Day: April 25, 2008

Ballot Box Gives What Revolution Cannot

For many many years Maoist guerrillas fought to control the country of Nepal.  Many deaths and many peace attempts and nothing was accomplished but more and more blood shed.  Recently a peace accord was signed and basically all parties honored it with minor outbreaks of violence here and there.

Then the election process began and the results were not what most of the world was looking for.

Nepal’s Maoists have accomplished at the ballot box what they did not achieve as guerrillas on the battlefield — winning a chance to transform their country.

Officials said Thursday that the former rebels have won the most seats in the Himalayan nation’s new governing assembly.

The Maoists, who are still considered terrorists by the United States, took more than double the number of their nearest rival in an April 10 election meant to seal a peace deal that ended their decade-long insurgency.

While the Maoists will not have an absolute majority in the 601-seat Constituent Assembly, they are expected to form the backbone of Nepal’s new government and usher in sweeping changes to the impoverished country.

Now we will see if they will try and push their Maoist ideology or if it was just they wanted the power to control the country.  Once again, extremist gain more power through the ballot box than with the gun.

Lott’s New Gig

Jackson Free Press: Jackson, Mississippi – Noise – Lott Uses Old Campaign Cash to Help Lobbying Clients

Gee, Trent is not wasting anytime becoming a inside moving and shaking. But let me see, should not that money be used for something other than feathering Lott’s bed? Let me see the money was donated to help Lott out during his political heyday. Here is a thought. Why does that money belong to a candidate if they are no longer running for office, if it was given in that spirit? The money was given in good faith to a candidate to serve the people, not add to his personal bank account. Since he was a “servant of the people” the money belo0ngs back where it originated

McCain And Poverty

John McCain has said the government is not the only answer to solving the problem of poverty. Here are his thoughts on poverty.

In his formal remarks, Mr. McCain distinguished himself from Johnson as a Republican who would not turn solely to government for solutions to poverty. “I have no doubt President Johnson was serious and had the very best of intentions when he declared the war on poverty in America,” Mr. McCain said. “But the army that he enlisted was mostly drawn from the ranks of government bureaucracies.”

In contrast, Mr. McCain called for a “People Connect Program” that would provide tax breaks to private companies and federal loans and low-interest bonds to small towns to help provide high-speed Internet service to isolated communities like Inez — a way, he said, “to knit together all of the United States with 21st-century information networks” that “will make location less of a factor in the potential for economic success.”

This is just lovely. This has been the answer to poverty the whole time tax cuts for the rich……someone please explain that thinking to me. I have missed that chapter on social justice. But have that types of solutions been tried in the last decades and poverty continues and continues to rise. So once again, I ask you to explain this thinking to me.

New Game For Iraq

Sadr threatens to start new war against US, Sunnis agree to return to the government. This all is becoming one large game in Iraq.

Iraq’s largest Sunni bloc has agreed to return to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s cabinet after a boycott that lasted nearly a year, several Sunni leaders said on Thursday, citing a recently passed amnesty law and the Maliki government’s crackdown on Shiite militias as reasons for the move.

The Sunni leaders said they were still working out the details of their return, an indication that the deal could still fall through. But such a return would represent a major political victory for Mr. Maliki in the midst of a military operation that has at times been criticized as poorly planned and fraught with risk. The principal group his security forces have been confronting is the Mahdi Army, a powerful militia led by Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric. Even though Mr. Maliki’s American-backed offensive against elements of the Mahdi Army has frequently stalled and has led to bitter complaints of civilian casualties, the Sunni leaders said that the government had done enough to address their concerns that they had decided to end their boycott.

Sadr calms down, sunnis leave government, sunnis return to government, Sadr starts thumping his war chest….do you guys see a pattern here? It is becoming all too predictable. It is not even a good game of political chess they are playing.

Congress Gets Its Props

I have been one of the biggest critics of the Congress. I have called them do noting and lame, but I will give props where props are deserved.

The media has been allowed by president after president to be owned or controlled by corporations and senator Dorgan is trying to stop this control.

The Federal Communications Commission defied some members of Congress in 2007 by easing a ban on ownership of a newspaper and a broadcast station in the same city.

Yesterday, the lawmakers took the first step toward getting even.

The Senate Commerce Committee unanimously approved a rare “resolution of disapproval” to invalidate the FCC’s new rules, as concerns about media consolidation escalated in the wake of News Corp.‘s negotiations to buy a second New York newspaper.

“We really do literally have five or six major corporations in this country that determine for the most part what Americans see, hear and read every day,” said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota who is the lead sponsor of the resolution. “I don’t think that’s healthy for our country.”

Both Sen. Clinton and Obama are signed on board of this effort. The real test will be if the Prez vetoes, will they overrride.