All the Tobacco in China

While traveling through China a couple of times, one thing that sticks out is the absolute mass of cigarette smokers. When I was young, there were no real smoking laws in America and people would light up whenever and wherever the desire struck. It has not been so in the States for over a decade. Travel through China and it will take you back to a more hazy and asthma filled time. This story from the Wall Street Journal I thought was funny and talks a bit about the issue. Can you imagine flying on an airplane with a "smoking" section? I did, sitting with my mom who at the time was a pack and a half day smoker.....yuck!

By HUGO RESTALL who writes in the Wall Street Journal

To all the other superlatives used to describe China we may now add the fact that it has the tastiest cigarettes. I don't pretend to be a connoisseur, having only begun smoking a couple weeks ago, but then again I've been inhaling the smoke of Chinese cigarettes for years.

The country consumes about one-third of the world's cigarettes. As a student, I often carried a pack just to offer to others. Want to start a conversation on a train in China? Shake the pack. Asking directions? Hold out a stick and say, "chou yi ger." If the guy is already smoking, he'll tuck it behind his ear for later.

After years of resisting, a friend in Shanghai gave me the perfect excuse to start smoking. China has become so polluted, he told me, that it's better to breathe through a cigarette filter than just take in the air on its own. And if your lungs are going to get shot to hell anyway, you might as well enjoy it. So, well into middle age, I figured that it was probably a good time to take up the smoking habit.

The result? I enjoy it so much that I don't know why I didn't take it up earlier.

For the Chinese, smoking carries connotations that might seem outdated, even quaint to Westerners. Real men smoke, period. And when real men hang out together, they smoke a lot. The presence of women is appreciated, of course -- if they are quick with a lighter. At a formal meal or banquet, each course may be followed by a cigarette, as if to cleanse the palate, and a few more cigarettes will be smoked at the end, in place of port. As the saying goes, fan hou yi zhi yan, sai guo huo shenxian -- a cigarette after a meal and you feel better than a living god.

Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping smoked like chimneys, even when they were meeting foreign dignitaries. The government provided its leaders with top-quality tobacco. The best cigarette brands, many manufactured in Shanghai on the equipment confiscated from the capitalists in 1949, conferred an aura of power. Limited production now helps them retain their cachet.

Mao reportedly favored a brand called Chunghwa, which means China. These cigarettes always came in a distinctive red packet, the color of the Forbidden City walls, embossed with the Gate of Heavenly Peace in gold, although without Mao's portrait. Perhaps, for Mao, it would have been too strange to see his own face smiling back at him from his cigarette box. Deng smoked the elusive Pandas, which had a campy, 1960s look to them -- psychedelic orange packaging and cartoon of pandas snacking on bamboo.

These brands are still around, of course. But puffing on the same lights as dead dictators doesn't come cheap. Chunghwas run you almost $10 a pack, and Pandas, if you can find them, are $12. But it's worth it. Not only do they offer a pungent sense of history, they taste fantastic. Both are exceptionally smooth, almost like an Indonesian kretek clove cigarette. But they kick like a Camel unfiltered.

Pandas are made with a dark tobacco and hence are woody and nutty, with hints of pine shavings and hickory. They are a bit strong, and have a very long filter to compensate. But they leave a spicy aftertaste, which perhaps is why Deng, who was from Sichuan, the land of chilies and peppercorns, loved them so much.

When you open a pack of Chunghwa cigarettes, you can smell the bouquet of preserved plums, and they convey a fruity flavor even when alight. If smoking puts you on the road to early death, as some spoilsports say, then Chunghwas make the journey an extremely pleasant one. I would go so far as so say that, if you ever find yourself in the unfortunate position of being offered a last cigarette, make it a Chunghwa. This is a smoke to be savored like a vintage wine.

Many of the scents of the old China are disappearing, like the smoke of the feng wo mei, charcoal powder pressed into the shape of a honeycomb that was once burned in most households for cooking and heat. But cigarettes, at least, remain. It used to be that, whenever a man exhaled off his cheap cigarette, it would transport me back to my student days and the "hard seat" train compartments where I would almost be asphyxiated by clouds of smoke. Now that man might be me.

Hardliners For Jesus

This editorial was written before the Christmas holidays but I just came across it again today.

We are close in Govt class to looking deeper at the issues of the 1st Amendment. Here is a taste of some of those issues.

By Harold Meyerson

As Christians across the world prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it's a fitting moment to contemplate the mountain of moral, and mortal, hypocrisy that is our Christianized Republican Party.

There's nothing new, of course, about the Christianization of the GOP. Seven years ago, when debating Al Gore, then-candidate George W. Bush was asked to identify his favorite philosopher and answered "Jesus." This year, however, the Christianization of the party reached new heights with Mitt Romney's declaration that he believed in Jesus as his savior, in an effort to stanch the flow of "values voters" to Mike Huckabee.

