February 12, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
There is a fallacy at the heart of the political discourse of late 20th and early 21st century America: that conservatives and liberals are diametrically opposed, unable to work together, and committed at their very core to one another’s destruction. Certainly, when ideology comes into the debate, there are hotly contested arguments to be had. But honest conservatives and honest liberals have a lot more in common than we normally admit.
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February 8, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The people of Egypt today mark 14 days of nonviolent uprising against a brutal military regime that has ruled with near total power for 30 years. The peaceful protests are an astonishing coalition of educated and working-class, Muslim and Christian, secularist and religiously driven, old and young, male and female, and yet they are in fact a peaceful citizen-driven revolution against tyranny. The Mubarak regime has waged a brutal assault on peaceful demonstrators, human rights monitors and international press, and now there is concern the international attention may turn away.
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February 7, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
After intense pressure from Amnesty International, foreign governments, private business and the press, Egypt’s new vice president Omar Suleiman pledged yesterday that Wael Ghonim, a Google executive who is reputed to have launched a Facebook page denouncing police brutality and political persecution, would be freed. He was abducted by regime police near the beginning of the pro-democracy demonstrations, on 28 January, and was not heard from publicly till today.
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February 6, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
On Tuesday, more than one million Egyptians turned out for mass demonstrations in cities across the country. On Friday, crowds massing in central Cairo and Alexandria were reported to be even larger than the Tuesday crowds, despite brutal and bloody assaults by pro-Mubarak militia on Wednesday and Thursday. It is now day 13 of the Egyptian transition to demonstrations, and opposition leaders are reportedly negotiating with the government to shape an orderly and peaceful process of transition.
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February 4, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Over the last two days, Hosni Mubarak has made Cairo the most dangerous place in the world for journalists. After Mubarak’s new prime minister issued an “apology” for the lethal violence waged by pro-Mubarak gangs on Wednesday and into Thursday’s pre-dawn hours, the government appeared to be engaged in an even more intense campaign of violent assaults on unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators and journalists.
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February 2, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: 4 Comments
The suspicion now seems to have been demonstrated to be fact: news media across the world have shown images from Cairo of police ID cards recovered from rioting pro-Mubarak forces allegedly paid to assault journalists and pro-democracy demonstrators. The Mubarak regime has seized control of state media, is lying the Egyptian people, and is paying “goon squads” to brutally assault journalists and unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators.
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February 1, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Marking one full week of mass demonstrations, on the 8th day of the pro-democracy popular uprising, the Egyptian people staged the largest demonstration to date. Estimates for the size of the crowd at Midan Tahrir —or Liberation Square— range from 500,000 to 2 million. Some say more may have come to central Cairo but were unable to enter the square. The military pledged not to attack or interfere with demonstrators and the rally was peaceful. Security, both military and civilian, checked people entering the square to ensure there would not be violence.
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January 31, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
A new body, called the People’s Parliament, is planning a process of peaceful and orderly transition to an electoral democracy in Egypt. The People’s Parliament has 100 delegates, representing every major opposition party, including the Muslim Brotherhood (which holds 16 seats), and is reported to also have caucuses representing youth, academia, labor unions and professionals. The People’s Parliament has grown out of the National Assembly for Change, a coalition of opposition groups that has been organizing since 2009, to bring about this transition.
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January 31, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Thousands of Egyptian protesters are holding Tahrir Square, which has repeatedly been closed by security forces. Reports from Cairo suggest embattled Pres. Hosni Mubarak is moving to reassert control over major sections of the capital, but has yet to order an offensive against protesters in the main square. Mubarak told the nation he has asked his new prime minister to engage in dialogue with the opposition to promote democratic reform in Egypt.
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January 30, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: 5 Comments
NBC journalist Richard Engel told the weekly program Meet the Press today that Egypt is experiencing a “basic collapse of law and order” and that looting overnight, prison breaks and street violence are being blamed on Pres. Hosni Mubarak, whom many say is using the unrest to make freedom appear undesirable. There are rumors that prison breaks have been “allowed” in order to frighten the people and that police have been withdrawn in order to justify their return with extreme brutality.
