Audit: Sheriff's staff 'misused' union leave for political campaigns

The sheriff's office - a quasi-judicial agency - was under investigation for improper use of union leave.

H oward County's auditor is recommending the county clearly delineate the purpose of union leave after a Feb. 24 investigation found employees of the sheriff's office misused union leave.

The administration is exploring options to recover misused taxpayer funds, wrote Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman in an email.

All collective bargaining agreements with the county's union grant union leave for union business — but 75 percent fall short of defining what "union business" entails, according to a review of union agreements.

The administration is working "to ensure that all future agreements provide additional clarification regarding the appropriate use of Union leave," according to the county's chief administrative officer, Lonnie Robbins.

According to the Feb. 24 investigation, four employees of the sheriff's office improperly used union leave, thus granting Howard County Sheriff James Fitzgerald "county-subsidized campaign labor" not available to his opponents.

Sgt. Darrin Granger, who has since been promoted to lieutenant, used 30 hours of leave at a cost of $813 to the county — even though he was not entitled to the leave, according to the county's audit. A collective bargaining agreement with the union, Lodge 131, excludes sergeants from membership in the lodge, according to the county's Office of Law.

Four employees of the sheriff's office used 182 hours in union leave at a cost of $7,823 to provide support to the sheriff's campaign, according to the auditor's interviews with Maj. George Voll of the sheriff's office and union chief Mark Verderaime.

Verderaime declined to comment because he said he did not read the auditor's investigation. He did not elaborate on acceptable uses of union leave.

Typically, union business involves activities like union meetings, lobbying, contract negotiation and administrative tasks.

"We can even potentially see the term including campaigning for a union election — perhaps — but we don't see how Lodge business could be extended to performing political campaign activities during public elections," according to an opinion by the county's Office of Law.

Fitzgerald — who did not return repeated calls for comment — did not tell the auditor's office whether he had approved the leave for political campaigning purposes, according to the auditor's records.

The sheriff's office plans to reduce Granger's leave balance, according to the county's auditor. Granger did not immediately respond for comment.

The union leave was used around the primary and general elections in 2014. The audit does not detail activities conducted during this time period.

Fitzgerald's opponent and retired police officer John Newnan, said he was disappointed an elected public official used public funds for political purposes — even though Newnan stressed unions have the absolute right to support candidates.

"I don't believe for a second that utilizing county employees to work on a political campaign is proper," Newnan said. "It comes at the [dis]advantage of other candidates — whether it's me or anybody else."

Source by : http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/howard/ellicott-city/ph-ho-cf-sheriff-campaign-leave-0324-20160318-story.html

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Geneva Talks On Syrian Political Transition: Assad Feels Safe – OpEd

It is by far clear now that Syrian president al Assad, under Russian shield, feels secure now and he is more firm than ever not to quit presidency. Russian strongman Putin who became president for third term now defends Assad who never faced – and is scared of – an election to stay in power. Possibly Putin, who promotes Russian variety of Soviet era democracy in Russian federation, feels there is hardly any difference between dynasty and democracy.

After pushing for the removal of President Assad for years, now the US, under pressure from Russia which withdrew troops from Syria possibly on agreement with Washington, seems stopped asking him to quit. This makes Assad to be firm in stay8in gin power. Russian military intervention made Assad’s stay in power fairly easy.

The main opposition, along with the United States and other Western nations, has long insisted any peace deal must include the departure of Assad from power, while the Syrian government and Russia have said there is no such clause in the international agreements that underwrite the peace process.

The UN mediated third indirect peace talks between Syrian opposition and the Syrian government in Geneva on March 20 has not made even tentative resolution to end the war in Syria or Assad’s fate. Arguments over Assad’s fate were a major cause of the failure of previous UN peace efforts in 2012 and 2014 to end a civil war that has now lasted five years, killed more than 250,000 people and caused a refugee crisis. The peace meeting in Geneva, owing to divergent opinions, also did not make any headway n revolving the political transition in Syria. The Syrian opposition assesses whether to continue indirect peace talks with the Syrian government.

The Syrian president looked more secure than ever at the start of the latest round of talks, riding high after a Russian-backed military campaign. But Russia’s surprise withdrawal of most of its forces during the week signaled that Moscow expected its Syrian allies to take the Geneva talks seriously. And UN mediator Staffan de Mistura  appointed a Russian expert to sit in the negotiations with him and to advice on political issues.

Russian President Putin has warned that his forces would return to Syria if required.

Syrian government negotiators at Geneva peace talks are coming under unaccustomed pressure to discuss the fate of President Bashar al-Assad — the issue which is far outside their comfort zone and are doing their best to avoid the fate of President Bashar al-Assad.

UN mediator de Mistura describes Syria’s political transition as “the mother of all issues” and, emboldened by the Russian and US muscle that brought the participants to the negotiating table, he refuses to drop the subject. After a week of talks in Geneva, Mistura praised the opposition for the depth of their ideas, but criticised the veteran diplomats on the government side for getting bogged down. “The government is currently focusing very much on principles, which are necessary in any type of common ground on the transition,” he said, “but I hope next week, and I have been saying so to them, that we will get their opinion, their details on how they see the political transition taking place.”

Unlike previous rounds, the talks have run for a week without any hint of collapse, forcing the government delegation led by Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari to acknowledge de Mistura’s demands. Ja’afari began by giving de Mistura a document entitled “Basic elements for a political solution”. “Approving these principles will open a serious dialogue under Syrian leadership without foreign intervention and without preconditions,” Ja’afari said in a brief statement after the longest session of the talks so far. But officials and diplomats involved in the talks variously described the document as “very thin”, “bland” and “off the point”. It listed familiar goals such as maintaining a ‘secular state’ and Syria’s territorial integrity and the importance of fighting ‘terrorism’, according to sources who have read it. But it said nothing about a political transition.

In sessions with de Mistura, Ja’afari has approached the negotiations as slowly as possible, reopening UN resolutions and going through them “by the letter”, said a source with knowledge of the process. “Mr Ja’afari is still in a kind of delusion of trying to filibuster his way out of town, or to filibuster the opposition out of town,” said a western diplomat. “He will spend every minute questioning the nature of the opposition, quibbling about the font in the agenda.”

De Mistura said Ja’afari’s team needed to go faster and couldn’t avoid the substantive question forever. “The fact that the government delegation would like to set different rules or play with the terms of this agreement is I think a non-starter,” said opposition delegate Basma Kodmani.

A diplomat involved in the peace process said Assad was not used to having to compromise, and that made Ja’afari’s negotiating position rigid. “He has to have control. If he gives up 1 percent, he loses 100 percent. He’s designed like that,” the diplomat said.

In three meetings with each side during the week, de Mistura quizzed the negotiators about their ideas, and they were also able to put questions to their rivals through him.

The UN mediation team spends the sessions “stripping the papers apart and delving deep into the subject and forcing them to do more homework and forcing them to give answers”,  said a source with knowledge of the process.

The negotiators do not meet each other, but face de Mistura in a functional, windowless room with desks arranged in a square. There is space for eight or nine people around each side, but the conditions are slightly cramped, and afford no luxury beyond a plastic bottle of mineral water on each desk. “De Mistura is dragging the regime in with his queries on their position paper, rather than allowing them to talk about what they want,” said the diplomat involved in the peace process. The regime had in the past a bit of space to play and to manoeuvre. He said: “The regime knows it has to come and stay but is not prepared for the idea that it has to engage the opposition.”

