February 14, 2010 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
Newsmax, the ultra-right-wing political propaganda outfit that calls itself a news service, is once again using its news pages to push financial get-rich-quick schemes on its customers. While railing against any politician who happens to be a Democrat and who is struggling to fix the problems 30 years of Republican de-regulation of wrought on the American economy as anti-American, Newsmax has routinely sought to push its readers into risky foreign currency trading schemes. Now, it’s pitching financial services directly.
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January 28, 2010 :: Denver Lessing :: 4 Comments
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito last night revealed how deeply unfit he is to serve on the nation’s highest court. When Pres. Obama made the entirely factual statements that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC reversed a century of precedent on campaign finance regulation and would allow foreign corporations to spend money to influence US elections, Alito was seen shaking his head, grimmacing and mouthing something like “simply not true”. While it’s well documented how widely Obama —a Constitutional law scholar— and Alito differ on legal philosophy, Alito crossed a line with his reaction.
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January 9, 2010 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has been a relentless defender of the most aggressive tacts used during the Bush era to combat terrorism. The word aggressive applies to the attitude, of course, not the thoroughgoing nature or effectiveness of those policies. He is now attacking Pres. Obama for his response to the alleged terror plot that involved a Christmas Day bombing over Detroit, which was foiled. Yet Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate foreign relations committee, has called Cheney’s criticism unfair, and says Obama’s response has been “strong” and “decisive”.
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December 22, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is alleging “back-room dealmaking” and what he believes to be a misuse of office in Sen. Ben Nelson’s securing additional federal funding for his state’s Medicaid program, which is facing a severe budget shortfall. He wants the attorney general of his state to investigate whether anything unconstitutional was done in the dealmaking process. But Graham was part of numerous “dealmaking” sessions in the Bush-era Senate, in which corruption was not only alleged but was more or less publicly demonstrable.
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December 13, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) is fond of calling the entire global field of climate science “a hoax”, and not only advocates inaction to curb the unraveling of climate systems, but devoutly champions the expansion of the very activities that are driving the planet to crisis. Had he been in office during the catastrophic 1930s “Dust Bowl” and had he had any success in convincing government and farmers to apply such an approach, Oklahoma could have been turned into a permanent desert with the characteristics of a failed state in perpetual need of food aid and expensive imports.
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November 8, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: One Comment
The Democrats celebrated a major legislative victory last night, when they passed historic health reform legislation. Only one Republican joined in passing the measure, despite a last-minute success in attaching a partial ban on federal funding for abortions. With that provision in the final bill, the near unanimous Republican no-vote was effectively a vote against [...]
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October 26, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: One Comment
The Republican party has adopted one of the most mind-bending political stances seen in recent times: after decades of defaming every Democrat, every liberal of any kind, progressive politics in general and anyone who opposes their party’s line, as “weak on defense” or “soft on crime”, often using the most convoluted rhetoric to make the defamatory claims, 28 Republican senators and 131 Republican House members have now voted to cut off funding for the US military in order to give special rights to violent criminals driven by hate.
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October 20, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
ewsmax had in recent weeks tried to debunk Keith Olberman’s report that conservative blogs, political action committees and front groups were buying Sarah Palin’s book in massive quantities to rig book sales, by claiming they are doing the opposite, with the following claim: “But the truth is that Newsmax has not purchased one book from Amazon. In fact, we are offering the book both FREE and at an incredible discount to Amazon.”
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September 28, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
The vehement opposition being engineered by the Republican party against the market-oriented “public option” is proof the party does not favor market diversification or consumer choice, but rather rigged games that give huge payouts to specific interests. The Republicans’ argument is that private insurers should not diversify the plans they offer or have to compete in a more dynamic and diverse marketplace.
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September 16, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: One Comment
FOX News has relentlessly smeared and defamed the umbrella organization for volunteer community groups, ACORN, openly participating in a concerted nationwide effort to promote false charges of illegal activity and force the group to stop all involvement in efforts to bring urban and minority voters to the polls.
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September 14, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: One Comment
Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) presided over 200 executions between taking office in 2001 and June of this year. During that time, Texas executed three times more people than the next three states combined had executed since 1976. New investigations are now raising the question of just how many innocent people were sent to their deaths by a governor and a system that ignore legal obligations to examine new evidence or counter prosecutorial or judicial misconduct?
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September 9, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
The Republican party is suffering a period of decline and isolation. Certain elements in its leadership seek an ideological “purification” of the party, ousting anyone who does not agree with a hardline right-wing philosophy of evangelical conservatism — often with a near messianic devotion to militarism or to Machiavellian manipulations as a means to an end.
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September 8, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
Why is FOX News using images from the attacks of 11 September 2001, including voice-overs such as “enormous death toll”, to advertise its own airing of a documentary called “9/11: Timeline of Terror”? The ads are flagrantly disrespectful to all those who lost someone on that day: the tone is almost pornographic in nature, highlighting violence, terror and death as a point of attraction for those who might want to view their report.
