Explain three ways in which the power of the President can be checked by the legislative or the judicial branch.

9,100 grade 12 students in 590 schools were assessed for The Nation's Report Card, Civics 2006.

Student responses were rated according to a four-point scale as “Complete,” “Acceptable,” “Partial,” or “Unacceptable.”

Overall, 5 percent of students were rated as having a “Complete” response, and the “Complete” plus “Acceptable” rating categories summed to 16 percent for this difficult question (data not shown). When only students at the Proficient level are considered, 13 percent were rated as “Complete.”

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2007476

The following is from the National Standards for Civics and Government for high school. It's the supreme standard, which can't be achieved without having the knowledge and strength provided by all the others.

C. What are the responsibilities of citizens?

The purposes of American constitutional democracy are furthered by citizens who continuously reexamine the basic principles of the Constitution and monitor the performance of political leaders and government agencies to insure their fidelity to constitutional values and principles. In addition, they must examine their own behavior and fidelity to these values and principles.

http://www.civiced.org/index.php?page=912toc

What are our leaders, who lack this fidelity, teaching our children?

Glenn answered your first question here:

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/12/torture/permalink/840b2e05608cb528da4dc277d3f6d03e.html

And he has commented on that. http://http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/03/al_haramain/permalink/87d3999e74adbe51b01f9db483b87666.html

The new FISA hurts not just as voted/enacted coverup, capitulation, enablement, masochism, desertion, betrayal, collusion, criminal accessory, cowardice, dereliction or expedience.

Obama's Reaganization is not merely worrisome as a dangerously flawed campaign ploy.

The secondary group of reasons to curse the '08 FISA are the missed chances, in congress, campaign, and national attention, to alert, inform and invite more citizens to insist on the moral and effectual restructuring of our moribund government.

I've been thinking about this since the vote. Obama has inspired a lot of young people and motivation is a key to learning. So, it's doubly hurtful that Obama and Congress missed the opportunity to motivate all those young people they have in the palm of their hands to learn something significant about civic values, the rule of law and their leaders' responsibilities. What a sickening and monumental waste.

It's very difficult to teach about anything "controversial" in middle and high school. What's wrong about the FISA vote and Bush's general lawlessness, since Congress has blessed it, makes these things controversial issues. Some teachers will, no doubt, try to use it in their lessons, but many teachers - those who know what's happened - will probably be too fearful. They have 2 branches of government against them, after all.

Imagine, though, if Obama and Congress had not caved. Those kids who Obama has fired up would have taken notice of his stand. They'd have seen in action what they've only heard their teachers lecture about or what they've read in textbooks. They'd have been motivated to think and question and discuss and learn on their own. That's the lost opportunity that infuriates me.

"I agree, and would add that I think many of them will give up on politics and not come back for a very long time, if at all."

I hope that doesn't happen. It's a bit too soon to tell, I think, but I'm trying to monitor what effect this has on the "Obama Youth."

And those who don't give up - are they doing that for the right reasons? What's happened over the past 7 years will impact their futures - will they understand that? Will they know that there are many things they need to hold their leaders accountable for and will they know how to do it?

I'm referring to all the young people Obama inspired during the primaries. The people discussed in these article: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17847196 and http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070305/graham-felsen

I guess in this political climate, that wasn't the best term to use, but working as an educator, everything is about "youth."

God, no. I've seen that term used in a positive way (Obama Youth, that is) - it didn't even occur to me until you mentioned it.

Seconded. Smarm with a (knife) twist. Hate it.

As far as I understand it, NCLB institutes standards in English, Math, and Science. There are no Federal standards for Social Studies (history, civics, government, etc.).

This is a common misconception. There are no Federal standards for any subject. Each state sets its own standards, many based on standards developed by national subject-area groups, several of which were funded by the government in the late 80s-early 90s.

NCLB requires that all states have standards in reading, math & science and test students in those subjects. It doesn't require that state have social studies standards, but all states do now have them. The problem is that because states have to devote the majority of their resources to those three subjects in order to receive federal funding, other subjects take a back seat. That's the biggest problem with this unfunded mandate and I don't expect it to last much longer in its current form.

The video for the Sunstein/Dean panel is here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/567016

Republicans first used the filibuster against a judicial nominee in 1968, attempted to filibuster three Clinton appellate court nominees, and used other parliamentary tactics to block dozens of President Clinton's judicial nominees from even getting out of committee. http://mediamatters.org/items/200504280003

I've been trying to work out what to tell myself. You know, to avoid having to blowing my brains out when all this comes to pass. You're not helping, bernbart.

And have you seen what the minority Republicans and weak Democrats have done lately?