VOLUME No: 61 Issue No:3

Washington, D.C. - May 20, 2004

Medicare Video Deemed “Illegal Propaganda”

The General Accounting Office (GAO) has deemed certain parts of the administration's video about Medicare violate a ban on propaganda and publicity using appropriated funds.

Only a certain segment that was intended for local television broadcast was said to have violated the law because Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) were not mentioned as producers of the video.

Anthony Gamboa, GAO general counsel reported “Neither the story packages nor scripts identified [the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)] or CMS as the source … and the content of the news reports was attributed to individuals purporting to be reporters, but actually hired by an HHS subcontractor,”

South Dakota Senate Race Could Hold the Key
to the US Senate for Both Parties

The State of South Dakota , with a population similar to the city of San Francisco , may play a pivotal role in which party controls the US Senate after the November elections.  Both parties have poured lavish resources into this hotly contested race in what has been seen by some as a "proxy race" between Democrat Tom Daschle, the Democrat leader in the US senate and President Bush.

The average voter in South Dakota is now estimated to have seen over 800 commercials about this Senate race and there are still over 5 months to go until the election.  On most issues the candidates have similar goals, but offer different solutions.  The national issues, however, are another story with both candidates bringing their own perspective on what the national implications would be if the were elected.  Both parties have target this race.

To top it all off, a controversy has arose last week when the South Dakota Democratic Party announced  that it had dismissed a campaign worker suspected of falsifying absentee-ballot applications in the party's effort to register thousands of new voters on Native American reservations.  The Democrat's campaign insists that the candidate was not involved, but the Republicans suggest that it was all part of the Democrat's "win at any cost" approach.

Whatever happens, the voters of South Dakota are in for a wild ride in the next few months.

Public School Choice and Supplemental Educational Services

The Office of Innovation and Improvement is responsible for coordinating, with the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, the public school choice and supplemental educational services provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. One of the top goals of this Office is to support expanded options for parents and ensure that parents are supplied with useful information so that they will be able to make informed decisions.

Under No Child Left Behind, students attending schools that need improvement must be given the opportunity to transfer to a better-performing public school in the school district or to a high-quality charter school in the area. In addition, supplemental educational services, such as after-school tutoring or academic summer camps, must be made available to students from low-income families who attend schools that have been in need of improvement for more than a year.

For more information call 1-888-814-6252 or print the info sheet at:

http://www.islamicinstitute.org/educmar04.pdf