My concern isn't the rift that has opened between Republican political practice and the vision of the nation's Founders, who made very clear in the Constitution that there would be no religious test for officeholders in their enlightened new republic. Rather, it's the gap between the teachings of the Gospels and the preachings of the Gospel's Own Party that has widened past the point of absurdity, even as the ostensible Christianization of the party proceeds apace.

The policies of the president, for instance, can be defended in greater or (more frequently) lesser degree within a framework of worldly standards. But if Bush can conform his advocacy of preemptive war with Jesus's Sermon on the Mount admonition to turn the other cheek, he's a more creative theologian than we have given him credit for. Likewise his support of torture, which he highlighted again this month when he threatened to veto House-passed legislation that would explicitly ban waterboarding.

It's not just Bush whose catechism is a merry mix of torture and piety. Virtually the entire Republican House delegation opposed the ban on waterboarding. Among the Republican presidential candidates, only Huckabee and the not-very-religious John McCain have come out against torture, while only libertarian Ron Paul has questioned the doctrine of preemptive war.
But it's on their policies concerning immigrants where Republicans -- candidates and voters alike -- really run afoul of biblical writ. Not on immigration as such but on the treatment of immigrants who are already here.

Consider: Christmas, after all, celebrates not just Jesus's birth but his family's flight from Herod's wrath into Egypt, a journey obviously undertaken without benefit of legal documentation. The Bible isn't big on immigrant documentation. "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him," Exodus says the Lord told Moses on Mount Sinai, "for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."

Yet the distinctive cry coming from the Republican base this year isn't simply to control the flow of immigrants across our borders but to punish the undocumented immigrants already here, children and parents alike.

So Romney attacks Huckabee for holding immigrant children blameless when their parents brought them here without papers, and Huckabee defends himself by parading the endorsement of the Minuteman Project's Jim Gilchrist, whose group harasses day laborers far from the border. The demand for a more regulated immigration policy comes from virtually all points on our political spectrum, but the push to persecute the immigrants already among us comes distinctly, though by no means entirely, from the same Republican right that protests its Christian faith at every turn.

We've seen this kind of Christianity before in America. It's more tribal than religious, and it surges at those times when our country is growing more diverse and economic opportunity is not abounding. At its height in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was chiefly the political expression of nativist Protestants upset by the growing ranks of Catholics in their midst.
It's difficult today to imagine KKKers thinking of their mission as Christian, but millions of them did.

Today's Republican values voters don't really conflate their rage with their faith. Lou Dobbs is a purely secular figure. But nativist bigotry is strongest in the Old Time Religion precincts of the Republican Party, and woe betide the Republican candidate who doesn't embrace it, as John McCain, to his credit and his political misfortune, can attest.

The most depressing thing about the Republican presidential race is that the party's rank and file require their candidates to grow meaner with each passing week. And now, inconveniently, inconsiderately, comes Christmas, a holiday that couldn't be better calibrated to expose the Republicans' rank, fetid hypocrisy.

Where Lawmakers Go When They Die...K Street

This is an issue we will look at later in the semester but it's a major factor for members of Congress. We will refer to it as the "revolving door" when we talk about it in class.

Lawmakers returning to the Capitol are being welcomed back by some familiar faces: former members whose one-year ban on lobbying their old colleagues has just expired. Among them is Jim Davis, a Democrat who left the House in 2007 after an unsuccessful bid for governor of Florida.

His one-year ban ended last week, and now he’s signed up with the lobbying arm of the Holland & Knight law firm. It’s a transition that plenty of House and Senate members make.

Former Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and John Breaux (D-La.) opened their bipartisan lobbying shop two weeks ago, with Lott just recently having followed a well-worn path from Capitol Hill to K Street. But at a time when Congress is touting new rules aimed at curbing lobbying influence, and Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards are railing against the persuasion class on the presidential campaign trail, it raises a question about why so many lawmakers do it.

In a softly lit meeting room at Holland & Knight’s office, Davis talked freely about his career path. He was an attorney and state legislator before being elected to the U.S. House in 1996, where he served on the Energy and Commerce Committee and was co-chairman of the moderate New Democrat Coalition.

After losing the governor’s race in 2006, Davis said he took stock of his strengths: an interest in issues, intimate knowledge about how Washington works and a history of advocacy. “The thing that attracted me to politics is an interest in issues and bringing people together. I tried to think what was the most valuable thing I could do,” he said.

And, he concluded, becoming a lawyer-lobbyist “seemed a place where I could do well.” He shifted in his seat when the conversation turned to the accusations from Obama, Edwards and others that lobbyists are a essentially a subspecies, interested only in making money for themselves and bending public policy to fatten the bottom line of corrupt corporations.

“I’ve been a member of Congress, a candidate for governor — I’ve had pretty much everything thrown at me,” Davis said evenly. Besides, there are some pretty obvious upsides to his new K Street gig. The pay is better, and he has got two kids reaching college age.

