Congress Podcast

"Congress: Bingo with billions"
- Red Skelton

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Have fun, and good luck. If you have time, tell us about the interesting places that you review

Reid vs. Bush...Gotta love Divided Government!

After a conference committee meeting (great vocabulary word!), House and Senate Democratic appropriators agreed Monday on a $124 billion bill that would fund the Iraq war but order troops to begin leaving by Oct. 1 with the goal of completing the pullout six months later.

The bill will be on the President’s desk in several days, and he has already stated his intentions. For the second time in his presidency, President Bush will exercise his constitutional power and veto this bill.

Democrats would need a two-thirds majority to override a presidential veto.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who says the war in Iraq is "lost," likened Bush to President Lyndon Johnson, saying Johnson ordered troop escalations in Vietnam in an attempt "to save his political legacy" only to watch U.S. casualties climb steadily.

According to Breitbart.com, the emerging legislation would require the withdrawal of U.S. forces to begin by Oct. 1, even earlier if Bush cannot certify that the Iraqi government is making progress in disarming militias, reducing sectarian violence and forging political compromises.

Another provision in the measure would withhold about $850 million in foreign aid from the Iraqis if the government does not meet those standards.

The Pentagon would be required to adhere to certain standards for the training and equipping of units sent to Iraq, and for their rest at home between deployments. Bush could waive the guidelines if necessary. Democrats assume he would, but they want him on record as doing so.

A showdown is set. A Democratic Congress vs. a Republican President. This is the beauty of divided government-it fosters debate and compromise.

Speaking of debate, what’s your stance?

Reid or Bush?

Do we need more Gore?

Just when you thought the Democratic field was set, rumors are circulating about another heavyweight entering the race.

The Telegraph, a British Newspaper, has reported that Al Gore has secretly assembled a campaign team for the former vice-president to make a fresh bid for the White House.

Gore has said that he wants to concentrate on publicizing the need to combat global climate change, a case made in his film that won him an Oscar earlier this year.

One of his former campaign team said: "I was asked whether I would be available towards the end of the year if I am needed. They know he has not ruled out running and if he decides to jump in, he will have to move very fast.


Vice-President Gore's allies believe that Hillary Clinton, 59, the frontrunner, is unable to win the presidency. The most recent poll shows a growing number of voters think negatively of her, in contrast to Mr Gore, who enjoys far greater popularity than when he lost the 2000 presidential race despite receiving for popular votes than George W. Bush. Gore is polling third, only a few points below Barack Obama.

At least eight websites are campaigning to "Draft Gore" into the election. More than 70,000 people have signed an online petition, and more than 120 groups of Gore supporters meet each month around the country to promote the case for a Gore presidency.

Should Hillary be nervous? Should Republicans? Since most Americans use heuristics when they visit their polling places, will that help or hurt Gore?

I plead the second

"The unfortunate situation in Virginia could have been avoided," she said, "if congressional leaders stood up to the gun lobby." -

-Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), whose husband was killed by a gunman in 1993

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
- The Second Amendment

Monday's deadly rampage at Virginia Tech University has lighted the fuse for another round in the long-running debate over gun control, an issue that will be very important in the upcoming presidential election of 2008.

Leaders of both major political parties focused their reactions on expressions of sympathy for the victims and their families while avoiding comment on gun control.

In brief remarks from the White House, President Bush expressed the nation's grief.

"Schools should be places of sanctuary and learning," Bush said. "When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom and every American community."

Bush, a longtime champion of the right to bear arms, said nothing about the gun-control debate.

Similarly, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressed sorrow at the event but remained silent on gun control. In the past, Democrats often have been at the forefront of the fight for tighter gun laws, but the party recently has been trying to broaden its appeal to hunters and others who oppose more controls.

Virginia's gun laws, like those of many states, make it easy to buy and own firearms, including handguns, and the state has been criticized often as the source of guns used in crimes in the Washington area and in other East Coast cities. But the lack of information made it impossible to say what role, if any, state laws might have played.

The incident has led many Americans to demand a uniformed federal standard for all gun purchases. This would mean closing loopholes on background checks (currently, these checks are not performed at gun shows and through private transactions).
As the debate heats up, PO’ 76 wants your stance on gun control. Could this incident have been prevented? Or could the effect have been lessened if VA Tech students or faculty were armed as well? Is the second amendment outdated? How would you handle this if you were a politician?

Media Podcast

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”
-Malcolm X

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Follow the Leader

If recent history is any judge, young people will be aggressively urged by parents, teachers, politicians, and celebrities to vote in 2008. Your government professor will try to make it seem relevant. Puff Daddy (is it P-Diddy now) will try to make it seem cool. However, if you live in Illinois, you will be faced with the same existential question that most Americans ponder every fourth November: Thanks to the Electoral College, does my vote matter?

Because of the winner-take-all feature of each states electoral votes, the only votes that are actively contested are those in battle-ground states. Obama, Clinton, and Rudy will spend months in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, the only time they’ll be in Chicago is to fundraise.

