Stealing California, Stealing the Election

"Taking advantage of the frustration their supporters understandably feel about their powerless role in presidential elections, leading California Republicans are promoting an initiative to divide California's slate of 55 electoral votes. Rather than all electoral votes going to the statewide winner, each U.S. House district in a state would elect one presidential elector, while the statewide popular vote winner would take the two electoral votes corresponding to states' Senate seats."
-Rob Richie-

I just read about this new electoral initiative in The New Yorker. In "Stealing the 2008 Vote," Richie looks at the numbers behind the latest in fixing votes to win elections. Consider this:

In 2000, for example, Al Gore won the popular vote by 0.5 percent while George Bush took the presidency with a 0.9 percent victory in the Electoral College. With a district-by-district vote in all states, Bush's electoral vote margin would have increased to 7.1 percent. That's an eight-fold distortion of an already distorted result. Bush's margin would have similarly increased if only California had enacted the district plan.

Scary...

Missing the Real Story

"They all missed the real story and tragedy of Katrina: the naked face of poverty that shocked the world two years ago remains just as naked and shameful two years later. And Bush and the Democrats are to blame for it."
-Earl Ofari Hutchinson-

Read Hutchinson's article "After Katrina - Poverty is Still America's Shame" here. Hutchinson is the author of the forthcoming "The Latino Challenge to Black America: Towards a Conversation between African-Americans and Hispanics".

PolitiFact Holds Prez-Wannabes Accountable

The St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly, led by journalist Matt Waite, have teamed up to produce PolitiFact, a new site that tracks the claims made by presidential candidates and registers them on a "Truth-O-Meter." Whereas the Annenberg Center's FactCheck.org takes the broad approach in holding politicians accountable, PolitiFact solely focuses in on our presidential candidates.

I particularly like the "pants on fire" graphic!

Inequality Run Amok

"New York is an especially bleak case study. The top fifth of earners in Manhattan now makes 52 times what the lowest fifth makes -- $365,826 annually compared with $7,047 -- roughly comparable to income disparity in Namibia."
-Dmitri Iglitzin and Steven Hill-

Read more disheartening statistics regarding wealth disparitiy in Dmitri Iglitzin's and Steven Hill's "Inequality Has Run Amok. Do US Leaders Care."

Iglitzin is a labor law attorney based in Seattle. Steven Hill is director of the political reform program of the New America Foundation and author of 10 Steps to Repair American Democracy.

Making Things Better

"We cannot juggle anymore. The balls are dropped...We're coming down to water (or) no water."
-Tommiw Vassel, New Orleans Water Board

Vassel is talking about the inability to produce and deliver tap water in New Orleans due to an inefficient patchwork of temporary repairs that, at worst, could arrest the water supply to whole neighborhoods. Michelle Krupa's article "Water Torture" details the water crisis in New Orleans, a problem that desperately needs to be solved. Currently, an "antiquated, dying system and a lack of money to fix it threaten the recovery."

After reading Krupa's piece, check out WorldChanging's reading list, comprised of an awesome selection of books on building stronger, better communities for people around the world.

Secret Santas

"In the 2008 campaign, only one of the six leading candidates (Barack Obama) is providing a list of his bundlers on an easy-to-find section of his campaign Web site. Two candidates (Hillary Clinton and John Edwards) maintain lists on Web pages that are very difficult to find from their main Web sites. The three leading declared Republicans, meanwhile, have so far offered little more than dribs and drabs of information about their fundraisers."
-Taylor Lincoln-

This week Public Citizen (PC) sent an open letter to each presidential candidate believed to be using bundlers (people who funnel more money to candidates than they can legally give), asking that they be transparent regarding these campaign funds. In "Candidates' Secret Santas" PC research director Taylor Lincoln describes the varying levels of our candidates' transparency, what we can do to reform the system and discusses the White House for Sale Project.

When We Leave

"...this will not be the end of the conflict. It will, in fact, signal a phase of the war far deadlier and more dangerous to American interests..."
-Chris Hedges-

Hedges, author of "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America," offers more perspective on the war in Iraq:

"The occupation of Iraq, along with the Afghanistan occupation, has only furthered the spread of failed states and increased authoritarianism, savage violence, instability and anarchy. It has swelled the ranks of our real enemies-the Islamic terrorists-and opened up voids of lawlessness where they can operate and plot against us. It has scuttled the art of diplomacy. It has left us an outlaw state intent on creating more outlaw states. It has empowered Iran, as well as Russia and China, which sit on the sidelines gleefully watching our self-immolation. This is what George W. Bush and all those 'reluctant hawks' who supported him have bequeathed us."

Read the entire essay here.

A Tragedy Continues

The Washington Post has a fantastic interactive page documenting the now five-year crisis in Darfur. The page includes Travis Fox's video reports, an archive of recent articles and Q&A with such leaders as Simon Crittle, spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program. Check it out here.

For more information visit one of these sites:
United Nations Darfur Developments
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Darfur Project
Council on Foreign Relations Crisis Guide
Save Darfur Coalition

"Law or Lawlessness?"

"Mr. Bush and his entourage have not only broken the law, they flaunt it. Moreover, this group that now controls the executive branch even assumes to take the power of law brazenly unto itself; in some cases, even relying on their allies in Congress to change laws the administration had already broken, to retroactively shield White House officials and their subordinates."
-Marc Ash-

Read "Law or Lawlessness?", an perspective piece by Marc Ash, Executive Director at Truthout, utilizing the Military Commissions Act of 2006 as primary point of analysis.