The Syrian government so far has refused to engage in detailed negotiations and instead continuing to starve Syrians into submission, its chief negotiator has said.

Mohammed Alloush, the leader of the Syrian opposition delegation at the peace talks, suggested in a interview that little progress has been made in the first week of negotiations and many pitfalls lie ahead. Alloush, a political figure in the Jaysh al-Islam (Islam Army) rebel group, is the senior negotiator for High Negotiations Committee (HNC), the official Syrian opposition delegation at the Geneva peace talks. He is probably the single most important figure in the opposition and through his connections with Jaysh al-Islam, which Damascus and Moscow consider a terrorist group, has credibility with some fighters on the ground.

De Mistura, the UN Syrian special envoy, is struggling to persuade the Syrian government to engage in detailed discussions about plans for a transitional body to run Syria over the next 18 months and the role of Bashar al-Assad in such a government. De Mistura is shuttling between the two main delegations in search of common ground but has admitted there are large gaps.

The opposition could not accept the Syrian president as part of the transitional body and added that “those with blood on their hands can have no part in a reconstituted Syrian army”.

The new transitional body, Alloush said, should have the powers of the president, the government, parliament and the courts. He added that those charged with war crimes should be dealt with by Syrian courts and not the International Criminal Court, arguing the ICC has a backlog of 30,000 cases that would delay justice.

Alloush said his team will decide whether to continue with the talks at the end of the week and the whole world can then see clearly who is procrastinating and who is putting obstacles in the way. He said so far the Syrian government had only put forward a very general paper of eight principles that was not relevant to the task of forming a transitional government.

By contrast, he said his team had put forward detailed papers covering justice, security and political transition. “We are ready to answer all questions in detail put to us by the UN. The UN has said our paper is detailed, positive and moderate. The government paper is simply not relevant to what we have come to discuss.”

John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, is due to meet Vladimir Putin for talks in Moscow this week that will include Syria. Alloush said “America had a moral duty to increase the pressure” and, in particular, needed to intervene to persuade Russia to require Assad to negotiate seriously, including by ending the use of starvation sieges to force Syrians to abandon the resistance. He also warned European leaders to be more involved in the talks. “More refugees are heading to Europe. The international community has to tackle the root cause of this problem. We cannot just deal with symptoms. The root cause is the one person Assad who has forced millions and millions to leave their homes”. “Take Bashar al-Assad and 1,000 criminals then Syria could take back the refugees. That would be the logical and just solution for this problem. The international community is capable of doing this. More financial measures are not the answer.”

In a further sign of problems ahead for De Mistura, Alloush showed hostility to the idea of the Syrian Kurdish YPG being represented at the talks, describing them as “followers of the Assad regime”. The YPG has been excluded from the talks, partly due to Turkish protests, and the HNC has other Kurds on its delegation. He also reported no progress on the issue of political detainees, saying “we know there are 9,000 women in detention centres and none of them have been released”.

Executions were carried out daily by the Assad regime. Reeling off a list of towns still under siege, Alloush said Russian intelligence was working with Syrian intelligence to blackmail towns especially in rural areas around Damascus by offering to trade food in return for reconciliation agreements and truces. Using food like this is a war crime, according to the UN.

Alloush also challenged claims that Russia had truly announced a military withdrawal last week, and accused Russia of a reckless bombing campaign. By saying they can return to return to Syria within four hours, it is clear it is not really even a partial withdrawal. The Russians were given targets that were not accurate: 90% of the air raids were conducted against citizens. They hit 67 schools, over 40 local markets and over 100 hospitals and medical facilities. Russians said they were targeting terrorists but really they were targeting civilians but even when they target Raqqa, they target civilians. Alloush said a war like this cannot be won from the air. Russia knows that.

Source by : http://www.eurasiareview.com/21032016-geneva-talks-on-syrian-political-transition-assad-feels-safe-oped/

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Malcolm Turnbull hits reboot after political operating system starts crashing

 Malcolm Turnbull insists the election will be fought on economic management but he has yet to clearly outline his strategy let alone make the case for it. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

His popularity sliding, his colleagues sniping and his tax plans in confusion, the prime minister has effectively pressed control-alt-delete. On the entire parliament.

The reboot is intended to make him look decisive and put the policy debate back under some semblance of government control.

It’s pure Francis Underwood. “If you don’t like how the table is set, turn over the table.” In fact the House of Cards Twitter account approved of the strategy soon after it was announced on Monday.

The tactic answers the endless procedural questions about how Turnbull could go to a double dissolution – armed with the new Senate voting laws – a constitutional reboot button that had been sitting there all the while, unnoted because it hasn’t been used for so long.

It forces attention onto how the crossbench responds to the threat, rather than the Coalition’s policy plans still in formulation, filling the time between now and the 3 May budget with a high-stakes Senate standoff and a discussion on the Coalition’s preferred turf and about things Labor would prefer not to talk about. We will be again debating union corruption and the Heydon royal commission rather than the current stream-of-consciousness discussion about the government’s frequently changing taxation plans.

And when we emerge from all of that the government will either have won the day and got its laws through (less likely) or achieved the double-dissolution election that it wanted to have anyway to clear out the Senate, setting up a clearer run at a second term in government if it prevails.

But that, of course, is all tactics. And elections also hinge on policy substance, which remains much more uncertain.

By the Council of Australian Governments meeting at the end of next week we will know how much interim funding Turnbull is prepared to offer the states for schools and public hospitals, while he negotiates longer-term changes to the system. By the budget we will know its tax plans, now apparently hinging around a company tax cut, as well as the possibility of government bonds to pay for economic infrastructure spending.

Turnbull insists the election will be fought on economic management but he has yet to clearly outline his strategy let alone make the case for it. Labor has had the jump on him, laying the foundations for a plan based on raising money from crackdowns on tax concessions to pay for schools and hospitals and higher education. It has begun to make the case that spending on essential services, on reducing inequality, is in and of itself an economic benefit – challenging the old economic consensus.

Turnbull, having taken the prime ministership so late in the term, having sacrificed some of his own popularity as he appeases his internal rightwing critics, having vacillated on what he wanted to do on the tax front, has yet to set out a coherent case for the government’s re-election.

But he has just upturned the table and rebooted the discussion, in a way that makes it easier for him to make a case, when he has one.

Source by : http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/mar/21/malcolm-turnbull-hits-reboot-after-political-operating-system-starts-crashing

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Conduct political campaign with decorum - MCE

The Municipal Chief Executive of the Adentan Municipal Assembly, Mr Benjamin B. Angenu, has called on politicians to conduct their political campaign with decorum and with civility devoid of insults and provocations.

He said this year’s election was an opportunity for the country to demonstrate to the world that “in deed, we are the beacon of democracy in Africa”.
Speaking on the recently celebrated 59th anniversary of Ghana’s independence, Mr Angenu said elections were not about life and death.

“It is about the making of choices to empower competent leaders with ideas to better the lot of the citizenry.
“We should not allow ourselves to be used by any individuals or groups to foment trouble for their parochial interest,” he told the gathering.

Mr Angenu said Ghana was bigger than any individual or political party, and therefore called on all political activists to uphold the tenets of peace, love and mutual understanding to accommodate the views of others, however divergent they might be from our beliefs or convictions.

Touching on the celebration, he paid glowing tribute to the founding fathers who fought to free the country from colonial servitude.

