from folks all over the world. Ooops. That's illegal. Country. I am scrolling through my social media feeds, and noticing that there is a heck of a lot of strife going on now... Egypt... Syria... Ukraine... Spain... US... It's pretty cool to remember that because we have the right to association, petition, and redress... we have a lot more control, influence... whatever you want to say about that... then people in other corners of the world. We're squabbling over those things that Locke and Jefferson pointed out as our unalienable rights... Government expenditures, social policy, restructuring institutional debt in place like Detroit, distribution of resources, government regulation of industries, and just plain old government corruption. This last resources is a really fun one... allowing you to interact with the data. There are also great visualization of the data in the brochure towards the bottom. Tons to talk about here... so how do you plan on using it?
**Diane Rehm. My hero.** Took a quick drive to get some holiday fixin's yesterday... and lucked my way into listening to a phenomenal panel review of the implications from the Nuclear Option (Duhn-duhn-duhn). Talk about some big hitters in to chat it up for a full 51.41. (You probably don't have time to listen to the entire thing, but the first three minutes are about the Iran nuclear treaties... and after minute 34, they open the lines to callers.) But we get to hear insight from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Former Senator Olympia Snowe, Norm Ornstein from AEI, Jonathan Weisman of the NYT and Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times. Oh, happy holidays, government teachers who want some great sound bites... AND OMG DID I TELL YOU ABOUT THIS? InfoGRAPHIC! (oooooohhhhhh) about the Silent filibuster!!! YAY!!! Not to jump on a bandwagon, here... but since we are in the midst of one here in NoVa... it's likened to a deep chill. Journalists, according to the PEN America Center, writers are actively deciding to self-censor themselves... whether they be doing so on their own personal social media accounts or in their reporting... the effect of the knowledge of the PRISM program and the FISA court has scared them a l'il bit. And even your "average Joes" are all up in arms... FOIA requests are up 800% to the NSA's Pamela Phillips (chief of the NSA Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act Office). I especially love this response to the PEN Center's report from David Ulin, book critic for the LA Times. In essence: grow a pair and do your job. We live in America, we have rights and responsibilities. Anywho, these little gems are great to consider if you are moving towards a discussion of civil liberties or media. If you have more time, you can listen to this On The Media interview of David Ulin. |
Photo via Flickr/Ted Eytan
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