Lobbying Is Democracy in Action

Great article in Newsweek that explains what role lobbying has in our democracy.

Vote Smart
This is run by a bipartisan group of interns and volunteers, Project Vote Smart publishes the biographies, voting records, and other details about all presidential, congressional, gubernatorial, and state legislative candidates.

Looking at the Media

Two days ago the Washington Times ran a headline that said something like "Cloud Hangs over Obama" in reference to the Blagojevich arrest as opposed the Washington Post which referred only to the governor in its headline. It was a great way to show differences in the press. Here is another one called "Outfoxed" which is a look at the bias at Fox News (be careful it is filled with a lot of former employees being interviewed). By the way if anyone can suggest a film that looks at the other channels, I'd appreciate it if you would leave me a comment so I can put it/them up as well. Also click here for a Pew Research Center for an in depth report on how people get their news (from 2006) and a recent short piece on the same topic.

Open Secrets
OpenSecrets.org is your nonpartisan guide to money’s influence on U.S. elections and public policy. Whether you’re a voter, journalist, activist, student or interested citizen, use our free site to shine light on your government. Count cash and make change.

The Politics of the Federal Courts
Click on the picture to the left and you will get a great graphic from the Washington Post which shows the number of US circuit court judges appointed by Dems & Repubs as well as the # appointed by Bush. Then click here for an article that argues that Bush may not have changed the Supreme Court as much as he wanted, but he has had a significant impact on the circuit court level. This article talks about how Obama will be able to create a "major shift"in the federal judiciary.

Key Supreme Court Decisions
This site is put together by Street Law (which has a great programs for teachers and many other useful resources especially if you teach Street Law) and has concise overviews of each key case (as well as the complete text) and even gives different reading levels. If you want to look at a broader range of cases Oyez.org is the place to go.

All Things Obama!
Here are several pages that will help you teach about the incoming administration. To begin with the above page from the NY Times lists both the cabinet as well as other key positions, tells is they are nominated or appointed and then gives gives information on each person. Here and here are updates (among many other places) on the incoming administration. This one, though, is my favorite as it lists every member of the transition team and says how much they gave to Obama's campaign and to Democrats in general. Finally here is an article on the $750 which he raised for the election.

Ancillaries for Magruder's Government Text
In my perfect world, the kids would have laptops instead of textbooks and these items would be linked directly to the pages for easy use. Whether you use this textbook (one of the most used regular government ones in the US) or not, these links are very useful and are broken up by chapter.

44 Makes His Moves
Polico's site is a great site to follow the action (including a daily schedule of all of his activities) as Obama names his Cabinet, advisors, sets his policy goals into future legislation and more. The New York Times is another source that mirrors Politico's site, but also has a page such as this one which allows you to pull up cabinet and other top appointments with a drop down menu and quickly read about them. Also a lot of people are comparing Obama to Lincoln with his choices so far and if you wanted to go really in depth, the book that lays this out is here.

Washington Post Site

Political Science Musings
"The Department of Human Behavior"column in "The Washington Post," authored by Shankar Vedantam, has had some fabulous articles explaining political behavior. For most of the election cycle, there was a column every Monday. Recently, it has appeared periodically in the "Science" section. You can find previous columns using Proquest.

For example, on September 17, there is an article entitled "Lessons in Forced Democracy" which discusses research by political scientists on the likelihood that the United States will suceed in fostering democracy in Iraq.

On November 10, the column provides a different take on the role of political donations. See the article entitled "Big Political Donors Just Looking for Favors? Apparently Not."

A Great Place for Assignment Ideas
This blog was started to try and get more interaction between teachers among the 27 high schools in the county where I teach. It has grown to be used by teachers across the country to find useful sites to aide in teaching US government. Trullinger's site, though, does a great job of posting her assignments. Here, for ex. is a great one on interest groups. If you are interested in setting up your own free blog you can go here or here . Both sides explain how to create and maintain the blogs.

Origin of the Thanksgiving Day Holiday

This very short film, while US history, actually works better for US government. Did you know that the author of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" was behind the US making Thanksgiving a national holiday, that Lincoln was the president who initiated this, that there is no proof that turkey was actually eaten on the first Thanksgiving. So many nice tidbits in this video and more of the story here.

Presidential Pardons
We all remember Marc Rich as the most controversial last minute pardon for Clinton (and will again hear of him at Eric Holder's confirmation hearing), but here is a great article on the big names (Michael Milken, Randy Cunningham (former Congressman), Edward Edwards (former governor). Milken has hired Ted Olson who used to be Solicitor General to try and get the pardon for his crimes for which he has already served his sentence. The other two are looking for get out of jail free cards. Here is an article on who was pardoned this Thanksgiving ( a traditional day for presidential pardons) and here is who Bush has pardoned to date.

Exit Poll Data

The New York Times has demographic exit polls from 1972 to 2008. Good stuff.

111th Congress: Statistically Speaking

Congressional Quarterly breaks-down the new Congress.