Category Archives: Elections & Voting

Go to dictionary.com and enter—never mind. Just click this to see a new synonym for voting, the word juggernaut. Continue reading →

Dave Brat, a professor of economics at Virginia’s Randolph-Macon College, is a marked man. Professor Brat defeated Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a prime trophy of the Israel Lobby. I doubt that Eric Cantor ever lost an opportunity to place Israel’s interests above the interests of his constituents. Under US laws, Cantor should have been required to register as a foreign agent. Continue reading →

Primary elections originated in the American progressive movement and were intended to take the power of candidate nomination away from party leaders and deliver it to the people. California’s Top Two Primary takes power away from those third parties representing the 99% and delivers it to the 1%. Continue reading →

A hush has fallen over our house. Continue reading →

In a very short time, voters across the EU (that is those who decide to vote) will head to the polls to elect the new European Parliament. And obviously without any doubt, here in Malta, we are having a good serving of this whole charade, with the typical pageantry. Continue reading →

There are no ifs or buts about it. The word on the street is “When Al Sissi comes . . .” the operative word being “when.” This hypothesis is supported by polls indicating the former army chief can expect to garner between 72–82 percent of the vote that is scheduled for May 26 and 27, while his only rival, the veteran leftist politician and leader of the Nasserist Party, Hamdeen Sabahi, can expect no more than two percent. Such assumptions come with their own risks. Continue reading →

California Governor Jerry Brown is going around the world with one simple, yet simply wrong message, “California is Back.” The problems with this statement is that it is false and that Jerry Brown is obviously out of touch with the people of the state that he “governs.” Continue reading →

The referendum on Egypt’s new constitution passed without any serious incident, despite threats from the Muslim Brotherhood which Egypt has branded ‘terrorist.’ Continue reading →

Governor Jerry Brown and his staff are exchanging high-fives over balancing California’s budget, but the people on whose backs it was balanced are not rejoicing. The state’s high-wire act has been called “the ultimate in austerity budgets.” Continue reading →

Bill de Blasio, who transformed himself from a little-known occupant of an obscure office into the fiery voice of New York’s disillusionment with a new gilded age, was elected the city’s 109th mayor last Tuesday. The city seemed to be saying in its vote, “Enough is enough” after 12 years of the autocratic Michael Bloomberg and honcho Ray Kelly’s “stop and frisk” police force. Continue reading →

Acceptance of voting machines and the electronic counting of votes is the acceptance of corruption and tyranny. Remember that Stalin is reported to have said that who votes does not matter but the who counts the votes does. Continue reading →

If you want to see how grossly money can distort democracy, just go to the state of Virginia, where there are no limits on how big a check can be written for statewide office. Groups and individuals from outside the Old Dominion are taking full advantage, pouring millions into a governor’s race they see as a dry run for the tactics they’ll use in the 2014 midterms and the 2016 presidential race—sort of the way the Spanish civil war turned out to be a testing ground for many of the deadly weapons of World War II. Continue reading →

With Narendra Modi’s candidature declared as the prospective prime minister of India in case the NDA should win the 2014 elections, L. K. Advani must be a broken man. Cardinal Wolsey, a politician and cardinal under King Henry the VIII of England, famously said before he died, “If I had served God as diligently as I have done the King, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs.” Having entered the twilight of his life, I am sure L. K. Advani feels the same, that had he served the people of this country rather than the sectarian agenda of the BJP he wouldn’t have been a lonely, isolated man and the people would still be with him. The historic opportunity for a politician to be a statesman is a lost one. Continue reading →

With his popularity about the same as a hairy wart, Gov. Tom Corbett (R-Pa.) had to make some critical changes in his administration if he has any hope of winning a second term in 2014. Continue reading →

