tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-388725362009-06-30T14:43:56.359-04:00Activism at the polls and on the streets ... from the Progressive Review, over 40 years of providing the news before it happens. . . edited by Sam SmithTPRnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1829125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-89899851717130731062009-06-30T14:43:00.001-04:002009-06-30T14:43:56.366-04:00

Yeas & Nays, Washington Examiner - Writing in this month’s Vanity Fair, Todd Purdum catalogs just how rapidly Sarah Palin has burned through friends and confidantes. Walter Hickel, the former Alaska governor who chaired Palin’s gubernatorial campaign in 2006, told Purdum, “I don’t give a damn what she does.”And John Bitney, a junior-high school friend and former legislative liaison for Palin,

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-66211117586150333362009-05-31T21:43:00.001-04:002009-05-31T21:43:50.406-04:00

Jeff Clark, Down East - Portland (Maine) has been a Democratic stronghold for decades, the party’s grip on power so absolute that Republicans often don’t even bother to run candidates in local elections - which officially are nonpartisan but in practice are as political as any senate race. But these days the Greens are widely acknowledged as the city’s new second party, displacing the GOP in both

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-76171388041422814302009-05-26T12:08:00.000-04:002009-05-26T12:11:52.900-04:00

Phillip Bannowsky, News Journal DE - No less a "capitalist tool" than Forbes Magazine let a red cat out of the bag with a report this month that the happiest countries tend to be Scandinavian socialist democracies. High per-capita GDP certainly plays a role in their felicity, but even social democratic New Zealand, with per-capita GDP only 64 percent of the United States', ranks with the 10

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-44749728078359480542009-05-24T11:06:00.001-04:002009-05-24T11:06:58.053-04:00

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TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-67931884496311874162009-05-18T10:04:00.000-04:002009-05-18T10:05:24.077-04:00

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TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-41007285559278137712009-05-13T00:41:00.001-04:002009-05-13T00:41:51.951-04:00

Jim Hightower, The Hightower Lowdown - Populism is not a style, nor is it a synonym for "popular outrage." It is a historically grounded political doctrine (and movement) that supports ordinary folks in their ongoing democratic fight against the moneyed elites.The very essence of populism is its unrelenting focus on breaking the iron grip that big corporations have on our country--including on

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-71168426010554665932009-05-12T17:14:00.001-04:002009-05-12T17:25:36.588-04:00

Josiah Swampoodle - The only people Obama and congressional leaders are barring from the table in discussions of healthcare reform are people who advocate healthcare reform. You can't solve a problem by only talking to those who created it. James Ridgway, Unsilent Generation<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-50305371925514190882009-05-08T15:37:00.000-04:002009-05-08T15:38:09.928-04:00

Chris Bowers, Open Left - The relevant question on Arlen Specter's switch to the Democratic Party is not why he did it, but instead why every Republican Senator hasn't joined him. Switching is a pretty good deal:1. You don't have to change any votes.2. You get a subcommittee chairmanship. . . 3. You get a promise of no primary challenges, and overall campaign support, from the entire Democratic

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-28067626471776068472009-05-08T15:30:00.002-04:002009-05-08T15:36:51.191-04:00

Rob Richie, Fair Vote - Aspen (CO) became the latest city to implement instant runoff voting. It was a hotly contested election, with three challengers to an incumbent mayor and seven challengers to two incumbent city councilors in at-large races. IRV passed in flying colors:Record turnout - more people voted than ever before in an Aspen city election.All races were decided by instant runoffs. No

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-83224704664619846762009-05-07T14:39:00.001-04:002009-05-07T14:39:19.191-04:00

NY Times - Under intense analysis of his every move and utterance, Mr. Specter canceled a scheduled appearance on Wednesday night on "Larry King Live" on CNN.Behind the scenes, he was scrambling to find money to save the jobs of several aides after losing the payroll authority that came with his position as senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee and various subcommittees.Mr. Specter also

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-92102379772996524042009-05-04T16:34:00.001-04:002009-05-04T16:34:59.494-04:00

Pew Research - Over the first four months of 2009, the Republican Party has continued to lose adherents. In total, the GOP has lost roughly a quarter of its base over the past five years.But these Republican losses have not translated into substantial Democratic gains. So far in 2009, 35% of adults nationwide identify as Democrats, about the same as in 2008 (36%). While GOP identification has

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-78836577729752253602009-04-29T15:05:00.001-04:002009-04-29T15:05:14.066-04:00

Although Senator Arlen Specter's switch is being hailed by the media as a triumph for the Democratic Party, it's much more a sign of its collapse. As William Timberman wrote in Open Left: "Arlen Specter is a good Democrat, and we're extremists. More jiu-jitsu, maybe, but I'd say that it smells more like Rahm Emanuel, Tim Geithner, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, Joe Lieberman, and all the rest of

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-29643547592161633942009-04-27T16:38:00.000-04:002009-04-27T16:39:12.799-04:00