He said the aspirations of the founding fathers were meant to bring holistic transformation that would guarantee total freedom, “devoid of imperialistic tendencies, suppression, social and psychological torture, maladministration and propagandist orientation or agenda”.

“It was this vision that laid the foundation for the new Ghana and set the tone for our development as an independent nation,” he said.

Mr Angenu said such an accomplishment would not have been possible without the conviction, determination and drive of the patriots, who dreamt about a free and just society that would not only transform the country, but also project her as a beacon of hope on the continent.

Concerning the theme of the celebration: “Investing in the youth for Ghana’s transformation,” he said the youth in any society constituted the future of that society and had a critical role to play in its development.

“You would agree with me that the youth, with their exuberance, ideas, resourcefulness and self-motivation, always believe that anything is possible. These attributes, when properly harnessed and regulated, make them not only good and transformational leaders tomorrow, but also partners in development today,” he said.

Source by: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Conduct-political-campaign-with-decorum-MCE-424966

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Political Ads Surround Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court Nomination

U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Judge Merrick B. Garland is President Obama’s nominee to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He’s pictured in the Rose Garden at the White House March 16, 2016 in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Senate Republicans continue to oppose holding a hearing for President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland. The battle is also being waged on the television airwaves, with a spate of ads on both sides of the issue. Media analyst John Carroll joins Here & Now’s Lisa Mullins with details

Source by : http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2016/03/21/supreme-court-political-ads

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Donald Trump's son received threatening letter, non-lethal powder

Eric Trump, son of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, along with his wife, Lara, thanks volunteers as they make phone calls to New Hampshire voters at Trump's campaign office on February 9, 2016, in Manchester, New Hampshire.

(CNN) A threatening letter addressed to Donald Trump's son Eric Trump contained a suspicious powder in its envelope, a law enforcement source said Friday.

The substance, which was delivered to a New York City Trump building, was tested and appears to be lemonade mix, according to initial reports.

Eric Trump's wife was going through the mail when she picked up the envelope and powder came out, the source said.

There was a handwritten note in the envelope making threats if Trump's father, the Republican front-runner, does not drop out of the race.

The Secret Service is investigating along with FBI, according to the source.

It was postmarked March 7 from a post office in Boston, the source said, and Trump alerted authorities about the letter Thursday, J. Peter Donald, director of communications at the New York Police Department, said Thursday.

No injuries have been reported in connection with this incident, Donald said Thursday.

In recent weeks, there have been similar incidents at offices for the campaigns of Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

Source by : http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/18/politics/donald-trump-son-powder-letter-threat/index.html

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Why political scientists think Merrick Garland is more liberal than lawyers do

The early consensus on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland is in, and it's that Garland is a moderate: A former prosecutor, careful in his jurisprudence, and beloved by conservative Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. At best, he's a safe pick. At worst, he's a tragically missed opportunity to appoint a woman, a person of color, or a defense attorney who might bring a different point of view.

Or not. According to one measure of Supreme Court justices' ideology, Garland is hardly less left-wing than Obama's past nominees, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

When political science diverges so strongly from public perception, one of the two is probably wrong. And measuring justices' ideology is a highly imprecise art. Another method places Garland near the center of the court, to the left of Anthony Kennedy but to the right of the existing liberal justices.

This isn't just an academic disagreement. Whether the public perceives Garland to be a left-wing firebrand or a stolid moderate matters in the political fight over filling Antonin Scalia's seat. If Garland is simply a white male Sonia Sotomayor, Senate Republicans can argue Obama isn't even trying to compromise. If Garland is a slightly more left-wing Anthony Kennedy, on the other hand, liberal Democrats can argue that Obama's pick is an utter betrayal.

The measurement that called Garland a liberal wasn't looking at his jurisprudence

There's no foolproof method to precisely measure the political leanings of federal judges. And so political scientists use rough proxies, such as the ideology of the presidents and senators who appoint and confirm judges.

That's the method used by the Judicial Common Score, which says Garland is slightly more liberal than Kagan and Justice Stephen Breyer. Using that metric, he'd become the third most liberal Supreme Court justice:

But there's a big caveat here. This score isn't based on anything about Garland. It's measuring the ideological leanings of President Bill Clinton, who nominated Garland to the DC Circuit Court in 1995.

The Judicial Common Score, derived by four political scientists, relies on a quirk of Senate procedure. When the Senate Judiciary Committee is considering a nominee, the committee gives the senators who represent the would-be justice a chance to effectively veto the pick.

The Judicial Common Score assumes that the judge's ideology is roughly similar to the senator who represented them when they were nominated, provided the senator and the president are from the same party, because the senator didn't veto them when given a chance.

But Merrick Garland, when he was confirmed to the DC Circuit, lived in Washington, DC. He didn't have a senator to approve or veto his nomination. And so the common score relies on the next best thing: Bill Clinton.

So what it's actually saying is that Garland is no more or less liberal than other Clinton appointees — or if Bill Clinton were appointed to the Supreme Court, he would land somewhere between Sotomayor and Kagan on the left-right spectrum.

But Obama is not appointing Clinton to the Supreme Court. And while Jeffrey Segal, a political scientist at Stony Brook University who helped develop the measure, calls it "a reasonably good predictor" of Garland's future votes, it's clearly far from exact.

Do Garland's moderate law clerks mean he's a moderate?

Another way of measuring Garland's ideology puts him much closer to the center, to the right of Breyer and Kagan but still far to the left of Kennedy:

This lines up much better with the public perception of Garland. But this isn't based on Garland's record or previous votes, either. It's based on the political leanings of the law clerks he hired to work with him.

The method, published in a working paper on February 29, relies on databases of political donations to determine whether law clerks are liberal or conservative. Then it assumes that the judges who hire those clerks have roughly the same beliefs.

Garland falls in the middle, meaning that either he hired an ideologically heterodox group of clerks — some Republican donors, some Democratic donors — or that his clerks themselves donated in a way that suggests they're political moderates.

"He’s definitely to the right of Breyer, toward the liberal end of the two-party divide," said Jacob Goldin, an economist and incoming law professor at Stanford and a co-author of the working paper. "He would be the new median justice on the court."

Still, using clerks as a proxy for judges isn't a perfect system. While most judges hire clerks whose ideologies match their own, and law clerks' political beliefs can even end up influencing the outcome of court decisions, clerks' ideologies don't always match the judges' they work for.

Scalia was famous for hiring a liberal clerk to mix it up with his conservative choices, which would have pushed him to the right on this measurement — at least, Goldin says, until he started hiring solely conservative clerks, around 2004.

Not everything can be measured

The real problem with these measurements, though, is that they don't tell us much beyond what we already knew: President Obama is a center-left president who is not going to turn down a chance, however slim, to shift the Supreme Court in a more liberal direction.

And if you take as a given that Obama was going to appoint a liberal or moderate justice rather than a conservative, there's only so much more that a single measurement of a justice's ideology can tell you about their contributions to the court. It makes sense to summarize the ideology of members of Congress: Most Americans aren't single-issue voters, Congress votes on hundreds of measures each year, and there are 435 members of Congress. It's useful to understand where they rank in relation to one another.

But there are only nine justices. They aren't voting on dozens of laws, but setting precedents on a smaller number of very different, very important topics. Their votes on a single issue — whether it's abortion or campaign finance — could well be the most important fact about their judicial careers.

