The Blasphemous Teddy Bear

When we get to the comparative context of this class, the term: Sharia -- Islamic legal code which many argue should supercede civil law in countries such as Iran and Nigeria (Hauss) -- will come into curricular focus. But with Sharia spreading in Northern Africa, a flashpoint in the continuing Clash of Cultures or Jihad vs. McWorld has sparked again. Last year, it was political cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper. This time, it was the naming of a teddy bear by the Prophet's name that has resulted in the row.

As CNN and then a link to Time.com report, even the naming of a teddy bear can become an international incident in the age of globalization and lack of understanding.
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KHARTOUM, Sudan (CNN) -- A Sudanese court found a British teacher guilty of insulting religion and sentenced her to 15 days in prison Thursday for allowing a teddy bear to be named "Mohammed," British authorities and her lawyer reported.

Gillian Gibbons also faces deportation from Sudan after her prison term, her lawyer told CNN.
He said that he was "very disappointed" with the verdict and that Gibbons planned to appeal.
Gibbons was not convicted of two other charges brought against her -- inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs, her lawyer said.

Gibbons, 54, was arrested Sunday after she asked her class of 7-year-olds in Khartoum to name the stuffed animal as part of a school project, the British Foreign Office said. She had faced charges under Article 125 of Sudan's constitution, the law relating to insulting religion and inciting hatred.

Although there is no ban in the Quran on images of Allah or the Prophet Mohammed, Islam's founder, likenesses are considered highly offensive by Muslims.

The courthouse was heavily guarded by police, who kept journalists -- and, for a while, even one of her attorneys -- away.

Gibbons could have faced a sentence of 40 lashes, a fine, or a jail term of up to a year, according to the Foreign Office, which expressed Britain's dissatisfaction with the verdict.

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From Time.com

It probably seemed like the most innocent of ideas to the newly arrived teacher from England, still settling into life in the Sudanese capital Khartoum. She asked her class of six- and seven-year-olds to dress up and name a teddy bear, and keep a diary of his outings. She hoped it would provide material for projects for the rest of the year. And it might have, except for the name the children chose for their bear: Muhammad.

Now Gillian Gibbons, 54, is spending her second night in a Sudanese prison, accused of insulting Islam's Prophet. She faces a public lashing or up to six months in prison if found guilty on charges of blasphemy. And Unity High School — one of a number of exclusive British-run schools in the Sudanese capital — has been closed as staff fear reprisals from Islamic extremists. Robert Boulos, the school's director, said the incident had been blown out of all proportion, but added that the school would remain closed until January to let ill feelings blow over.

"This was a completely innocent mistake," he said in an office decorated with sepia photographs dating back to the school's colonial heyday. "Miss Gibbons would have never wanted to insult Islam."

Police raided the school, where Gibbons also lives, on Sunday.

"We tried to reason with them but we felt they were coming under strong pressure from Islamic courts," said Boulos. "There were men with big beards asking where she was and saying they wanted to kill her."

A similar angry crowd had gathered by the time she arrived at the Khartoum police station where she is being held.

Unity, founded early in the last century, is one of several British schools run along Christian lines in an overwhelmingly Muslim country. Its high brick walls shut out the dust of everyday Sudanese life, transporting the visitor into the shady courtyard of an Oxbridge college or English private school. Many of its pupils come from well-to-do Sudanese families keen for their children to get the best education that money can buy. But Sudan is ruled by religious conservatives. Sharia law was introduced in 1991; alcohol is banned and women must wear headscarves. Convicted criminals are routinely flogged or executed.

The bizarre turn of events that led to the teacher's arrest began in September, soon after she arrived in the country, according to colleagues who have rallied in her support. Her young class was due to study the behavior and habitat of bears, so she suggested that pupils bring in a teddy bear to serve as a case study. A seven-year-old girl brought in her favorite cuddly toy and the rest of the class was invited to name him. After considering the names Hassan and Abdullah, they voted overwhelmingly in favor of Muhammad — the first name of the most popular boy in the class.

"No parents or teachers complained because they knew she had no bad intention," said Boulos. Until last week. Parents from another class raised concerns with the school. Then Sudan's feared police came calling at the weekend. Gibbons' colleagues said they feared a disgruntled member of staff may be using the issue to cause trouble.

Bishop Ezikiel Kondo, chairman of the school council, said: "The thing may be very simple, but they just may make it bigger. It's a kind of blackmail." Khartoum has exploded with anger at accusations of blasphemy in the past. Last year angry demonstrators denounced cartoons of the Prophet that appeared in Danish newspapers.

Now everyone is waiting to see whether religious leaders or politicians will take their supporters onto the streets this time. Most parents arriving at the school gates were supportive of the British teacher.

One mother, whose seven-year-old son was in Gibbons' class, said her family had not been offended by the name. "Our Prophet Muhammad tells us to be forgiving," she said. "So she should be released. She didn't mean any of this at all."

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1687755,00.html

President, Iraqi PM sign Treaty Light

Same great taste without all those heavy Senate approval hearings.

U.S. and Iraqi leaders signed a plan for bilateral relations, setting the stage for formal negotiations about the long-term presence of American troops in Iraq.

President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Monday signed the nonbinding agreement via video conference.

The Guardian (UK) reports:

"Iraq's government is preparing to grant the US a long-term troop presence in the country and preferential treatment for American investors in return for a guarantee on long-term security, it emerged today.

Iraqi officials said that, under the proposed formula, Iraq would get full responsibility for internal security and American troops would relocate to bases outside cities. The proposals foresee a long-term presence of about 50,000 US troops, down from the current figure of more than 160,000.

