Pressure groups and abortion in the USA

A quick posting to highlight the impact that abortion is having on the Republican party. According to this article at Salon.com, the issue can be seen as partly to blame for some of the losses the party suffered in the 2012 election cycle.

Probably the most useful item from the point of view of a student of A2 politics, and Unit 3C is the impact that a pressure group calling itself the "Susan B. Anthony List" had on the selection of Republican candidates in the 2012 election.

As I am on the subject of Pressure Groups, the Economist magazine's Democracy in America blog discusses Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg's new pressure group, "FWD.us", which is campaigning to change the rules about immigration.

As AJB and I repeatedly emphasise, it's important to have up-to-date examples for the exam.

[Picture Credit - Wikimedia Commons & The Economist]

Recent events in British Politics - Revision

With the AS Unit 1 exam on the horizon, the time has come for a brief round-up of political issues that are or have been in the news and which may be useful / important to mention. Don't forget that high marks can be gained from using up-to-date examples whenever possible.

The recent 2013 local elections have given UKIP some local council seats and have made David Cameron's life harder. Full results are here, and analysis from the BBC's Nick Robinson is here.

Arguably UKIP's success has underlined the fact that the UK is now a 4-party system, rather than the two or three-party system of recently.

Good arguments to make when contemplating whether the UK should reform its democratic system or not.

Also - a good time to reflect that UKIP started life as a pressure group.

A recent example of a pressure group is Migration Watch which campaigns for greater control of immigration. At the end of April it reacted to news that up to 35000 Bulgarians may enter the UK when border restrictions are lifted at the end of this year. Migration Watch says the actual number may be double that. Their web-site has a press release, published yesterday, which says that 100,000 dependants of EU nationals entered the UK getting full access to UK benefits. The press release can be found here.

Immigration is a complex issue, but certainly contributed to the rise of UKIP's vote in the 2013 local council elections.

Another news story that caught my eye this morning was this news that a privately-run prison in London (Thameside Jail) has terrible conditions.  The campaign group the Howard League for Penal Reform (i.e. prison reform) responded to this news here on their web-site, and took the opportunity to criticise government policy, especially the recent call for prisoners to do more productive activities while in jail in return for privileges like television.

Press releases like this add to a story, help journalists to put the news into context and help to put pressure on a government to react. The question is how much impact these individual actions have. Probably not much by themselves, but they help the democratic process by increasing pluralism.

[Picture Credits - Nigel Farage (top), HMP Thamesside (bottom)]

States Rights & the power of the Vice President

I will do a post covering major recent events in American Politics soon, but in the meantime take a look at this Joe Biden interview in Rolling Stone Magazine which discusses his influence and why he is the "last guy in the room" after every meeting with Obama:


A blog post from the Economist magazine discusses the importance of States rights and also a recent law in Texas which seems to underline the rights of state officials to ignore federal law. So, the federal government may pass a law to limit access to guns, but Texas certainly doesn't have to enforce that law:

A quick reminder that the debate about gay marriage has reached the Supreme Court and that some kind of decision over California's Proposition 8 (a popular vote which banned it) is due some point in late May or June. Bloomberg has an article about it here, indicating the decision may not be entirely straightforward. The decision over Obamacare was not straightforward either, although some simplification is sensible for the A2 exam.

The short version of the Obamacare decision is that the law is constitutional, but only if classed as a tax (which the Federal government has the right to levy). The problem for the Obama administration is that Obamacare was not called a tax and in fact they denied that it was.

To finish, there is a great article in the Economist this week which discusses the various methods Obama has used to get round the obstructionist Congress. You can find it here. He has used the control of the executive to ignore certain parts of legislation, announced this using signing statements, and used "recess appointments" to get members of the executive confirmed without Senate approval. Great stuff.

[Picture Credits: Top - Rolling Stone. Middle - The Economist. Bottom - Hoai Phuong, Flickr]

Lies, Damn Lies and Google Public Data

Just because... I stumbled across Google's service which turns publicly available data into a graph. The government debt in the UK being an issue at the moment, here is the link to UK government debt as a % of GDP (if you like that sort of thing), and the government deficit as a % of GDP. Both graphs go back to 1995.

Immigration Reform

Briefly, a great article from the Huffington Post about Senate and House attempts to reform Immigration rules.

It has a great quote from President Obama's spokesman about the issue, which sums up nicely the relative power of President and Congress:

The White House praised the group's efforts but warned that Obama would not be satisfied until there was meaningful reform. The president "will continue to urge Congress to act until that is achieved," a White House spokesman said.