Politico - "I'm not in Washington, D.C., to serve President Obama or to serve any interests other than the interests of this country or the interests of this state," [Senator Byron Dorgan] said in an interview. "North Dakotans know — they know that I'm fiercely independent.". . . Dorgan is skeptical of Obama's choice of Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner to resurrect the economy, arguing that

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-7471938833182433022009-04-15T23:21:00.001-04:002009-04-15T23:21:31.843-04:00

John Gurda, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - To many Americans, socialism means being governed by the government - suffocating under layers of bureaucracy that sop up tax dollars and smother individual initiative.And that's the positive view. Some critics carelessly lump socialism together with anarchism or even communism. After invoking the "s" word at the recent conservative conference, former

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-870506129611732352009-04-06T12:56:00.000-04:002009-04-06T13:50:35.030-04:00

Washington Times - National Popular Vote, a California-based group formed in 2006, has won commitments from four states to award their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. Those four states - Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois and Hawaii - have 50 electoral votes among them.The goal is for states with a total of 270 electoral votes to enter into a compact in which they agree to give

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-60279376490208430552009-03-26T14:16:00.000-04:002009-03-26T14:17:02.418-04:00

Roll Call - Liberal House Democrats are stewing that they have yet to get face time with President Barack Obama, despite his whirlwind charm offensive that has ushered every other major faction of the Caucus into the White House for private meetings."Members are either taking it as a slight, or that we're irrelevant in the planning process," said Rep. Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), co-chairman of the

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-78187566440943870422009-03-25T16:19:00.000-04:002009-03-25T16:22:51.412-04:00

McClatchy - The CIA, which has been monitoring foreign countries' use of electronic voting systems, has reported apparent vote-rigging schemes in Venezuela, Macedonia and Ukraine and a raft of concerns about the machines' vulnerability to tampering.Appearing last month before a U.S. Election Assistance Commission field hearing in Orlando, Fla., a CIA cybersecurity expert suggested that Venezuelan

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-50477678871408562492009-03-24T11:01:00.001-04:002009-03-24T11:01:47.847-04:00

Unsilent Generation - The cover of Newsweek on the stands today reads "The Thinking Man's Guide to Populist Rage." . . . The issue is filled with serious essays on the subject, by Michael Kazin, Eliot Spitzer, and others. And in this morning's New York Times, John Harwood makes similar claims, painting people's anger at Wall Street as part of a populist resurgence. Harwood's most prominent source

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-2806639733944501452009-03-23T15:25:00.000-04:002009-03-23T15:56:07.223-04:00

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TPRnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-20244609028048171982009-03-20T16:15:00.001-04:002009-03-20T16:15:31.899-04:00

Brad Blog - Kentucky officials arrested and indicted today, "including the circuit court judge, the county clerk, and election officers" of Clay County, have been charged with "chang[ing] votes at the voting machine" and showing others how to do it. . .According to the indictment, these alleged criminal actions affected the outcome of federal, local, and state primary and general elections in

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-12858897146360612612009-03-18T15:25:00.001-04:002009-03-18T15:25:51.617-04:00

Wired - Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems) admitted in a state hearing that the audit logs produced by its tabulation software miss significant events, including the act of someone deleting votes on election day. The company acknowledged that the problem exists with every version of its tabulation software.The revelation confirmed that a problem uncovered by Threat

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-61529576105291791242009-03-17T14:38:00.001-04:002009-03-17T14:38:24.427-04:00

Sam SmithEgregious as the bonuses being given the AIG crowd are, they are a miniscule part of the bailout and while they need to be dealt with, we shouldn't obsess over them.Politicians and the media love to get us in a furor over minor segments of a much larger problem, in part because they can understand bits and pieces while the real crisis leaves them and others befuddled.Far more serious

TPRnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-22430784954484354632009-03-13T13:39:00.001-04:002009-03-13T14:56:04.302-04:00

Douglas E. Schoen and Scott Rasmussen, Wall Street Journal - It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true.The American people are

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-20381358451911268152009-03-11T12:55:00.001-04:002009-03-11T12:59:02.711-04:00

No one has done a better job of covering election count problems than Brad Friedman of Brad Blog. Here's his list of the most needed reforms: - Hand-Marked Paper Ballots For All: All ballot selections, in all federal elections, must be hand-marked by the voter, on paper ballots, except for ballots marked by a non-tabulating assistive device, as may be required to meet HAVA's accessibility voting

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38872536.post-6727808515959796712009-03-06T16:22:00.001-05:002009-03-06T16:22:53.651-05:00

Fair Vote - Burlington, Vermont's instant runoff voting election went off without a hitch, the same as in 2006. If anything, it was even more successful. Interestingly, the city spent almost nothing on voter education this time (and less than 25 cents per voter in 2006). In 2006, for example, the city mailed a postcard to every residence explaining the new voting method, hung banners of busy

TPRnoreply@blogger.com0