sottnet--2019-02-12--Thousands of Palestinian Bedouins have no access to vote in upcoming Israeli elections

As the Israeli campaign trail moves full speed ahead to the upcoming April 9th elections, rights groups are demanding authorities provide thousands of Palestinian Bedouin citizens of Israel with adequate access to polling stations.Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel released a statement Monday saying the group is appealing to the Israeli Central Elections Committee Chairman and Interior Minister, demanding that polling stations be placed in 11 "unrecognized" Bedouin villages in the Negev desert.The group added that many of the villages' residents would have to travel on foot, given that the communities lack public transportation and many residents do not own private vehicles."The absence of polling stations in the Bedouin villages is one of the main reasons for the low voter turnout among this population," Adalah said, adding that "harming citizens' access to polling stations constitutes a grave and disproportionate violation of the constitutional right to vote enshrined in Israel's Basic Law: The Knesset (Article 4)."According to Adalah, the group filed a similar appeal before the last national elections, but were rejected on the basis that the public transportation lines situated along main highways were "sufficient."The group, however, has maintained that low voter turnout from the previous elections "indicate that this failed to remedy the situation.""The Central Elections Committee must allow all citizens to vote without having to embark on unreasonable journeys in order to do so," Zaher said.More than half of the approximately 160,000 Negev Bedouins reside in villages "unrecognized" by the state of Israel, according to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).Due to the fact that many Bedouins generally lack titles to the lands their ancestors historically grazed and lived on, it is difficult for them to prove their right to live and work on the lands, which were declared property of the state of Israel in 1948.As a result, Bedouin communities in the Negev are constantly at risk of forcible displacement at the hands of Israeli authorities. Last month, Israeli authorities announced a plan to forcibly transfer 36,000 Palestinian Bedouins living in unrecognized villages in the Negev region in order to expand military training areas and implement so-called "economic development" projects.Rights groups have claimed that such actions in Bedouin communities are an Israeli policy aimed at removing the indigenous Palestinian population from the region to make room for the expansion of Jewish-Israeli communities.


sottnet--2019-10-07--Kiev: Thousands protest Zelenskiy's plan for local elections in eastern Ukraine

Thousands of demonstrators have rallied in Kyiv against President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's plan to hold local elections in eastern Ukrainian territory that is under the control of Russia-backed separatists. Protesters at the rally denounced the plan as capitulation to Russia.. Zelenskiy has described the deal as a necessary intermediate step ahead of organizing a summit with the leaders of Russia, France, and Germany to push for a peace deal.In the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which is under Kyiv's control, aboutgathered outside of the regional state administration headquarters on October 6 to protest the election plan. Participants of public organizations, activists, and representatives of political parties joined the all-Ukrainian protest rally in Kharkiv.Their main demand is for an extraordinary session of the Kharkiv Regional Council in order to draw up a formal complaint against the plan --Participants of the rally also announced the creation of what they call "Capitulation Headquarters," which includes representatives of various political and public associations.The five-year conflict between the separatists and Ukrainian government forces has killed more than 13,000 people."There cannot be and will not be elections held at gunpoint," Zelenskiy said on October 2. "There will be no capitulation."The regions would receive self-governing status once they hold elections that are deemed to be free and fair by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), according to what is known as the Steinmeier Formula, a component of an overall road map for attaining peace.. On October 6, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov said the signing of the Steinmeier Formula has increased the chances of organizing a summit that includes Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany.Moscow had demanded that Kyiv agree to the Steinmeier Formula before it would consent to four-way peace talks with Ukraine.The four countries have not met for peace talks since October 2016.


sottnet--2019-11-10--Evo Morales has agreed to new elections due to uproar over fraud accusations and results dispute

