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Politics in the News

Whether you are a libertarian, conservative, NRA member or simply a citizen concerned with today's political climate, you will find news items of interest and relevance on Reliable Answers "Politics in the News."

What message are our legislators sending to voters, when they publicly admit they haven't done their job? How many bills are passed each year that policymakers haven't even bothered to read? This is disgraceful. This is called dereliction of duties and we must demand a stop to this practice.

      
 Title   Date   Author   Host 

Education Intelligence Agency

May 16, 2005

In its latest effort against altering the Social Security system, the National Education Association will contribute $200,000 to Americans United to Protect Social Security.

Last week, NEA submitted testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee on the Social Security privatization issue. Their heartrending appeal might have more impact if it weren't for the fact that about 900,000 NEA members â€" about one-third of its total membership -- don't contribute to Social Security.

Deliberate Dumbing Down

by Charlotte Iserbyt

May 12, 2005

The U.S Senate's unanimous vote on the REAL ID card is a tragedy for our nation. What an abuse of the U.S. Constitution! Ghastly news.

This neat little package says we won't be able to open a bank account, board a plane or bus or drive a car without one. And just wait until the deliberately dumbed down socialist bureaucrats have finished with writing the regulations!

Orange County Register (CA) [Free subscription required]

by Hanh Kim Quach

April 22, 2005

Reagan, Wilson got more from moneyed, and some lawmakers and activists want the rich to do more to ease the state's deficit.

With the state entering its fourth straight year of large projected deficits, one proposed solution has re-emerged: Tax the rich - more and more. The idea is not new. Former Republican governors Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson did it in the 1960s and 1990s. Why can't we do it now, some Democrats ask. Their proposals:

MSNBC

April 21, 2005

Stage set for clash with Senate; Bush wants energy bill by summer

The House voted late Wednesday to allow oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge. The bill's sponsors said oil from Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as much as a million barrels a day, will be needed to help curtail the country's growing dependence on oil imports.

Drivers

by PDE Publications Inc.

April 14, 2005

High gasoline prices have been a fact of life in Europe for decades, but auto-dependent North Americans have had soft easy times. Now the other shoe is falling, and it's personal.

Cheap gas prices lured us into gas-guzzling hummers, fuel hungry SUVs and bigger, more powerful family cars. Some can afford this, and higher gas prices will probably not affect them much, but most of us will feel the crunch, and if it keeps up, it will affect our lifestyles. It may even seriously damage the national economy.

The Seattle Times (WA)

by Lornet Turnbull

April 6, 2005

If you travel to the Caribbean, Mexico or even Canada, the federal government soon will require that you have a valid passport to get back home. For the first time, Canadian's will need a passport to travel south.

Aimed at further reinforcing the U.S. perimeter against terrorist threats, the new rules for air, land and sea travel, announced yesterday by the departments of State and Homeland Security, will be phased in over two years between December 2005 and December 2007. The impact of these changes could be especially strong in the Pacific Northwest, just south of Canada's British Columbia, site of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

Reason Magazine

by Greg Beato

April 5, 2005

Why corporate reformers are ignoring the real revolution in education.

Would-be reformers continue to give generously to a public school system they routinely condemn as inefficient, dysfunctional, and hopelessly obsolete. A survey of Fortune 500 companies found that teaching employees "basic skills" accounted for 17 percent of their training costs in 2002.

works.bepress.com

by Saul M. Kassin, et al.

April 1, 2005

College students and police investigators watched or listened to ten prison inmates confessing to crimes. Half the confessions were true accounts; half were false-concocted for the study.

Consistent with much recent research, students were generally more accurate than police, and accuracy rates were higher among those presented with audiotaped than videotaped confessions. In addition, investigators were significantly more confident in their judgments and also prone to judge confessors guilty. To determine if police accuracy would increase if this guilty response bias were neutralized, participants in a second experiment were specifically informed that half the confessions were true and half were false. This manipulation eliminated the investigator response bias, but it did not increase accuracy or lower confidence. These findings are discussed for what they imply about the post-interrogation risks to innocent suspects who confess.

Slate

by Seth Faison

March 31, 2005

The antics that Arnold Schwarzenegger employs each day would turn any other politician into a joke. The Governator of California drives around in an olive-green, doorless Hummer with the license plate "Reform 1."

He holds court in a majestic white tent outside the governor's office, like an Arab sheik, so that he can smoke the cigars that are forbidden inside state buildings. He encourages visitors to touch the sword he brandished in Conan the Barbarian . His conversation overflows with winking references to the "part" he is now playing, or the "theatrics" of a political battle, and he often relies on his trademark "I'll be baaaaahck!"

Flying Snail

by Dahbud Mensch

March 28, 2005

As the Federal Election Commission takes its first steps to shape campaign rules for the blog era, FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith warned that proposed rules present unanswered questions for bloggers:

The draft rules provide some protections for "individual" political commentators. But what if a group of people jointly publish a blog' "If one of the bloggers received payment for an activity, would it turn the group into a political committee" subject to campaign finance regulation, Smith asked. He pointed to the academic-leaning Volokh Conspiracy blog, which has multiple contributors.

      
Carschooling by Diane Flynn Keith
Carschooling

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