Preferential treatment for US investors could provide a huge windfall if Iraq can achieve enough stability to exploit its vast oil resources."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2217387,00.html

Reading through the White House Fact Sheet on the, "US-Iraq Declaration of Principles for Friendship and Cooperation," http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/11/20071126-1.html and the United Nations Treaty Guide, which states:

" Treaty as a specific term: There are no consistent rules when state practice employs the terms "treaty" as a title for an international instrument. Usually the term "treaty" is reserved for matters of some gravity that require more solemn agreements. Their signatures are usually sealed and they normally require ratification. Typical examples of international instruments designated as "treaties" are Peace Treaties, Border Treaties, Delimitation Treaties, Extradition Treaties and Treaties of Friendship, Commerce and Cooperation. The use of the term "treaty" for international instruments has considerably declined in the last decades in favor of other terms."

This would sound like a Treaty to the average AP Government student. But alas, AP Government is all that because it is changing everyday. No text book definitions here. Afterall, we know the President has the constitutional power to negotitate treaties. They are ratified by that check to balance the executive branch, Senate approval.

But for this thing -- "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is,'' Bill Clinton once rationalized to the Grand Jury -- I guess it depends on what the meaning of treaty is.

Bush and Maliki set the stage for the formal negotiations by separately signing a "not-binding" agreement on a set of principles during a secure videoconference on Monday, Lieutenant General Douglas Lute said at a White House briefing.

"It's a mutual statement of intent that will be used to frame our formal negotiations in the course of the upcoming year. It's not a treaty, but it's rather a set of principles from which to begin formal negotiations," he said.

If only Woodrow Wilson had videoconference technology in 1919.

Constitutional Showdown: Subpoena vs. Executive Privilege

Last Spring, there was an impending Constitutional Showdown over Presidential Executive Privilege and the Congressional Power to Subpoena. Over the U.S. Attorneys standoff, White House Counsel Fred Fielding mentioned "the constitutional prerogatives of the presidency" in a letter offering a compromise to Congress. Democratic members had demanded that Administration officials testify under oath about why eight U.S. attorneys were fired.



With our test on Tuesday, the re-runned post should be helpful in figuring out what the heck the terms mean.


Executive privilege: George Washington invoked it, Dwight Eisenhower named it and Richard Nixon abused it. Now it looms as the nuclear option in George W. Bush's battle with Congress over its investigation into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. So what the heck does it mean, and how much weight will it carry in the current standoff?

Last spring, a subcommittee in the House of Representatives voted to issue subpoenas to several Bush Administration officials in the House investigation about the firings of 8 U.S. attorneys from the Justice Department.

Legislative subpoena power gives members of Congress the ability to interview Americans under oath as part of their investigative powers. But President Bush claims that using this power to question his advisors threatens the quality of advice given to the Chief Executive.

Advisors will be less forthright, he argues, if their words might one day appear on the public record.This is one of the issues that makes divided government so intriguing. Whether it was the Congressional investigation into Watergate, Iran-Contra or Bill Clinton’s financial dealings, legislative inquiry of the Executive Branch gets to the heart of separation of powers these days.



The question is, not whether you think Attorney General Gonzales or Karl Rove should (have been) fired, but whether Congress should have the power to call these advisors into a committee hearing and question them under oath. Is the scenario heathy or hurtful to our constitutional structure?


Time.com has a good article on all of this stuff from last March posted here:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1601450,00.html

Cheers! A toast to Popp (not soda here) Point leaders

Last spring, I found this random advertising map, in which the Department of Cartography and Geography from East Central University (Oklahoma) tracked where people called soft drinks whatever. It is a Blue v. Red country after all, but it’s not a Pepsi winner. The true-blue winner: “No Coke, Pop!” Not surprisingly 50-80% of us in Chicagoland call soft drinks POP. But look how Atlanta-based Coca-Cola controls the language in the South.

Okay, I digress. The point of this post is our Popp Point Scoreboard. ("Popp Points" named after graduate Alex Popp, who helped me create the blog last year.) Remember a maximum 10 EC points are available for blogging here. Here are the standings as of 11/24 (Anything below the top 7 are wasted points!):

1. Garrett B. 27 (10 EC points)
2. Sean A. 15 (10 EC points)
3. Shreharha N. 14 (10 EC points)
4. Vivi D. 12 (10 EC points)
5. Sahil P. 11 (10 EC points)
5. Amina G. 11 (10 EC points)
7. Kacy M. 10 (10 EC points)
7. Andrew D. 10 (10 EC points)
7. Alex C. 10 (10 EC points)
7. Kajsa N-S. 10 (10 EC points)
11. Carlos O. 6 (6 EC points)
12. Rebecca T. 5 (5 EC points)
12. Jeremy S. 5 (5 EC points)
13. Feifan Y. 4 (4 EC points)
13. Jack G. 4 (4 EC points)
13. Alice W. 4 (4 EC points)
13. Jean S. 4 (4 EC points)
17. Will C. 3 (3 EC points)
17. Alice W. 3 (3 EC points)
17. Yunus K. 3 (3 EC points)
20. Imran Z. 2 (2 EC points)
20. Heather Z. 2 (2 EC points)
20. Jenny S. 2 (2 EC points)

Caught up in Red, White & Blue Tape

One of the arguments in the immigration debate in this country against a "comprehensive reform" policy that would provide about 12 million illegal immigrants a legal path towards citizenship, is that it would give amnesty to those who did not follow the rule of law.

But on Thanksgiving Day, the Washington Post reported that: "Hundreds of thousands of people may not be able to vote in next year's US presidential election because of a huge citizenship application backlog."