The Bolivian president, Evo Morales, is to call fresh elections after international monitors identified serious irregularities in the last vote and recommended a new ballot.and the military said it would not "confront the people" who had taken to the streets.In a televised news conference on Sunday,Morales, who has been Bolivia's president for nearly 14 years, announcedThe body has been heavily criticised after an unexplained 24-hour halt in the vote count on 20 October, which showed a shift in favour of Morales when it resumed.But Bolivia's opposition leaders say the call for a fresh vote comes too late. Luis Fernando Camacho, a civic leader from the opposition stronghold Santa Cruz, said the OAS audit shows fraud and that Morales should resign.from participating in new elections as they were behind an attempt to rig the vote.Other civic groups and political parties voiced agreement with Mesa while Bolivia's trade union federation union, the COB - a one-time ally of Morales - called on the president to resign.The OAS's preliminary report said it had foundand said it could not verify a first-round victory for Morales.to get to the bottom of it and assign responsibility in this serious case," it said.The report added that it was "statistically improbable that Morales had obtained the 10% difference to avoid a second round". Morales had claimed victory before the final count with just enough votes to avoid a run-off, which some polls had indicated he could lose."The first round of the elections held on 20 October must be annulled and the electoral process must begin again," the OAS added in a separate statement.Following violent clashes in El Alto on Saturday between Morales supporters and protestersGovernment supporters in the countryside stoned caravans of protesters heading to the demonstrations in La Paz.Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous leader, and South America's longest-standing contemporary leader, defended his election win butHe has decried a coup attempt backed by "violent groups" and the opposition to oust him from power and refused to resign amid mounting calls to step down.At least three people have died in the unrest. The latest reported death was that of a 20-year-old student last week. More than 300 people have been injured in clashes between anti-government protesters and Morales supporters since the election.


sottnet--2019-11-12--Competition for Moscow? UK election meddling accusations spread from Russia, to India... to Hillary

If you believe the daily reports, Britain's ongoing election campaign is facing more interference than an old analogue television during a rainstorm, and amazingly, it's not just Russians being accused of being behind it.A sense of old world grandeur is easily inflated by convincing yourself that you're so important that the whole world wants to swing your election.Representing the old US of A this morning on the BBC was one Hillary Rodham Clinton. I know she isn't an official representative of Washington, but I'm not sure she does, so her input is significant, especially as the old glutton for punishment has been hinting she might take another tilt at the White House.But first to those Indians. It's been recently reported that a UK support group for the BJP, India's ruling Hindu nationalist party, has been campaigning for the Conservative party in 48 marginal seats. It's also claimed that Whatsapp messages have been sent to Hindus in Britain suggesting they shouldn't vote for "anti-India" Labour.The Guardian went to speak to a community of Hindus, the majority of which rejected the idea that they would let outside forces influence their vote. One Labour MP has been quoted as saying Hindus would never be swayed by this kind of outside interference.It would be remiss not to finish with the latest allegation against Russia, and here it is. No sooner had the Labour party announced that it had suffered a cyber attack on its online operations than those trusty old unnamed sources were wheeled out in the media to throw accusations in Moscow's direction.This will be confusing to a lot of people who were under the impression that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was a fully paid up Russian stooge, which would make his party a strange target for Moscow. Still, the strangeness of an accusation doesn't usually much matter in these circumstances.


sputnik--2019-02-26--Thousands of Students in Algeria Protest Presidents Reelection Bid

Thousands of Students in Algeria Protest President’s Reelection Bid

The 81-year-old announced he would stand for office in a written statement on 10 February. He reportedly suffered a stroke in 2013 and has been in and out of hospitals for years.  Students demonstrated at campuses in the country’s centre, west, east and south, as well as in the national capital Algiers, after police barred them from taking to the streets.  Algerians will go to the polls on 18 April. The opposition remains split ahead of the election after initially trying to field a single candidate to challenge the incumbent president.


sputnik--2019-09-10--Corbyn is Preposterous Coward Says Johnson Following House of Commons Refusal to Hold Snap Electio

Corbyn is ‘Preposterous Coward’ Says Johnson Following House of Commons Refusal to Hold Snap Elections