Do you feel disempowered yet? Is it any surprise that our voter turnout hovers around fifty percent for Presidential elections?

Before you defect to Canada, check out Maryland’s solution.

According to the New Yorker, Governor Martin O’Mally is close to signing a bill that would make Maryland the first to pledge itself to the National Popular Vote plan. This interstate compact would restrict the Electoral College to a ceremonial role, much like the Queen of England. The idea is that once enough states have signed on to put together a majority of electoral votes (271), those state agree that their electors will ALWAYS vote for the winner of the popular vote in all fifty states and Washington D.C.

If other states adopted this plan, it could alter our entire political system without amending the constitution (remember: 3/4s of states much agree to amend. The battleground states would form a coalition). If every state was worth contesting, Presidential elections would be truly national. Grassroots politics would blossom everywhere, not just in the swing states.

Cheers to Maryland for reignited the debate on the usefulness of the Electoral College. Will other states play “follow the leader”?

(Are there any brave souls out there that would like to make an argument for the Electoral College?)

Executive Branch Review

"When you get to be President, there are all those things, the honors, the twenty-one gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn't for you. It's for the Presidency."
-Harry S. Truman

Click here for a Podcast review session on the Executive Branch

McCain-in-the-tank?

In 1988, Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis had a problem. The United States was in the midst of the Cold War, and the Massachusetts Governor was viewed as being soft on defense, particularly on the controversial “Star Wars” program, which Dukakis promised to scale down. Dukasis was facing Vice President George H.W. Bush, the Vice President to the man many credited with winning the Cold War.

In response to this, Dukakis orchestrated what would become the key image of his campaign, albeit not for the reasons he intended. In September 1988, Dukakis visited the General Dynamics plant in Michigan to take part in a photo op in an M1 Abrams tank. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom had been photographed in a similar situation in 1986, riding in a Challenger tank while wearing a scarf; although somewhat out of character, the image was effective and helped Thatcher's re-election prospects. Dukakis's "tank moment" was much less successful. Footage of Dukakis was used in television ads by the Bush campaign, as evidence that Dukakis would not make a good commander-in-chief, and "Dukakis in the tank" remains shorthand for backfired public relations outings.

Two decades later, Senator and presidential aspirant John McCain has the opposite problem that Dukakis had in 1988. McCain is tied to what most Americans believe to be a failed policy of Iraq. McCain supported the “surge” of troops several months ago, causing Democrats to coin the phrase “McCain Doctrine” when refereeing to the Presidents ambitions in the region. McCain believes that victory is within reach, and that Iraqi society has benefited tremendously from the U.S. occupation.

On April 1st, McCain and Republican colleague Lindsay Graham strolled through Baghdad’s Shorja market. Protected by more than a hundred American soldiers, three Black Hawk helicopters, and two Apache gun ships, the senator celebrated the “progress” and “good news” in Iraq. What was meant as a photo op to prove to the world that the media coverage of Iraq wrongly portrays it as a nation decrepit with violence was shunted when images of McCain in a bulletproof vest and army entourage appeared in every major newspaper.

The press quickly dubbed the moment as the “Dukakis-in-the-tank- photo op”

Once the favorite for the Republican nomination, McCain has slipped into a distant third in the polls and in fund raising. His decision to be the candidate that supports an escalation to the war has just been memorialized by a photo that will surely haunt him on the campaign trail (think: heuristics).

It’s worth noting that on the day after McCain’s stroll, 21 of the Shorja market’s merchants were ambushed and killed.

Cheering on a waiting disaster?

In 1898, University of Minnesota student Johnny Campbell stood in front of a crowd at a sporting event and led them in an organized cheer. Campbell noticed that the crowd was eager to join him, and eventually the entire audience was cheering with one, unified voice. This spontaneous action turned Campbell into the nation’s first cheerleader.

Cheerleading has certainly come a long way. Today’s cheerleaders are predominately female (Although President Bush as a cheerleader at Yale). Cheerleaders are expected to do more than unify an audience with a series of chants. Cheerleaders frequently perform dances and tricks once reserved for trapeze artists.

More importantly, cheerleaders may be in more danger than any other athlete in the country.

According to the New York Times, emergency room visits for cheerleading injuries nationwide have more than doubled since the early 1990s, far outpacing the growth in the number of cheerleaders, and the rate of life-threatening injuries has startled researchers. Of 104 catastrophic injuries sustained by female high school and college athletes from 1982 to 2005 — head and spinal trauma that occasionally led to death — more than half resulted from cheerleading.

All sports combined did not surpass cheerleading.

Inadequate training of coaches is the most frequently cited cause of injuries. Inexperienced coaches will have squads try complex stunts without following accepted step-by-step progressions to acquire the skills required to safely attempt the trick.

Perhaps there is a better solution.

PO ’76 knows this is dangerous waters because Stevenson cheerleaders are so talented and entertaining.

But….

If the IHSA banned cheerleaders from the sidelines of High School sporting events, what would be the result? Would crowds decrease? Would the games be less meaniningful, or even less fun?

Or, would thousands of girls from across Illinois be spared of the rising danger of life altering injury?