Caffeinated Thoughts

Race To The Top’s Competition: Who Can Acquiesce Education Policy to the Feds the Fastest?
Mike Huckabee Announces Book Tour Stops: Iowa, South Carolina, and More
The Constitution as a Legal Document, The Commerce Clause and Wickard v. Filburn
Breaking: What’s Up With the Halo Around President Obama?
Tom Hancock and Jack Kibbe Sacrifice Support of Iowa Marriage Amendment at the Altar of Mike Gronstal

Race To The Top’s Competition: Who Can Acquiesce Education Policy to the Feds the Fastest?

Posted: 02 Feb 2011 01:30 PM PST

Emmett McGroarty, the executive director of the Preserve Innocence Initiative at the American Principles Project, wrote about Race to the Top at The Hill's Congress blog. I find it is a great follow up to the back and forth I had with Jason Glass, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad's pick to head the Iowa Department of Education, about Race to the Top.

McGroarty wrote:

In the State of the Union, the President aptly describes Race to the Top as a "competition" among the states. As the President put it, his Administration said to the states, "If you show us the most innovative plans to improve teacher quality and student achievement, we'll show you the money."

Competition is generally good. It gives the consumer a choice. They can choose the best product for their needs. In turn, the providers strive to make their product as good or better than the competition.

But the competition in Race to the Top is not in response to the consumer or user, rather it is in response to the policy dictates of the federal government. It is not a competition to see which states have produced the best product, rather it is a competition to determine which ones have best fallen in line with the policy preferences of the federal government. So when the President said that Race to the Top has "led over 40 states to raise their standards for teaching and learning," he means that those states have signed on to the policies anointed by the federal government –not that they have determined those policies most responsive to parents and most in line with the best interests of students. That's more like a monopoly than like true competition.

If fully implemented, Race to the Top will end the days when parents can effectively influence education policies by talking to the teacher or the principle or showing up at a school board meeting. Education policy-making will largely become the realm of the special interests that have the means to lobby or influence the federal government. Parents will have no part in those conversations and decisions.

This was demonstrated in Iowa's clamoring for these funds last year. If this was truly about innovation then there would have been a serious discussion among stakeholders about changes that can be made. Instead it was about the what changes the Legislature had to make to the Iowa Code so that we were eligible for the money.

The true losers in all of this, as McGroarty points out, are the parents who should have the greatest stake in their child's education.

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Mike Huckabee Announces Book Tour Stops: Iowa, South Carolina, and More

Posted: 02 Feb 2011 01:17 PM PST

Winter 2011 Book Tour Schedule

A SIMPLE GOVERNMENT: TWELVE THINGS WE

REALLY NEED FROM WASHINGTON (AND A TRILLION

THAT WE DON'T!)

by Governor Mike Huckabee

To be published by Sentinel,

(An imprint of Penguin Group, USA) on February 22nd:

Governor Huckabee’s Book Signing Tour includes stops in Des Moines, Dubuque, Iowa City, Davenport, Waterloo, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa; as well as Anderson, Columbia, Florence, Greenville, and Spartanburg, South Carolina. These two states would be critical states for Huckabee if he wants to win the presidency in the 2012 elections. He has not announced his intentions, and said he will probably not do so until this summer.

Other cities on the tour include: Destin, Florida; Rome and Alpharetta, Georgia; Topeka and Wichita, Kansas; Alexandria, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport, Louisiana; Biloxi, Mississippi; Asheville, Fayetteville, Greensboro, and Wilson, North Caroloina; Tulsa and Oklahoma City; Cleveland, Knoxville, Johnson City, and Kingsport, Tennessee; and in Texas: Cedar Hill, Greenville, Longview, Sherman, Tyler, and Wichita Falls.

If the book tour is intended to effect the potential presidential race, it is obvious Governor Huckabee has a Southern strategy. Iowa may be in there to prepare for a caucus bid, the first state in the Republican race.

The complete schedule is below, also available in PDF format for printing or downloading (at the link).

Governor-Mike-Huckabee-A-Simple-Government-Book-Tour-Schedule

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The Constitution as a Legal Document, The Commerce Clause and Wickard v. Filburn

Posted: 02 Feb 2011 10:31 AM PST

The following was written in response to a local radio program’s recent show on what they call “constitution worship”. Although I disagree with the hosts more often than not, it is a great show. They have stimulating discussion over relevant issues, and do so in a very civil manner, rarely seen in today’s political pundents, and are very open to comments from opposing viewpoints. You can find their website here, listen in the Iowa City area on KRUI 89.7 on Sunday from 4-5pm, or podcast their show by searching “American Reason” on iTunes, it is the first podcast and has their names: Matt and Vic. I highly recommend checking them out.