Boris Johnson fired shots at oppositionist Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn by calling him a "yellow-belly" who tried to hide his "preposterous cowardice" by refusing Johnson a snap election early Tuesday morning.  "The Surrender Act has now passed. It has gained Royal Assent. He [Jeremy Corbyn] has done his level best to wreck this country's chances of a successful negotiation," said Johnson directly referring to Labour party leader. "By his own logic and his own argument, he must now back an election."  Referring to other Labour MPs, Johnson added that this, however, is not the case, as most of the oppositionists fear that Corbyn will lose, while "a small and sensible minority don't want it because they're terrified he might actually win."  "I will not ask for another delay," the PM reiterated, "If honourable members want another delay, the only proper way to do this is to ask permission from our masters, the voters."  Boris Johnson continued his attack on MPs who didn't support his proposal to hold a general election to break the Brexit deadlock before 31 October, saying that they had "denied the British people their say".  "While the opposition runs from their duty to those who put us here, they cannot hide forever," Johnson added.  Corbyn later hit back by saying that he wanted to “turf out this reckless government, but we will not walk into his trap”.  Boris Johnson earlier pledged to take Britain out of the European Union by 31 October with or without a deal.  British Parliament is now prorogued until 14 October, with re-opening just a few weeks before the Brexit deadline. On Tuesday the House of Commons rejected Prime Minister Boris Johnson proposal to hold a general election for the second time, meaning that a national vote is now unlikely to happen before November.


tass--2019-01-09--Moscow sees no evidence to back US accusations of election meddling

NEW DELHI, January 9. /TASS/. The United States has not presented any physical evidence of Russia’s alleged interference in the US presidential election, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said at the Raisina Dialogue international conference on Wednesday.  "I am aware that many in the United States strongly believe that Russia did something wrong in influencing the election, in hacking and so on. We have repeatedly requested this [US] administration along with the Obama administration to discuss the issue in a pragmatic manner between agencies, dealing with IP addresses, individuals and legal entities," Ryabkov said. "The answer was no or there was no answer."  According to Ryabkov, amid a lack of trust between Moscow and Washington, Russia cannot take for granted the US accusations, including the ones emerging in US Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of possible collusion between Russia and President Donald Trump.  "In recent years, we have not seen anything proving US officials’ accusations against Russia," the senior diplomat stressed.  In mid-February 2018, the US authorities brought official charges against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian organizations accusing them of trying to meddle with political processes and the 2016 presidential campaign in the United States. The 37-page indictment was released by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Among those charged are 12 employees of Russia’s Internet Research Agency, which, according to the indictment, had been engaged in operations seeking to interfere into political processes in the United States since 2014.  Apart from that, Mueller brought charges against Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin accusing him of funding the anti-US information campaign conducted by the Internet Research Agency. The funds, according to US investigators, came from Prigozhin and his companies, including Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering.  Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said earlier that Mueller’s investigation was absolutely futile. Moscow had been repeatedly denying its involvement in any attempts to influence elections in the United States.  In other media


tass--2019-06-16--Moscow dismisses Wests absurd accusations about Russian meddling in EU elections

Moscow dismisses West’s ‘absurd’ accusations about Russian meddling in EU elections

MOSCOW, June 16. /TASS/ Western media allegations about Russia’s meddling with the elections in the European Parliament are absolutely absurd, Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council Alexander Venediktov said in an interview with the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily on Sunday.  "Western media allegations that Russia is profoundly interested in the victory of rightist parties at the elections to the European Parliament are utter absurdity. What Russia is really interested is a strong and stable Europe where countries are not conductors of alien interests but instead build relations with foreign partners on the basis of their own national priorities and interests of European security," he said.  "The hackneyed Western topic about alleged ‘Russia’s interference’ has become a trivial tool of settling political scores," he stressed.  He said it was wrong to divide European parties into pro-Russian and anti-Russian as all European parties have Russia-friendly politicians standing for constructive relations with Russia. At the same time, anti-Russian rhetoric could be heard from right-wing parties, especially in the Baltic countries, in Poland and Scandinavia,  Elections to the European Parliament were held on May 23-26. Europe’s leading centrist parties, such as Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, which had shaped the European Union’s policy for decades, for the first time lost the majority. The elections also demonstrated the growth of popularity of radical forces on both ends of the political spectrum.


