Winter Break

Thanks for some top quality blogging this semester folks. Have a nice winter break. Hopefully, I will see some of you in POL SCI 421 in the Fall. I know some of you are already in POL SCI 387 this Spring.

Daisy: Updated

In an ad closely echoing President Johnson's 1964 "Daisy" ad, the American Values Network has updated the sentiments of the "Daisy" ad to warn against delaying ratification of a new arms treaty with Russia.

Republican power

This article continues the saga of the Tax cuts and discusses how Senate Republicans are working together to ensure that no bill gets passed unless the tax cuts are extended for all. It is very interesting to see these kind of tactics being used when such bills as money for 9-11 rescue workers is being sidelined in order to push a tax cut for the richest portions of Americans.

House Republicans Overhaul Work Calender

This is just a cool article dealing with what the GOP is going to change within the House, not just in its agenda but within the structure of the work hours of the House and other things like how long they will meet, how many days and when they will end their session. It will be much different then when the House was controlled by Democrats.

Wisconsin boy making it big?

Reince Priebus, Chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, is running for RNC Chairman. Given the success he had it makes sense. One wonders if the national party had taken his approach of embracing the Tea Party instead of running against them (I'm talking to you Delaware and Nevada) if the "wave" could have been bigger. Perhaps we will find out.

Tea Party Chair

Sarah Palin turned down the chance to be the leader of the Tea Party in the Republican National Committee. Now the attention has been turned to Saul Anuzis of Michigan.

Vicki Kennedy possibly making a run at it..

We've talked about how much it means to be a Kennedy in Massachusetts so it wouldnt surprise me if she made a run at Scott Browns seat. Even with all that power of the Kennedy name it would still be a tough task to beat Scott Brown.

Liberal Arts Essay

Professor Tofias posted information about this essay competition a couple weeks back. I wrote an essay for this competition at UWGB in the Spring of 2008 and it was one of three selected to compete statewide. Regardless whether your essay is selected and regardless whether you win any money, you should all write an essay expressing your viewpoints on a liberal arts education and submit it. A diversity of points of view is the foundation for the liberal arts. If we all had the same perspectives and beliefs, then education would be pretty simple.

Those of you deciding to write an essay should read some of the previous winners' essays for guidance. I'm also available for assistance. My commencement speech had a lot of material on the liberal arts (some from my essay) and was actually published here: http://liberaleducation.uwsa.edu/pdf/Schmidt-Ben_CommencementSpeech20090516.pdf by the same group organizing this essay competition.

Good luck!

Talks of Redistricting

We talked about re-districting a couple of weeks or so. Well, this article discusses Nevada that I stumbled upon doing research for my project. It discusses how Nevada is expected to gain a seat. Currently, Nevada has three congressional districts, but is expected to gain a seat in the next census. One is quite Democratic which you will see a very beautiful presentation on Monday, one is quite Republican, and one is moderate/lean Republican, or at least has shown some middle ground. The question is how to re-district Nevada because currently, the districts are about even in population and also competetive. Although they are worred the seat gain could blow that up.

Poll on Bush Tax Cuts

Since the Bush Tax Cuts are supposed to expire at the end of this year I thought it would be interesting to find some information dealing with public opinion on this issue. I found a poll on CNN that has a pretty cool article about the cuts and this poll taken by CNN/Opinion Research Group.

Republicans and democrats at it again

This article focuses on three issues, the tax cuts, government funding, and the republicans versus the democrats in the lame duck senate. Republicans threaten to vote against any bill brought forth by the democrats unless the tax cut issue and government funding issue are resolved. The democrats have offered to pass the tax cuts but only for those making 250,000 or less, the republicans say that's not enough. So neither side seems willing to compromise or work together.