The story is another example of bureaucratic red, white and blue tape getting in the way of people trying to follow the legal policy towards citizenship. It is also more politics getting in the way of governing. The Post story is linked here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/21/AR2007112102419.html

Those left waiting for citizenhsip will also be disenfranchised or not eligible to vote in the 2008 election.

Immigration, chief Hillary Clinton strategist Mark Penn said, is emerging as "a new wedge issue" for Republicans, who will attempt to use it to paint Democrats as weak on border security.

In last month's Democratic Presidential candidates debate, when asked about New York Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer's proposal to provide driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, Clinton initially refused to answer, but her campaign put out a statement the next day saying she does support such a move.

All of the Democratic contenders have embraced some form of "comprehensive reform" -- including a failed measure, backed by President Bush, that would have given about 12 million illegal immigrants a path toward legal citizenship. Most of the Republican presidential candidates opposed that legislation and have focused their rhetoric on improving border security.

Polls showed a majority of Americans supported that legislation, but two-thirds also thought the United States was not doing enough to stem the tide of illegal immigration, according to an ABC News poll taken in September.

At the same time, according to a CNN poll last month, 76 percent of Americans oppose giving licenses to illegal immigrants, compared with 23 percent who favor it.

A Wedge issue is a social or political issue, often of a divisive or otherwise controversial nature, which is used by one political group to split apart or create a "wedge" in the support base of an opposing political group, with a view to enticing voters to give their support to the first group. The use of wedge issues gives rise to wedge politics.

And in this case, even for the Democrats, the complicated issue of immigration is not a valence issue. An issue that is uniformly liked or disliked among the electorate, as opposed to a position issue on which opinion is divided.

Post your position on immigration reform here. And be thankful you are not waiting in line for citizenship.

[Re] Viewing our Reflection

Upon further judicial review of an ealier post, with the help of the 2 Regular guys at CBS2Chicago.com:

As Kajsa said in her 11/11 post on Illinois' law instituted moment of silence under the "Silent Game" post the controversial public law has failed to pass federal court constitutional muster this past week.

A U.S. Federal Judge from the Northern Illinois District, Robert Gettleman, ordered a preliminary injunction prohibiting District 214 from observing this law. He suspects this law violates the First Amendment protection against an "establishment of religion." His decision is based upon a civil suit brought by a Buffalo Grove student. Judge Gettleman stopped short of applying his injunction to all public schools in Illinois. He did state, however, that the Illinois state school supertintendent lacked the power to enforce the law.

This story is interesting on many levels.

First it reminds us of the importance of our rights. But it also reminds us of the power of federal judges. Judge Gettleman practiced here a concept known as "judicial review." Judicial review is the power given to federal judges to rule on the constitutionality of law. Despite the democratic process that passed this law in Illinois, a single judge, appointed by a president, serving a life term, can nullify the provision. This is an extraordinary power. The precedent was set in the court case Marbury v. Madison (1803).

This moment of silence law has cause quite a lot of talk here in Illinois. "The Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act" is worthy of our debate. This week we are reminded of another topic worth discussing. Do federal judges have too much power? What prevents judges from taking their power and authority too far? Does judicial review somehow make judges above the law?

If only we had time for reflection.

VIDEO: CBS 2 School: Moment Of Silence In Schools

Drew Peterson plays Hardball: "The Press is the Enemy"

In Hardball Chris Matthews writes:

"You may be one of those cocky types who watch some guy getting fried to a crisp on 60 Minutes and wonder why anyone with a brain larger than a moth's would consent to be interviewed."

Later he writes in advice to Pols, "There are only two kinds of media-wise politicians: Those who are born fearing the press, and those who learn to fear it the hard way.

"Matthews also says of the press: 'Their mission is to produce a good story, and in their business it's generally the bad news that makes the best headlines. Failure, misery, disaster — that's what makes the bells go off in a journalist's nervous system: the kind of story where somebody gets hurt.'

"Matthews' key point on the subject of journalists was: 'Like policemen, they're always on duty.' He's right.

Richard Nixon used to say the "Press is the Enemy." I thought of that and how common that scapegoating claim is used by seemingly anyone in trouble.

Former Mayor of Washington D.C. Marion Barry blamed the press for ruining his career after he was filmed smoking crack.

A National Home Builder says the press is to blame for poor home sales:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/business/09toll.html?_r=2&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

And now former Bolingbrook police officer Drew Peterson is baming the media for having the public believe he murdered his missing fourth wife, and possibly his late third wife as well. But does the public by the press scapegoating?

Apparently not, according to this tracking done by MediaCurves.com of Peterson's interview with Matt Lauer, which did not post correctly on an earlier blog. While this polling does not pass traditional scientific polling muster, it is interesting in our Time when, You is the "Person of the Year."

http://www.mediacurves.com/NationalMediaFocus/J6584/

This is good video, after my previous Peterson video clip did not work.

Jay-Z: It's no longer all about the Benjamins

Forbes.com reports that in his latest video Blue Magic rapper Jay-Z raps about "spending my bread" but for the No.1-ranked Forbes Hip-Hop Cash King, his bread is made from European yeast. (Remember EMILY -- Early Money is Like Yeast)

No longer "All about the Benjamins," near the start of the video, Jay-Z flicks through a wad of 500 Euro notes.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4455311861618289727&q=Jay-Z+Blue+Magic&total=355&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

From the Forbes article:

"You can't blame the rapper for suddenly favoring the currency shared by 13 European nations. The euro has been gaining relentlessly against the dollar in the past few months, reaching highs of $1.475 and making an American's purchase of European goods like Courvoisier cognac, or--if the rumors were true--a stake in the British Premier League soccer team Arsenal, increasingly expensive.