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January 29, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: 5 Comments
Day 5 of the Egyptian pro-democracy uprising against the 30-year rule of Pres. Hosni Mubarak saw massive crowds of tens of thousands marching through Cairo, Alexandria and other cities across the country. While many images show demonstrators standing with or even riding joyously with military personnel on security vehicles, there were clashes near the Interior Ministry, where government snipers killed at least 12 demonstrators.
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January 29, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: 5 Comments
Two days ago, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was similarly artful in her response to the protests: she called on “both sides” to refrain from violence and urged the administration of Hosni Mubarak to honor the “universal rights” of the people of Egypt, including the rights to assembly, association and expression. Mubarak has not been seen or heard from publicly since the crisis began, and observers speculate he may be considering concessions that would allow him to remain in power, at least temporarily.
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January 28, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: 7 Comments
Pro-democracy protests are spreading across the Arabic-speaking world. After popular middle-class protests ended the authoritarian reign of Pres. Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt has been gripped by mass street demonstrations, in Cairo, in Alexandria, in Suez. Hosni Mubarak’s regime has responded with brutal attacks in demonstrators and an expanding ban on Internet usage and other forms of communication. Now, a pink revolution has flooded the streets of Sana’a, the capital of Yemen.
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January 26, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
One seat was left vacant, in honor of Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ), who is currently recovering from a severe gunshot wound to the head, suffered during an assassination attempt that killed 6 people. Pres. Obama opened his remarks with a tribute to the new Speaker of the House, John Boehner of Ohio, a unifying gesture that won loud applause from the hall. Obama then struck a somber tone and asked everyone to consider the lessons of the tragedy in Tucson.
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January 22, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
Liberal cable news powerhouse Keith Olbermann, one of the staunchest and most successful critics of the Republican party’s politics, has abruptly resigned from his show Countdown, on MSNBC. Olbermann’s success had driven MSNBC, which had dismissed then top-rated host Phil Donohue for criticizing the Iraq war effort, to re-orient its editorial stance toward the more progressive end of the political spectrum.
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January 18, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
There is little doubt that the United States is experiencing a long-term crisis in the scarcity of gainful employment. It is, in fact, persistently difficult for many laid off workers to find jobs even at a steep pay cut. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act did a great deal to staunch the bleeding, and has helped move the economy toward a grudging reversal in job trends, but we are still saddled with two major Bush-era policy shifts that are hampering job creation almost across the board.
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January 15, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Democratic Congressman Heath Shuler and Republican Jason Chaffetz have responded to the rampage in Tucson by calling on staffers to obtain concealed-carry firearms permits and weapons training. Chaffetz has said he will carry a weapon himself when in his home district, implying he will be armed when visiting with constituents. While the emotion behind the [...]
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January 11, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: 5 Comments
George Will today has written a vicious criticism of any attempt to examine whether political rhetoric over the last election cycle was too violent, too full of vitriol and hostility. He flippantly leads with the remark that “It would be merciful if, when tragedies such as Tucson’s occur, there were a moratorium on sociology.” Will argues that conservatives who used inflammatory distortions and thinly veiled threats of violence should not be scrutinized for demonizing others, then leads with a demonization of the entire field of sociology as made up of “half-baked explanations”.
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January 11, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The United States Congress should honor the value of human life and the service of Rep. Giffords and her aides, those who showed uncommon valor and those who lost their lives, by taking up legislation to reinstate the national Assault Weapons Ban, and to make it permanent. There is no sane or defensible reason for allowing people to purchase weapons designed to kill large numbers of people in seconds or minutes. There is no way to justify such a reckless policy as somehow being written into the Constitution.
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January 10, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who has been targeted by opponents and conservative critics who have put her in gunsights in campaign advertisements and talked of taking her out, has raised ire across the nation for the mounting campaign of extremist rhetoric that over the last four years has seen repeated violent threats against members of Congress, candidates for public office, minority groups and people favoring healthcare reform. Now, the Tea Party Express is raising money, using the shooting and its aftermath as motivation, saying it will not allow anyone to tone down this extremist rhetoric.
