Category: Elections

Crap

No Comments

Avigdor Lieberman, the head the #3 Yisrael Beiteinu Party just threw his support to Benyaman Netanyahu.

The question here is whether Yisrael Beiteinu demand the bigoted part of his party’s platform, or the secular part of his party’s platform to be Likud’s coalition partner.

The nature of Israeli politics is that he can only look for accommodations on one of these issues, particularly since his presence in the coalition would appear rule out a 4 way coalition between the 4 largest parties, Likud, Kadima, Yisrael Beiteinu, and Labor.

OK, This Puts Some Context in the Gregg Withdrawal

No Comments

It appears that Judd Gregg’s intended replacement, Bonnie Newman, was facing strong opposition from the Taliban wing of the Republican Party, and was likely to withdraw, which would have given Democratic Governor John Lynch the cover to appoint a Democrat.

Gee, I wonder why the Taliban wing of the Republican Party would be freaking out about a life long Republican who just happens to be a 63 year old unmarried woman.

To be fair, I haven’t found anything online about her personal life, except in comments on stories that “the Google” brought up, but there is a rumor out there, which would get Dobson and his ilk upset.

Zimbabwe: Tsvangerai Sworn in as PM

No Comments

So, Tsvangirai is finally PM, though, rather tellingly, his acceptance speech was not carried on state radio or TV.

Note that arrests by ZANU-PF aligned elements in the state security apparatus, and there is apparently an arrest order out for deputy agriculture minister nominee, Roy Bennett, and human rights lawyers have been placed arrested.

Meanwhile, treason charges against Tendai Biti have been dropped, which is a good thing, as the nominee for Finance Minister.

Truth be told, considering the state of finance in Zimbabwe, I might have gone with jail time.

On a less snarky note, Biti might very well be the person bets positioned to counterbalance Robert Mugabe, because he is the one who determines when, and how, civil servants get paid, and with Zimbabwe moving to abandon its own currency, the decision of who gets paid in $Z, and who gets paid in USD or Euro or Rand would be a very good way to create real disincentives for those agencies most willing to do Mugabe’s dirty work.

There are some new structures in place intended to create a more transparent and less political state security apparatus, but I am not optimistic that this will make much of a difference.

Another Prediction Goes South: Israeli Elections

No Comments

The projected results have Kadima out-polling Likud by one vote, 28 to 27, with Yisrael Beitenu next at 15 seats, and Labor in 4th place at 13 seats, Shas (ultra-orthodox Sephardic party) at 11, with the remaining 26 seats divided amongst 7 other parties who got between 3 and 5 votes.

While I am pleasantly shocked (and once again wrong in my prediction) that Livni out-polled Netanyahu, it’s still even odds that Bibi will be the next PM, as the bloc generally considered right wing numbers 62-63.

In any case, we are now well into coalition politics, which is less clear than an airline’s frequent flier program, as the graphics below hint:

Israel and the Overton Window

No Comments

First, a definition: The Overton window is a theory first voiced in this form by Joe Overton, which states that ideas, can be classifies as being either inside of or outside of the bounds of conversation in a group. It further notes that this window is not fixed, but rather it moves, and through the application of resources over a long term, can be made to move significantly.

Ideas can generally be classified as unthinkable, radical, acceptable, sensible, or popular, with the latter generally moving toward policy.

Israeli elections are today, and it is likely that the racist Yisrael Beitenu party will be the 3rd largest party in the Knesset, displacing Labor to 4th place.*

What I think people don’t realize is how much of a shift this is in Israel’s Overton window.

If one were to suggest at a party an expulsion of Israel’s Arab population in 1966, or an expulsion of the Palestinians in the territories in 1968 at a party, the response would have been stunned silence, with people looking at the speaker like they had just admitted to eating children, and that person would be ostracized at the party, and not invited back.

In fact, it could be argued that this was the societal norm well into the 1st Intifada, and possibly up to some time after the Oslo accords were implemented, and the PLO returned to Israel.

