The Lost, The Dead, and The Unregistered

 Posted by Mike  2012 Election, Book Related, U.S. Politics  No Responses »
Feb 142012
 

The Pew Center released a report today which outlined the huge problems with voter registration in the United States. The report mentions really two separate issues:

1) Roughly 1/4 of all eligible voters, about 51 million people, are not properly registered to vote. In 2008 this caused more than 2 million voters who either showed up to the poll or filled out ballots to not have had their vote counted. And that’s not counting the people who realized at the last minute that they wanted to vote, but didn’t because they hadn’t properly registered.

2) Roughly 1/8 of all active registrations are invalid, including 1.8 million dead people, 2.8 million people with active registrations in more than one state, and up to 12 million with incorrect contact information.
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Iowa Caucus: What Is It Good For?

 Posted by Mike  2012 Election, Book Related  No Responses »
Jan 042012
 

One primary down, fifty-some to go. (Territories get delegates too, although not many on the GOP side of things.) Michelle Bachmann (sixth place) has quit the race, Rick Perry (fifth place) did some soul searching before deciding to carry on, skepticism about New Gingrich (fourth place) is growing, while Ron Paul (third), Rick Santorum (second) and Mitt Romney (first) are all media darlings for the day. And all because 120,000 Republicans took the first steps towards selecting 25 delegates (out of more than 2200 nationwide), whose votes at the national convention are not actually bound by last night’s results. So what’s the big deal?
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The Creation of the Palestinian People

 Posted by Mike  2012 Election, Israel and Palestine  No Responses »
Dec 132011
 

The thing I love about Newt Gingrich is that whenever he finds himself with one foot in his mouth, he decides that the best way to maintain his balance is to put the other one there as well. In this particular case, I’m talking about comments he made over the weekend regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Gingrich had previously created a bit of a stir by calling the Palestinians a “invented” people. During the latest GOP debate, Gingrich refused to back down:

“Is what I said factually correct? Yes. Is it historically true? Yes. Are we in a situation where every day rockets are fired into Israel? While the United States, the current administration tries to pressure the Israelis into a peace process… Somebody ought to have the courage to tell the truth. These people are terrorists.”

So, because he asked, let’s look at the history. Continue reading »

Foreign Policy Baby Steps

 Posted by Mike  2012 Election, Foreign Policy  No Responses »
Nov 302011
 

Herman Cain recently released a foreign policy platform. First of all, I applaud him for doing so. While the platform has many, many faults (which I will get to in a moment) the fact that he’s stepped beyond warning Americans that China is on the verge of developing nuclear weapons is a dramatic improvement. (In case you’re curious, China has actually had nuclear weapons for almost 50 years now, and is widely believed to have the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world behind the US and Russia.) So, while I’m about to criticize almost everything he says in that platform, the platform’s basic existence is a step in the right direction.

Unfortunately, the details of the platform are pretty disappointing. Continue reading »

Protecting Congress from Vigilante Politicians

 Posted by Mike  2012 Election  No Responses »
Nov 152011
 

Rick Perry’s latest idea for remaking the federal government involves increasing turnover among our legislative and judicial branches. In a speech today, Perry proposed four ideas for “overhauling Washington”:

1) Reduce Congressional pay by between half and 3/4.
2) Cut back on the amount of time Congress is in session.
3) Dramatically reducing the budget of Congress.
4) Set 18 year terms for all members of the federal judiciary (including the Supreme Court)

Here’s why Perry doesn’t know what he’s talking about, in order:
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