And unlike Obama, Edwards and the rest of the political class, he doesn’t have to go begging anymore for campaign cash. “Oh, God, yes!” Davis said when asked if he is happier to be the contribution check writer rather than the hungry recipient. He has already been added to his old colleagues’ donation wish lists, but it doesn’t seem as if he’s going to be a soft sell. “I’ve never been a fundraiser. I’m busy building my practice,” he deadpanned when asked if he would be a sympathetic giver.

Davis intends to focus on energy, financial services and health care — three issues that are likely to dominate the Congress as lawmakers take up a major global climate change bill, respond to the housing crisis and debate ways to rein in health costs. Since he has arrived back in Washington, Davis said, he has been struck by how fundamentally the House has been changed by his Democratic Party’s takeover.

One case in point: While on the Energy and Commerce Committee during the Republican era, he said, “when I talked about climate change, they’d turn off the lights and the microphone.” Davis’ entire House career, from 1997 to 2007, was served in lowly minority status. He and his partisan brethren were shut out of virtually any substantive policy discussions at the committee level and on the floor.

The rise of the Democrats has also ushered in a return of powerful committee chairmen, bent on setting their own agendas, holding hearings and hashing out legislative language inside their own domains. The process slows legislation and diffuses power. But it provides greater opportunity for lawmakers and outside interest groups to make their case for changes or deletions.

To be sure, today’s congressional minority has scant influence on the final outcome of those drafting sessions. But the majority hearings at least allow the opposing view to be aired.

In the Republican era, major legislation was routinely rewritten or drafted in the cloistered House Rules Committee by a handful of leaders and their senior aides. The final outcome, Davis asserted, “was more about the political interests or preferences of the leaders.”

Another obvious change is the elevation of his old friends to subcommittee and committee chairmanships. And he’s taken some ribbing for jumping ship just when the partisan tide was turning. “Why’d you leave?” they ask; and “Don’t you wish you were back?” Davis shrugged off any wistfulness.

“I don’t look back,” he said. But he conceded those new leaders will ease his transition into the lobbying world, even if the new ethics rules prevent him from taking them to dinner. “My relationships with members are relationships for life,” he said, noting that he rarely socialized in Washington when he was in the House because he had young children at home.

In fact, he said, the biggest impact the new rules have on him is that he can’t use the House gym anymore. When he was in office, Davis used to go to the gym to change into his running clothes before heading out to the National Mall for a two- or three-mile jog. Now, he’ll change in the law office. “I can still use the Mall,” he said.

Why Markets Tumbled

For all of you that just came to my class from Economics...this should make some sort of sense to you.

If not...don't let Moore find out!

From the Economist:

IT APPEARS to be an old-fashioned case of risk aversion. Stockmarkets are plunging (the FTSE 100 was down more than 300 points, or 5% just after noon in London, on Monday January 21st), commodity prices are dropping and investors are flocking to the safety of government bonds and currencies like the Swiss franc and yen. Speculative bonds now yield seven percentage points more than US Treasuries, the highest spread since April 2003.

For some, this merely represents a case of stockmarkets catching up with reality. It is now a year since the subprime crisis first emerged. In that time central banks have cut interest rates, investment banks have announced big write-offs and various rescue packages have been suggested. But the end of the crisis is not yet in sight. Indeed, another leg of the debt crisis may be under way, if problems of monoline debt-insurers (an obscure but important bunch who guarantee the timely repayment of bond principal and interest when the issuer defaults) are not contained. If the American economy is not now in recession, it is close enough not to make a practical difference to sentiment.

For much of past year equity investors knew those salient facts but chose instead to take comfort from three more bullish factors. First was that the Federal Reserve would rescue both the markets and the economy, as it has done so often before. Second, even if the American economy faltered, the rest of the world (particularly Asia) could take up the burden of producing global growth. Third, given the global picture, corporate profits could stay high.

All three assumptions are now coming under question. Although the Fed may cut rates this month, it can take 12-18 months for the effects of monetary policy to boost the economy. On the issue of decoupling, it is not clear that either Europe or Japan can escape America’s gravitational pull. The latest data on Singapore (slowing exports and a decline in fourth-quarter GDP) suggest that other parts of Asia might not escape either. It is significant that emerging markets, which had been outperforming their developed brethren in recent months, are now starting to underperform. On Monday Hong Kong suffered its worst loss since September 11th 2001. As they review the evidence of decoupling analysts are cutting their profit forecasts.

An indication of the change in sentiment came when America's administration announced plans for a fiscal stimulus on Friday. In good times, that would have kick-started a market rally; in the current mood, the package was seen as a sign of desperation.

Share prices have now fallen far enough that European indices are in bear market territory having dropped 20% from their peaks. Indices for smaller stocks in Britain have fallen by a similar amount. However, it takes more than just a big percentage fall for a bear market to be officially under way; the decline also needs to be long-lasting (the 2000-02 decline was a classic example).