tass--2019-07-24--Moscow rejects FBI chiefs election meddling accusations says senior diplomat

Moscow rejects FBI chief’s election meddling accusations, says senior diplomat

MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/. Russia rejects new allegations by FBI Director Christopher Wray of meddling in US elections, there are no grounds for that whatsoever, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters on Wednesday.  "Our stance has remained unchanged. There are no grounds whatsoever for asserting that Russia tried or is going to meddle [in US elections], as the FBI head said recently," Ryabkov stressed.  "We will follow Robert Mueller’s speech," he said when asked whether Moscow would follow former US Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s speech in the lower house of Congress on the alleged meddling in US elections. "We will read and see how much his speech differs from what his report states."  FBI Director Robert Mueller earlier said while testifying to the US Senate Judiciary Committee that Russia continued to meddle in the electoral processes in the United States.  On April 18, the US Department of Justice published Mueller’s report, in which the special counsel stated that Russia had attempted to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election, however, the investigation failed to furnish evidence of Trump’s collusion with Russia.


theguardianuk--2019-08-10--Thousands march in Moscow demanding open city elections

Russia’s opposition held its largest protest in years in central Moscow in a show of strength and defiance after previous rallies were forcefully dispersed with mass arrests.  Monitors from the White Counter group, an NGO that counts participants at rallies, reported that nearly 50,000 people attended the demonstration on Saturday, making it the largest opposition rally since 2013.  By 7pm, police had made more than 100 arrests, many coming after a group of protesters left the larger, sanctioned demonstration and walked toward Russia’s presidential administration building. OVD-Info, a monitoring body, later reported that 229 people were arrested at Saturday’s demonstration in Moscow and 81 at another demonstration in St Petersburg.  Riot police in balaclavas wielding nightsticks picked demonstrators out of the crowd and dragged them to nearby police vans, marking the third successive week of protesting in Russia’s capital marked by mass arrests. Military vans carrying troops in body armour were also seen in downtown Moscow.  As mass arrests began, some protesters unsuccessfully sought refuge in an upscale hotel. One protester in the process of being detained said: “The demonstration ended and we came here to walk. Now they’re just picking people and detaining them.”  Police also detained opposition leaders and raided a media studio tied to anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny.  Earlier, chanting “dopuskai!” or “let them through”, members of Russia’s opposition had called for independent candidates to be allowed to appear in Moscow’s municipal elections.  Shortly before the demonstration, police officers wearing masks detained Lyubov Sobol, an opposition activist who has declared a hunger strike over her disqualification from the elections. The police said she was planning a “provocation” at the rally.  The rally had been permitted to go ahead by the city government, even though some speakers called for a march on the presidential administration building.  Monitors allied with the opposition said they counted 49,900 people at the protest at 4pm Moscow time, although police estimated the crowd at 20,000.  Municipal election fraud is an unlikely cause célèbre in Russia, and several months ago few expected the elections to attract widespread attention. But the disqualification of independent candidates and then thousands of arrests at unsanctioned rallies in the past two weeks served to bolster attendance at Saturday’s event.  “Everyone has his own reason to be here,” said Maria Ostozheva, 53, standing in a plastic poncho on a cold and rainy summer afternoon. “The elections are just part of it. Nothing is changing. We need change.”  Many attendees held signs saying “I have a right to a choice” or photographs of those charged with inciting protests in the past two weeks. Russian police have cracked down on the protesters more forcefully than usual, opening criminal cases, checking debt and military service records, and even initiating a process to take an infant son from her protesting parents. The case was later dropped.  “It’s a police state,” said a young protester who gave his name as Mikhail. “My parents know I am here today. They support me. And I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t protest.”  The protest was attended by a number of prominent musicians, including the rappers Face and Oxxxymiron, the popular video blogger Yury Dud and others with mainstream appeal among younger Russians.  “I honestly don’t get politics,” said Face, whose real name is Ivan Dryomin. “But I believe that freedom is life. And I hope that we’ll have it one day.”  Russia’s protesters have grown younger in recent years, with high school and college students who grew up under president Vladimir Putin more vocal in their calls for change.


