Interestingly enough, it looks like this presidential election is going to be about the rejection of a party, as opposed to the rejection of a candidate, which really has not happened since, depending on how you figure it, either 1932 or 1952.
There are now reports that Arthur Mutambara, whose party, the MDC-Mutambara, has 7 seats, and thus the margin of majority in the Zimbabwean parliament, may have cut a deal with Mubame, though his representatives are denying this, or claiming that there is a deal, but that it would not take effect unless Morgan Tsvangerai, or at least the MDC-Tsvangerai, was also a part of the agreement.
If this is a sellout by MDC-M of MDC-T, which I see as likely, then we know why Mugabe agreed to talks, because he needed time to stack the deck.
Fundamentally, it the level of venom by entrenched interests in former Spanish possessions is even now a surprise to me a bit, but there are historical reasons for this.
For most of the existence of the Spanish monarchy, the king was the absolute ruler of the nation, and the nobility were absolute rulers of their domains, and it was believed that this was God’s will.
Hence, as any student of English history knows, when the English crown ignored their responsibilities under the Magna Carta, the refrain was always that England, “Wasn’t Spain.”
The belief by the Spanish crown and the nobility that their positions by virtue of God’s will transferred down to the landed gentry in Spain’s former colonies, particularly in Latin America, where there is a real divide between those of Spanish ancestry and those of Amerindian ancestry.
So, even minor efforts toward land reform, which would not be viewed positively by any land holding class, is also literally viewed as an affront to God.
As a result, I would expect to see political instability for some time to come.
Interestingly enough, my (very Republican, so not voting in the Dem Primary) Brother-inlaw lives in the district, but in any case this is good news for America, for a number of reasons:
Bigotry has been repudiated.
The Harold Ford machine just got its butt kicked.
EMILY’s List got schooled, and will hopefully get better at vetting candidates.
Rahm Emmanuel who is a close friend of Harold Ford, and kept DCCC moany away from Cohen got pwn3d.
Steve Cohen is one of the best Freshman out there.
And someone found a copy of the disgusting anti-Semitic ad on the web:
I would note that the DoJ having to subpoena former DoJ lawers, even political appointees, is almost unheard of, but it’s pretty clear that former Civil Rights Division* head Bradley Schlozman, and Hans “der Novotenfuhrer” von Spakovsky, former counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights are under some serious legal jeopardy, with credible allegations of perjury before Congress, and also appeared to be hip deep in the hiring scandal.
Now that her repulsive strategy has been revealed for all to see, and made embarrassingly public by KO’s “Worst Person” comment, EMILY’s List has condemned the ad, but has not, at least not yet, withdrawn the endorsement.
I understand the dynamic, EMILY’s list, they are frequently accused of ignoring the minority community and that their supported candidates are too white, but this endorsment, when the bigotry was on full display for months is stupid.
Barack Obama’s campaign has condemned the ads too but in kind of mealy mouthed way. They mention no names.
Finally, the Skeptical Brotha has a rundown on what Nikki Tinker does when she is not running for office: She is Vice President for Labor Relations and General Counsel for Pinnacle Airlines, which means that, “She specializes in destroying employee rights to collectively bargain and be free from workplace racial discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.“
I would also note that she is one of Harold Ford’s protégés, who is now the chair of the DLC, and has yet to find a Republican talking point that he does not like, she was his campaign managers in one of his largely uncontested campaigns.
Hopefully, she loses big, and hopefully, EMILY’s list catches enough flak to improve their vetting process.
According to this translation of an article in Al Sabaah, the US military would lose its unilateral arrest powers, and there would be a withdrawl in the 2010-11 time frame, which sounds a lot like Barack Obama’s game plan.
It seems to be tied into provincial elections somehow, see Fail below, so I’m not sure where everything is right now.
I’m beginning to think that the Ford machine is a cancer on the Tennessee, and the US Democratic party.
It appears that Harold Ford, who refused to endorse the incumbent, Steve Cohen (yes, he’s Jewish and white) in the general in 2006, has now decided that it needs to be brought back into the purview of the Ford machine.
In this case, one of his proteges, one Nikki Tinker is apparently losing, because she’s going hard on race on religion, with her proxies putting out this flier, which Ms. Tinker hasn’t even bothered to make a perfunctory denunciation of.
But, as the Ronco announcer says, wait, there’s more!!!!
She’s now run an ad, which she has now pulled off of Youtube,
While he’s in our churches, clapping his hands and tapping his feet … he’s the only senator who thought our kids shouldn’t be allowed to pray in school
It’s a clear, and enthusiastic appeal to anti-semitism, and as Olberman says, “It has no place from a Democratic candidate, or a Republican Candidate, or a white candidate, or a black candidate. It is Shameful.“
I would note a clip of Keith is below.
I would also note that Emily’s List apparently threw in some big bucks for her campaign, which one should consider if they hit you up for donations.
In all fairness, Emily’s List condemned the ads, but they should have know who and what she was. She ran in 2006 too.
I’m wondering if that might have anything to do with the announcement by the MDC that they have no intention of returning land seized from white farmers, though they will, “ask the international community and multilateral lenders to help compensate farmers whose farms were confiscated by Mugabe’s government since 2000”.
It might also just be the fact that the only thing less popular in Zimbabwe than Mugabe is returning the land to white farmers.
As our 33rd president of the United States once said, “When people have the choice between a real Republican and a fake Republican, they’ll choose the real thing.”
It appears that Kurt Beck, head of the German Social Democrats, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, their most likely candidate for premier in the next election, are discovering just how right Truman was.
They are unable to do anything to lower Angela Merkel’s popularity, and the party is now hemorrhaging members to the “Left Party”, created from trade unionists and the ashes of the old East German communist party.
If they have any chance of returning to power, they will necessarily have to be in coalition with the Left Party, and probably the Green Party too, but the LP would require more concessions, if the GP’s time in the coalition is any indication.
The LP would likely require a roll back of some of the anti-worker and anti-safety net policies of Shroder, which are a much bigger deal than the GP’s focus on environmental issues.
There is also a pensioner party forming to resist cutbacks in government pensions which may grab a few seats in the next elections.
It appears that his efforts to file criminal complaints against Planned Parenthood, and to subpoena all their patient records have convinced Kansas voters that they want nothing to do with this butt wipe.
He hasn’t won an election since went postal on Planned Parenthood and he was defeated as Kansas AG. He was appointed as Johnson County DA, because that was the guy who won the race for AG.
Fearing an imminent court defeat that would further increase MDC’s parliamentary majority Robert Mugabe’s military junta is considering a law forbidding the courts to invalidate his defeated Zanu (PF) party’s victories in 60 constituencies facing legal challenges, official sources say. The MDC is challenging the results of the March 29 elections in 60 constituencies, where they say electoral fraud, violence and intimidation of voters compromised the returns.
These are not the actions of a man, or a party, willing to negotiate in good faith.
One final note, they have dropped 10 zeros off the currency, meaning that a 10 billion Zimbabwean dollar is now 1 new Zimbabwean dollar, to deal with inflation, but with inflation running at something like 15,000,000%, it will not help for long.
This may finally be what takes Mugabe and his cronies down.
The total amount of dollars from the Navy would be similar, but the Burkes have more local content, as the Zumwalts are made from modules from all around the country (the better to spread the pork around to many Congressional districts)and then assembled at Bath Iron Works, so the Burkes mean more money for Maine, which should be a selling point for Allen.
