Sunday, November 29, 2015

Reading List: Unit on Politics in America


What do Americans Think About Their Government?

Beyond Distrust: How Americans View Their Government (Overview)
Pew Research Center   11.23.15

Who Votes?  Who Doesn't?  And Does it Matter?

Kentucky, Beacon for Health Law, Now a Lab for its Retreat
 New York Times 11.27.15

Political Polling 

Are Polls Ruining Democracy?
New Yorker 11.16.15

The Front-Runner Fallacy
The Atlantic  12.2015

Buying Power 

A Wealthy Governor and His Friends are Remaking Illinois
 New York Times 11.29.15


The Families Funding the 2016 Presidential Election 
New York Times 10.10.15

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Mass Incarceration

In the wake of our study of The New Jim Crow, I will link here to various articles on mass incarceration.

The Atlantic     by Ta-Nehisi Coates  

Baltimore police respond to a call at the Gilmor Homes, where Freddie Gray was arrested before sustaining a fatal spinal injury in April while in police custody. July 28, 2015. (Greg Kahn)











Mass Incarceration:  The Silence of the Judges
New York Review of Books     by Jed Rakoff








Friday, March 13, 2015

Iran's influence in Iraq grows as Tikrit fight ousts militants

Iraqi security forces and Iranian-trained militias have been fighting ISIS in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit for control of the city, and the militias seem to be winning the battle. However, this brings other issues to the forefront. The Iraqi government, led by Haider al-Abadi, is unwilling to accept military aid from Sunni tribes in the conflict with the Islamic State, and they turn to the aid of Ayatollah Khamenei to fight the militants. There is a feeling that Iraq is "what they could not do in the 1980s they have done now with American help, which is enslave Iraq." One Iraqi Sunni leader said that "the Persians have become a cancer to Iraq." As the conflict goes on, propaganda posters dedicated to Iranian generals and Ayatollah Khamenei are being put up around Baghdad as it enters more into Iran's sphere of influence. Sunnis feel that the separation between them and the Shiites has not changed much, and there is no mutual trust.

This article in the Sacramento Bee does have a small bias against the Iranian support of Iraq in the fight against the Islamic State. Interviews shown in the article all speak of the problem from the Sunni perspective, not showing any reasoning that Iranians or Shiite Iraqis give for teaming up against ISIS. Iran is depicted by the article as trying to take over Iraq influentially. However, the article does do a good job of depicting the stressful conflict still going on in Iraq with militants that have taken over whole cities.

Some questions that could be raised about the conflict are:
1.What is the reason for Iranian assistance in Tikrit?
2. Are the Sunnis actually fully barred from assisting in the conflict?
3. Does Iran seek influence in Iraq?

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Global Warming/Energy Links

As we prepare for our first class UN conference, I will post here useful links and articles on our conference topic, Global Warming and the Energy Future.

First, here is the remarkable Guardian announcement from last week:

Climate change: why the Guardian is putting threat to Earth front and centre

 
In the above piece, the Guardian's editor, Alan Rusbridger, references Bill McKibben's 2012 article in Rolling Stone, Global Warming's Terrifying New Math.  Hard copies were handed out in class. The link is here.

 

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Supreme Court Slides

Supreme Court lecture notes here.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Slides from Recent Lectures

I promised to post the slide decks from our recent class lectures.

Money Talks: Campaign Finance 

Campaign Finance and Special Interests

Congress: The Basics

The President and Executive Branch

Electoral College by CPG Grey (below)