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January 10, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
South Sudan, a region that lives every day with the deep wounds of a long-running civil war that took more than 2 million lives, yesterday saw democracy play out peacefully, as locals went to the polls to vote in the referendum promised by a 2005 peace treaty with the Khartoum government in northern Sudan. The referendum will decide whether southern Sudan secedes from the larger nation, and with international observers and aid groups staging a formidable presence, and Khartoum sounding peaceable, day one of the vote was free of violence, and much like a celebration.
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January 9, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
In the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and 19 other people, six of whom have already, tragically, died from their injuries, the national political establishment (media, pressure groups and elected officials) has turned its attention to the perils of extremist and vitriolic rhetoric. We are being asked to consider whether the use of metaphorical violence (putting Rep. Giffords in the crosshairs, which both Sarah Palin and her 2010 opponent did) leads to actual violence, and while direct responsibility is not being alleged, the ethical obligation to honor our democracy with civil discourse must be considered.
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January 9, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Christina-Taylor Green was born on 11 September 2001, a day of national tragedy for the United States, and she died yesterday in Tucson, in a hail of gunfire, as a result of the assassination attempt against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Christina-Taylor was seen by her family as a sign of hope, something beautiful born in the midst of a terrible tragedy.
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January 8, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot today in an assassination attempt during a public outreach event in Tucson. She was prematurely reported killed by CNN and NPR, but her status is listed as critical, and she is said to be “responding to commands”. The bullet reportedly “passed through her brain”. At least 9 other people were brought in for emergency treatment of wounds suffered. One 9-year-old child, a 63-year-old federal judge, and at least three others have reportedly died.
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January 7, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The planned vote to repeal last year’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act [pdf], if successful, would increase the federal budget deficit by $230 billion over the next ten years, would leave 32 million Americans with no access to affordable healthcare insurance, would strip small businesses of tax credits they get to help cover employee health costs, and would increase the cost per insuree across the nation. The Congressional Budget Office has released a study showing the negative impact repeal would have on the federal budget, the welfare of average Americans and the economy more broadly.
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January 6, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Justice Antonin Scalia, long considered one of the most right-wing justices to sit on the United States Supreme Court during the last century, has outraged Constitutional scholars and civil rights advocates by saying the Constitution provides no protection against discrimination for women or for gay Americans. He specifically targeted the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment, arguing that the intent of the words “any person within its jurisdiction” was not to include women or people of homosexual orientation.
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January 3, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The 112th Congress will be officially sworn in on Wednesday, and its work will be fraught with challenges and controversies from the very first. On Wednesday, for instance, the House of Representatives will vote on a rules change that will allow Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan to dictate spending priorities and caps to the entire House and Senate, by disallowing any revision of his rewrite guidelines, should the two chambers fail to reach agreement on a budget resolution. Issues like raising the debt ceiling, implementing START, mortgage and foreclosure reform and expanding medical coverage, will all pit liberal against conservative in a split Congress.
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December 31, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC is guaranteed to be controversial long after the shock of its meaning fades from public consciousness. The ruling effectively gave multinational corporations free rein to spend unlimited sums of money with the specific intent of distorting the public discourse and swaying the democratic process in their favor. Some say it amounts to the death of real democracy in the United States.
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December 30, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
With a new wave of elected officials coming to Capitol Hill next week, there is talk of a shift, at least in the House, to a so-called “all-of-the-above” or “let’s-do-everything” approach to energy policy. The idea sounds reasonable at first glance, because it suggests the maximum available energy will be made available to consumers, which should mean more choice, lower prices, less risk. The truth is: “all-of-the-above” is under-thought, ignores major costs associated with certain resources, and is, therefore, a risky economic strategy.
