If you were with us on Christmas Day you heard the story of Betsie Gallardo, who, unless something changes quickly, is going to be intentionally starved to death in a Florida prison after being convicted of spitting on a cop.
In fairness, the State did not decide simply to starve her; instead, the Department of Corrections (DOC) first chose to withhold any further treatment for her inoperable cancer...and then they decided to starve her to death.
Her adopted mother is trying to get her released on humanitarian grounds; the DOC recommended in October that she be allowed to go home and die, the Florida Parole Commission refused.
Governor Charlie Crist chairs the Executive Clemency Board, who could also agree to let her go...and so far, they've also refused to take action.
Funny thing is, the Governor and his Board have been more than willing to step in when other Floridians requested pardons and commutations, even in situations that seemed a lot less dire.
Today, we're going to look at that history-and to be honest, as with many things in the Sunshine State, from the outside...it all looks a bit bizarre.
This is the second part of two posts analyzing New York's recent Republican primary. It will focus upon Republican weakness in New York City, as revealed by the primary. The previous part can be found here.
New York City in the Republican Primary
One of the more interesting things about American politics is the rural-urban divide. The weakness of the modern Republican Party in urban areas is quite astounding. Much of this has to do with the history of the American city, especially the way in which many cities have become reservoirs of poor minorities.
The Republican gubernatorial primary constituted a particularly powerful demonstration of Republican weakness in American cities. To illustrate this, let's look at a map of turn-out in businessman Carl Paladino's victory over former representative Rick Lazio:
There are many gifts to be given and received this holiday season; some that you can wrap and put under a tree, and some so intangible and ethereal that they cannot be held within the boundaries of paper and ribbon.
Instead, they exist within the boundaries of our hearts.
Among those intangible presents, few matter more than the chance to be with those we love-and at the time of our death, it's the most important thing of all.
We have a chance to bring all of this to a dying woman and her family-but the only way it can happen is if we convince the Florida Department of Corrections not to kill her first.
It's not a tale of light and joy-but if we get lucky, there could still be a happy ending.
The recent mid-terms were, by all accounts, very bad for Democrats. They lost 63 seats in the House of Representatives and 6 seats in the Senate. In many ways things were worse than in 1994, when Republicans won landslide victory.
There is another analogy to 1994, however, which will probably make Democrats happier. President Bill Clinton, after devastating mid-term losses, went on to win a comfortable re-election campaign. Can Mr. Obama do the same?
The book "The Keys to the White House," by Professor Allan J. Lichtman provides a fascinating answer. Mr. Lichtman argues that the results of a presidential election can be predicted months or years beforehand by a series of thirteen "keys." According to this theory, if the incumbent party or current president captures a certain number of "keys", it will win the election. Otherwise it will lose.
We are coming down to the end of the 111th Congress, and we are all surprised that a number of things actually got done: a nuclear arms reduction treaty appears to be on the verge of approval, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was repealed; we have new health care and financial reforms (admittedly, they're imperfect solutions, but...), food safety reform, a better way to do student loans, and a credit card reform act that's forcing issuers to spend thousands of labor hours to develop new and better ways to work over consumers.
And yet there is one important bit of legislation that is still being blocked by Republicans, and, amazingly enough, it's a bill that would provide health care and compensation for those people who ran down to the World Trade Center site on September 11th, and for months thereafter, in the effort to rescue and recover victims, and to restore normal operations in the city after the attack.
Yes, folks, you heard me correctly: the Party of waving flags and "Second Amendment solutions" and tri-cornered hats and Rudy ("noun, verb, 9/11") Giuliani is now engaged in a desperate battle to screw over the very 9/11 first responders that you would think they would be...well, putting up on a stage somewhere next to Rudy Giuliani.
This is the first part of two posts analyzing New York's recent Republican primary. It will focus upon the upstate-downstate divide revealed by the primary. The next part can be found here.