The markets have had short-term 20% declines in the past (1998, for instance) only to rebound quickly. Indeed, what was remarkable about the long bull run from March 2003 to June 2007 was that it occurred without any such corrections.

Share prices have fallen so far and so fast that an attempt at a rally seems almost inevitable. What may determine if this is a correction or a bear market is whether that rally can be sustained for more than a day or two.

Dreaming?

In a couple of weeks, we will start our unit on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights.
Tomorrow marks Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Here is the full version of the famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

The Weekend Primaries

Okay, so two more states were decided yesterday.

In South Carolina, the GOP, in a suprise and perhaps the nail in the coffin of Mike Huckabee, voted for John McCain. The importance of North Carolina to the GOP is that no Republican candidate has ever won the party nomination without winning North Carolina. In a state that has a very strong evangelical base, the Huckabee campaign was desparatly needing the state to have a chance to continue. With this state in the McCain bag, it looks like it is down to a two person race the rest of the way out.

Remember the statement that I posted last week about the NCAA Final 4. With McCain defeating Huckabee in his must win, we now turn to Nevade where both Republicans and Democrats had a caucus yesterday.

Since McCain had already pulled an upset in South Carolina, Nevada was no longer a must win for his campaign, and good thing. Mitt Romney walked away with the victory in the Silver State, keeping his hopes still alive. With back to back wins in Michigan and now in Nevada, the stage is set for a wild "super duper doppler" Tuesday.

On the Democrat side, a wild week of mud slinging, lawsuit threatening came to and end with Clinton winning the basically two person race in Nevada. As with the Republicans, the Democrats are now headed to what will be an exciting day on the first Tuesday of February.

The Replacements

As a part of your semester long adventure with me, I believe it is my duty to also introduce you to some great music. Some of which you may have never heard before.

Welcome to The Replacements

Eminent Domain

The first week of class, we were introduced to several hot button topics that we deal with every day. One of those was the issue of eminent domain.

A current, real world example of this is along the border of Texas with Mexico.

The city of Eagle Pass, Texas is currently in the midst of a lawsuit with the federal government over who has the right to control property. The city of Eagle Pass "legally" has the right to govern it's own community under state and federal law but the issue of eminent domain allows the federal government, in this case, to cease city land if they find it necessary to the greater good.

The greater good is a border fence, on the US side of the border between the United States and Mexico in areas with easy access to illegal crossing.

My question is, do you believe that the government should have the right to take city or even private property (like in Overton) in order to do what it believes is the "greater good"?

Mitt Wins!

The reports are showing that Mitt Romney won the Michigan primary.

One down, three to go.

A Republican strategists yesterday on NPR was talking about the 4 major GOP candidates and an analogy to the NCAA Final 4.

His analogy was this. Each of the 4 major GOP candidates are in a must win situation in the next few primaries/caususes.

1) Romney must win Michigan

2) Huckabee must win South Carolina

3) McCain must win Nevada

4) Giuliani must win Florida

Any loss by the candidate in these 4 states spells disaster in the national race.

Let's watch and see how this pundit does on this analysis.

I think I just liked the NCAA Final 4 connection!

God's Constitution?

Presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, in a speech today made some comments about the Constitution and changing it. Here is the story:

WARREN, Mich. -- Huckabee's closing argument to voters here this evening featured a few new stories and two prolonged sections on illegal immigration and Christian values.
These two topics usually feature prominently in Huckabee's stump speech, but last night he got specific, promising to build a border fence within 18 months if elected and elaborating on his belief that the constitution needs to be amended.

"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards," Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Huckabee often refers to the need to amend the constitution on these grounds, but he has never so specifically called for the Constitution to be brought within "God's standards," which are themselves debated amongst religious scholars. As a closing statement he asked the room of nearly 500 supporters to "pray and then work hard, and in that order," to help him secure a victory in Tuesday's GOP primary.

Well, we have not really looked at the Constitution just yet in class, but from your previous knowledge, do you believe that Huckabee is right and that the Constitution does not fall within God's will, and if so, should we move to change the Constitution in order to get into God's will?

Obama No Bureaucrat

You've been introduced to the 4th, less well known branch of the government. Now, a major presidential candidate discussed how he won't be one.

Do you want a president to be the supreme manager of the system or something else?

Reno Gazette

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama freely admits he doesn’t have the experience to run a bureaucracy. But he’s banking on the fact voters aren’t looking for a “chief operating officer” in this election.“I have a pretty good sense of my strengths and my weaknesses,” he said today during a meeting with the Reno Gazette-Journal editorial board.“I am very good at teasing out from people who are smarter than me what the issues are and how we resolve them,” he said. “I don’t think there is anybody in this race who can inspire the American people better than I can. And I don’t think there is anybody in this race who can bridge differences ... better than I can.“But I’m not an operating officer. Some in this debate around experience seem to think the job of the president is to go in and run some bureaucracy. Well, that’s not my job. My job is to set a vision of ‘here’s where the bureaucracy needs to go.’”