Reports of Democratic mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner’s sexting recidivism have vaulted Democrat Christine C. Quinn into the front-runner position. Quinn, currently speaker of the New York City Council, is running against Weiner, New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, former New York City comptroller William C Thompson, Jr., and others in the September 10 Democratic primary. But even though Quinn is an out lesbian and has significant feminist and LGBT support, especially as the only woman Democratic candidate in a sea of male sex scandals, there could be a dark horse in the primary known as New York City’s carriage horses. Continue reading →

No wonder why so many who could vote actually choose not to. In most instances, especially anywhere that political party affiliations are labeled, why bother? As Ralph Nader put it so succinctly, all we choose from are ‘Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum’. Continue reading →

That the fix was in was confirmed when the Godfather himself, son of a Kenyan, Barack Obama, called Uhuru Kenyatta, indicted for “Crimes Against Humanity” by those minions of Pax Americana, the International Criminal Court, to congratulate him for successfully conducting another Kenyan stolen election. Continue reading →

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was mad. Not the kind of mad you get when your favorite team blows a big lead and loses its eighth straight game, but Red-Faced-Exploding-Blood-Pressure Mad. Continue reading →

Just as with the April 2002 coup strife in Venezuela, stirred up by CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency provocateurs in the oil workers’ labor sector and in some parts of the military, the CIA is using a slightly different playbook prior to the April 14 election. The upcoming election pits Hugo Chavez’s designated successor, Nicolas Maduro, against the Western- and corporate-backed candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski, the governor of Miranda state. Continue reading →

The New Deal Party, I think, is a great idea for the left to seize upon. With so much of the Democrats/Democratic Party having gone DLC/Wall Street, the time is now more than ever for a third party. Continue reading →

On Saturday, Egyptians were required to vote “yes” or “no” to the draft constitution. Out of the 51 million eligible to cast their ballots only 18 million did so during the crucial first phase that polled ten governorates, including Cairo and Alexandria. Continue reading →

Preliminary results of last Saturday’s referendum held in ten governorates indicate that approximately 56 percent of Egyptians approve of the contentious Islamist-weighted draft constitution. The vote was hurriedly pushed through by President Mohammad Mursi amid an outcry from moderates and secularists who said the draft threatened freedoms hard-won during the January 25 revolution. Continue reading →

More than weeks have passed since the night of the Rove meltdown and Romney’s electoral loss. Like the days after a major sports championship, everybody has an opinion on two things: why victory was achieved this time and how victory can be achieved the next time. However, political reality is quite different than sports. Democracy is more than a game. And if our current democracy is a game, the people lost in 2012. Continue reading →

The most expensive election campaign in American history ended with more good than bad results, given the choices allowed. Voters defeated the possibility of cancer, but were unable to cure the polio we still suffer. A reactionary effort to take us further back than we have already gone was mostly unsuccessful. But the advances made were smaller than some wishful thinkers suppose. We need radical change in substance and got nothing more than stylistic moderation in form. Continue reading →

Forty years ago, as a young, aspiring political operative, I was a staff member on Senator George McGovern’s presidential campaign. We thought we could beat Richard Nixon but famously lost every state in the union, except Massachusetts (with the District of Columbia thrown in as a forlorn consolation prize). Continue reading →

‘Neck and neck,’ ‘too close to call’ said the pollsters. I did not realise just how wrong they were when I decided, admittedly in somewhat of a cowardly fashion, not to glue myself to the box for the first time in decades, as election results were being called. A Romney White House was simply too dreadful to contemplate. Continue reading →

A mass grassroots election protection movement has been born. It’s finally forced the issues of mass disenfranchisement and hackable electronic voting machines into the mainstream. Continue reading →

The Washington punditocracy worked overtime the morning after the election postulating the winners and losers in the 2012 election. Continue reading →

The exuberant jubilation that was there for Obama’s first ascendancy is noticeably removed for the “grand orator’s” second term. Though his sycophants, rose-colored onlookers, and enablers of all sorts—are still singing their darling’s praises. A darling they should, certainly, not be trusting so unguardedly and who may, in fact, cleave them with a dagger,should they not be looking for it, in their much vaunted “gentleman caller’s” second term. Continue reading →