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September 1, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
Why is Glenn Beck, the pseudo-emotional apocalyptic faux-evangelical conservative big mouth, bad news even for FOX News and its nakedly ideological content skew? In short, because even the most biased and uninformed viewers feel stupid listening to his lies. His antics are insulting to those he attacks, but also to those he seeks to woo, and his work is directly harming the conservative cause.
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August 15, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
The British government has ordered the UK-appointed governor of Turks and Caicos to suspend the ministerial government and assembly and institute direct rule, after an investigation turned up evidence of systemic official corruption. The order of direct rule will also suspend the right to jury trial in the Turks and Caicos, and the UK says the imposed rule could last up to 2 years.
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August 10, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: 4 Comments
The United States Congress, in both houses, has entered August recess without passing a comprehensive healthcare reform package, setting the stage for a withering month-long national debate, in which opposing sides are likely to attack each other as threatening to undermine the nation’s future. Anti-reform groups, reportedly linked to the Republican party, have orchestrated interruptions and heckling of officials seeking to explain the grave need for proposed reforms.
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July 18, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
Pictures and video from Tehran yesterday showed government forces storming into huge crowds of unarmed civilians, many of them gathered to support the opposition leaders who had gone to Tehran University to listen to Ayatollah Rafsanjani, a leading cleric and former president, deliver a sermon at Friday prayers. The security forces rode motorcycles into crowds of demonstrators and used teargas and batons to assault those assembled.
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July 13, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
The Wall Street Journal has reported that the secret CIA program, allegedly ordered concealed from Congress by then vice president Dick Cheney, was a plan to kill or capture Al-Qaeda operatives, in response to a 2001 directive of Pres. George W. Bush. The secret program’s existence —though not its details— became known last week when sources involved in the CIA director’s testimony on the issue made known Cheney’s involvement in ordering the CIA not disclose the program’s existence to Congress.
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July 2, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
Over the weekend, the nationwide media in the US were overtaken by a firestorm of speculation that Michael Jackson’s premature and sudden death, at the age of 50, was the result of a deadly cocktail of powerful painkillers and anti-depressants. Family and friends have complained of a close entourage of “enablers”, helping to intensify a long-running addiction and lead the pop star to his demise. One is tempted to ask, however: where were the doctors?
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June 18, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: 3 Comments
The state of Minnesota, and of course the netroots, are in a flurry of speculation today that the Minnesota Supreme Court may be preparing to hand down a ruling in the election contest between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. There is no news from the Court confirming the speculation that a verdict is imminent, but the hearing was more than two weeks ago, and Minnesota has been without its 2nd senator since January.
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June 14, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: 26 Comments
Skepticism of the results of Friday’s Iranian presidential vote, which run wildly counter to polling that showed challenger Mousavi with a commanding lead in the days before the vote, is now the accepted reaction across the world. Yet the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i almost immediately declared the dubious figures a “divine” mandate for Ahmedinejad, without any review or investigation into alleged irregularities whatsoever. Reaction to opposition supporters’ calls for an investigation or a new round of voting has been a swift and violent crackdown on demonstrators.
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June 11, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
The Associated Press is the most widely distributed news wire service in the world. Credible impartiality is vitally important to its reputation as an unbiased source of global reporting. However, that journalists might have opinions, perhaps informed opinions, on matters on which they are not reporting for pay should never be in and of itself cause for reprimand. The AP, like any reputable news agency, has a moral obligation to honor the inherent value of press freedom, and that includes the right of individuals to express their views in other venues.
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May 15, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
New reports from Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) suggest as many as 1 million people may have fled their homes to escape fighting between Taliban insurgents and government military forces. The Pakistani military lifted a curfew in the town of Mingora, in the Swat Valley, for 8 hours to allow civilians to evacuate, in advance of what it says will be a total assault against all militant positions there.
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May 12, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
The release of Roxana Saberi —an Iranian-American journalist sentenced to 8 years for espionage by an Iranian court allowing her little due process and with no known credible evidence against her— is an important victory for advocates of both fair trial and press freedom. But as her story, which played out on a global stage, has highlighted the need for action to curb persecution of journalists, questions are being raised about the treatment of journalists in the US ‘war on terror’.
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May 8, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
The tiny surface of the first effective ‘invisibility cloak’ allows light to bend around it in such a way that the optical density of an object underneath it is altered, generating the illusion of invisibility. There are ongoing efforts to build computerized overlays or built-in cladding that would allow even large vehicles like military tanks to appear invisible at a distance.