The creators of these models acknowledge that they miss some things. "Garland was a prosecutor, so he may be substantially more conservative" on criminal justice issues, Segal said. "A lot of what the Court does involves criminal cases. it’s probably the largest part of their agenda."

These distinctions might seem obvious, but they really matter. Attempting to measure the ideology of a Supreme Court justice as if she were a member of Congress means conflating and flattening their views.

Scalia voted with the Court's liberal wing on flag-burning, search and seizure, and restrictions on violent video games. Those votes don't make him a moderate; they were another expression of his views on the Constitution. They just illustrate that it's difficult to perfectly map a Supreme Court justice onto a left-right scale.

Source by : http://www.vox.com/2016/3/16/11250100/merrick-garland-judicial-ideology

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‘No alternative to political settlement of the Burundian crisis,’ Ban tells Security Counci

Briefing the Security Council, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and United Nations High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein today voiced concern about spiralling violence and rights violations in Burundi, and called for an inclusive political dialogue to peacefully resolve the 11-month crisis.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who visited Burundi last month as part of an international effort to end the crisis, urged the country’s leaders “to summon the necessary courage and confidence” to launch a credible political process.

“There is no alternative to a political settlement of the Burundian crisis,” he toldthe Council, whose members had also visited the country in January of this year.

Underscoring the importance of regional and international support for the peace efforts, Mr. Ban said that the East African Community (EAC), the African Union (AU) and the UN must work together to provide the “dedicated and professional mediation support” needed.

Mr. Ban noted appointment of former President of Tanzania Benjamin Mkapa as EAC Facilitator, which he called an “encouraging development.” His own Special Advisor, Jamal Benomar, has been representing the UN in discussions, and has deployed a team to Burundi.

During his visit, Mr. Ban said that he underlined his deep concern over the volatile situation in the country. “I expressed my profound worry that the potential spiralling of violence risks relapse into civil war. I urged the Government to take measures to address the continued violence and the impunity that fuels it,” he added.

While there, the UN chief had discussed with President Pierre Nkuruziza the release up to 2,000 detainees, and that the President had previously announced the annulment of arrest warrants against 15 opposition figures and to re-open two media outlets.

“We now look forward to the full implementation of these measures and expect further steps in the same direction,” Mr. Ban said, including the release of all political prisoners and an end to restrictions on civil society and media organizations.

While in Burundi, Mr. Ban said he had also urged the Government to address the continued violence and impunity that fuels the volatile situation in the country.

The top UN official said despite assurances from the Government that the security situation is stabilizing, civil society and opposition parties told him “deeply disturbing” continuing allegations of violence, including those targeting women and children.

“I cannot stress enough the profound humanitarian consequences that political unrest, violence and impunity carry for the population,” Mr. Ban said.

‘Many of Burundi’s people live in terror’
Also addressing the Council, High Commissioner Zeid drew international attention to the hundreds of people killed, thousands detained, and over a quarter of a million of Burundians who had fled the country.

“Continued human rights violations, and impunity for perpetrators, mean that many of Burundi’s people live in terror,” he told the Council. “The country remains on the brink of a sudden escalation of violence to even more massive proportions.”

He drew attention to the increasing number of arbitrary arrests and detention since January. On a recent visit of staff from the Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR) to some detention centres in Bujumbura, “it appeared that almost half the detainees had been tortured or ill-treated, some seriously,” Mr. Zeid said.

The top human rights figure also called attention to the lack of progress in investigating multiple serious human rights violations reported over the past year.

“I urge further and much more credible investigations into the multiple alleged mass graves in the country, as well as into the torture, sexual violence and killings that were reported in December and many other serious allegations,” Mr. Zeid said.

He took note of a recently released report into alleged extrajudicial killings during the events of 11 December 2015.

In order to look into the human rights situation in the country, the secretariat of the independent expert team is due to arrive in April for a four-month deployment. The Government has yet to approve the visit, Mr. Zeid said, calling for the visit to be finalized.

The UN expert team is comprised of three independent experts, per a Human Rights Council resolution from December 2015, mandated with undertaking “an investigation into violations and abuses of human rights with a view to preventing further deterioration of the human right situation.”

Burundi was thrown into crisis this past April when President Nkurunziza decided to run for a controversial third term that he went on to win in July.

Source by : http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53492#.Vu5ywNx95dh

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City clarifies rules regarding political signs

The City of Laredo clarified Friday misconceptions and misunderstandings on political signs, saying there is often confusion about what is and isn’t allowed.
“The City of Laredo’s sign ordinance was enacted to improve pedestrian and traffic safety; to protect property values; the local economy; and the quality of life by preserving and enhancing the appearance of the streetscape, and to enable the fair and consistent enforcement of the regulations,” a news release states. “Each political season, this office sends all local candidates information on the applicable sign regulations and provides them with contact information for asking questions and making complaints.”
The Highway Beautification Act requires that campaign signs on private property adjacent to any interstate or primary state highway system be posted no earlier than 90 days before an election and be removed within 10 days after the election.
However, for all other standard political signs on private property, state law prohibits a city from regulating signs based solely on their political content.
“Additional First Amendment protections are afforded to signs with a noncommercial or political message. The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly invalidated any city ordinance that attempted to severely regulate these signs on residential property,” the City of Laredo said. “However, ordinances that attempt to neutrally regulate all signs in furtherance of a compelling municipal interest, such as aesthetics, have been upheld.”
The City of Laredo requires all signs on private property that promotes a time, event, message, business or purpose to be removed within 14 days after the issue is decided, the event has taken place or the establishment has gone out of business.
A candidate is free to post political signs on private property with the owner’s consent at any time before an election but he or she must remove these within 14 days after an election or runoff.
A city does have the authority to regulate and prohibit signs in its rights-of-way, including political signs, at any time.
A sign owner must request a city’s permission before a sign may be legally placed in a city’s right-of-way. A city may choose to regulate a sign’s placement in the city’s rights-of-way. Absent city regulation, state law generally prohibits signs in city rights-of-way. However, for First Amendment reasons, a city may not prohibit all political signs in the rights-of-way and allow other types of signs.
The City of Laredo does not allow any signs on its right-of-ways at any time

Source by : http://www.lmtonline.com/front-news/article_8b5e64ec-ee26-11e5-8bfa-1b8244859f9e.html

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Political violence is an American tradition

The scene was violent and chaotic: protesters being forcibly removed from a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The image reinforced a common complaint that police can be callous toward the free-speech rights of demonstrators when seeking to preserve order. Some questions and answers about rules and procedures for police at political events:

Q. Who pays for police to be there, taxpayers or event organizers?

A. It depends. As part of the permitting process, local officials, the venue and the event organizers discuss the event and its logistics and decide what kind of security is needed. What’s the expected crowd size? Is there a record of violence or disruptions at similar events?

Sometimes authorities decide it’s necessary for event organizers to provide private security. Sometimes authorities agree to supplement that with local police. Sometimes the private security detail consists of off-duty officers who are paid by the organizers or the venue, but retain their normal police powers. Sometimes, it’s private security without arrest power supplemented by police on their regular shifts.

With 18,000 police departments in the United States and municipalities with different rules, venues that can be municipally owned or privately held and events that require different approaches to ensure safety, nothing is standard.

Q. Why are police there?

A. To ensure public safety, both inside and outside the event. A large gathering mixed with the natural political friction of an election season, or any event that draws crowds in the thousands, can be a volatile brew.

