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By Stanley Kutler
$24.06
By T.J. English
$18.45
$20
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Millions of Iranians headed to the polls Friday in what appeared to be record numbers for a presidential election. Voters will decide between incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and three opposition candidates, the most popular of which, the reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi, has gained lots of attention from young people and women.
Posted on Jun 12, 2009
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cafepress.com
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Both the Democratic and Republican parties are experiencing a unique form of financial comeuppance, as the economic recession they were in charge of preventing—that has now caused a 8.4 percent national unemployment rate—is causing a dramatic drop in the level of political party donations.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The most significant moment of Obama’s news conference concerned taxes: his defense of proposed limits on the benefits that the well-off get for their charitable contributions and mortgage payments.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Critics who argue that he is asking Congress to do too much are finding it far easier to talk about an overloaded system than to tell those without health insurance that they will have to wait a few more years.
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guardian.co.uk
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In a political blast from the past, former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been chosen to form Israel’s next government, ending a nine-day struggle between the candidates and paving the way for a coalition arrangement with a strong right-wing bent.
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Flickr / Jeffrey Beall
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President Obama on Tuesday will sign the stimulus bill, which passed without the support of a single House Republican and with only three votes from the GOP in the Senate. With battle lines that stark, lawmakers have tied their fates to that of the bill.
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guardian.co.uk
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On the heels of Israel’s election and its bloody three-week assault on the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority is pressing the International Criminal Court to investigate the possibility of war crimes committed by Israeli commanders.
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guardian.co.uk
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With a dearth of smiles in Zimbabwe on Wednesday, Morgan Tsvangirai was sworn in as prime minister by his political nemesis, President Robert Mugabe. The long fight to this moment, which included Tsvangirai’s exile and the death of many of his political supporters, has culminated in a power-sharing agreement between the two men and their parties.
Posted on Feb 11, 2009
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Flickr / World Economic Forum
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Tzipi Livni, leader of the centrist Kadima party, took a slight lead in exit polls and early returns after Israelis voted Tuesday in parliamentary elections. However, with Likud a close second and a splinter ultraconservative party set to win about 15 seats, conservatives may be the real winners. Update
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obamaicon.me
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Three Iraqi candidates and two campaign workers were killed Thursday as the country prepared for local elections in 14 out of 18 provinces. That’s something to keep in mind with all the talk of improved security. Relative to the hell-on-Earth of recent years, “improvement” amounts to only five people murdered for showing an interest in politics.
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By Marie Cocco — George W. Bush promised to restore “honor and dignity” to the White House, but he leaves with less honor and with lower public approval than any other president since Richard Nixon.
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The outgoing chairman of the Democratic National Committee fought to expand his party’s reach to the red states that Barack Obama won. His pioneering Internet fundraisers became Obama’s pioneering Internet fundraisers. He refused to budge on Florida and Michigan. So why is Howard Dean out in the cold?
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By Eugene Robinson — Despite the popular myth, lemmings don’t really hurl themselves off a cliff to reduce their numbers. That sort of behavior is seen only among Republicans in the Senate, who gave us a demonstration when they torpedoed legislation to bail out the auto industry.
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Truthdig / Peter Scheer
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By Jeremiah Levine — A little-noticed California proposition could limit the kind of partisan gerrymandering that Republicans and Democrats have used to influence elections around America for decades. But is that a good thing?
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Collage: US Census / the-isb.com
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In case you haven’t been following Al Franken’s fortunes in Minnesota’s ongoing recount, here’s a brief recap: He was down, but not by much, then down by less and, a little later, even less, then he claimed to be up, but now it looks like he’s down again, but not by much. Confused? You’re not alone.
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USAF / Staff Sgt. Maria L. Taylor
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Still locked in a bitter recount battle for the right to represent Minnesota in the upper house, Al Franken’s lawyer says he might take the matter directly to the U.S. Senate, which the Constitution allows to be the “Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members.”
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Flickr / openDemocracy
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Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has survived an electoral challenge with flying colors. His party swept 17 of 22 state elections, although the opposition was victorious in several key skirmishes, including the capital state, the mayoralty of Caracas and even Venezuela’s biggest slum, traditionally a Chavez stronghold.
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martinfrost.ws
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If you thought U.S. democracy was a sham, consider a constitutional amendment passed by the Russian parliament Wednesday that lengthens the country’s presidential term from four years to six, paving the way for a certain Vladimir Putin to come back to power as president as early as next year.
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senate.gov and Flickr / aflcio2008
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While Minnesota gets ready for a recount, it looks like one way or another the state’s U.S. Senate race will be decided in court. With bad memories of Florida, Al Franken and Norm Coleman’s campaigns are already arguing about whose vote should count and why.
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The latent racism that many had predicted would cut into Barack Obama’s poll numbers on Election Day—the so-called “Bradley effect”—ended up largely an unfounded concern, as exit polls showed him picking up 43% of white voters, an increase of 4 percentage points over what Democratic candidates have averaged since 1968.
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OK, people, this has gone on long enough. It’s time to settle this campaign once and for all, MTV straight-to-video style. Update: video fixed (for now).
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AP photo / Reed Saxon
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The tanking economy is screwing over citizens both as homeowners and voters. The past two years have seen more than 1 million people lose their homes through foreclosure, and November’s election may see the same people also disqualified from voting due to election laws requiring official notification of voters’ new addresses.
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guardian.co.uk
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A secret executive order signed by President Bush grants U.S. military forces “carte blanche” to launch counterterrorist operations inside Pakistan. An attack last week under the auspices of the unprecedented July order is raising concerns: Pakistani officials declared the operation illegal, and international analysts fear an escalating conflict could start a regionwide war.