As I understand it, the constitution was a legal agreement between the states and the proposed central federal government as to what the federal government’s role would be. As such it is binding. The enumerated powers tell us what the states, by ratifying the constitution, delegated to the federal government to do. When you say that many things that we deal with these days, are not dealt with in the constitution, examples may include funding for retirement (social security) or health care (Medicare, Medicaid, health care reform act), I would argue that they are dealt with, in the 10th amendment. These issues are reserved for the individual states to deal with. If there is a pressing issue that requires the federal government to handle, and it can’t be handled appropriately by the individual states, then we have the amendment process, which has been used 27 times. The amendment process allows states to vote on delegating more authority to the federal government, beyond what is currently authorized by their legal contract, the constitution. Yes it is slow, taking several years to accomplish, but it is the legal way the federal government is to go about doing things not yet authorized by the constitution. Instead of going about this legal way of amending the constitution, or contract, congress just passes laws in hopes that no one will complain, and if they do, the Supreme Court will use some kind of word twisting or precedent to claim that it is consistent with the constitution. I am no lawyer, but I have a feeling if we were as loose in following civil contracts as the congress is in following the constitution, we would not be so lucky when we were taken to court over contract disputes.

I’ll give one quick example about how this plays out. The enumerated powers contains the commerce clause, which is often used by the Supreme Court to justify many things the federal government does, it reads as follows:

The Congress shall have Power….To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

I personally don’t feel this gives the federal government to impose limits to the amount of crops an individual farmer can produce on their land, but that is just what they did in the Agriculture Adjustment Act of 1938, in an attempt to drive down the supply and drive up the price of wheat during the great depression. I would call it a stretch, but Ok, whatever; surely they won’t go down the slippery slope even farther. But they did. A farmer in Ohio produced more than he was allowed and used the extra to feed his family and livestock. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court as Wickard v. Filburn.

The court ruled that because Filburn’s wheat growing activities reduced the amount of wheat he would buy for chicken feed on the open market, and because wheat was traded nationally, Filburn’s production of more wheat than he was allotted was affecting interstate commerce, and so could be regulated by the federal government.

I would argue that regulating what a man grows on his own land, for his own consumption, does not fall under the interstate commerce clause of the legal document we call the constitution. This could be argued for wheat as well as marijuana (but that is a different show). What this case has done is set precedent; this is now the legal standard to which further laws are judged, no longer by the original constitution. If you were to ask the founding fathers if this was your intention when you wrote the commerce clause, I would think they would say no. If you asked the original 13 state legislatures that ratified the constitution, or the 37 since that agreed to become states under the legal document that is the constitution, if this was their understanding of its power or roll, I think they would say no. If you did what is proper and wrote an amendment saying that the federal government now has the roll of telling individuals what they can grow on their own land for their own consumption, I do not think it would be ratified by the number of states required to pass an amendment and delegate this power to the federal government.

So in closing, is the constitution perfect, absolutely not. It had flaws and probably still has flaws. But it is the legal document that dictates the relationship between the federal government and states. And as a legal document, should be amended when necessary, not ignored when inconvenient.

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Breaking: What’s Up With the Halo Around President Obama?

Posted: 02 Feb 2011 10:18 AM PST

Reuters News is announcing the president’s “stay calm” stance in Egypt and included the following picture above the fold.

If Mike Huckabee deliberately put a cross in a Christmas commercial, then Larry Downing surely knew what he was doing, making Barack Obama a saint. Huckabee and President Obama differ on their positions on the uprising in Egpyt. Huckabee has issued strong statements in support of our ally, Egypt and President Mubarak; while the Obama administration has offered support for the protestors, something he did not do when a similar uprising occured in Iran against the Islamic dictatorship run by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In fairness to the photographer, here is former President Bush with his halo:

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Tom Hancock and Jack Kibbe Sacrifice Support of Iowa Marriage Amendment at the Altar of Mike Gronstal

Posted: 02 Feb 2011 10:00 AM PST

Jennifer Jacobs of The Des Moines Register wrote yesterday about the status of the Iowa Marriage Amendment in the Iowa Senate. In it we get a peek at the strange misplaced loyalty of two Iowa Senate Democrats – State Senator Tom Hancock (D-Epworth) and State Senator Jack Kibbe (D-Emmetsburg), she writes:

Some Democrats personally believe that marriage is between one man and one woman. But they refuse to override their majority leader, who has vowed to block a vote.

A least two Democratic senators said Tuesday that if a same-sex marriage constitutional amendment ever were to come to a vote of the full chamber, they’d likely vote "yes" – enough for a majority. They are Tom Hancock of Epworth and Jack Kibbie of Emmetsburg, the Senate president.

Both back marriage between one man and one woman. They see allowing Iowans to vote on same-sex marriage as casting an individual vote of conscience. But they won’t usurp the authority of Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs.

So they support the bill, but they love their Dear Leader. This is fascinating. What are they getting in return for such love and devotion? Both are up for reelection in 2012 so we'll see if Gronstal comes through for them.

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Horoscop

joi, 3 februarie 2011

Caffeinated Thoughts

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