Pentagon Announces 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Changes

Social Security to See Payout Exceed Pay-In This Year

Bart Stupak Received Threatening Messages for Health Care Vote

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Highlights of the Almost Health Care Law
Tomorrw Obama will sign his health care legislation. Here are the highlights. While I doubt reconciliation is a term most of us would use on a test (or even the AP one), there are certainly a lot of terms that have been highlighted: lack of a conference bill, Senate majority leader, Speaker of the House, party line vote, impact on midterm elections, executive order, bill to law steps (and the reality behind those steps, hyperpluralism (since Theo Roosevelt was the first to suggest universal health care). Heck with the Republicans now suggesting that part of this bill (err almost law) are unconstitutional, you could almost write an entire year end project around Obama's health care.

Rules Committee At Work

Granted, the Rules Committee is usually an easy concept to teach, but how often is it something you can discuss for something that a lot of people are talking about. Here is a summary of what the Rules Committee decided last night for today's House vote on Health Care. Here is the entire CSPAN coverage of the committee. If you prefer, here are highlights.

Another View of the Dems Vote on Health Care

This link also has the Dems, as in the post below. But it also has the $ each legislator has received from the health care industry as well as the percent of uninsured people in their districts.

Whip That Vote
Here is a nice way to show your students a vote count sheet of sorts. This morning it had 41 Dems on it and now it is down to 38. It is great as it shows how they are on other key issues. I can imagine "Rambo" in his office with a similar one complete with expletives!

CSPAN's new video library & tools

CSPAN's new video archive and tools allows you to create your own clips and embed them to another site, like this one. It's so easy to use and all of the CSPAN archives are online. Have fun! I made this one of the Clinton impeachment. Here, Graham is explainin what he thinks is 'high crime and misdemeaner."

C-Span Puts Entire Library Online
C-Span has put its entire library (160,000 hours over 23 years) online here. What an amazing library for you to use in the classroom.

Textbook and Video
My fellow collaborator, Frank Franz, just asked me if there was a textbook online that was done orally. Well, yes there is! First off if you look on the right side under links, you will see a link for a complete textbook line and another for an online course which has both outlines and study questions. Here is a link for Hippo Campus which has both text and audio for the entire course.

What is Reconciliation
With health care coming to a close (I think) in the next few weeks, a fair question is "What is reconciliation?" Be warned the above video is put put by the Democrats, but it does explain the process pretty well.

Twitter Contact List for Educators
Now that I have become a Twitter Disciple, I have been asked a lot, whom I follow. My simple answer is to look at my "kenhalla" feeds, but here is a link that I got today from MrTweet.com which has given me a long list of ed tech people to choose from. It feeds from my list and multiples it many times. It allows you to looks the Twitter Profile and then at several recent tweets to see if you like them. If you are new to Twitter, be assured that I like to follow people who can give me great links that will help me in the classsroom as opposed to knowing what people are doing.

Political Book Blog
This is a new WashPost blog that goes through anything related to political books. So it includes the best of lists as well as intereviews, reviews, etc. It may be a great place for you to find a new book to read or one to find something for your AP students to read over the summer.

Do You Want Obama To Be Your Commencement Speaker
Obama is asking for schools to put together two minute videos saying why your school has improved and why he should be your commencement speaker. Here are the details and above is his promo on it.

More on Polls - Rasmussen
Rasmussen has everything you could ever want for your class. Here, for example, is a presidential tracking poll. It also offers a weekly update and on the economy, people's view of Congress and a host of other topics. They also have twitter feed so you don't have to keep checking the site. Speaking of that, you can sign up for my twitter feed ("kenhalla") and not have to come to this site as I put all of the updates on it in addition to technological innovations for teachers.