The 2010 Republican Gubernatorial Primary
On September 14th 2010 the Republican Party held its primary in New York. In the gubernatorial primary, party favorite Rick Lazio was defeated by the Tea Party Candidate: businessman Carl Paladino. Mr. Paladino won a comprehensive victory, with 62% of the vote to Mr. Lazio's 38%.
In the long run, this primary did not matter at all. Already the primary is forgotten by even the most politically intense folk. Most Americans probably weren't even aware that there was a primary in the first place. Mr. Paladino went on to a stunning loss against the Democratic candidate in the general election.
Yet, whatever its long-term importance, the primary constitutes a valuable tool for exploring New York's electoral geography. Mr. Paladino's victory revealed two interesting facts of New York politics. This post will explore the first one.
America's economy is in a bad way. The economic recovery has turned out to be disturbingly weak, and joblessness rates are still actually rising. Investment is down, Americans are depressed and angry, and there are even worries about a double-dip recession.
There has not been much analysis of the causes behind today's economic stagnation. Most experts talk about how weak recoveries generally follow financial crises. Politically, Republicans blame Democrats, and Democrats are generally too busy trying to fix the problem than to think about what caused it.
Yet there is indeed something that did badly damage the recovery - an event very few nowadays link to America's economic woes.
This is the third part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Colorado. It will focus on the swing areas in Colorado - the parts that will vote for both Democrats and Republicans. The fourth part can be found here.
Swing Colorado
The swing areas of Colorado lie on the edges of the Democratic base in Colorado, which forms a rough "C" shape (more on this in the next post). They can be mapped as below:
So it has come to pass that Elizabeth Edwards has died.
Despite having more things thrown at her than anyone I've ever had the chance to support in my entire political life, she managed to represent, in her very presence, a sense of grace and kindness and concern for those who were looking to have a better life than the one they had now, and I don't know that I could ever live up to the quiet courage she showed as her life came to an end.
And, bless her heart, it appears that she took the time to make sure that her kids knew her, and that she helped them put away enough "past" to, hopefully, ease some of the pain of the future.
But now the time has come to look beyond death, and, John...that's why I want to talk to you today.
When Senator Barack Obama was elected president, his victory was widely taken as a momentous event. In racial terms, Mr. Obama constitutes the first minority president of the United States. This is quite an impressive feat - something that many Americans did not think could be done as late as 2007.
From another perspective, however, Mr. Obama's election looks less impressive. This perspective is that of class. Mr. Obama was raised by an upper-middle class family: his mother was an anthropologist who had a PhD degree, and Mr. Obama went to a fairly prestigious private school in Hawaii during his early years.
The last president, Mr. George W. Bush, was also born to a wealthy family - in this case far higher up the social ladder than Mr. Obama's family.
All this raises the question of whether one must be born with parents of a certain income to become president of the United States.
As most of the shows are far away from reality, I was thinking of Law and Order episodes which are good at presenting the comprehensive procedures of police against criminals. It is a really interesting police procedural drama, famous for bringing the guilty to justice in its fictitious world. It is a realistic crime drama, which projects all the legal procedures in exactly the same way as they should be.
Law and Order has broken all the conventional norms of presenting police procedural dramas. Above all this, it also presents a complex but realistic prosecution process.
The most amazing fact about this drama is that it showcases all those protocols, which an investigator uses while solving cases. All the episodes of the show contain realistic crime stories, initial investigations, compilation of evidences and finally getting hold of the criminal.
The creators have chosen those actors, who are simply perfect for police procedural dramas. The most striking fact is that their personality, facial expressions and dialogues complement this drama. It is really commendable that the criminal stories, which are presented in the series, are derived from real stories of the crime and the police world.
You can see for yourself how real it is!
A glimpse of reality in those legal trials, which take place in association with police, investigators, forensic investigators, lawyers and witnesses.