The euro is predicted to hit $1.50 in the coming months. Jay-Z (a.k.a. Shawn Carter) may be wishing he sold his Rocawear apparel label to Iconix for euros, instead of $204 million, last March. "

http://www.forbes.com/2007/11/21/jayz-dollar-euro-face-markets-cx_po_1119autofacescan04.html

When we ge to the comparative section of the course, we will learn how the real economy in Russia demands payment in American dollars to purchase a new car. The question here is in an increasingly global economy, are we are going the way of the duma?

By the way, Jay-Z brought in $34 million in 2006. That's about 23 euro.

Could Fiddy Eurocent be next?

AP Students can take on an Army

Linked here is who a group of Louisiana AP Government Students are battling for their right to free speech:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/corps.html

From the "Teaching the Levees.org" blog here is the story of the PSA Students ran and posted on YouTube and Levees.org that has been taken down (or has it?) by a "cease and desist" letter written by lawyers for the Army Corps of Engineers.

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http://youtube.com/watch?v=s_ezG_ahQOw

"Why Levees.org removed PSA from YouTube"

Levees.Org was served an order to Cease and Desist from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) on November 10, 2007. We were ordered to remove our funny student-made Public Service Announcement (PSA) from YouTube. If we refused, the ASCE promised “appropriate legal action.”

We stand behind every word of our PSA. But had we fired back with a rejection of the Cease and Desist, ASCE would likely have sued Levees.org not in Louisiana, but rather in Virginia where they are based. In that forum, it would have been difficult and expensive to find legal representation. Levees.Org does not possibly have the personnel, the resources nor the scope to take on a legal battle with a large powerful organization such as the ASCE.

Further, Levees.Org in no way wanted to bring harm to Newman school who was copied on the Cease and Desist.

So we removed our PSA video from YouTube late Tuesday night Nov 13, when the webmaster, my 17 year old son returned home from his State Cross Country meet.

Sandy Rosenthal, Exec Director, Levees.Org

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By the way, cease and desist is is a legal term used primarily in the United States [citation needed] which essentially means "to halt" or "to end" an action ("cease") and to refrain from doing it again in the future ("desist"). The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization.

The term is used in two different contexts. A cease-and-desist order can be issued by a judge or government authority, and has a well-defined legal meaning. In contrast, a cease-and-desist letter can be sent by anyone, although typically they are drafted by a lawyer.

________________

Full blogging coverage of the fansinating story of the power of students and the constitutional right to get the words out can be found here:

http://www.teachingthelevees.org/

Grand Jury Slam

Slugger Barry Bonds has been indicted, and former-Bolingbrook police officer Drew Peterson is under investigation.

What they both have in common is grand juries.

Grand juries are groups of anonymous citizens gathered by government prosecutors to investigate alleged criminal matters. The grand jurors' sole purpose in the legal process is to determine if enough evidence exists to formally accuse an individual of a crime.

This formal accusation is known as an indictment. In the Barry Bonds case, Bonds has been indicted by a federal grand jury on five different criminal charges. But this indictment does not mean that Bonds is guilty. It simply means that he must now face a trial in which the prosecution must prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Linked here is the Bonds story from Countdown with Keith Olbermann:

http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&brand=msnbc&tab=m5&rf=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/&fg=&from=00&vid=79299389-9fab-4f8a-87a3-bbd63cf63341&playlist=videoByTag:mk:us:vs:0:tag:Source_Countdown:ns:MSNVideo_Top_Cat:ps:10:sd:-1:ind:1:ff:8A

In Drew Peterson's case, a grand jury is now investigating whether a crime was committed in the death of his third wife. Witnesses will testify under oath, evidence will be presented, and the grand jury will determine whether a criminal trial should take place.

Grand juries are supposed to act as a guard against government prosecutors from abusing their power. Their decisions are not meant to confer guilt or innocence, but as a vital indicator as to whether a criminal case should proceed or be halted.

Linked here is MSNBC's interview with Drew Peterson and Dan Abrams' coverage of the story:

http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&brand=msnbc&tab=m5&rf=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/&fg=&from=00&vid=79299389-9fab-4f8a-87a3-bbd63cf63341&playlist=videoByTag:mk:us:vs:0:tag:Source_Countdown:ns:MSNVideo_Top_Cat:ps:10:sd:-1:ind:1:ff:8A

Read Daley's Lips....New Taxes

We all know only two things are certain, death and taxes. We dislike both.

There is certain death to a political campaign if candidates talk about raising taxes. Republicans are not the only ones lowering taxes.

Democrats, too, hesitate to increase taxes.

Walter Mondale at the Democratic national convention in 1984 was candid when he said, "we would need to raise taxes." Then he lost the presidential election.

The first Bush promised not to raise taxes and then he did. Then he lost the next election.

W. Bush made it as his priority a major tax cut during his first term. Majorities of Americans are thankful. Democrats have talked about repealing these cuts but have yet to do anything.

In fact, for the first time in our federal history, we are at war without asking taxpayers to raise revenue.

From our beginnings, we have been revolted by unreasonable taxes.

Perhaps times change. Enter Mayor Daley.

Remembering that the power to tax is a concurrent power, Chicago aldermen this week have passed the largest tax increase in city history. Daley is miffed. He received what he wanted. He is miffed that any alderman would vote against him. Daley has grown accustomed to unanimous budget votes.