Now, we have a party which endorses ethnic cleansing without the movement of people, by redrawing the Israeli border to excise most of its Israeli Arab citizenry, on a path to have the third highest number of seats in Parliament.

This idea has already moved from unthinkable to acceptable for discussion for much of the Israeli population, and the desired political outcome for over 10% of the population, and likely exceeds the vote totals of YB will get, because of the dynamics of the Israeli proportional representation system and the fact that their party leader, Avigdor Lieberman† is stridently secular.

Needless to say, this marks a significant change in Israeli society, and to my mind, this is a profoundly negative change, and I do not see its trajectory changing in the foreseeable future.

*Much of their anemic performance in recent elections has to do with the fact that “big L” Labor has largely abandoned the concerns of “small L” labor in favor of a new Thatcherite economic consensus, but that is another post.
†It seems to be a constant that politicians named Lieberman are complete asswhipes.

Zimbabwe Passes Power Sharing Law

No Comments

Well the Zimbabwean parliament finally passed the constitutional amendments to enable a power-sharing government, though cabinet positions are still not set, and a number of MDC and human rights activists remain detained.

Governments in the west have softened their rhetoric, for a while, at least, but are maintaining the sanctions against Mugabe and senior ZANU-PF officials.

As to whether things are going to get better, the fact that Robert Mugabe’s wife just seized a farm, from a judge on Zimbzbwe’s high court….Damn….It takes stones to steal from a judge in broad daylight, so I’m not expecting things to turn better at any time soon.

In the meantime, Cholera is continuing it’s Zimbabwe concert tour, with the WHO saying that cases have broken 65,000.

I’m not sure if I am a realist, or a pessimist, but I don’t think that things are going to turn out well for the people of Zimbabwe.

Complications in the Iraqi Elections

No Comments

It appears that the al-Hadba Gathering, a Sunni Arab party, did well enough in local elections in Nineveh province to take control of the provincial council from the Kurds, which means that they have control of it and its its capital, Mosul.

The party, and its leader Atheel al-Nujaifi, took a fairly explicitly anti-Kurdish line during elections, and needless to say, the Kurds, who had previously held 31 of the council’s 41 seats, are not amused and are suggesting some level of electoral fraud.

While not a part of the Kurdish autonomous region, they Kurds have maintained that Mosul should be incorporated into this area.

Zimbabwe Government Formed, Etc.

No Comments

It appears that their parliament has passed a bill allowing for a unity government, as a result of the strong-arming of former South African president Mbeki and the South African Development Community (SADC).

As I’ve said before, I think that this will work as well as Nkomo’s incorporation into Zimbabwe government, as in not at all.

Meanwhile the EU will maintain sanctions against ZANU-PF officials, even though the
African Union has asked them to be lifted.

This is a good thing. The upper levels of ZANU-PF are nothing more than thieves, and denying them easy access to banks to hide their ill-gotten gains is a good start, particularly when Zimbabwe was just forced to issue new dollars worth a trillion times more than the old ones, because of hyper-inflation.

Zimbabwe Update

No Comments

It looks like the MDC will join the ZANU-PF in a unity government.

Unfortunately, it appears that the MDC will have no control of the state security apparatus, so I’m wondering if this will be as hollow as Nkomo entering government.

Of course, right now, government actually has to work, with current cases of cholera estimated to be in excess of 60,000, and the currency so debased that foreign currencies will now be allowed to be officially used in commerce.

I think that 5 years from now, there will be no Zimbabwean dollar at all.

The EU has tightens sanctions on prominent ZANU-PF members, but I don’t thing that this will amount to much

Hey! I Voted Against That Guy!

No Comments

Three Times!

Twice as Robert Leroy “Bob” Ehrlich, Jr.’s Lt. Governor, and once for the Senate when he ran against Ben Cardin.

Now Michael Steele has been elected chairman of the RNC.

My take on him is that he is really, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY stupid.

He is, after all the guy who compared stem cell research to the Holocaust…..to the Baltimore Jewish Council.