The final days of the Nevada caucus largely have come down to who has the experience, who can bring about change or whether one candidate can do both.Obama spent the day traveling Northern Nevada to rebut rival Hillary Rodham Clinton’s argument that he doesn’t have the substance to back up pie-in-the-sky rhetoric. “You got to ask yourself, ‘who is best equipped to bring about this change you are hoping for?’” he told a rally of more than 1,100 people at the Reno Events Center. “Hope is not being ignorant of the roadblocks that stand in your way.“I know how hard it is going to be to provide health care to every American ... to fix our schools or reduce poverty. I know because I fought these fights.”

“We’re ready for refreshing change,” said Susan Compton, a Spanish Springs voter who came to the rally with her husband, Craig.“For eight years, we’ve gotten nothing,” Craig said. “I worry about my grandkids.”Ruth Salas, a 17-year-old Galena High School student, said Obama is the right person to lead the country.

“He’s half African-American,” she said. “He has more ethnicity. He represents the U.S. And he’s someone who will consider young people.”Obama spent about 45 minutes with more than 1,000 people, some waited nearly two hours, in the Churchill County Junior High School gymnasium in the afternoon and was 80 minutes late arriving in Carson City, where more than 2,000 people waited at the community center gym and theater with 200 more outside.

Obama did not use his stump speech to attack Clinton. But in a 40-minute round-table discussion before the Reno rally he blamed the nation’s housing slump and accompanying foreclosure crisis, which has hit Nevada harder than any other state, on Washington, D.C., leaders who listened more to lobbyists than their constituents.“Ten of the country’s largest mortgage lenders spent$185 million lobbying Washington so they could keep engaging in these destructive practices,” he said. “And they got what they paid for.”

His chin resting on one hand, Obama listened to the stories of struggle from the four Reno residents at the table with him, interspersing the discussion with points from his economic plan.He wants to provide tax credits to stimulate the economy, revise bankruptcy laws to protect people from losing their homes and create a foreclosure fund to aid those who can no longer afford their mortgages.

At one point, Obama wrapped his arm around the shoulder of Skye Steffens as she told of a traffic accident that seriously injured her husband soon after he was treated for cancer.“You’ve had your share,” he said. “I don’t think anything else is allowed to go wrong for the next four or five decades.”

Play Pump

I think I was talking about this issue in either Human Geography or last semester in Government, but I came across the site again today.

The concept is simple. Many people around the world have major issues with access to clean water. Many of these places have a lot of kids running around with not much to do. Solution. Build merry go rounds that are attached to water pumps. The more the kids play...the more water is pumped and stored in tanks. The space on the sides of the tanks are sold for advertising purposes, offsetting the cost of the construction of the setup.

I hate it when I don't think of such simple solutions. The lesson? Often times, solutions to huge, real world issues are often very simple.

How Do You Compensate 27 Years of Wrongful Imprisonment?

We've already looked at the issue of lethal injection being argued as cruel and unusual punishment, but now let's look at the issue of the death penalty in relation to this story. If we are going to have the death penalty, how can we be 100% sure that we are killing the right individual? If we can't be 100% sure...then what should we do with the death penalty?

On Thursday, after spending 27 years in prison for a crime that he did not commit, Charles Chatman walked free. The world — or the world outside of jail, that is — was a different place than that he had left nearly three decades ago. After only using spoons in prison, he had to relearn how to use a knife to cut his steak. The judge for his case even had to teach him how to use a cell phone — a newfangled technology, for 47-year-old Chatman — so he could call his family.

Chatman is the 15th wrongfully convicted prisoner in Dallas County who has been exonerated by DNA evidence since 2001.Chatman’s story is one of those tug-on-your-heartstrings tales of a man whose life spun out of his control. When he was 20, he was convicted of raping a young women who lived five houses down the street. The women, who was in her 20s, picked Chatman from a police lineup. Serology tests further validated her claim, showing that Chatman’s blood type matched that found at the crime scene, despite the fact that the blood type also matched that of 40% of black males.

Chatman was convicted of aggravated sexual assault and sentenced to 99 years in prison based on a police lineup, unreliable blood evidence, and a jury that had only one black member. “I was convicted because a black man committed a crime against a white woman,” Chatman said, as quoted in the Associated Press. “And I was available.” Chatman had been working at the time of the crime — a claim supported by his sister, who was his then-employer — but the alibi didn’t seem to matter.

During those 27 long years in prison, Chatman did have three chances at parole. The parole board always pressed him to confess, and when Chatman refused fabricate a story of his crime, the board refused to let him out. “Every time I’d go to parole, they’d want a description of the crime or my version of the crime,” said Chatman. “I don’t have a version of the crime. I never committed the crime. I never will admit to doing this crime that I know I didn’t do.”

