Corporate Lobbyists Manage Our Presidential Debates - Lee Fang

Three debates have gone by, and to this date, neither a candidate for president or vice president has been asked about some of the biggest issues facing voters this cycle.  Why are our debate moderators so reluctant to bring up controversial topics that affect the future of our country? What’s behind this wall of silence?  It’s worth considering that the men behind the nonprofit managing our presidential debate system are corporate lobbyists.

Mike McCury, the Democratic co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates and a former White House press secretary for President Clinton, works as a Partner at Public Strategies Washington, a Beltway lobbying firm.  McCurry doesn’t disclose all of his clients, but his website lists a number of corporations, including Bain Capital, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, Lockheed Martin Corporation, the US Chamber of Commerce and Anheuser-Busch.

Frank Fahrenkopf Jr, the Republican co-chair, is the head of a lobbying coalition of casinos and related gambling industries. Fahrenkopf—who was paid $1,920,561 in 2010, according to IRS records—represents firms like Las Vegas Sands Corp, MGM Resorts International, Morgan Stanley, KPMG and Goldman Sachs. Fahrenkopf’s group spends millions on K Street lobbyists and attorneys—retaining even Ropes & Gray, the law firm in charge of Romney’s non-blind trust—to influence federal policy on issues ranging from Internet gambling to tax and labor policy.

Americans deserve a real debate; one that shines a light on our biggest challenges and forces the candidates to draw real distinctions. It’s less than reassuring that we have K Street shills managing our only substantive public forum.

The full article is available here

Obama, Romney, and the Foreign Policy Debate - Stephen Zunes

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the third and final presidential debate of the 2012 campaign was the similarity between the two candidates on many basic foreign policy issues. Part of the reason is that, as he did in the first two debates, Romney reversed himself on a number of extreme right-wing positions he had taken earlier in a desperate effort to depict himself as a moderate. At the same time, Obama’s hawkish stances served as yet another reminder of just how far to the right Obama has evolved since running as an anti-war candidate just four years ago.

Indeed, Romney’s perceived need to lie about Obama’s record and his reluctance to provide much in the way of specific policy alternatives is indicative of how little difference there actually is between the two when it comes to the U.S. role in the world.

Both candidates agree on American exceptionalism, as exemplified by Obama’s insistence that “America remains the one indispensable nation.” And both agreed that this hegemonic role in international affairs would be enforced militarily.

Obama and Romney’s double standards also pertain to human rights issues.  Despite Israel’s violation of scores of UN Security Council resolutions and ongoing, systematic human rights violations, Obama bragged during the debate that “we have created the strongest military and intelligence cooperation between our two countries in history.”

Incredibly, Romney criticized him for not supporting the right-wing Israeli government enough! Unable to place himself much further to the right when it comes to supporting Netanyahu’s government, Romney has repeatedly insisted that Obama had explicitly called on creating “daylight” between the United States and Israel, despite repeated analyses from fact-checkers that Obama actually never said that.

On several occasions, despite the disappointing similarities between the two candidates, Romney was nevertheless able to prove himself far less adept at addressing foreign policy issues—and often showed his willingness to make demonstrably false claims about Obama’s record.

The full article is available here

Voting Shouldn’t Be Made A Difficult Process - Darryl Lorenzo Wellington

Over the past few years, Republican legislatures and governors have pushed through bills curtailing early balloting and imposing stiff voter ID requirements.  Republican legislators in 40 states introduced bills that would have the effect of limiting the franchise. The GOP proposed and enacted more restrictions on the right to vote than at any time since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Federal law already has voter identification requirements, such as verifying voters’ identities with signatures.  The Republican scheme to limit voting on Election Day is shameful.

The 2008 presidential election was a stunning affirmation of the American electoral process, attaining the highest voter turnout (57 percent) since 1968.

Any doubt regarding the purely partisan motivations of the new voting impediments was erased in June of this year when Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai bragged to an audience that the state’s new and very strict voter ID law would “allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.”

Not coincidentally, the laws disproportionately burden exactly those groups, such as blacks and Latinos, who heavily supported Barack Obama in 2008. Judges have struck down several of these, but at least 13 states currently maintain restrictive voting mandates passed only in the last two years.

You may have heard of the case of Dorothy Cooper, a 96-year-old African-American woman in Tennessee, who produced a Social Security card, a voter registration card, a birth certificate and a lease, yet was denied the right to re-register until her story created a stir.

The right to vote should be sacred. We cannot justify barring potentially millions of legitimate votes by disingenuously advocating a hunt to weed out extremely rare cases of fraud.  Our moral mission as a democracy should be to encourage all citizens to vote. We should be removing — not erecting — obstacles in the path to the voting booth.

The full picture is available here

CD Review: Converge: All That We Love Leave Behind - Brandon Stosuy

The brilliant Boston band Converge have been around a long time, though you might not guess it from the manic energy crammed into their eighth album, All We Love We Leave Behind. If you go beyond the amped, break-neck intensity and listen to the compositions, it becomes clear the Boston band is nearing the 25-year mark: You don't just show up and write songs like this.

As overwhelming as AWLWLB may be on first listen, it's really not all speed. There's a thing people say about young professional quarterbacks, about how they need experience before the game "slows down." You get that on this album, too. In my interview with Bannon, he said: "I feel that the current generation of listeners of heavy music are progressing a bit past their gateway bands and are digging deeper than they used to and understanding more abrasive and complex music and art. It's like being around an unfamiliar language long enough that it eventually begins to make sense." I agree with this, and it's the reason why Converge are a band with plenty of fans who weren't close to being born when the band formed in 1990.

Of course, there's plenty for older audiences, too-- aging, death, decisions, punk as a way of life, and the way these things preoccupy you when you go past 30 are largely what this album is about.

AWLWLB is an example of building on and mastering the music you loved when you were younger-- something that became more than music, ultimately-- so that it has a chance to grow old with you without becoming any less vital.

The full article is available here

Voting Rights Victory In Ohio - Aura Bogado

Ohio’s 2004 election process was the source of national ridicule.

A federal appeals court has blocked the state of Ohio from cutting off its early voting hours. In August, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (Republican), cut off early voting the weekend before the election.

Because black churches encourage their congregants to vote after services the Sunday before Election Day, Husted’s move would have disproportionately affected black voters. The new rule would have allowed military voters to cast their ballots in person through the weekend—but not any others.

Ohio’s 2004 election process was the source of national ridicule. Long lines forced many people to make a choice between voting and going to work on time, or voting and picking up their children on time from school or daycare. Machines broke down, causing already long lines to be still for hours at a time.

The full article is available here

Toledo Mosque Scorched By Arson, Community Rallies In Response - David Yonke

Any attack on a house of worship, no matter what faith, is deplorable and should be condemned.

Muslim worshipers are reeling from an arson fire at the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo, but are grateful for an outpouring of support from the local interfaith community.

“All the support we get is very welcome because if you are going through a tragedy and you have a friend who is holding your hand it means a lot,” said S. Zaheer Hasan, a spokesman for theUnited Muslim Association of Toledo.

The Rev. Steve Anthony, executive director of Toledo Area Ministries, said he and his organization that represents 125 Christian churches and nonprofit agencies are outraged by the arson attack and will do what they can to help local Muslims.

“Any attack on a house of worship, no matter what faith, is deplorable and should be condemned,” Anthony said. “And there’s no room for that in a pluralistic society. We should respect each other’s houses of worship."

The full article is available here