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April 29, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
The New Hampshire state Senate voted today to officially recognize same-sex marriage in the state. The bill passed by a 13-11 vote, and must still pass the state House before being sent to Gov. John Lynch for signature. The Senate measure distinguishes between religious and civil marriage ceremonies, a provision which might be able to win support among more conservative opponents of gay marriage.
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April 22, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
While clearly showing caution, taking care to repeat his position that prosecutions of former officials could be counterproductive, Pres. Obama today signaled that he does not rule out that some legal avenues may exist by which former Bush officials could face charges in relation to “enhanced interrogation” policy. The president did not, however, endorse any process of prosecution or call for action against any officials, saying instead “I don’t want to prejudge” what the attorney general might find legally necessary.
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April 14, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
An instrumental part of the radical smear effort being waged by well-funded conservative fringe groups against Pres. Obama is what is being called the ‘tea party’ movement. Members of the movement have been sending envelopes full of loose tea or tea bags, labeled “tax protest” to members of Congress, raising security concerns and provoking hazmat investigations, evacuations and other measures oriented toward addressing bio-chemical terror threats.
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March 15, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: 2 Comments
The web of interests concentrated in the National Rifle Association and which spends millions of dollars to lobby against gun control legislation in Congress may be inadvertently aiding in the reign of terror being waged by drug cartels in northern Mexico. Recent reports suggest as much as 90% of the weapons used by the cartels come from north of the border.
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March 2, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: 2 Comments
The Obama administration is looking at the severity of the banking crisis with a mind to settling the issue of survivability and recoverability of banks, case by case, based on facts in evidence. The first step will be to gather evidence, through a series of ’stress tests’ designed to examine what resources troubled banks have to weather oncoming storms, then plan according to the results of those tests.
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January 30, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
Pres. Barack Obama has announced the creation of a special task force on the prosperity of the middle class, to be headed by Vice-President Joe Biden. The president also said he views organized labor as “part of the solution” for an ailing economy, and said he would sign 3 executive orders to require federal contractors to let workers know their collective bargaining rights.
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January 19, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: 2 Comments
Facing an economic crisis of historic proportions, and with the nation reeling from several years of soaring fuel prices, in the face of mounting risks from climate destabilization, President-elect Barack Obama may issue an executive order to require fuel-efficiency be raised on all new vehicles.
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January 4, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
As the economic downturn deepens, and job losses continue, with the Treasury moving tens of billions of dollars in “bridge loans” into Chrysler, GM and GMAC, in hopes of preventing the collapse of American manufacturing and the loss of millions more jobs, with banks desperate enough to “deal over debt” that credit-card holders can no longer pay, President-elect Barack Obama is reported to be planning an expansion of unemployment assistance.
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January 3, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
After the unrest that spread across France in November 2005 —when Nicolas Sarkozy was interior minister and called for the mass deportation of French-born rioters of Arabic ethnicity—, a ritual of annual arson has sprung up, with hundreds of cars burned each year on 31 December. This year, the numbers soared by 30% over last year, reaching an estimated 1,147 cars fire-bombed or “burnt out”.
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December 24, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
Since the announcement of Gov. Blagojevich’s shocking insinuations, on recorded wiretaps, that he could or intended to sell the appointment to the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Obama, there has been speculation about whether any members of the transition team had contact with Blagojevich or might appear on the tapes. No allegation of any kind was made against any member of the transition, and the only “evidence” that had been included in the prosecutor’s court filings was that Blagojevich was angered by the unwillingness of anyone around Obama to participate.
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December 16, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
President-elect Barack Obama today announced his choice for secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, chief executive officer for the Chicago Public Schools system. “Arne is the most hands-on” of public schools reformers, according to the president-elect, who said that “when faced with tough decisions, Arne doesn’t blink; he’s not beholden to any one ideology”, that he takes action and achieves significant systemic improvements. Duncan has been superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools for 7 years, in which time, he has achieved a number of surprising statistical improvements in a troubled system.
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December 8, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
Demonstrations against Greek police, that began on Saturday in protest against the shooting of an unarmed 15-year-old boy by police, and which resulted in violent clashes between angry demonstrators and police, have moved into their third day. The New York Times reports that “A major street march through the center of downtown Athens quickly turned violent Monday night, as demonstrators threw concrete slabs, rocks and flaming gasoline bombs at police officers.”
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November 30, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: One Comment
We have to think very carefully about what it would mean if we took the accusations of some political leaders in India seriously when they say the origin of the attacks can be linked to Pakistan. More careful, more thoughtful intellectual lights in the Indian diplomatic corps or in party politics, have noted that while it is likely fair to say the official government of Pakistan was not responsible, it may also be true that there are militant “roots” somewhere in Pakistani society that supported or enabled the attacks. It must be said, there is no publicly known evidence to date.