Fighting taxes give us courage, some would say but the Mayor says those who voted against his budget were afraid to do the "heavy lifting."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-council13nov13,1,5152110.story?track=rss

The battle over taxes may not impede the Daley machine, but raising taxes in most places doom aspiring campaigns.

There are a lot of promises being made by leading presidential candidates. Who pays?

Read their lips. With a 9-trillion-plus federal debt and the on-going War in Iraq, can we afford mored tax cuts? Can any of the presidential candidates afford to go the other way?

Back to the Chicago tax increase: The package, which takes effect Jan. 1, includes the biggest property tax hike of Daley's 18-year tenure as well as higher "sin" taxes on beer, wine and liquor, a new 5-cent tax on bottled water. The "user tax" on water is sort of the new "sin tax." Some argue the plastic bottles contribute to our carbon footprint.

Many states and local authorities have had to become creative in raising revenues without traditional taxes, and despite the record property tax hike, Daley is still hoping for smething creative to save the CTA from a January "Doomsday."

But that's another story.

The question here is: Would it be "doomsday" for any of our presidential candidates suggested a tax hike in light of our federal budget situation?

Chief Turkey

President George W. Bush is joined by Lynn Nutt of Springfield, Mo., as he poses with “Flyer” the turkey during a ceremony Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2006 in the White House Rose Garden, following the President’s pardoning of the turkey before the Thanksgiving holiday.

George Washington declared the first Thanksgiving Day by presidential order. George W. Bush will follow presidential tradition day on Wednesday when issues the 60th presidential turkey pardon. Insert your own Thanksgiving Day joke here.

Read about the Presidential tradition here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/holiday/thanksgiving/2007/#

View last year's ceremony here:

http://http://www.whitehouse.gov/holiday/thanksgiving/2006/video/thanksgivingvideo.html?static

The Worst Kinds of Governments?

We are reminded of the quote by Winston Churchill, when considering the news of upcoming elections in Russia and Pakistan (??):

"Democracy is the worst kind of government, except for all others."

Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister, intensified pressure on President Pervez Musharraf today by claiming that she will no longer hold power-sharing talks with the military ruler.

Ms Bhutto, who returned from eight years in self-imposed exile last month as an outcome of American and British backed power-sharing talks, told the general to lift a state of emergency.

Speaking against a backdrop of Lahore’s 16th century Badshahi mosque, Ms Bhutto welcomed Gen Musharraf’s promise to hold elections before Jan 9 but said they could not be free and fair if held under emergency rule.

"How can they be fair?" she said, adding that the announcement of a deadline for elections "is a good development, we welcome it, but we feel there is a lot more ground to be covered."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/12/wpak312.xml

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Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin may (or may?) not be able to run for a third term by the Russian constitution, but he is not out of the political running.

Saturday [3 November] marked the official start of campaigning in the Russian parliamentary election.

Russians will elect 450 members of the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, when they vote on 2 December.

The support of President Vladimir Putin means one party is already virtually assured of a comfortable victory...

Critics also cry foul over changes in the law since the last election."Voters are no longer allowed to cast their ballots against all candidates."

A party used to have to get 5% of the vote to win seats in parliament, now it is seven.

That being the case, recent opinion polls suggest only United Russia and the Russian Communist Party will pass the threshold.

The BBC has full coverage of the Russian Duma elections, a sidebar article suggests that Putin may be aiming to make the Prime Ministership the most powerful position in government, after he is termed-limted out of the Presidency.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7076277.stm

Depsite the fact that both Pakistan and Russia are uneasy allies of ours, cleary neither state would get an answer of "yes" if one follows the State Department's document entitled "What is Democracy?"

http://polazzo.stuysu.org/what_is_democracy.htm

Signing Statements: More than dotted I’s and crossed T’s

More on the president's role of Chief Legislator. This from the Political Warrior last year on the controversial constitutional practice of signing statements.
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President Bush's recent veto of the war spending bill revealed another example of the most unnoticed Constitutional dispute during his presidency.

You know those nice photo opportunities where the President signs bills as he is surrounded by friendly legislators? Don't let the smiles and glad-handing fool you. Those moments have become ground zero in the debate about presidential power.

After those celebrated public events, Bush has a tendency to add "signing statements" to the actual piece of legislation that challenges the laws he signs.

Last April, the Boston Globe reported on examples of these signing statements including:

March 9, 2006: Justice Department officials must give reports to Congress by certain dates on how the FBI is using the USA Patriot Act to search homes and secretly seize papers.Bush's signing statement: The president can order Justice Department officials to withhold any information from Congress if he decides it could impair national security or executive branch operations.

Dec. 30, 2005: US interrogators cannot torture prisoners or otherwise subject them to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

Bush's signing statement: The president, as commander in chief, can waive the torture ban if he decides that harsh interrogation techniques will assist in preventing terrorist attacks.These signing statements become public record of how Bush interprets the legislation, and some estimate that he adds these controversial statements on about 10 percent of the laws he signs.

The most recent example of this came when Bush issued his second veto. In vetoing the Iraq War spending bill because of the deadlines it would impose, Bush issued the veto from the Oval Office at about 5:30 p.m., using a pen given to him by the father of a fallen marine. On withdrawing combat troops, Bush wrote: "This legislation is unconstitutional because it purports to direct the conduct of operations of the war in a way that infringes upon the powers vested in the presidency by the Constitution, including as commander in chief of the armed forces."

According to the Chicago Tribune, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid--a former lawyer-- challenged Bush --a former businessman-- by stating: "We are not going to be submitting our legislation to someone-who-didn't-go-to-law-school's idea of constitutionality."

The Boston Globe has more coverage on the president's signing statements:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/04/30/bush_challenges_hundreds_of_laws/

Veto Overide: More about Politics over Civics?

