Global
I think that congress should change the voting right law where as if you change over parties, in order to effect who gets elected because of what a drug addict talk show host said, then there should be a law that says, if you change over to another party, then you cannot change back for two years, and that you have to vote in the general election for the party that you have chosen.
Thank you
Jerry
Thank you
Jerry
Rosalynn, Jeff, and I arrived in Israel Sunday, 4/13/08, after a very exciting and successful election monitoring mission in Nepal (see prior trip report). Since Israel had declined to approve a previously planned visit by three of us Elders (Kofi Annan, Mary Robinson, and me), I expected a similar negative reaction when I substituted this trip on behalf of The Carter Center. Sure enough, all my requests to meet with ministers of the government were publicly rejected and, more seriously, three requests from our Secret Service detail to work with Israeli security were rejected. This was our first experience of this kind in more than 125 foreign nations we've visited since leaving the White House. (After several news stories on this subject, when we returned to Israel, Shin Bet security met us at the airport and worked with us.)
Obama and Clinton each picked up 2 pledged delgates in Guam this weekend. Obama now has 1,493 pledged delegates. Clinton has 1,334 pledged delegates. Of the remaining 404 delegates yet to be pledged, Clinton would need to win 282 of them to beat Obama. That's a victory of 70 percent to 30 percent. There is not a single political reporter in the country who considers that a remote possibility, and yet every media outlet covers this "race" as if either candidate could win.
On Tuesday, voters in North Carolina will dole out another 115 delegates, possibly handing roughly 63 to Obama and 52 to Clinton, and Indiana will provide another 72 delegates, possibly 36 to each candidate. Should that happen, Obama would have 1,592 pledged delegates, and Clinton 1,422, with 217 remaining to be pledged. Of those 217, Clinton would need to win 194 to beat Obama, or a victory of 89 percent to 11 percent. Not even Rupert Murdoch imagines that could happen.
On Tuesday, voters in North Carolina will dole out another 115 delegates, possibly handing roughly 63 to Obama and 52 to Clinton, and Indiana will provide another 72 delegates, possibly 36 to each candidate. Should that happen, Obama would have 1,592 pledged delegates, and Clinton 1,422, with 217 remaining to be pledged. Of those 217, Clinton would need to win 194 to beat Obama, or a victory of 89 percent to 11 percent. Not even Rupert Murdoch imagines that could happen.
Lurid headlines have been blooming in my fair city, Chicago, along with the daffodils. A dozen dead, 40 injured in less than a week. The mayor calls a gun summit. The police chief promises to send SWAT teams in full battle dress to troubled neighborhoods.
“If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating fundamentally the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction.” — Eckhart Tolle, “A New Earth”
Like the war on terror, violence in the ’hood is mostly a macabre abstraction. It’s a game that others play, a spectator sport — unless, until, we’re affected personally.
“If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating fundamentally the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction.” — Eckhart Tolle, “A New Earth”
Like the war on terror, violence in the ’hood is mostly a macabre abstraction. It’s a game that others play, a spectator sport — unless, until, we’re affected personally.
Just when it seemed things could get no worse on the Italian political landscape following the first round of elections, run-off elections this past Sunday and Monday proved the contrary. But the northern city of Vicenza, home to a vibrant citizens’ movement against a second US military base in their city, proved to be the silver lining.
Round One
In the mid-April elections that came after the collapse last January of the center-left government led by Romano Prodi, the center-right coalition led by media magnate, billionaire and staunch Bush ally Silvio Berlusconi not only beat out former Rome Mayor and leader of the newly formed Democratic Party, Walter Veltroni, but also with a very comfortable 9-point lead.
Round One
In the mid-April elections that came after the collapse last January of the center-left government led by Romano Prodi, the center-right coalition led by media magnate, billionaire and staunch Bush ally Silvio Berlusconi not only beat out former Rome Mayor and leader of the newly formed Democratic Party, Walter Veltroni, but also with a very comfortable 9-point lead.
Peace activist Desiree Fairooz was convicted of disorderly conduct today in US Superior Court. Fairooz approached and called US Secretary of State Condi Rice a war criminal at a congressional hearing in September 2007.
Government prosecutor and pro-war supporter, Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, asked Judge Richard Ringell to sentence Fairooz to 90 days in the DC Jail. Ringell told Fairooz that there is a price for civil disobedience that included jail time. However, the judge said he would not be sentencing Fairooz to jail time, according to peace activists who were in court today. Instead Ringell sentenced Fairooz to 5 days jail time suspended, 3 months of unsupervised probation, and the payment of $50 to the victims of violent crime fund activists said.
Government prosecutor and pro-war supporter, Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, asked Judge Richard Ringell to sentence Fairooz to 90 days in the DC Jail. Ringell told Fairooz that there is a price for civil disobedience that included jail time. However, the judge said he would not be sentencing Fairooz to jail time, according to peace activists who were in court today. Instead Ringell sentenced Fairooz to 5 days jail time suspended, 3 months of unsupervised probation, and the payment of $50 to the victims of violent crime fund activists said.