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December 27, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: 8 Comments
Climate change means “global warming”, so how can severe winter storms and excessively cold breezes be evidence of a warming climate? The key is in the word “global”: the warming of the overall global average temperature need not manifest in all places at all times as warmer weather. Throughout the history of human civilization, the Earth’s climate has remained relatively stable, due to optimal global average temperatures; as global average temperatures slip outside that optimal range, the warmer air makes the interaction between climate systems more inconsistent and more severe.
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December 24, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The small west African nation of Ivory Coast (also known by its French name Côte d’Ivoire) may be on the brink of civil war. After delaying presidential elections for 5 years, Pres. Laurent Gbagbo is reported to have disqualified over 500,000 ballots from opposition strongholds and is refusing to accept the results which show his opponent as the winner. Yesterday, the UN General Assembly (representing all member nations) formally recognized Gbagbo’s opponent, Alassane Ouattara, as president, in a unanimous vote.
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December 12, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
David Cameron, who campaigned as a rights-focused, green-conscious Tory, claims a steep rise in tuition fees will be good for Britons educational aspirations; but his plan to triple tuition fees for average British citizens seeking a university education initially led to nationwide protests, student rallies and sit-ins at the Conservative party headquarters. Now, the political crisis has escalated as passage of the tuition fee hikes has provoked violent riots in the streets of London.
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December 7, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The media storm surrounding the personal story of Julian Assange, reputed founder of WikiLeaks, is in many ways a sad commentary on the state of our security policy. The malice directed at Assange, and the coincidental pursuit of him on accusation of sexual assault in Sweden, appear to fit into a campaign designed to dissuade the general public from taking seriously anything produced by WikiLeaks. The fact is: there would be no use for WikiLeaks and no controversy whatsoever, if democratic governments did not rely so heavily on secrecy.
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November 24, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Glen Beck has always had a penchant for the outrageous, the egregious, the outright lie. He has made a career of smears, distortions, even verging on hate-rhetoric. His absurd assertion that his white followers should “take back the civil rights movement”, a phrase whose meaning no one could claim to fully understand, was perhaps a sign of near psychotic hubris. But his most recent “Puppetmaster” series, obsessively defaming George Soros, Holocaust survivor, billionaire philanthropist and democracy activist, as a ‘Nazi’ is a sign that Fox News has left all semblance of morality behind.
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November 14, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The United States government is facing historic budget deficits. A wave of new Republicans are going to Washington, DC, with the idea in mind they will slash “spending”, “shrink the federal workforce” and reduce benefits for “entitlements”, i.e. social programs. What they do not have a way to understand is that the entire budget deficit crisis is a direct result of specific policies enacted by former president George W. Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress of 2001-2006.
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November 13, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The lame duck Congress, with enormous Democratic majorities in both houses, will have to decide what to do about the Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire on the first of January. The Republicans will not take control of the House of Representatives until after the deadline on the Bush tax cuts. The Democratic plan is devoted to two things: the middle class and fiscal responsibility. The Republican plan is devoted to one thing: delivering as much free cash to millionaires as possible, all while ballooning the deficit enormously.
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November 10, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
An incoming Republican member of the House of Representatives, Alan Nunnelee of Mississippi, has said he would hold the U.S. government hostage in order to make sure millions of Americans are stripped of their health insurance and their healthcare rights. The Affordable Care Act, the most important reform to the health insurance markets since Medicare, and the most comprehensive reform in 100 years, bars insurers from denying coverage or treatment due to “pre-existing conditions”, it reduces the federal budget deficit and incentivizes the training of 20,000 new primary care physicians.
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November 9, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Burmese ruling military junta, which officially corrected the English translation to Myanmar —a more traditional pronunciation— after it seized power, has staged the first democratic elections in two decades, and observers both inside and outside the country are saying the vote process was rigged to favor pro-junta politicians. The military also retains no less than 25% of all seats in the new parliament, which will double as an electoral college to choose the president.
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November 8, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
I am not a runner. And I don’t (have not yet) run marathons. But I feel a need to comment on the New York City Marathon, a true celebration of human potential and of the can-do spirit. In a time of economic malaise, when media and politicians alike are trying desperately to reduce expectations and perpetuate the myth that some things are just too hard, even when they are morally right, the New York City Marathon clearly demonstrates how much force and commitment there is behind the idea that “Yes, we can!”