The 2 Regular Guys take a look at last week's Congressional overide for the first time ever of a veto of President Bush. The power of the presidential veto is pointed out here, as only 5% of vetos have been overidden by a Congressional 2/3rds majorty and it shows even an unpopular president still has much power as Chief Legislator:

It has been a long time since we have been able to use the word Congressional override but after this week we better get used to it.

This week our Congress for the first time voted to override a Bush veto. As a lame duck president Bush has threatened there are more vetoes to come. The Democratic leadership welcomes this fight. The stakes are high and it all points toward the 2008 election.

The particulars of this week are simple. The president vetoed the Water Resources Development Act (W.R.D.A.) because of its hefty price tag. Rebuilding the Gulf Coast, restoring the Everglades, reconstructing levees were not in and of themselves disagreeable to the president. He objected to the bottom line, $23 billion dollars.

Sensing bipartisan support, the Democratic leadership saw blood in the water and quickly sought an override. The votes in both houses were overwhelming despite only needing a two-thirds majority. With the Senate vote yesterday to override when combined with the earlier vote in the House, the bill immediately goes into effect.

Do not look for the bulldozers quite yet. The devil, here, may be in the details. This bill does not exactly fund these reconstruction projects. W.R.D.A. authorizes these projects but does not provide any funding. In essence, this bill is like a promise made to buy you something for your birthday next year. Whether or not the purchase is made will depend upon next year. To date Congress has made many of these promises. According to a recent report this Congress has now authorized $81 billion dollars of such projects without appropriating any actual funds. Perhaps this is why this override was so easy to pass.

Do not be fooled by the politically charged words veto and override. This political season is less about action. It is just about words.


VIDEO: CBS 2 School: Congress Overrides Presidential Veto

Broken Government? Your Assignment: Fix it

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration Tuesday proposed new import safety rules that it said would give consumers new confidence and regulators new muscle in the face of a nearly $2 trillion annual flood of imports and a spate of troubling recalls involving tainted food and defective products.

The rules were announced even as the administration's top product safety regulator defended her agency's actions -- and her own controversial travel record -- before a congressional committee.

Devised by a presidential Cabinet-level working group on import safety, the rules will give agencies like the Food and Drug Administration new authority to order product recalls if manufacturers refuse.

The full Chicago Tribune story is linked here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-safety_wednov07,1,5431870.story

The plan was applauded by critics of the bureaucracy under Bush. There have been calls by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Presidential Candidate John Edwards for the acting chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Nancy Nord to resign. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer calls it a "national embarrassment."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/338888_means09.html

Mike Adams,the creator of the above cartoon, thinks things are just as bad at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA):

"Of all the cartoons we've ever done on the FDA, this is the one that people seem to like the best. It addresses the issue of FDA conflicts of interest. The Food and Drug Administration, an agency that suffers under the hallucination that it protects the public from dangerous foods and drugs, has actually become the marketing department of Big Pharma. It actually takes money from drug companies in exchange for evaluating and approving their drugs, and the decisions concerning which drugs to approve almost always come down to a panel of "experts" who have strong financial ties to the very companies impacted by their decisions,''

Well, if it's "Broken Government" then your job to fix it.

Your Assignment:

go to: http://www.loc.gov/rr/news/fedgov.html

In your groups (1-through-4) from the Foreign Policy Senario Activity, you will be assigned a governmental agency (either executive departments, independent agencies, or a executive board or committee). Your group will research the agency and a major policy initiative. For next Wednesday the group will have:

1. A Fact Sheet -- Who you are and what you do.

2. A policy proposal -- What is your big plan to make this country work better. What do you need from the appropriations committee to make it work?

3. A 5-minute pursuasive presentation -- Plan a pitch to get a piece of the pie.

_________________

2nd Hour -- (Foreign Policy Groups will be split)

Ones -- Department of Labor (DOL)/ Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

Twos - Department of the Interior (DOI)/Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

Threes -- Housing & Urban Development (HUD)/Amtrak

Fours -- Department of Energy (DOE)/Social Security Administration (SSA)

4th Hour --

Ones -- Department of Transportation (DOT)/Enviromental Protection Agency (EPA)

Twos - Health & Human Services (HHS)/Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

Threes -- Department of Justice (DOJ)/NASA

Fours -- Department of Treasury/National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH)

Oregon Health Care Referendum Up in Smoke, Moore puts heat on Dems

On Monday, the DVD of his film SICKo was released. On Tuesday, a special election referendum proposal (Measure 50) that would have extended health care to all children -- the state tax on a pack of cigarettes would have risen from $1.18 to $2.02, causing Oregon’s cigarette tax to climb from 16th to a tie for third highest nationally to pay for it -- failed.

If passed, the tax increase would have raised close to $150 million in its first year and a half, state budget officials estimated, which would have insured close to 117,000 low- and middle-income children who do not have health insurance.

http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=18831&sid=1&fid=1

But that did not deter Moore, who questioned the Oregon proposal himself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEGn5mYyXmE

The political activist filmaker now with support from groups like PNHP (Physisans for National Health Care) and the California Nurses Association, Moore wants to know why all the leading Democrats for President are "speechless about Health Care reform."

http://www.sickocure.org/speechless/#bo

While Moore is known as a political activist, taking the Dems to task seems to show he does not want politics, he wants governing. Remember the difference. Being better than the Republicans on Health Care is not good enough, Moore says. I found this week -- election week -- interesting and it left me wondering on health care, immigration, the war on iraq, social security -- the list goes on -- can our government get any bold plans done anymore?