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nytimes.com
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As if the situation in the Middle East couldn’t get any worse, this week’s news that scandal-plagued Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will resign has been seized upon by right-wing Israeli politicians, who believe the parliamentary chaos caused by Olmert’s departure will open the door for a return to hard-line, ultranationalist government.
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After winning one round of elections (perhaps outright), Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s challenger has dropped out of the race, citing rampant government interference and the abuse and murder of his supporters by militias loyal to Mugabe. “We have resolved that we will no longer participate in this violent, illegitimate sham of an election process,” said Morgan Tsvangirai.
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joezuikerforcongress.com
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Pork, as in earmarks, not as in pig, is again in vogue this political season only a year after a 2007 congressional promise to curb what some call wasteful spending in politicians’ home districts. At the top of the earmarking ladder is the defense authorization bill (read military-industrial complex), which saw a 29 percent increase in district spending since 2007.
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By David Sirota — This movement could be more critical than even presidential elections. One example: ExxonMobil stock owners could generate major steps in the area of renewable and alternative energy.
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Flickr / exfordy
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The GOP was already bracing for a tough political year, but losses in three special elections prompted Rep. Tom Davis to send a panicked note to Republican leaders: “The political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than the fall of 2006 when we lost thirty seats.”
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By Marie Cocco — Republicans have had great success in convincing Americans that “voter fraud” is a grave and growing threat to the republic, but the exact crime that they speak of is almost nonexistent.
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By David Sirota — A straight line can be drawn between the 1914 labor massacre in Colorado and today’s killing fields in Colombia. And one of the villains in both cases is the U.S. government.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — In 1968, American liberalism suffered a blow from which it has still not recovered.
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By David Sirota — The real John McCain is re-emerging: a politician who rakes in big bucks by being a hired gun for the corporations.
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AP photo / B.K. Bangash
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The Pakistani National Assembly on Wednesday elected Fehmida Mirza to be the country’s first female speaker. The selection of Mirza, a leading member of the late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party, marks the first significant transfer of power since opposition parties won a majority of seats in February’s general elections.
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AP photo / Hasan Sarbakhshian
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Political observers in Iran are estimating that turnout for Friday’s parliamentary elections may break the country’s 2004 record low of 51 percent. The government’s ruling religious conservative faction is accused of barring many opposition reformist candidates and depressing electoral participation.
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AP photo / Hadi Mizban
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By Patrick Cockburn — Ahmadinejad’s unprecedented trip to Baghdad demonstrates his nation’s influence on its neighbor since the fall of Saddam.
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By Marie Cocco — Election Day began with voting machines refusing to start up. It ended with them refusing to shut down.
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By David Sirota — It is state legislators—not those celebrities of Capitol Hill—who are the innovators in seeking remedies to problems such as the health care mess.
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AP photo / Khalid Tanveer
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The government of President Pervez Musharraf has expanded its crackdown on democratic institutions in Pakistan, detaining political rivals as well as journalists and rights advocates. Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, has hinted that the U.S. will likely continue to send billions of dollars in aid to the increasingly dictatorial regime. Updated
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By Marie Cocco — Hillary Clinton must have the opposition running scared if the latest strategy to derail her campaign is to deny women the right to vote.
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By Will Durst — The creator will campaign for a third-party candidate if Rudy locks up the GOP nomination. How do we know this? Well, it seems God whispered in the ears of certain evangelical leaders.
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By Marie Cocco — Voters put Democrats in control of both houses of Congress last fall and, for this act of civic determination, they face an infuriating conundrum. Republicans are still running things.
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By Marie Cocco — The president’s strategy is to fake out the public so that it believes Democrats in Congress can’t perform basic governmental tasks. Is this any way to run a country?
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By Amy Goodman — I sat down with former President Jimmy Carter last week at the Carter Center in Atlanta. The Center was hosting a conference of human rights defenders, people at the front lines confronting repressive regimes around the globe. After a quarter-century of humanitarian work through the Carter Center, monitoring elections, working to eradicate neglected tropical diseases and focusing on the poor, Jimmy Carter now finds himself at the center of the storm in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
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By Andy Borowitz — The satirist opines that the Bush adviser had some help from steroids in setting records as a divider and dirty trickster.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Karl Rove set out to build an eternal Republican majority. In the end, he managed two terms for a mediocre president.
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By Eugene Robinson — Buh-bye, Karl Rove. On your way out of the White House, don’t let the screen door hit you where the dog should have bit you.
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By Marie Cocco — It is time to stop referring to the “fired U.S attorneys scandal” by that misnomer, and call it what it is: a White House-coordinated effort to use the vast powers of the Justice Department to swing elections to Republicans.
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By Joe Conason — Even as Alberto Gonzales rehearsed his excuses for the strange dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys, which he performed in public at a Senate hearing this week, he was looking like a marginal player in this scandal. In keeping with his presidential nickname “Fredo,” the attorney general probably never understood the broader plan originating in the Bush White House.
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By Marie Cocco — By repeatedly attacking the integrity of elections, Republicans have managed to disenfranchise the voters whose votes they’re unlikely to get.
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from bradblog.com
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California’s incoming secretary of state, Debra Bowen, says her office will conduct “a top to bottom review of every voting system in use anywhere in California.” What’s more, Bowen has indicated she is willing to decertify machines approved by her predecessor, Bruce McPherson. We can only hope Bowen’s investigation will spark a national trend.
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