Any such event, from a political rally to an NFL game, needs police present, said Jon Shane, an assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

Q. How do police show enough force sufficient to maintain calm without becoming a provocation?

A. When violence broke out in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, blame fell on police for deploying armored vehicles and tear gas and using them aggressively against protesters.

Law enforcement experts say officers must walk a fine line: to appear in control without appearing threatening.

“That’s a very difficult judgment area,” said Ben Tisa, a former Marine and retired FBI agent and now a consultant on police policy, procedures and practices.

Some officers might be in uniform, while others are in plain clothes to blend in. Conflicting protesters may have to be kept separated. And some demonstrators come with the full intention of getting arrested, Tisa said.

“The officers are in a tough place,” he said. “If they have too many, they get yelled at. If they don’t have enough, they get yelled at.”

Q. Can localities recover any costs of providing protection for political rallies?

A. They can try, but it’s not easy. A county in Virginia billed the 2012 presidential campaigns more than $180,000 for providing police for security on a visit by New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. The state GOP reimbursed them just under $2,000, leaving the rest unreimbursed.

Henrico Police Chief Douglas Middleton told the Richmond Times-Dispatch, “I can’t make them pay it, but I want them to be aware that it’s not free for you to come here. Somebody pays for it. It’s either you or the taxpayers.”

In Burlington, Vermont, the mayor of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders’ hometown sent a bill totaling $8,464.27 to the Trump campaign for providing police at a Jan. 7 rally. The city said it dispatched 33 officers, about a third of its force. So far, the campaign hasn’t paid, said Jennifer Kaulius, the mayor’s spokeswoman.

Source by : http://www.nwherald.com/2016/03/19/why-are-police-at-political-rallies-and-who-pays-for-them/a7zj3a9/

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Political violence is an American tradition

BERLIN – Sen. Marco Rubio says that the tension Donald Trump cultivates at his rallies is worthy “of the Third World.” He’s overstating the case, and for that, Americans should count themselves lucky.

I have been to eight of Trump’s rallies in several states over the last two months, and I have seen protesters removed or jeered at each one, but I have not seen anything that could be described as a serious brawl.

In Trump’s months of campaigning before growing and fired-up audiences, some of them so large they packed stadiums, no one has been seriously injured — and that includes the police officer and two civilians who were briefly taken to a hospital after the canceled rally in Chicago on March 11. A punch, a reporter pushed to the ground: This is hardly the mayhem that sometimes accompanies politics in what Rubio calls “the Third World.”

In younger and poorer democracies, there’s more violence in parliaments than there has been at Trump rallies. In Greece, demonstrations against pension reform routinely feature Molotov cocktails and tear gas. In Ukraine last August, a hard-right activist threw a hand grenade at the police at a rally outside the parliament building, and shots were fired, resulting in the death of an officer and 100 serious injuries. In Russia, attending a rally that is not officially sanctioned carries the risk of beatings and detention. Hundreds invariably are.

We can hope that Trump tones things down while at the same time remembering that the United States has a long tradition of muscular politics characterized by flare-ups that go far beyond shouting matches and some pushing.

Consider the civil rights protests or those against the Vietnam War, not to mention the labor clashes of the 1920s and 1930s.

It’s not just the U.S., either. “As comforting as it is for civilized people to think of barbarians as violent and of violence as barbarian, Western civilization and various forms of collective violence have always clung to each other,” the sociologist Charles Tilly wrote in 1978.

But the relative calm in U.S. politics may just be cyclical. This season may be more contentious because Americans are getting impatient with politics as usual, whether from the left or from the right. Around the world and throughout history, similar impatience sometimes has found expression in violence. Brawling at rallies is not necessarily the sign of a descent into barbarity. It may just be a manifestation of intensified anger and conviction, which often go hand in hand. Democracy can be messy, especially when a country is changing. I’ve seen in one post-Soviet country after another that the past doesn’t give up without a fight. But all hope for change dies when people grow apathetic, stop fighting, then stop showing up.

This election may not be a showcase for the intelligence and statesmanship of the U.S. elite, but the passion and engagement it has infused into U.S. politics could have a silver lining.


Source by : http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/03/20/commentary/world-commentary/political-violence-is-an-american-tradition/#.Vu5jNtx95dj

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Spain's political stalemate starts taking economic toll

Madrid: This year was supposed to be a good one for Spanish builders but the lack of a government three months after an inconclusive general election has put the brakes on economic activity.

"Everything that has to do with construction in this country is blocked," said Carlos Luaces, director general of Spain's association of sand and gravel producers, Anefa.

Spain has been locked in a political stalemate since a general election on December 20 resulted in a parliament divided among the country's four main parties -- none of which won enough seats to govern alone.

No party has so far been able to cobble together a workable coalition and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's caretaker government has limited powers and can not approve projects that involve new spending.

As a result the number of tenders for public works projects launched by the central government plunged by 69 percent in January compared to the same month last year, according to Seopan, an association that represents Spanish builders.

"There are no more public works tenders, the sector is paralysed," said the director of a public works firm in the southwestern region of Extremadura, which employs 800 people.

"This brutal stoppage will mean we will have to let people go and reduce costs," the 42-year-old, who asked not to be identified, added.

The political stalemate comes as Spain is grappling with a jobless rate of 20.9 percent, the highest in the European Union after Greece.

Spending on public works projects typically rises before an election as politicians seek photo opportunities on the campaign trail and then fall off.

Rajoy stepped up the number of inaugurations of new roads and bridges at the end of last year.

"It was clear that the machine would slow down once the ribbons were cut and the photo was taken," said Josep Ramon Fontana, a senior researcher at Catalan Institute of Construction Technology (Itec).

But what was not expected was that it would take so long to form a government after the general election, he added.

"We all expected that a central government would be formed by January 1, which would be able to tell us roughly what its policy would be in terms of infrastructure," he added.

Until a government is formed, certain projects such as a planned expansion of Spain's high-speed railway will be delayed.

"It is not just an impasse, it is a critical situation," said Luaces.

The political uncertainty is paralysing other areas such as the food and agriculture sector as well, said Antonio Masa, the head of the chamber of commerce of Badajoz, Extremadura's largest city.

"Entrepreneurs are putting the brakes on their investments due to the political situation in Spain," he said.

Businesses are waiting to see if a new government will change legislation before spending money.

Spain's economy, the eurozone's fourth largest, grew by 3.2 percent in 2015, its second year of growth as the country emerged from five years of on-off recession sparked by the bursting of a property bubble.

But analysts predict economic growth will slow this year.

Spanish bank BBVA predicts that the political uncertainty could knock up to 0.5 percentage points off its forecast growth rate of 2.7 percent for 2016.

After parliament, at the start of March, rejected a coalition government between the Socialists and new centre-right party Ciudadanos, parties have until May 2 to produce a new government acceptable to a majority of lawmakers.

If they fail, fresh elections will be held at the end of June. Polls suggest another election will not resolve the stalemate, however.

Spain's tourist sector, which accounts for 14 percent of the nation's economic output, is also worried.

"If there are elections after all on June 26, the sector will be hit since consumers will not want to make reservations beforehand," said Juan Molas, chairman of Spanish hotel federation, Cehat.