The frightening thing is that he might have been the smartest one there, what with Ken Blackwell, Katon Dawson, etc. being on the ballot.

I don’t think that he will make a lick of difference though.

The Road to 60 Through the Commerce Department?

No Comments

We are hearing reports that New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg (R) is being considered for Secretary of Commerce.

This is interesting for a number of reasons:

  • Secretary of Commerce is typically low profile, the last, and possibly only “Rock Star” Secretary of Commerce was Herbert Hoover.
  • Gregg is a sitting senator in a state that has become reliably blue, so this might be preferable to his standing for election in 2010.
  • The governor of New Hampshire is John Lynch, who is a Democrat, and would likely appoint a Democrat to the post.

If this is true, then, once the Norm Coleman clown show is done, we would have 60 votes against a filibuster, assuming, of course, that Joe Lieberman doesn’t knife the Dems in the back.

The Minnesota Election Trial Continues to be the Norm Coleman Clown Show

No Comments

Well, we just had another example of one of Coleman’s hand picked witnesses saying something that they shouldn’t, though this time, it was under cross, as opposed to direct, examination.

Peter DeMuth admitted that the Coleman challenge team cherry picked him, even though they have maintained that there has been no such activity:

Upon cross-examination by Franken attorney Kevin Hamilton, DeMuth said he was contacted by the Republican Party and told about the problem. “They asked me if I knew my absentee ballot had been rejected. I said no,” said DeMuth. “They asked me if I was a supporter of Norm Coleman, and I said yes, and they proceeded to ask me if I would like to go further.”

Let’s think about this for a moment: Over the last several days, the Coleman camp has said repeatedly that they are not cherry-picking who they’re helping out, that they don’t know who the people they’re advocating for actually supported, and for all they know they’re helping out Franken-voters.

This is becoming really pathetic.

I’m not sure why Norm Coleman and His Evil Minions&trade are doing this…My best guess, based on nothing, is that they figure that they will have a donation list that they can use in the future that is, as Rod Blagojevich would say, is “Bleeping Golden.”

The Norm Coleman Clown Show

No Comments

So, first the Coleman campaign submitted false documents to the judges, and now their own witnesses are admitting to completely bollixing up their absentee ballots:

One of the voters was Douglas Thompson, who admitted under oath that his girlfriend filled out his absentee ballot application for him, signing his name with her own hand and purporting to be himself. His ballot was rejected because the signature on his ballot envelope (his own) did not match the signature on the application (his girlfriend’s).

…

Another one of the voters, an older man named Wesley Briest, initially responded that he voted at the polls — not by absentee. Then Coleman attorney James Langdon showed him his absentee ballot envelope, reminding him that he did not go to the polls, too. Upon cross-examination by Franken lawyer Kevin Hamilton, Briest admitted that his wife, who served as the witness on his ballot, did not fully complete the witness section of the absentee ballot.

Jeebus, the stupid, it burns!

Bolivians Plebiscite Ratifies New Constitution

No Comments

Evo Moralez got the new constitution he wanted for Bolivia:

Bullet points

  • President can now hold 2 consecutive terms.
  • State ownership of water resources. (There was a water privatizaiton fiasco, where people were charge something like 1/3 of the monthly salary for water)
  • Reserved spaces in the legislature and bureaucracy for the Indian population.
  • Guarantees reproductive rights.
  • Removes Catholicism as the state religion.
  • Limits on the size of new landholdings.
  • Expands the states control of the economy.
  • Tightens state control of energy resources.

Generally, it looks like a good thing, though I am always dubious of mandates of ethnically allocated slots in either government or bureaucracy.

Early Elections in Iceland

No Comments

Because the citizens of that nation are experiencing the wonders of Milton Friedman’s theories, and so they want to throw the folks out who created this clusterf^%$, with the attendant demonstrations and confrontations with police.

These folks are Viking stock, and I think that soon to be former Prime Minister Geir Haarde, who is not standing for reelection, realized that his head would be on a pike if he did not call for new elections.