Last year, when Chatman applied for DNA testing, he was told it would be risky. There was only one DNA sample available from the crime — a small amount of DNA on a vaginal swab from the victim. Despite the fact that the single test would use all available DNA evidence and rule out the possibility of further tests, said his lawyer, Dallas County public defender Michelle Moore, Chatman decided to go ahead with the procedure. The DNA test showed that the rape had been committed by another man, and Chatman joyfully left the cell that had been his home for nearly three decades.

Now that Chatman’s been exonerated, he’ll disappear from the news (not that he got much coverage anyway, having been freed on the day of the Iowa caucuses). But Chatman’s struggle is far from over. If he wants any kind of financial compensation for his decades spent in prison, he’ll have to fight a system that makes it anything but easy for wrongly convicted people to obtain compensation for their time in jail. “The majority of people exonerated after proving their innocence have not been compensated for the injustice they suffered and the time they spent incarcerated,” says the Innocence Project. And that doesn’t even take into account other services that innocent ex-convicts desperately need for re-entry into society, like job training, health and legal services, and education. After all, if you’ve spent the majority of your adult life in prison (from age 20 to 47, anyway), how could you possibly have any employable skills or the abilities to procure health or legal services on your own?

The current system for compensation is pretty much a political morass. In some states, former inmates must file civil lawsuits to receive compensation. Currently, only 22 states plus D.C. have compensation statutes. In Texas, for example, “A wrongfully convicted person is entitled to $50,000 per year of wrongful incarceration (and $100,000 per year if that person was sentenced to death), compensation for child support payments, and one year of counseling,” according to the Innocence Project. But other states have less clear cut policies. In New York, for example, according to the Innocence Project, “If the wrongfully convicted person ‘did not by his own conduct cause or bring about his conviction’ and files a claim within two years of his pardon of innocence, he shall receive ‘damages in such sum of money as the court determines will fairly and reasonably compensate him.’” That means that if innocent people plead guilty so as to get parole (like Chatman could have done) they can never receive any kind of compensation.

And then there are those 28 states that have no compensation policies at all, where many ex-inmates, after leaving jail, actually receive less of a safety net than that offered to actual guilty prisoners. In August of 2007, the Times researched the compensation claims of 206 people that have been exonerated by DNA evidence. They concluded,“At least 79 — nearly 40 percent — got no money for their years in prison. Half of those have federal lawsuits or state claims pending. More than half of those who did receive compensation waited two years or longer after exoneration for the first payment. Few of those who were interviewed received any government services after their release. Indeed, despite being imprisoned for an average of 12 years, they typically left prison with less help — prerelease counseling, job training, substance-abuse treatment, housing assistance and other services — than some states offer to paroled prisoners.”

The efforts of DA Watkins, the Innocence Project, and others who have worked to get more than 200 innocent people out of jail are nothing short of amazing. But, in creating this new population of innocent ex-convicts, they have generated a need not only for fair, equitable, and nationally consistent compensation laws, but for a guaranteed social safety net that will help wrongfully incarcerated to reintegrate into society. After all, if people like Chatman need to learn how to use cell phones and knives, might we expect they’ll need job training, health insurance, and counseling, too?

Now out of jail, Chatman says he plans to help other innocent prisoners who are currently incarcerated. “I believe that there are hundreds, and I know of two or three personally that very well could be sitting in this seat if they had the support and they had the backing that I have,” Chatman said. “My number one interest is trying to help people who have been in the situation I am in.”

K.O.L.

What Perry's house is jamming to on a Saturday night.
Turn it to 11, Nigel.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

One of my favorite protest songs. I'm just feeling a bit radical this morning.
Hope you all had a great 1st week and a here's to a restful weekend!
Go Cowboys!

A Lesson For Public Speakers

Last night, we witnessed an incredible moment in American political history.
Not only did a woman win the New Hampshire primary, but the woman was a former First Lady. In winning New Hampshire, she accomplished something that her husband could not do, twice.
This victory came on the heels of an African-American winning the Iowa Caucus. We have never seen a back to back situation like this ever in American political history.
To top all of that, Sen. Clinton came back from a double digit deficit in the polls to win. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, including her campaign itself, had her losing...and losing bad.

What follows is the 2nd place speech given by Sen. Barack Obama.
What I want you to take in is his ability to effectively deliver his message. This speech is being hailed as one of the best political speeches ever given on the national level. It appears to be completely off the cuff...although all politicians at this stage of the game have lived and breathed their "talking points" BUT...this is something special.
Again, regardless of the message itself, I want you to listen to the way in which the message is delivered.
For all of those out there that may aspire to a higher calling in public service, this is a great place to start!
Get out your note pad and start taking notes!



Now...let's compare that to the other parties 2nd place speech.
Do you see a difference?

SCOTUS and Voter ID Cards

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A conservative majority of the Supreme Court appeared ready Wednesday to support an Indiana law requiring voters to show photo identification, despite concerns that it could deprive thousands of people of their right to vote.

The Supreme Court is reviewing an Indiana law that requires voters to show a photo ID.

