Your suggestions for today's programme

There are a couple of other stories that caught my eye in looking over the headlines. Violence continues in Sri Lanka. Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army denies war crimes in an interview with the BBC.

Immigration in the US

Steve gives us a little bit of background into his question:

Yesterday, Congressman Chris Cannon defeated his surprisingly strong opponent John Jacob in Utah’s 3rd Congressional District Republican Primary with a comfortable margin. This campaign received national attention as Cannon, who is a staunch party line voter from one of the most conservative districts in the country, was forced into a primary because of his moderate stance on immigration -- even during the current immigration row. If he lost, it would have indicated to the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives that any immigration reform that included any kind of legalization of illegal immigrants was not very viable. However, since he won, this means that the White House backed Senate bill that allows for legalization of many illegal immigrants has a good standing against the enforcement only and border security focused House bill.

We've talked about immigration in the US quite a bit on World Have Your Say. Immigration is one of the domestic issues in the US that will help determine whether President Bush's Republican Party will retain control of both houses of Congress in the midterm elections this November. In the UK last year, the Conservative Party made immigration one of its campaign issues.

Does satire hurt democracy?

OK, I've been watching this story for a few days. Jon Stewart is the host of the popular news satire programme in the US - The Daily Show. In 2004, Jon Stewart went on a political debate programme on CNN, called Crossfire. In it, he said to the two hosts, "stop, stop, stop hurting America". He said:

I'm here to confront you, because we need help from the media and they're hurting us.

Well, a university study now seems to say that Jon Stewart and his satirical take on the news is hurting America. The study found that the show made young people more cynical about politicians and the political process.

Not everyone is buying this, of course. But other commentators in the US described what they thought was the worrisome effect of the Daily Show.

What do you think? Are young people being turned off to politics or just politics as usual? Will it turn young people off to voting or turn them on to civic participation?

Tags: midterms, Daily Show, flag burning, Uganda, Sri Lanka