POL 201 Innovative Educator/pol 201.com

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POL 201 Innovative Educator/pol 201.com
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POL 201 Innovative Educator

• POL 201 Entire Course (Ash)
• For more course tutorials visit
• www.pol201.com
• POL 201 Week 1 DQ 1 Separation of Powers Checks
  and Balances
• POL 201 Week 1 DQ 2 Amending the U.S.
  Constitution
• POL 201 Week 2 DQ 1 Policy-making in the Federal
  System
• POL 201 Week 2 DQ 2 Meet Your Rep
• POL 201 Week 2 Short Essay - Policy-making in the
  Federal System
• POL 201 Week 3 DQ 1 Presidential Leadership and
  the Electoral College
• POL 201 Week 3 DQ 2 Defense Spending and the
  Military-Industrial Complex

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POL 201 Innovative Educator

• POL 201 Week 1 DQ 1 Separation of Powers Checks
  and Balances (Ash)
• For more course tutorials visit
• www.pol201.com
• Separation of Powers/Checks and Balances. For
  much of 2011 and 2012, public dissatisfaction
  with Congress rose to all time highs, with 70-80
  expressing disapproval with how Congress does its
  job. Many commentators note that Americans are
  fed up with Washington "grid-lock" that makes
  government apparently unable to address important
  problems. Other observers believe that the
  national government is acting according to its
  design, based on separation of powers and checks
  and balances.

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POL 201 Innovative Educator

• POL 201 Week 1 DQ 2 Amending the U.S.
  Constitution (Ash)
• For more course tutorials visit
• www.pol201.com
• Amending the U.S. Constitution. The formal
  process of amending the Constitution is
  cumbersome and slow. While this fact explains why
  relatively few amendments have been adopted, it
  does not discourage advocates of constitutional
  change from proposing them. Four amendment
  proposals that have gained considerable attention
  are the Balanced Budget Amendment, the Birthright
  Citizenship Amendment, the Equal Rights
  Amendment, and the Overturn Citizens United
  Amendment. Select oneof these proposals as the
  topic of your initial post and use the assigned
  resources to inform yourself about its purpose
  and the arguments of its supporters and critics.

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POL 201 Innovative Educator

• POL 201 Week 2 DQ 1 Policy-making in the Federal
  System (Ash)
• For more course tutorials visit
• www.pol201.com
• Policy-making in the Federal System. The U.S.
  government's expansive role in public policy is
  caught in a swirl of conflicting cross-currents.
  On the one hand, popular expectations about
  government's responsibility to solve problems
  often exceed the capacity of state and local
  authorities to respond effectively. On the other
  hand, policies developed at the national level
  may not sufficiently reflect the great diversity
  of interests across the U.S. to be effective at
  the local level.

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POL 201 Innovative Educator

• POL 201 Week 2 DQ 2 Meet Your Rep (Ash)
• For more course tutorials visit
• www.pol201.com
• Meet Your Rep. The Constitution states, "The
  House of Representatives shall be composed of
  Members chosen every second Year by the People of
  the several States..." (Art. I, Sec. 2). Contrast
  this with the original constitutional language
  for the other house of Congress, "The Senate of
  the United States shall be composed of two
  Senators from each State, chosen by the
  Legislature thereof for six Years..." (Art. I,
  Sec. 3). The phrase "chosen by the Legislature"
  was changed to "elected by the people" by the
  17th Amendment, but not until 1912.

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POL 201 Innovative Educator

• POL 201 Week 2 Short Essay - Policy-making in the
  Federal System (Ash)
• For more course tutorials visit
• www.pol201.com
• Short Essay Policy-making in the Federal
  System. The U.S. government's expansive role in
  public policy is caught in a swirl of conflicting
  cross-currents. On the one hand, popular
  expectations about government's responsibility to
  solve problems often exceed the capacity of state
  and local authorities to respond effectively. On
  the other hand, policies developed at the
  national level may not sufficiently reflect the
  great diversity of interests across the U.S. to
  be effective at the local level.

