POLS 151, Spring 2012

Stories to Read in the NYT, and other sources

When we examine what the Republican presidential primary has produced, we will also look at election forecasting models. Here is a piece by Nate Silver, and here is a response from a political scientist.

As a followup on the financial crisis, this op-ed piece in the NYT explained the ethical issues that led the author to quit Goldman Sachs. Not how the author carefully does not accuse anyone of legal misdeeds, just ethical lapses. The article provoked a response, described here. Let’s see if it leads to any legal proceedings.

March 6

**Former PM of Iceland on trial for (an)actions surrounding financial crisis (recall the op-ed from a week ago about lack of justice over Wall Street behavior leading to the financial crisis

**Cato Institute in public dispute over donors

**The color line strongly shapes school discipline

**New talks with Iran are on

March 1

**An opinion piece on a possible Israeli attack on Iran

**Senator Snow has had enough

**Interesting argument on the size of the national debt, in our times

February 27

**The Blurred Line Between Espionage and Truth (this administration going after journalists and whistleblowers)

February 26

**What is the line between superpacs and campaigns?

February 22

**Obama proposal for corporate tax rate

**Recent talk about attacking Iran, and latest nuclear inspectors’ trip to Iran a failure

**Supreme Court will hear case about affirmative action and college admissions

February 21

**Campaigns becoming more dependent on superpacs

**Campaigns using new technologies to aim advertising more precisely

**Analysis of same-sex marriage in the courts, focusing on how questions come before courts

February 16

**Nate Silverman discusses Republicans’ chances of capturing the White House in this year’s election (he wrote about methods for predictions in an earlier post, and specifically about political science models for predicting elections)

**Leaked documents offer a look at the climate change denial movement and its public information campaign

**Attitudes on same-sex marriage diverge along the color line

**Agreement comes out of a Congressional conference committee

February 14

Voter Registration Records Poorly Kept

Large Changes in California’s Congressional Delegation

February 13

Admiral wants more discretion on placement & deployment of elite troops

February 9, NYT story on education inequality between rich & poor

See the related story, social_spending_politics.docx, in the Sakai Resources section.