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November 3, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The vicious, at times shameful, elections of 2010, full of more vitriol and more defamatory ads than any in memory, flush with record sums of corporate spending, and in an environment of deep economic malaise, have given the Republicans control of the House of Representatives, while Democrats retain control of the Senate. Rep. John Boehner [...]
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November 2, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The United States of America is the “wealthiest country in the history of the world”. We hear this repeated so often, it’s almost as if it has become the national slogan. Economists tend to agree that it’s the truth, but that wealth is relative: tens of millions of Americans live in abject poverty, unable to obtain basic sustenance, medical care, adequate education or even basic public safety. One in five children in the United States now live in poverty. Among African American and Hispanic children, the rate is 30 percent.
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November 1, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The federal government of the United States is experiencing major annual budget deficits. Republicans have spent most of the last two years decrying “tax and spend liberals” for causing such deficits. But every penny of the current federal budget deficit is directly attributable to specific policies enacted under George W. Bush. And Republicans are promising to return to and expand the very same policies put in place by Bush.
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October 31, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Amid allegations the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is using membership dues and donations from foreign firms to wage an all-out ad-war against Democratic politics, at least 275 members are demanding the group cease its “punitive campaign” against anyone who supported the Affordable Care Act and reveal their sources and methods of funding the ads.
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October 31, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The United States midterm Congressional elections, which include votes for state-level executive and legislative officials, will determine how the electoral map might be redrawn for the next 10 years, helping to give one party an advantage over the other. Congressional districts are redrawn roughly every ten years, when new official federal Census data (gathered every [...]
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October 31, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Republicans are hoping their two-year-long strategy of relentless obstructionism, their quest to undermine the government of Pres. Barack Obama in hopes of prolonging economic hardship and using generalized malaise to defeat the Democrats will hand them control of both houses of Congress. But increasingly, analysts appear convinced the House may likely shift to Republicans, while the Senate will not. The challenge of governing with only one house majority may be the greatest challenge to the Republican cause in 2012.
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October 30, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Rally to Restore Sanity (and/or Fear), hosted by superstar comic news anchors Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert on the National Mall in Washington, DC, has drawn hundreds of thousands of people from across the country. Turnout was estimated at 300,000 beforehand, but images from the Mall show an edge-to-edge crowd filling the lawn from the stage at least as far back as the Washington Monument, meaning the total could well exceed 500,000 people.
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October 28, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The political battle over immigration reform is in many ways a shameful commentary on the state of our democracy and the core of our political discourse. We have well over ten million people living in our midst who lack basic access to fundamental rights and protections and who are being vilified and even further marginalized by voices from both sides of the political spectrum. This suggests a shameful, and hypocritical hold-out against living up to the founding ideals of American democracy.
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October 27, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator from Nebraska, writes: “Every variation of public service, including elective office, should be anchored by one complete and overriding truth and objective—to make a better world,” as part of a powerful statement urging civility and good-will from all who seek to involve themselves in the work of public service. Hagel’s open letter to the political world comes at a time when many election observers say the campaign of 2010 is the most degenerate and ill-intentioned in memory, where lies are prevailing over evidence and the ability to commit to effective and relentless distortion has become the most sought-after weapon of campaigners.
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October 25, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Amid disclosures that many of the nation’s major banks not only participated in, but engineered and propagated a system by which the legal paperwork review process was skipped, cut short or literally forged, Bank of America and others now say they “had a right to foreclose”, because borrowers had not been keeping up with payments. They may now resume the foreclosures process, promising that all mistakes “will be corrected”, even as critics say nothing has been done to prevent the same mistakes from occurring.
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October 22, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
French president Nicholas Sarkozy’s plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 and to reform the pension system has sparked a massive, coordinated general strike that has seen air traffic cut in half, and fuel supplies interrupted across the country. More than one-quarter of filling stations are reportedly out of fuel, and gas lines are causing commerce to break down: strike organizers promise a war of attrition.
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