Source by : http://www.gdnonline.com/Details/74674/Spains-political-stalemate-starts-taking-economic-toll

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Merrick Garland Battle Moves to Home Front as Senate Recesses

Senate Democrats held a news conference outside the Supreme Court. They urged Senate Republicans to proceed with the confirmation process for Judge Merrick B. Garland. CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The fight over the vacancy on the Supreme Court shifted from close combat in the halls of Congress to a nationwide battle on Friday as senators returned to their home states for a two-week recess and Republican and Democratic leaders began aggressively making their cases in television and radio interviews, op-ed columns and public appearances.

With little hope of a confirmation hearing before the November elections, the debate over the vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia is entering a critical phase — away from the corridors of power in Washington.

One clear sign that the issue was resonating in campaigns came Friday when Senator Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, who faces a difficult re-election campaign, categorically broke with the Republican leadership. Mr. Kirk said in a radio interview that his party should “man up and vote” on Mr. Obama’s choice, Judge Merrick B. Garland of the federal appeals court for the District of Columbia.

President Obama led the push for the Democrats in an interview on National Public Radio in which he urged Republicans to give fair consideration to his nominee. Mr. Obama described him as one of the best judges of his generation.

Judge Garland, the president said, “would help to burnish the sense that the Supreme Court is above politics and not just an extension of politics, and would set a good tone for restoring — or at least increasing — the American people’s confidence in our justice system.”

With no parliamentary tool available to Senate Democrats to force the Republican majority to take up the Garland nomination, the focus now turns to how big an issue the Supreme Court vacancy will be in the presidential election and in a number of key Senate races that could determine whether Republicans retain their majority.

Republican leaders, in refusing to hold hearings or a vote, have insisted that their position has nothing to do with any individual nominee but is intended to allow voters to decide the ideological tilt of the Supreme Court when they choose a new president.

Reiterating that position in an op-ed article in USA Today on Friday, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, wrote, “The next Supreme Court justice could fundamentally alter the direction of the court and our country for a generation, and the American people deserve a voice in such a momentous decision.”

“The American people may well elect a president who decides to renominate Judge Garland,” Mr. McConnell said. “The next president may also nominate someone very different.” The Senate will then look at the candidate he wrote, declaring: “That’s a fair approach. That’s a reasonable compromise. That’s the best way forward for our country now.”

Aides said Mr. McConnell would appear on four of the five major Sunday news shows to argue his position.

In response, Democrats have opened a nationwide campaign, portraying the Republicans as obstructionist and unreasonable. And there were initial indications that Democrats were gaining momentum; their rallying cry — “Do Your Job” — was trending nationally on Twitter.

“Democrats are going to be relentless, repetitive, and resolute in calling on our Republican colleagues to do their job across the country — but we won’t be alone,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, who is positioned to take over as the Senate Democratic leader next year. “Americans of all political stripes agree that giving Judge Garland fair consideration for the Supreme Court is both our job as senators and the right thing to do.”

Mr. Obama, in his NPR interview, said he hoped Republicans would act out of a sense of duty to the institutions of American government and also out of basic fairness. “My simple pitch to them is: be fair,” Mr. Obama said.

“I’m not demanding that Republicans vote for Merrick Garland,” he said, “but do not stop the process in its tracks. Because if you do, then the ever-escalating, ever-worsening problems behind not just judicial nominees, but nominations generally, are going to continue to make our government more and more dysfunctional. And at some point, it’s got to stop.”

“A good place for it to stop,” the president said, “is when we’re talking about a Supreme Court seat and we have an impeccably qualified candidate who the Republicans themselves have acknowledged is deserving of being on the court.”

The breadth of the Democrats’ effort was clear in a television appearance on Friday morning by Senator Jon Tester of Montana at KBZK, the CBS-affiliate in Bozeman. Mr. Tester stopped well short of endorsing Judge Garland, who was confirmed for his current seat in 1997 long before the senator took office. But Mr. Tester made a forceful pitch for taking up the nomination.

“I really think the folks out there who think that we just ought to ignore this for the next 15 months not only are not doing their job, they are not following the Constitution,” Mr. Tester said. “I can’t imagine the forefathers when they drafted up the Constitution: ‘Say, when a justice passes away well let’s just wait 15 months before you put the next one in.’ ”

Judge Garland with President Obama at the White House the day his nomination was announced.CreditDoug Mills/The New York Tim

“Democrats are going to be relentless, repetitive, and resolute in calling on our Republican colleagues to do their job across the country — but we won’t be alone,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, who is positioned to take over as the Senate Democratic leader next year. “Americans of all political stripes agree that giving Judge Garland fair consideration for the Supreme Court is both our job as senators and the right thing to do.”

Mr. Obama, in his NPR interview, said he hoped Republicans would act out of a sense of duty to the institutions of American government and also out of basic fairness. “My simple pitch to them is: be fair,” Mr. Obama said.

“I’m not demanding that Republicans vote for Merrick Garland,” he said, “but do not stop the process in its tracks. Because if you do, then the ever-escalating, ever-worsening problems behind not just judicial nominees, but nominations generally, are going to continue to make our government more and more dysfunctional. And at some point, it’s got to stop.”

“A good place for it to stop,” the president said, “is when we’re talking about a Supreme Court seat and we have an impeccably qualified candidate who the Republicans themselves have acknowledged is deserving of being on the court.”

The breadth of the Democrats’ effort was clear in a television appearance on Friday morning by Senator Jon Tester of Montana at KBZK, the CBS-affiliate in Bozeman. Mr. Tester stopped well short of endorsing Judge Garland, who was confirmed for his current seat in 1997 long before the senator took office. But Mr. Tester made a forceful pitch for taking up the nomination.

“I really think the folks out there who think that we just ought to ignore this for the next 15 months not only are not doing their job, they are not following the Constitution,” Mr. Tester said. “I can’t imagine the forefathers when they drafted up the Constitution: ‘Say, when a justice passes away well let’s just wait 15 months before you put the next one in.’ ”


Source by : http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/us/politics/merrick-garland-supreme-court-senate-recess.html?ribbon-ad-idx=6&rref=politics&module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=Politics&action=click&region=FixedRight&pgtype=article

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Bernie Sanders Forges Ahead With Jabs at Donald Trump

Senator Bernie Sanders at a campaign rally on Friday in Salt Lake City. CreditKim Raff for The New York Times

Undeterred by questions of delegate math or political momentum, Senator Bernie Sanders brushed off suggestions on Friday that his campaign had no way forward and forcefully made the case that he was the Democratic candidate better suited to defeat Donald J. Trump in a general election.

Mr. Sanders blitzed through Idaho, Utah and Arizona ahead of crucial nominating contests in those states on Tuesday. Facing a deep deficit in the race for delegates after losses in five states this week, he continued to hammer away at his core messages on campaign finance and Wall Street reform while trying to seize the mantle of electability from Hillary Clinton.

“Let me say a word to you about my good friend Donald Trump,” Mr. Sanders said at a rally before more than 3,000 people at a high school gym in Idaho Falls. “Just kidding, he’s not my good friend. In fact, I never even went to one of his weddings.”

Despite the veiled jab at Mrs. Clinton, who did attend Mr. Trump’s third wedding, Mr. Sanders directed most of his fire at the leading Republican candidate. He said he was “making an exception” to his promise not to campaign negatively, saying it was a necessary evil because of the gravity of Mr. Trump’s rise.