Imagine Hillary Clinton's luck.
When she needed to win a primary in New Hampshire, the machines glitched up, and she emerged with an unexpected margin of victory. Whether it was due to electronic voting breakdowns is not clear. But there was never a a full recount or a thorough investigation of the serious problems that plagued the vote count in that state.
When she needed a victory in Ohio, Republican voters -- urged on by Rush Limbaugh -- crossed over in droves and helped give her one. Cross-over voting may also have been a factor in her critical victory in Pennsylvania. There were also numerous instances of computer tabulation glitches in the Pennsylvania secretary of state's office.
Now the Indiana primary looms ahead. Less than a week prior, the US Supreme Court has delivered a devastating decision on voter ID that could again make a big difference in Clinton's favor.
When she needed to win a primary in New Hampshire, the machines glitched up, and she emerged with an unexpected margin of victory. Whether it was due to electronic voting breakdowns is not clear. But there was never a a full recount or a thorough investigation of the serious problems that plagued the vote count in that state.
When she needed a victory in Ohio, Republican voters -- urged on by Rush Limbaugh -- crossed over in droves and helped give her one. Cross-over voting may also have been a factor in her critical victory in Pennsylvania. There were also numerous instances of computer tabulation glitches in the Pennsylvania secretary of state's office.
Now the Indiana primary looms ahead. Less than a week prior, the US Supreme Court has delivered a devastating decision on voter ID that could again make a big difference in Clinton's favor.
The US Supreme Court has just dealt a serious blow to voters' rights that could help put John McCain in the White House by eliminating tens of thousands of voters who generally vote Democratic.
By 6-3 the Court has upheld an Indiana law that requires citizens to present a photo identification card in order to vote. Florida, Michigan, Louisiana, Georgia, Hawaii and South Dakota have similar laws. Though it's unlikely, as many as two dozen other states could add them by election day. Other states, like Ohio, have less stringent ID requirements than Indiana's, but still have certain restrictions that are strongly opposed by voter rights advocates.
The decision turns back two centuries of jurisprudence that has accepted a registered voter's signature as sufficient identification for casting a ballot. By matching that signature against one given at registration, and with harsh penalties for ballot stuffing, the Justices confirmed in their lead opinion that there is "no evidence" for the kind of widespread voter fraud Republican partisans have used to justify the demand for photo ID.
By 6-3 the Court has upheld an Indiana law that requires citizens to present a photo identification card in order to vote. Florida, Michigan, Louisiana, Georgia, Hawaii and South Dakota have similar laws. Though it's unlikely, as many as two dozen other states could add them by election day. Other states, like Ohio, have less stringent ID requirements than Indiana's, but still have certain restrictions that are strongly opposed by voter rights advocates.
The decision turns back two centuries of jurisprudence that has accepted a registered voter's signature as sufficient identification for casting a ballot. By matching that signature against one given at registration, and with harsh penalties for ballot stuffing, the Justices confirmed in their lead opinion that there is "no evidence" for the kind of widespread voter fraud Republican partisans have used to justify the demand for photo ID.
Why, for God’s sake, does nothing change? The war goes on, the money flows, the blood flows, the lies stay exactly the same. Have you noticed? Have you ever wondered, with a stab of transcendent confusion, why a self-correcting rationality hasn’t kicked in by now, why a saner awareness hasn’t made itself evident in the macro-affairs of the nation by now?
Folks, we have a seriously dysfunctional situation on our hands, more pervasive, I fear, than most of us realize. Deep into Bush II, our government appears to have taken on a crack house dysfunctionality. The institutional checks and balances that Americans are so proud of — including, of course, the watchdog media — have been so compromised by the war-junkie administration they’ve served and enabled they have almost no objectivity left with which to challenge or counter it. And thus the national war addiction permeates every facet of governance, and the media’s coverage thereof.
Folks, we have a seriously dysfunctional situation on our hands, more pervasive, I fear, than most of us realize. Deep into Bush II, our government appears to have taken on a crack house dysfunctionality. The institutional checks and balances that Americans are so proud of — including, of course, the watchdog media — have been so compromised by the war-junkie administration they’ve served and enabled they have almost no objectivity left with which to challenge or counter it. And thus the national war addiction permeates every facet of governance, and the media’s coverage thereof.
New York -- The National Lawyers Guild calls on Israel to permit Richard Falk, an eminent and widely-respected law professor and scholar, to enter Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories it seized forty years ago and has held illegally ever since. Professor Falk was recently appointed as the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Israel has barred entry to Professor Falk, claiming he cannot be fair because of his prior condemnation of persistent and pervasive human rights violations carried out by Israel in the Occupied Territories. In fact, Professor Falk made no claims any different from those made by John Dugard, the man he was to replace, in several reports on conditions in the Occupied Territories.