Presidential Cabinet

Not, admittedly the most fascinating part of US politics, but an understanding of the role and functions of the Presidential Cabinet is essential to understand the Presidency and its power.

The White House web-site has a great video about it, which you'll find through this link. Alternatively, Wikipedia has the same video and this can be found here:

Presidential Power

A major issue in the Unit 4C paper (US politics), is likely to be Presidential power and how much the President has in reality. With this in mind, below, you'll find the complete Inaugural address from the 2013 ceremony on Monday 21 January. Here is BBC coverage, and the Economist blogs have some interesting things to say here and here.

Ian Bremmer, a blogger and political commentator has summed it up thus:

"Together, we will pursue my objectives."



What does the inaguration say about Presidential power?

Vice-Presidential power

While looking for material on the power of the Vice-President, I came across this snippet of the 2008 Vice-Presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden.

Biden neatly sums up some of the powers and also discusses Dick Cheney:

And from August 2012 Dick Cheney on the pick of Sarah Palin as VP by John McCain:

And finally a brief set of highlights of Biden vs Ryan in 2012:

Current issues in UK politics - for revision!

Monday 14th Jan sees the Unit 1 exam. With this in mind, I thought I would do a quick run-down of current GB politics examples  which can be used.

By no means is this supposed to be exhaustive!

1. Election reform - democracy was enhanced, or perhaps even undermined by the Police and Crime Commissioners' election back in November; results can be found on the previous link (Conservative and Labour dominated, but there were 12 wins for Independents). Further analysis here; the primary concern was the very low turnout (on average under 15% across the UK).

2. The PCC election used the Supplementary Vote system.

3. Good examples of current Pressure Groups:

• Outsiders "Hacked off" campaign for a regulated press in response to the Levinson Inquiry last year. It has an e-petition which currently stands at 147,000 names.

• In September the Hillsborough Justice Campaign successfully get the government to release documents about the Hillsborough Disaster of 1989.

• In early January, an organisation, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, release a report  into wasted food - it looks as though it supports calls by a variety of Pressure Groups (Feed the 5000 and Sustainable Restaurants Association) to change the way food is produced and traded.

4. Mandate / Manifesto: Unusually for a Government the Coalition has released an audit of its successes and failures over the course of its 2.5 years in office. BBC analysis can be found here. Useful when discussing political parties and the issue of legitimacy / mandate and manifesto. Don't forget that no-one actually voted for the Coalition agreement, which was hammered out between the parties after the election.

Good luck everyone!

Fiscal Cliff

In any essay about US government, it will be very important to mention the problems of Congress, especially with the recent negotiations about the Fiscal Cliff. Here is a great graph from Wikipedia explaining the long term problems which the current negotiations are not coming close to solving:

Essentially in the long term Congress and the President will have to deal with ever increasing costs (thanks to things like pensions and health-care costs), and a tax system which does not take in enough revenue to cover these costs.

Certainly a good thing to use as an example in any essay on the "broken branch" of Congress, or the ability of the US political system to take important decisions.

The recent negotiations are essentially a short-term fix for the immediate problem, but not anything like the long-term strategic thinking which is needed. A good article about it here from the Economist.

The deal has got through both chambers of Congress.

Important to note the importance of VP Joe Biden negotiating because he is a former Senator.

All of which is great stuff for any essay on the importance of the Vice-President, Presidential Power, or Congress' weaknesses.

A thorough account of all the negotiations here from Politico.

[Picture credit - Wikimedia Commons]

US - Executive appointments and other issues 2012

Plenty of issues have arisen over the Summer and over the Autumn. With brevity in mind (and before I forget them), examples to consider for the Summer exam:

 1. The likely appoinment of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defence - there is controversy reported here about something he apparently said in 1998. Further discussion of these appointments is here.

 2. Hilary Clinton being replaced by former Presidential candidate John Kerry as Secretary of Defence. BBC report is here. Both of which are likely to be controversial, especially because of the highly-charged partisan Congress. Keep an eye on the Congressional Standing committees in this area in due course.

 3. After the tragedy of the Connecticut Elementary School shooting, Obama has called for more gun control. He has appointed Vice-President Joe Biden (who knows his way around Congress) to lead the initiative, as reported here in the NY Times.

 4. Somewhat predictably Pressure Groups such as the NRA have reacted with a response which does not demand an increase gun control, by erm, recommending armed police officers in every school. Good for questions about Pressure groups.

 5. The Economist's Lexington columnist has some very interesting things to say about gun control, the Second Amendment and public opinion here. The short version being that not a lot will change, sadly.

6. While the results of the US Presidential election are clear, the likelihood of increased partisan politics and a lacklustre Congress are probably increased. Good stuff here in the Economist (although there is so much out there you could read).