“The truth is that Donald Trump is a pathological liar,” Mr. Sanders said, spending several minutes discussing Mr. Trump’s record of bending the truth. “People can disagree about ideas, but you cannot have a president who the American people cannot trust when he speaks.”

Mr. Sanders pointed to several polls that show him as the stronger candidate to take on Mr. Trump, but he ignored the more daunting numbers facing him in the near term. He trails Mrs. Clinton by more than 300 delegates, and although his campaign says friendlier terrain is ahead, state polls of Democrats do not indicate that the race is likely to shift in his favor.

The Sanders team said Friday that it has received more than 150,000 donations in the past three days and insists that this is merely the midpoint in a long contest that will end in June. Still, many political analysts say the campaign is kidding itself.

“Hope is a difficult thing to extinguish, particularly when it’s well funded,” said Steve McMahon, a Democratic political consultant with Purple Strategies. “But keeping hope alive is different than keeping a campaign alive because this is ultimately about winning the most delegates, and it’s nearly impossible to see a path for Sanders to pass Clinton in delegates.”

Putting the long odds aside, Mr. Sanders has more rallies scheduled this weekend in Phoenix and in Boise, Idaho, and he is firing up his supporters by hitting local issues and throwing red meat in new directions.

On Thursday night, he focused on immigration at an event in Arizona and assailed Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County — one of the state’s most contentious political figures — as being an “un-American” bully.

Mr. Sanders was introduced at the rally by Katherine Figueroa Bueno, a teenage immigration activist who, at the age of 9, saw her parents being detained on television in a workplace raid led by Sheriff Arpaio, who backs Mr. Trump.

“Arpaio took away my childhood because I had to grow up from one week to another,” she said. “I am one of millions of other kids that are left behind.”

“I want all deportations to stop — that’s why we need Bernie Sanders to be our president,” she said.

Mr. Sanders vowed to prevent others from experiencing what Ms. Figueroa Bueno did.

“It’s easy for bullies like Sheriff Arpaio to pick on people who have no power, but if I’m elected president, the president of the United States does have the power,” Mr. Sanders said. “Watch out, Joe!”

Mr. Sanders also called for an end to “systemic injustice” faced by Native Americans, a quarter of whom he said live in poverty. He said that young American Indians faced low graduation rates and high suicide rates, and that one Native American woman in three would be raped during her lifetime.

“The Native American people have been lied to, they have been cheated and negotiated treaties have been broken,” he said. “We owe the Native American people so, so much.”

That outreach came in stark contrast to Mr. Trump, who was asked by a Native American woman this week in Ohio if, as president, he would apologize to the group for wrongs that were committed by the United States over the years.

Mr. Trump expressed little sympathy.

“Well, I’ll certainly look into it,” he said. “I haven’t been big on apologizing, you do know that, right?

Source by : httwww.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/us/politics/bernie-sanders-forges-ahead-with-jabs-at-donald-trump.html?ribbon-ad-idx=6&rref=politics&module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=Politics&action=click&region=FixedRight&pgtype=articlep://

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Brazil’s Political Crisis Deepens

Protests in Sao Paoulo against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and her new chief of staff, and former president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. CreditAndre Penner/Associated Press

President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil is fighting for political survival as calls for her impeachment grow louder amid a widening corruption investigation and a tanking economy.

Astonishingly, however, she appears to have felt she had political capital to spare last week when she appointed her predecessor and political mentor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to be chief of staff, a move that largely shields him, for now, from prosecution in the corruption scandal involving his ties to giant construction companies.

Ms. Rousseff’s explanation was tone deaf and ridiculous. She characterized the appointment as an opportunity to bring back to the government a maverick politician and talented negotiator to help Brazil contend with an assortment of crises, including the spread of the Zika virus.

“If Lula’s arrival strengthens my government, and there are people who don’t want it strengthened, then what can I do?” Ms. Rousseff said.

Ms. Rousseff has now created yet another crisis, one of confidence in her own judgment. Mr. da Silva, who led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, has been dealing with charges of illicit self-enrichment since he left office. Close associates, including his former chief of staff, José Dirceu de Oliveira e Silva, and the former treasurer of the ruling Workers’ Party, João Vaccari Neto, are in prison for corruption.

Early this month, investigators raided Mr. da Silva’s home and took him into custody for questioning. Prosecutors then sought to arrest him, accusing him of having accepted $200,000 worth of renovations for a beachfront property investigators believed he planned to occupy. Federal prosecutors are also investigating whether the millions of dollars Mr. da Silva and his foundation have received from companies linked to the scandal surrounding Petrobras, the national oil company, were actually bribes.

Mr. da Silva, a leftist leader, says he is not guilty and is entitled to his day in court. But he and Ms. Rousseff want to delay that day for as long as possible by giving him the protections from prosecution that cabinet members enjoy.

Roughly 50 officials — including politicians from other political parties — have been implicated in the Petrobras scandal, and Brazilians are rightly disgusted with their leaders. This latest move by the governing party sent protesters to the streets to demand Ms. Rousseff’s resignation and to express their outrage at what amounts to blatant cronyism. If her latest blunder pushes the impeachment effort across the finish line, Ms. Rousseff will have only herself to blame.


Source by: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/opinion/brazils-political-crisis-deepens.html?_r=0

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How should Republicans denounce Trump? Past GOP presidents have already told us.

Republicans could use the rhetoric of their past presidents to repudiate Donald Trump. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)


By now, the GOP establishment’s role in fueling Donald Trump’s rise is well established. What is less certain, however, is why Republican presidential candidates and other party leaders, in their futile efforts to bring Trump down, have been so reluctant to make a strong moral case against him.

For instance, when Marco Rubio declared that “the Party of Lincoln and Reagan will not be held by a con artist,” the implication was that fraud — not unrepentant bigotry — is the real affront to Lincoln’s legacy. Even Mitt Romney, who re-entered the political fray for the sole purpose of stopping Trump, rested his argument on the idea that Trump is a “phony” and a fake conservative whose nomination would hand the presidency to “a person so untrustworthy and dishonest as Hillary Clinton.”

But let’s dispel with this fiction that Republican leaders cannot unequivocally repudiate Trump-ism and all it represents. In fact, they already have: Here is a speech that any Republican presidential hopeful could give — assembled (almost) entirely from the words of former Republican presidents. (Ellipses indicate cuts from the original text.)

* * *

My fellow Americans:

[I]t is quite natural for the Republican Party to ask today, “What will happen, not just in the coming election, but even one hundred years from now?” My answer is this: If we and our successors are as courageous and forward-looking…here under the klieg-lights of the [21st] century, as Abraham Lincoln and his associates were in the bonfire-light of the nineteenth, the Republican Party will continue to grow in the confidence and affection of the American people.

I want my [party] to unify our country; to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose. I want to carry our message to every American, regardless of party affiliation, who is a member of this community of shared values.

The stakes are high this year and our choice is crucial. What it all comes down to this:

We are bound in honor to refuse to listen to … the greedy and violent demagogue.

[Because] our nation is harmed when we let our differences separate and divide us.

As recent unfortunate events have demonstrated, we cannot be complacent about racism and bigotry.

For our nation, there is no denying … that racism, despite all the progress, still exists today. For my party, there is no escaping the reality that the party of Lincoln has not always carried the mantle of Lincoln.