At issue is whether state laws designed to stem voter fraud would disenfranchise large numbers of Americans who might lack proper identification -- many of them elderly, poor or minority voters.

In what has become a highly partisan legal and political fight, the justices wrestled with a balancing test of sorts to ensure both state and individual interests were addressed.
Civil rights activists and the state Democratic Party complain Indiana's law is the most restrictive in the nation.

"The real question is, does it disenfranchise anyone?" Todd Rokita, Indiana secretary of state told CNN. "After six elections in the state of Indiana, the answer has been no. ... That's why the opponents to this keep losing in court."

State officials claim that voter turnout actually has increased 2 percent since the law took effect. But Rokita concedes the state has never presented a case of "voter impersonation," which the law was designed to safeguard against.

Justice Samuel Alito spoke for many of his colleagues, wondering how they should rule in the absence of any clear evidence supporting either side.
"The problem I have is, where do you draw the line?" he said. "There is nothing to quantify the extent of the problem or the extent of the burden."

Among those cited by Democrats is Mary-Jo Criswell, a 71-year-old Indianapolis Democrat, who could not vote last November because she had no driver's license or valid passport.
She previously had used a private bank-issued card with her photo when voting. The former precinct committeewoman had difficulty rebuilding an identity trail, and still does not have a valid photo ID. Criswell said in an affidavit she felt intimidated by the burdensome bureaucracy she claims is needed to vote.

This is perhaps the biggest voter rights case taken up by the justices since the 2000 dispute over Florida's ballots, where George W. Bush prevailed, essentially giving him the presidency. The current issue raises important constitutional questions, but also involves race and nasty partisan politics. At least 35 political and advocacy groups have filed amicus briefs supporting one side or the other.

The appeals involve an Indiana law, passed by the Republican-controlled legislature in 2005, requiring that a voter present a photo ID when casting a ballot in person. Previously, citizens needed only to sign a poll book to vote.

In oral arguments Wednesday, Paul Smith, attorney for a coalition of groups and voters, including the NAACP and the Democratic Party, told the high court the state law "directly burdens over our most fundamental rights, the right to vote."

Smith faced tough questions from most of the high court bench.
Justice Antonin Scalia wondered why the Democrats were the ones filing the lawsuit, saying it should have been filed by individual voters who may have been directly harmed by the law. His questioning suggested he thought the case had more to do with politics than the law.

Liberal activists claim voter ID laws help Republicans by keeping away many voters who might be inclined to vote Democratic. Supporters of the laws strongly deny it.
Justice Anthony Kennedy pressed Smith repeatedly to show that the law caused a real burden.
"You want us to invalidate the statute because of minimal inconvenience?" he asked.
Kennedy's vote could prove crucial, and he seemed to want to uphold the Indiana statute, perhaps with some changes.

Lawyers on both sides presented conflicting data on just how many voters would be affected. Democrats said as many as 400,000 people in Indiana do not have the required identification to vote, while state officials countered the number is fewer than 25,000, perhaps only several thousand.

Chief Justice John Roberts, himself an Indiana native, took issue with assertions that the reasons given for passing the law in the first place had little factual basis.
"If somebody wins an election by 500,000 votes, you may not be terribly worried if some percentage were cast by fraud, but you might look to the future and realize there could be a closer election and ... because it's fraud, it's hard to detect," he said.

Justice Stephen Breyer echoed those sentiments, saying cases of dead, double and vacant-lot voters in past elections went beyond mere "urban legends."
Roberts also pointed out the state provides free photo IDs to anyone who requests one to vote. "They (the state) help you get it," he said tartly. "If you don't have a photo ID, come in and we'll give you one."

The state's top lawyer, Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher, faced pointed questions from several more liberal justices.
Fisher said not a single voter could show they had been adversely affected by the law, despite six elections held since the law passed two years ago. He said the number affected would be "infinitesimal."
But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that was beside the point, and the legal questions should be settled before the fall elections take place.
"The horse is going to be out of the barn. They will have the election, and just what they are afraid of could happen, that the result will be skewed in favor of the opposite party, because there are people who have not been able to vote," she said. "They are in this bind after the election. They've already lost that one."

Breyer wondered whether there "was a less restrictive way to get an ID."
A national panel headed by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker said photo IDs are beneficial, especially one just for voting. The justice seemed to endorse the idea.

"That less restrictive way would satisfy your anti-fraud interest much better than the way you have chosen," Breyer told Fisher. "That photo proves that Mr. Smith who comes in and asks for it is the same Mr. Smith who registered to vote. And that's all your system does in the first place."

Justice John Paul Stevens noted the law in question was passed by a GOP-controlled legislature and signed by a Republican governor.
He said candidly that the law would "have an adverse affect on Democrats."
Indiana's law had been upheld by a federal appeals court. State and federal courts around the country have issued conflicting rulings on voter ID laws. Missouri's law was found unconstitutional, but similar ones in Georgia, Arizona and Michigan were found to be proper.