It is a little difficult to witness the compatibility of all the associates of legal trials in reality, but in Law and Order all takes place according to the system of the country. Perhaps, the creators want to teach everyone that anarchy takes place, only when the system and citizens are irresponsible.
The next most important thing that comes to my mind is that the show presents all those risks and difficulties that function like a hurdle in front of the investigator, while solving a criminal case. In addition to this, it also showcases those complications, which can cause great trouble in their career. The show projects, those risky as well life-taking incidents, which take place in the day to day life of a common man.
Whereas Law and Order is killing the reality meanwhile creators has planned for a special guest appearance of Jeremy Irons on Law and Order SVU.
Law and Order is one of the dramas, which showcases loopholes of the system. It never blames the existing system, but it just indicates the weak areas, so that the people and police understand the need of justice in life.
Former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin is one of the most influential Republican figures today. Her "mamma-grizzly" endorsements have won a surprising number of victories, and much of the Republican base holds admiration for her. It is almost natural, then, that many pundits consider her as a front-runner or strong candidate for the 2012 Republican nomination.
Democrats like this. They salivate at the prospect of a Palin candidacy, believing that her unpopularity with non-Republicans will enable any standard-fare Democratic candidate to crush her in a presidential election. This belief is probably true; it would take a remarkable set of circumstances for Ms. Palin to win a general election against Mr. Obama.
But Republicans know just as well as Democrats do that Ms. Palin could not win a general election. That is why they will never nominate former governor Sarah Palin for president, no matter how popular she is amongst the Republican base.
This is the second part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Colorado. It will focus on the Republican base in Colorado. The third part can be found here.
History
Once upon a time, Colorado was a loyally Democratic state. Influenced by prairie populism and anger against powerful Republican businessmen in the East Coast, the state usually voted further left than the country at large. The trend continued for seven straight presidential elections.
This ended at around 1924. Colorado voted twice against President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and throughout the remainder of the twentieth century remained a mainstay of Rocky Mountain conservatism. As late as 2005, a Republican politician might have good reason to see this as a permanent condition.
So here it is, almost halfway through this President's first term, and it's starting to become abundantly clear that there is no way Obama is going to pursue the same agenda that he ran on in 2008.
In fact, as the President announces a deal that even he agrees the majority of the American people do not support, and he prepares the Nation for the news that we're going to have to borrow money for the very tax cuts he said we couldn't afford a few weeks ago, it's starting to look like Obama isn't even going to pursue the same agenda he campaigned for in October.
Now it is true that a lot of the problem here is the President's-but it's also fair to say that we Progressives have failed to force the President, and certain reluctant Members of Congress, to govern in a way that promotes that agenda.
That's a real problem, and it needs a real solution; before we get done today I'll offer a suggestion that could be not only highly effective, and a lot of fun besides, but a great chance to release your artistic muse as well.
In the spring of 2010, President Barack Obama passed a momentous health care bill. Said bill dominated most of the political discourse during his first year; to date it constitutes one of the president's most substantial achievements.
In dealing with the issue of health care, Democrats faced a choice of whether to concentrate on cutting costs or extending coverage to the uninsured. For better or worse they chose to focus on the latter. Due to this choice, the health care bill is estimated to extend health care insurance to 32 million out of a total 55 million uninsured people.
This leaves, however, some 23 million people who will not benefit from health care reform. Some of these individuals will opt-out of buying health insurance voluntarily; for instance, young people may decide to pay a fine rather than buy government-mandated health insurance.
There is, however, a substantial population - numbering something like six to eight million people - who were unilaterally denied the right to health care. These people are some of the most despised in the United States, living in constant fear and harassment. They are almost all poor, disadvantaged, and denied the opportunity to advance in American society. Even a straight-A college graduate belonging to this population is confined to menial labor.
The Obama administration has also been antagonistic with this group of people. Indeed, Mr. Obama's health care bill explicitly prohibits undocumented immigrants from participating in the government programs it sets out.
STATE BLOGS