The politics of racial hatred and religious bigotry … have no place in this country, and are destructive of the values for which America has always stood. I firmly believe that there is no room for partisanship on this question. Democrats and Republicans alike must be resolute in disassociating ourselves from any group or individual whose political philosophy consists … of racial or religious intolerance, whose arguments are supported … by intimidation or threats of violence.

And I would challenge all of you to pledge yourselves to building an America where incidents of racial hatred do not happen. A good place to start, a tangible contribution each of you can make, is to be totally intolerant of racism anywhere around you. If someone, even a friend, uses an ugly word referring to another’s race or religion, let’s make it clear we won’t put up with it. Racial, ethnic, or religious slurs are vulgar, mean spirited; and there is no place for them in a democratic and free America.

[And] I would like to address a few remarks to those groups who still adhere to senseless racism and religious prejudice, to those individuals who persist in such hateful behavior. I would say to them: “You are the ones who are out of step with our society. You are the ones who willfully violate the meaning of the dream that is America. And this country, because of what it stands for, will not stand for your conduct.”

The issue of immigration [also] stirs intense emotions and in recent weeks, Americans have seen those emotions on display.

Our nation is a nation of immigrants. More than any other country, our strength comes from our own immigrant heritage and our capacity to welcome those from other lands.

We must begin by recognizing the problems with our immigration system. For decades, the United States has not been in complete control of its borders. As a result, many who want to work in our economy have been able to sneak across our border and millions have stayed. These are real problems, yet we must remember that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are decent people who work hard, support their families, practice their faith, and lead responsible lives.

[They] have become productive members of our society and are a basic part of our workforce. They are a part of American life but they are beyond the reach and protection of American law. We are a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws.

[But] we’re also a nation of immigrants, and we must uphold that tradition, which has strengthened our country in so many ways. These are not contradictory goals. America can be a lawful society and a welcoming society at the same time.

We shall continue America’s tradition as a land that welcomes peoples from other countries. We shall also, with other countries, continue to share in the responsibility of welcoming and resettling those who flee oppression.

Our objective is only to establish a reasonable, fair, orderly, and secure system of immigration into this country and not to discriminate in any way against particular nations or people.

I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It’s practiced freely by many millions of Americans and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends.

And it’s important for my fellow Americans to understand that. The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country. Muslims are doctors, lawyers, law professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads. And they need to be treated with respect. In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect.

America is in trouble today not because her people have failed but because her leaders have failed. And what America needs are leaders to match the greatness of her people.

[T]he ready talker, however great his power, whose speech does not make for courage, sobriety, and right understanding, is simply a noxious element in the body politic. Of one man in especial, beyond any one else, the citizens of a republic should beware, and that is of the man who appeals to them to support him on the ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the republic. In a republic, to be successful we must learn to combine intensity of conviction with a broad tolerance of difference of conviction. Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth. Bitter internecine hatreds, based on such differences, are signs, not of earnestness of belief, but of that fanaticism which, whether religious or antireligious, democratic or antidemocratic, is itself but a manifestation of the gloomy bigotry which has been the chief factor in the downfall of so many, many nations.

In the party of Lincoln, there is no room for intolerance and not even a small corner for … bigotry of any kind. Many people are welcome in our house, but not the bigots.

Our nation must rise above a house divided. Americans share hopes and goals and values far more important than any political disagreements. I know America wants reconciliation and unity. I know Americans want progress. And we must seize this moment and deliver.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Source by:
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Older voters, blacks and Obama backers boost Clinton in Illinois

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Hillary Clinton triumphed in the Illinois Democratic primary for president Tuesday with the support of older voters, blacks and those who want to see the policies of President Barack Obama continued, according to results of interviews of voters leaving their polling places.

The former secretary of state bested Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders among voters 45 and older, who represented 3 in 5 of the electorate. While blacks made up less than a third, she claimed 7 in 10 of their votes.

GOP EXIT POLLS
Voter anger, economic worries help propel Trump to Illinois win

On the Republican side, Donald Trump tapped into voter discontent with the federal government and anxiety about the economy to win on Tuesday. Almost 9 in 10 Republicans voting in Tuesday's Illinois primary indicated they are "dissatisfied" or "angry" at the federal government's direction, splitting their votes between Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. But of the one-third of voters who were angry, more than half voted for Trump, according to results of the survey conducted by Edison Research for The Associated Press and television networks.

GREG HINZ:
Illinois voters wanted change in primary—up to a point

A closer look at the attitudes of the electorate:

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PICK UP WHERE OBAMA LEFT OFF

More than half of Illinois Democrats say they want President Barack Obama's policies continued, with one-third seeking a more liberal direction. Clinton won more than 3 in 5 votes of those wishing to stay the course.

Nearly three-quarters of Democrats are satisfied with either Clinton or Sanders, and 6 in 10 found each "about right" on political philosophy. More than half of GOP voters indicated they want an outsider to take over the Oval Office, with nearly seven in 10 of those voters indicating a preference for Trump.

But even among Democrats, the small proportion who wanted an outsider loomed large, voting overwhelmingly for Sanders.

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TRUMP TREMORS

Trump has been a simultaneous front-runner and lightning rod for most of the presidential campaign. And despite his win, Illinois Republicans' unease with him is apparent.

Almost 4 in 10 GOP voters thought Trump would be the best choice as the nation's commander in chief, while 3 in 10 said Cruz would be. But almost as many voters find Trump dishonest as believe him to be honest — while more than half say Cruz is honest, and 4 in 10 say he's dishonest. Seven in 10 voters thought Ohio Gov. John Kasich is honest.

Additionally, more than 4 in 10 say Trump has run the most unfair campaign among contenders, and just under half of them voted for Cruz.

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IMPORTANT ISSUES

The state of the economy was the most important issue to about half of Democrats, who split their votes between Clinton and Sanders. Almost one-quarter ranked income inequality as their next issue, with almost 6 in 10 favoring Sanders. Fewer than 2 in 10 said health care was the most important issue, while less than 1 in 10 said they worried most about terrorism.

Among GOP voters, almost 4 in 10 said the economy was the most important issue facing the nation, and the same proportion voted for Trump, while 3 in 10 voted for Cruz. Three in 10 were most worked up about government spending, and they split their votes between Cruz and Trump. Fewer than 2 in 10 cited terrorism as the most important issue, but 4 in 10 of those who did voted for Trump. Fewer than 1 in 10 said immigration was most important.

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AGE, RACE AND GENDER

More than half of Democratic men supported Sanders — the same proportion of women siding with Clinton. Sanders took 7 in 10 votes among those under age 45; Clinton claimed more than 3 in 5 of those older. Seven in 10 black voters marked Clinton's name, while about 3 of 5 whites preferred Sanders.

In an election that could catapult the first woman into the Oval Office, nearly 4 in 5 Democrats said gender did not play an important role in their decision — and just over half of them voted for Sanders.

Among GOP voters, almost two-thirds were 45 or older, and 4 in 10 of them voted for Trump. Those 44 and younger split their votes between Trump, Cruz and Kasich. About half of voters were men, and 4 in 10 voted for Trump, while more than 3 in 10 women voted for Cruz and Trump and 2 in 10 for Kasich.

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The survey was conducted for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Research as voters left their polling places at 35 randomly selected sites in Illinois. Results include interviews with 1,521 Democratic primary voters and 1,233 Republican primary voters. The results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for both Democratic and Republican primary voters.

Source by
:http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20160316/NEWS02/160319856/older-voters-blacks-and-obama-backers-boost-clinton-in-illinois

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