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November 26, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
President-elect Barack Obama, in his third press conference in as many days, has announced a new entity, the independent Economic Recovery Advisory Board (ERAB), to be headed by former Fed chairman Paul Volcker. ERAB will include individuals from government, private business, organized labor and academia, pooling the knowledge and analysis of individuals with a wealth of experience and who are not bound by being employees of the president, in order to get the best advice for weathering the storm.
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November 20, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: One Comment
Cable news yesterday and today’s newspapers are full of references to the embarrassment Detroit’s “big three” automakers’ chief executives occasioned by flying to DC in 3 separate private jets to ask for a $25 billion “bailout” bridge loan. Pleading poverty while showing off the extravagance of one’s expenditures is poor form, no matter what the season, but it clearly displays a lack of awareness of how much the economic culture of the nation has changed.
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November 19, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
US vice president Dick Cheney has been indicted by a Texas grand jury for crimes related to an alleged prison-profiteering scheme, including but not limited to charges of “at least misdemeanor assaults”, due to his investments in certain firms. Former US attorney general Alberto Gonzales was also indicted, along with 5 other individuals. The indictment is connected to the dealings of an investment company, involving privatized federal prisons in Texas.
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November 17, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: One Comment
The cloud of soot and smog choking India and China and their neighbors is worsening. The massive brown cloud hovering over Asia now poses serious long-term health risks and environmental dangers to much of the continent, according to a new UN report. The world’s largest pollution phenomenon already drastically reduces the amount of daylight reaching ground level in many Chinese cities, and there is concern the sunlight-blocking effects could impede agricultural production.
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November 16, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: One Comment
Since California voted to ban same-sex marriage —legal there since a state supreme court ruling finding in favor of gay marriage rights on constitutional grounds— on 4 November, there have been daily demonstrations against the ban. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has expressed his hope that the ban will be overturned or repealed. On Saturday, 11 days after the ban was voted in by referendum, a nationwide rally for same-sex marriage rights achieved unprecedented numbers, with a presence in all 50 states.
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November 14, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that shortfalls in food aid to Zimbabwe could leave as many as 5.1 million people at risk of starvation by early next year. The southern African nation, beset by incomprehensible rates of inflation and an agricultural crisis, is now facing what may be the single most severe food security crisis in the world. WFP has made the announcement in conjunction with a cut in aid to Zimbabwe, due to lack of funding and a failed drive to raise funds to increase aid to the troubled state.
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November 10, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
A new report —drawing from “More than a half-dozen officials, including current and former military and intelligence officials as well as senior Bush administration policy makers, [who] described details of the 2004 military order on the condition of anonymity because of its politically delicate nature”— says the United States has conducted more than a dozen secret special forces raids, across borders around the globe to target Al Qaeda or other terrorist-linked sites, since 2004.
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November 3, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
2008 has already seen a heated contest for the integrity of the vote, with Republicans smearing groups like ACORN that work to register low-income and minority voters, and Democratic supporters accusing the GOP of trumping up claims about voter-fraud. We have seen repeatedly over the last 8 years, reports of major state-run operations, designed to reduce the number of registered voters able to cast ballots on election day, usingspurious claims of widespread voter fraud as a justification.
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October 17, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: One Comment
The US Supreme Court has reversed an order to the state of Ohio to allow the Republican party to organize an effort to question or counter the right of newly registered voters to cast ballots on election day. The Republican party had sought to repeat its efforts in the 2004 election, which led to 300,000 voters being denied the vote, in a state Bush carried by just 190,000 votes, and had won the right to challenge at least 120,000 registrations, possibly more than 200,000.
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October 2, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: 2 Comments
Senators Biden, Obama, McCain vote with majority (74 to 25) to support the financial rescue bill, including a raft of tax incentives aimed at creating economic stimulus, putting money in hands of non-banking interests. The Senate’s version of the rescue package includes tax credits for wind and solar power, “greening” the recovery plan so that individual Americans can begin to take action that will make the energy economy more sustainable and give leverage to those budding industries. Importantly, the bill also raises the FDIC cap for individual accounts to $250,000, from $100,000.
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June 23, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
Pres. Robert Mugabe has been accused by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, as well as numerous independent observers, of using state-backed and paramilitary violence to intimidate his opponents and “rig” the vote scheduled for 27 June. Now, the MDC’s leader Morgan Tsvangirai has withdrawn his candidacy for the vote, calling the entire process illegitimate. Tsvangirai won more votes than Mugabe in the 1st round of voting, even by the state’s official count, which many believe may have been manipulated in order to force a runoff.
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December 4, 2006 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
PRESS CREDULITY, WEB OF CONNECTIONS BREEDING ‘BLAME VICTIM’ SPECULATION
In the wake of the poisoning of former KGB spy Alexandr Litvinenko, by exposure to intensely radioactive polonium-210, allegations have turned from state terrorism to corrupt oligarchs, to questions of a blackmailing scheme. What now looks to be a major issue is whether there is an effort [...]
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