State laws on voter identification vary widely, with Indiana's and Georgia's considered the most restrictive. Nearly all states require a photo identification when people first register to vote.
The Supreme Court already has heard two election-related appeals this term. One involves Washington state's open primary system, and the other is a dispute over the selection of state judges in New York.

A ruling in the Indiana case is expected by late June, in time, perhaps, for states to revise their laws for the November elections, if required.

So do you believe that ID cards are something that is needed or is it more likely to keep law abiding citizens from being able to vote?

Living and Dying With the Needle

Lethal injection on trial

What happened:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday is hearing arguments in a death penalty case that could decide whether lethal injections used to execute criminals are constitutional, or cause unacceptable pain. (Reuters)

What the commentators said:

This case—Baze v. Rees—only challenges the lethal injection procedures in Kentucky, said Andrew Cohen in The Washington Post’s Bench Conference blog, but by extension it questions similar practices in 35 other states. Attorneys for Ralph Baze and Thomas Bowling—two convicted murderers—will “tell the justices that animals put to sleep in Kentucky are more closely monitored than the death-row inmates.”

Kentucky’s lawyers will argue that the state has already fixed problems that have led to botched injections, and that state courts have said its protocols were “good to go.”There are two problems with the state’s case, said The New York Times in an editorial (free registration). First, “the death penalty, no matter how it is administered, is unconstitutional and wrong.” Second, even those who believe that execution can be humane and constitutional can’t expect the rest of us to believe that Kentucky’s “‘cocktail’ of injected poisons” doesn’t “impose needless suffering.”

Death-penalty opponents "have tood reason to cheer," said Benjamin Wittes in The New Republic Online. Capital punishment is increasingly on the ropes -- New Jersey has even become the first state in the modern era to repeal it. But a decline in the murder rate -- not a shift in public opinion -- is behind the trend, so the best that activists can hope for is to "lock in systemic reforms" before the tide turns.

"The system for handling capital appeals is a good place to start, said Ronald M. George in the Los Angeles Times (free registration). It's “dysfunctional and needs reform.” In California alone, there are 650 inmates on death row, and “the backlog is growing.” One reform that could help is allowing the state Supreme Court to decide on death penalty appeals, instead of sending every case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

So, what do you think? Who makes the most compelling case here, the state or the inmates? Please explain your position.

What the Caucus?

The Difference Between Primaries and Caucuses


Kimberly G. Bonnette



The New Year is officially here and the Democratic Party presidential race continues to heat up. What's on the minds of the candidates lately? Political primary and caucus season, of course. Leading up to the party convention this July in Boston, these elections help determine who will receive the party's nomination. But, what is the difference between the primaries held in some states and the caucuses held in others, and what is their purpose?



Both primaries and caucuses allow registered voters to influence a political party's nomination process. Every state is assigned a certain number of delegates (based upon population) who will attend the national convention and vote to select the party nominee. When citizens vote for a particular candidate, they are really voting to allocate their state's delegates to each candidate.



The Democratic Party stipulates that delegates are apportioned based upon the percentage of votes a candidate receives. In addition to these pledged delegates, the Democratic Party also has unpledged delegates or superdelegates who comprise 15% of the total delegate pool. These superdelegates are high-ranking party and elected officials such as governors, congressional representatives, and DNC members. They may vote to nominate any candidate they choose and are not bound by the state's popular vote.



The two main ways of assigning delegates are primaries and caucuses. A primary is simply an election that allows voters to go to the polls and cast their ballot for a candidate, thus determining their percentage of the state's delegates. A caucus is a state convention that provides a public place for party members to gather, hear speeches, and vote for delegates to represent candidates at the national convention.



Some states only allow voters to participate in their party's primary while other states have no party restrictions and allow voters to participate in any one primary they choose. So, we have primaries, caucuses, delegates, superdelegates, and a convention, but for what end? Well, prior to the 20th century, candidates were predominately selected by party officials. Primaries and caucuses allow the average citizen to have a hand in determining the party's nominee and in influencing the party's platform.



Finally, these early elections encourage candidates to campaign in more locales, which provide more opportunities for them to really hear the concerns of citizens nationwide. So, whether your state has a primary or a caucus, be sure your voice is heard.



Vote!

Welcome to the Second Semester

Welcome to the 3rd Floor! Now that you are here...a bit of bureaucracy. For my government classes, you should have received documentation on how to sign in to the site, but if you have forgotten already, here are more instructions. When you create a name to sign in, make sure you have your FIRST/LAST Name and PERIOD # in your screen name.

When you comment to a blog, you must sign your first and last name and the period you have my class at the BEGINNING of your post. This will allow me to give you credit for your participation grade.

When you comment, it will not show up until I approve it.

Remember, this is a forum for us to communicate on topics of the day. We do not have to agree with each others comments...but your comments must be in line with the student code of conduct that you all signed.
Have fun and welcome!