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POL 201 Innovative Educator

• POL 201 Week 3 DQ 1 Presidential Leadership and
  the Electoral College (Ash)
• For more course tutorials visit
• www.pol201.com
• Presidential Leadership and the Electoral
  College. Americans expect their presidents to get
  things done, to solve problems, to govern
  effectively, and to be strong leaders. The
  framers of the Constitution did not envision such
  presidential leadership. A scholar of the
  presidency points out that Article II of the
  Constitution gives the president scant formal
  power to influence congressional policy-making
  (Simon, n.d.).

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POL 201 Innovative Educator

• POL 201 Week 3 DQ 2 Defense Spending and the
  Military-Industrial Complex (Ash)
• For more course tutorials visit
• www.pol201.com
• Defense Spending and the Military-Industrial
  Complex. Levin-Waldman (2012, pp. 186-89)
  analyzes how "iron triangles" link Congress, the
  bureaucracy, and interest groups in self-serving
  relationships that influence policy in ways that
  are contrary to the public interest. In 1961, at
  the end of President Eisenhower's second term, he
  gave a farewell address to the nation in which he
  warned of the dangers of a "military-industrial
  complex."

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POL 201 Innovative Educator

• POL 201 Week 4 DQ 1 The Supreme Court and
  Judicial Review (Ash)
• For more course tutorials visit
• www.pol201.com
• The Supreme Court and Judicial Review. In a
  recent lecture at Yale University, Supreme Court
  Justice Stephen Breyer cautioned that while most
  citizens assume that judicial review is an
  enduring part of American government, judges
  should not take it for granted. He advises that
  if judges wish to preserve this undemocratic
  power they should follow a judicial philosophy
  that will "build confidence in the courts"
  (Breyer, 2011). Justice Breyer goes on to
  describe the kind of judicial philosophy he has
  in mind.

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POL 201 Innovative Educator

• POL 201 Week 4 DQ 2 Habeas Corpus and the War on
  Terror (Ash)
• For more course tutorials visit
• www.pol201.com
• Habeas Corpus and the War on Terror. Soon after
  the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the
  Bush administration developed a plan for holding
  and interrogating prisoners captured during the
  conflict. They were sent to a prison inside a
  U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay on land leased
  from the government of Cuba. Since 2002, over 700
  men have been detained at "GITMO." Most have been
  released without charges or turned over to other
  governments.

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POL 201 Innovative Educator

• POL 201 Week 5 DQ 1 Party Platforms and Winning
  Elections (Ash)
• For more course tutorials visit
• www.pol201.com
• Party Platforms and Winning Elections. Political
  parties mobilize voters to win elections and
  implement policy goals. Parties use their stated
  policy goals (i.e., their platforms) as a way to
  mobilize voter support. Generally, in order to be
  successful in a two-party system, parties must
  have policy goals across a broad range of issue
  areas to appeal to a broad range of voters.

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POL 201 Innovative Educator

• POL 201 Week 5 DQ 2 Voting and Turnout (Ash)
• For more course tutorials visit
• www.pol201.com
• Voting and Turnout. The U.S. has one of the
  lowest voter turnout rates among modern
  democratic political systems. One study ranks the
  U.S. 120th on a list of 169 nations compared on
  voter turnout (Pintor, Gratschew, Sullivan,
  2002). While during the last decade many
  initiatives have been undertaken to increase
  voter participation, concerns about the
  possibility of election fraud have also
  increased. Additionally, some political interests
  feel threatened by the increase in turnout among
  some traditionally low-turnout ethnic minorities.

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POL 201 Innovative Educator

• POL 201 Week 5 Final Paper Civil Liberties,
  Habeas Corpus, and the War on Terror (Ash)
• For more course tutorials visit
• www.pol201.com
• The final assignment for this course is a Final
  Paper. The purpose of the Final Paper is to give
  you an opportunity to apply much of what you have
  learned about American national government to an
  examination of civil liberties in the context of
  the war on terror. The Final Paper represents 20
  of the overall course grade.
• Soon after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in
  2001, the Bush administration developed a plan
  for holding and interrogating captured prisoners.

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POL 201 Innovative Educator