Remember (well, in the history books) when JFK said we would go to the moon and we did by the end of the decade? Do you have faith in our government to pass any bold initiatives anymore.

Any bold ideas? Post 'em here. You couldn't do much worse than what most of us think of our current law makers and policy enforcers/

Not water under the bridge for Congressional oversight

President Teddy Roosevelt took to the Bully Pulpit to control a Congressional Oversight investigation of torture. He also ordered the court-martial of the American general on the island of Samar, where some of the worst abuses had occurred.

From a Congressional hearing:

“A man is thrown down on his back and three or four men sit on his arms and legs and hold him down, and either a gun barrel or a rifle barrel or a carbine barrel or a stick as big as a belaying pin ... is simply thrust into his jaws, ... and then water is poured onto his face, down his throat and nose, ... until the man gives some sign of giving in or becomes unconscious. ... His suffering must be that of a man who is drowning but who cannot drown.”

No, this was not taken from the transcripts of the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings on the confimation hearings of Attorney General nominee Michael Mukaskey on whether or not the nominee thinks the practice of waterboarding is legal.

Waterboarding was also a prime subject of controversy in Congress and in the U.S. more than 100 years ago.

The occasion was the Philippine insurrection, which began soon after the American victory in the Spanish-American War of 1898. It soon became clear that the American liberation of the Philippines from Spanish rule did not mean freedom for the Filipinos but annexation by the United States. The Filipinos fought back savagely against the American occupation, committing many atrocities.

American soldiers responded with what was called the “water cure” or “Chinese water torture.” And Congress responded with oversight hearings. Maybe the main difference between then and now is the response of the Chief Executive the role of the president that enforces U.S. law and creates policies. And in his dual role of Commander in Chief, there was no conflict of interest

In 1902, Teddy Roosevelt made his position clear. Waterboarding was wrong.

Edmund Morris, in the second volume of his brilliant biography of Theodore Roosevelt, recounts how a master politician took over the situation. Roosevelt met with his Cabinet and demanded a full briefing on the Philippine situation. Elihu Root, the secretary of war, reported that an officer accused of the water torture had been ordered to stand trial.

Dissatisfied, Roosevelt sent a cable to the commander of the U.S. Army in the Philippines, stating:

“The president desires to know in the fullest and most circumstantial manner all the facts, ... for the very reason that the president intends to back up the Army in the heartiest fashion in every lawful and legitimate method of doing its work; he also intends to see that the most vigorous care is exercised to detect and prevent any cruelty or brutality and that men who are guilty thereof are punished. Great as the provocation has been in dealing with foes who habitually resort to treachery, murder and torture against our men, nothing can justify or will be held to justify the use of torture or inhuman conduct of any kind on the part of the American Army.”

Roosevelt also ordered the court-martial of the American general on the island of Samar, where some of the worst abuses had occurred. He did so “under conditions which will give me the right of review.” The court-martial cleared the general of the charges, found only that he had behaved with excessive zeal and “admonished” him against repetition.

Roosevelt responded by disregarding the verdict of the court-martial and ordering the general’s dismissal from the Army. Morris wrote that Roosevelt’s decision “won universal praise” from Democrats, who congratulated him for acknowledging cruelty in the Philippine campaign, and from Republicans, who said that he had “upheld the national honor.”

That appears unlikely to happen with the current Congressional debate. The Washington Post reports that the Judiciary Committee vote, which is slated for Tuesday. White House officials said yesterday that they remain confident Mukasey will be confirmed, and Republicans again accused the Democrats of attempting to hold the nomination hostage to score political points. "No one is ready to declare it DOA," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) announced that they will join Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) in voting against Mukasey on the Judiciary panel, after the nominee said in a four-page letter to Senate Democrats that he does not know whether a type of simulated drowning called waterboarding constitutes illegal torture under U.S. law.

The full Washington Post story is linked here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/31/AR2007103101601.html?hpid=topnews

Electoral College: "If it ain't fixed, why unbreak it?

Last summer, the State of Maryland passed a law that effectively encourages the state to abandon the electoral-college system of electing the U.S. president. The law would award the state's electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the popular vote, provided that a similar law is passed by enough states to total 270 electoral votes altogether.

Should Illinois join Maryland's efforts to bypass the electoral college?

An argument for:

"The Founding Fathers may have had good reasons to elect the president by an electoral-college system in the 18th century, but here in the 21st, it has distorted the American political process. Candidates campaign on wedge issues in swing states and leave out the bulk of the country. States that aren’t clearly liberal or conservative become saturated with political advertising that just makes people more cynical. Defenders of the electoral college claim that an election by popular vote would mean that small or less populous states would be ignored. But in a national media market, this is not a risk. Illinois should add its 21 electoral votes to this effort."

An argument against Electoral College reform:

"The Electoral College is an easy target for those who would lament over the current state of American democracy. They ignore more immediate causes of our problems: special interests’ influence over politicians, inadequate media coverage of public affairs, the deterioration of civil discourse. But even if the electoral college is to blame, this is not the way to end it. If the United States is going to alter something as important as the election of the president, it should do so through the normal process of amending the Constitution. Illinois could be a leader in that process, but it should not bypass it by joining Maryland’s effort."

I raised the idea that anyone who wanted to get on the SoapBox to debate me on the merits of the Electoral College today to bring it on. But make sure you have some historical background on the Founding Fathers thoughts on what has became a Constitutional example of electoral federalism and political folly. (In the 1960 election, Richard Nixon vowed to visit every state, so while he campaigned in Alaska, the Kennedy campaign secured Illinois by mobilizing the Chicago machine).