 7. The problems for Republicans are many, and Andrew Sullivan (always interesting but not without his bias) has a great article here.

 8. The end of 2012 also saw 5 US states legalise Marijuana, which has implications for State vs Federal power (it's still illegal under Federal law). See here and here for BBC articles.

 9. The US Supreme Court will be looking at gay marriage in 2013, which may well have profound implications.

10. There are proposals to reform the rules governing Filibusters in Congress - at present, the mere threat of one causes gridlock. The proposals essentially require the filibuster to start before a cloture vote is called - derailing the legislative process.  Further information here from the Huffington post.

[Picture Credit - The Economist]

Plenty of issues to chew on

Over the course of the Summer there have been plenty of developments in politics which would be really useful for G&P students taking exams in 2013 to mention.

In no particular order (and I will add links once I have got them) the Coalition government has seen its House of Lords reform plan falter in Parliament, putting the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrat relationship under strain. The putative reform of the Welfare system has come under scrutiny from 70 organisations linked in some way to Ian Duncan Smith's plan to replace the numerous benefits with one single benefit. Heathrow expansion has seen some attention too, with some mutterings within the Conservative Party that a 3rd runway is needed. This puts the Coalition (and not to mention some in the Tory party) under strain, especially since both parties said that they would stop any Heathrow expansion.

In the US, the Republicans have had their Party Convention and proclaimed Mitt to be their Presidential candidate for 2012. Of note is the importance of the Tea Party wing, especially because Paul Ryan is the choice for VP. He is very much carrying the flame for that group with his plan to reduce government spending by cutting welfare and increasing spending on defence. The Republicans did have a problem too with various miss-judged comments about rape and abortion, all of which goes to illustrate that some in the party have a hard-line when it comes to the hot-button topic of abortion.

President and Democratic-nominee Barack Obama has made his speech to the faithful and tried to energise his campaign. The polls currently are close, and the unemployment numbers that came out the following day were disappointing. According to some pundits, his successful re-election will depend on how well the economy is doing and how warmly average floating voters respond to Mitt Romney. The situation for both at present is "not good" for either candidate.

Positive analysis for Obama here from the Daily Beast. Less positive from Mark Mardell here. Decide for yourself with Obama's speech:
or former Democratic President Bill Clinton's:
Mitt Romney's speech in full is here:
Republican supporter and former Mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea Clint Eastwood's speech here:
In the mean-time here is a poll of polls from the Huffington Post:

Task for IT lesson

In the lesson you will be given an A4 sheet with questions and tasks on it. Make sure your name is at the top, and hand it in at the end of the lesson. In order to complete the tasks you will need information from various web-sites.

• The Bill of Rights and other Amendments - use this page and this one  

• Powers of the States - use this web-site to find the Senator. Which Presidential candidate the different states supported in the 2008 race can be found here. If you are in need of inspiration when trying to choose the state, you can find a list of states here (you'll also find a map here too).

• And finally - Use this web-site to find out how much you know already about the US system (you'll need shockwave installed - the page should do it automatically). Some of the questions may require a quick internet search. This ,this , this , and this set of pages may be useful too. The first person to finish with full marks wins a prize.

Florida Primary

A quick post to update my graph of the Republican race; commentators including The Economist are pretty certain Mitt Romney is going to win. Exact figures can be found here at the Wikipedia page, or here at the BBC news page, or they helpfully give a media digest here

.

The Economist's Democracy in America blog has a useful analysis of all this:

Although Mr Romney’s win in Florida has put him back on track for the nomination, it does hold some worrying portents for the general election. Independent voters, who could not take part in the primary, seem to have been put off by the nasty tenor of the campaigning. The proportion of them who take a dim view of Mr Romney has risen in recent days. Moreover, the turnout among Republicans was lower than in 2008, itself a year in which the party was quite dispirited. To have prevailed in a big, swing state like Florida is an enormous boost for Mr Romney, but Mr Obama will find some solace in the results as well.

US Presidential Race 2012

The race for the White House continues with its ups and downs. As I like a good graph, I thought I would create one to show the race for the White House. It is a bit complex, but an easy way to check how the comparative fortunes of the Republican candidates continue. I have put up the approval rating of President Obama on there too as a point of comparison. Technically the approve / disapprove rating of the leader of the free world does not equate to the support by Republican voters for their candidates to be Presidential nominee, but I think it looks interesting.

It was created in Smartboard and so the scale is not exact. However it will help to whet your appetite in time for the results of the Florida primary; will Romney beat Newt?

Enjoy.