Congress/Interest Groups PowerPoint
There are a bunch of ways to teach government. One of my department colleagues is going to his elections unit now since we have one in VA in a few weeks. I choose (after the Constitutional Foundations + Federalism) to go with the first article of the Constitution combined with interest groups. Obviously others combine political parties with interest groups. So if you are using my slides above to help you, just know that this is my, but not the definitive way to order a government course. Also, I have two recent links (one in the post just below this one) and one from a blog entry put up here by a fellow blogger last week. So, this PowerPoint will probably have a few changes in the next few weeks as I go through it. The graphs/charts are thanks to O'Connor/Sabato and Magelby/O'Brien.

The Health Care Kielbasa

You know the old saying about "Laws are like sausage. It's better not to see them being made." (Widely attributed to Bismark) Well, this graphic from the Washingtonpost.com illustrating what still needs to be done to get a Health Care Bill passed would have had Otto shouting "Ich war richtig!"

Know Your Member of Congress
I got this off from one of you - thanks. This site allows you to type in a member of Congress (mine is above) and see how many bills he/she has introduced, how many earmarks he/she have asked for & received. The site does not give its definition of earmarks, nor tell if the bills are for one's entire career (I suspect it is), but nonetheless, it is an interesting starting point.

Politics 1
Politics1.com is a site that is updated daily and has a ton of links for articles for the hot political topics of the day. It is not a site looking for attention like the Drudge Report, just a person who seems to love politics. There is also a link on Facebook for it.

Politico Playback - Comics and Politics
Okay this might take too much explaining, but Politico.com has its comedic playback every morning.

Deeds vs. McDonnell
In VA McDonnell's (R) lead has grown to 9 pts over Deeds (D). If you are teaching in VA, here is a 47 minute special you can show your students on the two candidates. If you want the lastest news, then above is a 4 minute clip from earlier today.

Job Losses Digitally

Admitedly, this only goes through June, but it is a great visual showing the number of jobs lost since the recession started. The graphic actually goes from blue (jobs) to red (job losses - Freudian blame of Bush?!). By the way, this came from a fellow teacher in my county. If you ever see a great site, please e-mail me a kenhalla@hotmail.com as this blog is meant to be a sharing opportunity for everyone around the country - now that it has really grown. To those who send me e-mails (and those who are "lurkers") thanking us for the site - thanks for coming back again and again.

NJ Governor's Race
I've commented on my own state's race and now above is a poll from NJ's gubernatorial one. As this commentary will tell you, Corzine has been stuck at 40% for some time, but his ads are now taking points from Christie who has dropped significantly - but is still ahead. All of Christie's percentage losses are going to the independent in the race. Here is info on both races.

Levi Johnston pitches pistachios.

Executive Orders
We are discussing federalism in my class and so that brought up executive orders. As if on cue, Obama signed one today mandating that all federal agencies measure their greenhouse emissions and reduce them by 2020. Here are all of Obama's since coming to office as well as everyone from FDR onwards.

Scholarly Search Engine
This is a site where you can put in say "Federalism" and get back a lot of hits found on government servers.

AP Multiple Choice How-To
Yes the study guides on Google Books are not complete, but here and above (starting on 9 nine) is the complete section from Barron's explaining how one tackles each kind of multiple choice question. It's not as good as the explantion in Cliff Notes - but I can't find that one online. Barron's for my money is the best study guide for multiple choice questions and the chapter summaries - and terrible for their examples of free response questions.

What Does a VP Do?
In between breaking ties in the senate, here are 25 recent pictures of Joe Biden at work, complete with descriptions - including the one above swearing in Massachusetts' new junior senator.

Health Care Debate
Struggling to teach the health care debate? Here are a few links that give a short, concise look at it.

Pollster.Com
Pollster.com has a ton of head to head polls including the one above between McDonnell (R) and Deeds (D) from VA (one of the two states having gubernatorial elections this fall).