Here is some more Electoral College history and the popular ideas raised to reform it:

The Founding Fathers struggled as we did with selecting a chief executive. James Wilson, a Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention, said "in truth, the most difficult of all on which we had to decide [was selecting a president]." Their charge was to carve a republican form of government. For our founders, direct democracy was not a serious option. Democracy was an alien notion to be guarded against. Yet they were dedicated to the "consent of the governed." They were committed to an ordered liberty. The Electoral College appeared to be the compromise design. It would allow a measure of local control while at the same time restrained by the national legislature. This system would not disproportionately advantage the big or small states. A close look at these precedings, however, reveal that the Framers did not anticipate that the Electoral College would ever select the president. Rather, it appears as if they fancifully expected the House of Representatives to play the predominant role in each election. In the words of James Madison, "[the people would have a] disposition to prefer a citizen of their own state." "It will rarely happen," George Mason wrote, "that the majority of the whole votes will fall on anyone candidate."

Other than George Washington, they did not imagine anyone else with a large enough national following to sufficiently win a majority of the elector's votes. They assumed the elected representatives of the people, serving in the House, would be the real electors. The lengthy debate during the Convention was less on the selection of electors and more on the procedure of the vote in Congress. History would prove their assumptions to be wrong. Apart from the elections of 1800, 1824, and 1876, the Electoral College has worked. Even in the dramatic election of 2000. In addition, the elections of 1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000 have seen the popularly elected candidate losing the Electoral College vote. In the end the House of Representatives has rarely decided our president. More amazingly, the Electoral College has remained intact, virtually unchanged from its supposed broken beginning.

This is not to say it is without flaw. If we did not know before, we certainly know now of the "winner-take-all" system. Each slate of electors, determined by the total representation in Congress, are given over entirely to the candidate receiving the most votes in each respective state. Another flaw we learned was that this "winner-take-all" system provides for the popular winner to lose in the Electoral College. This has now happened four times in our history. The latest of course was Al Gore who gained more than 300,000 total votes than George W. Bush yet lost his quest for the White House. Some argue that this "violates the basic tenets of democracy." The Electoral College has been called "old fashioned" and "broken." It's flaws were reportedly about to cause "a constitutional crisis" producing "an illegitimate" president. Many have called for an end to the Electoral College.

Here are some of the proposed remedies:

1. National Popular Vote -- This proposal would make the presidential election a practice in pure direct democracy. The Electoral College would be completely abolished. Many see glaring problems with this plan. First, it would appear to jeopardize our two-party system by encouraging minor parties. Would the president elect have to gain a majority of the vote or just a plurality? Seemingly this proposal would assure that most of our presidents receive only a minority of the popular vote. Furthermore, it would all but make irrelevant the small states. A look at the regions won by Al Gore, with a 300,000 advantage, would show remarkably a small geographic area of victory. The guarded principle of federalism would suffer under a direct election of president.

2. Proportional Voting -- This proposal would eliminate the "winner-take-all" system. In its place would be a system which would divide the electoral vote in relation to a candidate's respective vote totals in each state. This system would also encourage the growth of minor parties with strong regional or ideological followings. It too would increase the danger of electing presidents with minority support. Under the proportional system it would be unlikely that any president would receive a majority of the electoral vote. Applying this system to past elections would have changed a number of previous winners. One example would be McKinley's victory over William Jennings Bryan in 1896.

3. Single Member District -- This plan would align each Congressional District to an electoral vote. In addition each state would receive two electoral votes at large. In addition to the criticisms associated with the proportional plan, this idea subjects itself to the partisan practice of gerrymandering. Following each census, the battle would become even more fierce to control state legislatures who draw the boundaries of Congressional districts. The ability to marginalize various minority interests could possibly diminish even more our commitment to "one man one vote."

4. Keep the Electoral College but Drop the Electors -- Many offer a simple adjustment but with little practical impact. As we learned in 2000, electors in many states are still free to vote their conscience. They are not bound by the "will of the people." Many, as you recall, still held out hope for Al Gore even after the Supreme Court's decision. They hoped to persuade just two electors to go against their state's popular choice. This would have thrown the election into the House of Representatives. The hope of eliminating this logistical uncertainty is the basis of this plan. Since the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the Electoral College has been buttressed by legislation, court opinion, and custom. This despite its serious flaws. The 2000 election has forced upon us more talk of the Electoral College than we thought possible.

In the end, it would appear to be just that, talk. A system broken from the beginning appears to have prevailed again. Unless an aroused public cries out, we will just have to live with it pieces and all. May we be so lucky. At least with the Electoral College, we now know what we are getting.

Light shed on 'sweet' Congressional action

Last week's Trick-or-Treating was different. Because Congress moved Daylight Savings time back to the first Saturday in Novemeber, my son went to a record number of doors in the Sunlight.

"I got lots of candy more than ever before,'' said nine-year-old Patrick. "It should have been night, because night is cooler going trick-or-treating, and the houses are more lit up. But I probably wouldn't have got as much candy."

Hmm. Despite the fact that Patrick did get tooth paste at one house, the load of his loot may have been due to influences on Capitol Hill. The New York Times City Room Blog says the candy lobby gave an influential push for a rider to the 2005 Engergy Policy Act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_Act_of_2005

The NYT story on the influences on federal lawmakers to shed more light on Halloween night (child safety was also a legitimate concern) is linked here:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/an-extra-hour-of-daylight-thank-the-candy-lobby/index.html?hp

More evidence of your government at work. Just for post-Halloween fun, blog any legislation ideas you have to make Halloween more fun.

Remember many District 204 schools have legislated policy banning all of the Halloween hoopla.