theguardianuk--2019-12-13--Thousands march in Algeria after controversial election result

Huge crowds have massed in Algeria’s capital to protest against the election of a former loyalist of the deposed leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika as president in a widely boycotted poll.  Demonstrators who flooded central Algiers on Friday vowed to keep up their campaign for the total dismantling of the political establishment following Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s victory in Thursday’s election.  “Tebboune is worse than Bouteflika. He’s known for being one of the thieves,” said Meriem, a 31-year-old civil servant. “We did not vote and we will not back down.”  Mohammed Charfi, head of Algeria’s electoral commission, said Tebboune, a 74-year-old former prime minister, had won 58% of the vote, according to preliminary results.  Charfi said 40% of voters took part in the election, which state media cast as a high enough turnout to vindicate the decision to hold the poll in spite of a boycott.  The poll and its legitimacy is a crucial trial of strength pitting the ruling party and a powerful military, who hope it will end months of protests and instability, against an informal coalition of protesters.  Ahmed Mizab, a commentator on state television, said it showed the decision to hold the elections was “propitious and right”.  “The turnout is satisfying and it will give the new president enough backing to implement his reforms,” he said.  The opposition movement, which has mounted weekly demonstrations since February – forcing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to step down after two decades in office – said the contest between five officially sanctioned candidates was a ploy to protect the interests of the political establishment.  Protesters in Algiers chanted “the vote was rigged” as they marched through the capital’s streets.  Tebboune, who is known to be close to Algeria’s military, won by a clear margin. However he will struggle to be accepted by the electorate in Algeria, where many see the regime as inept, corrupt and unable to manage the flagging economy.  Riad Mekersi, 24, who has participated in all the Hirak protests since 22 February, said the movement would continue no matter who won.  “We have toppled Bouteflika, and we will topple all the system’s men. We won’t give up,” he said.  The protest movement began when Bouteflika, 82, announced in February he would seek a fifth term. It has since moved on to demanding the total dismantling of the system that has ruled Algeria since independence from France in 1962.  The military high command, which long wielded power from the shadows, has been forced to take a more visible role and has pushed for the election as a way to resolve the political crisis.  A previous poll set for July was scrapped due to a lack of viable candidates, and the interim president, Abdelkader Bensalah, technically ended his term five months ago.  All the candidates struggled to campaign, with hostile crowds gathering outside poorly attended rallies in heavily guarded venues. Election posters have been repeatedly torn down.  The poll on Thursday was marred by scattered clashes with police, a wave of arrests and sizeable protests.  The army and the National Liberation Front (FLN), the party that won independence from France in 1962 and has ruled ever since, have pledged that the vote will be free.  Algerian courts this week handed down heavy jail sentences in high-profile corruption trials for two former senior officials, Ahmed Ouyahia and Abdelmalek Sellal. But those verdicts did little to win over the protesters, who saw the trials as little more than a high-level purge in a struggle between still-powerful regime insiders.


theindependent--2019-07-21--Moscow protests Tens of thousands march after opposition candidates denied chance to run in electio

Moscow protests: Tens of thousands march after opposition candidates denied chance to run in elections

Thousands of people took to the streets in Moscow over the weekend in what opposition politicians and local media are calling the ‘largest demonstration in recent years’ in Russia.  Independent NGO White Counter says some 22,500 people rallied yesterday to protest against the exclusion of dozens of independent candidates from the city council elections. Police put the number at 12,000.  “I haven’t been to such a huge rally since 2012,” tweeted Alexei Navalny, the leader of the opposition, after he attended the protest.  “I am very happy that tens of thousands of Muscovites did not remain silent, did not swallow humiliation, and came out to express their anger.”  The protest – which was authorised by authorities – caps a week of smaller demonstrations against the decision of the electoral commission to bar some 30 high-profile independent candidates, all outspoken critics of the Kremlin, from standing for election to the Moscow Duma.  Candidates have to collect around 5,000 signatures from city residents to be allowed to run in Moscow’s local elections. While all of the candidates did, the electoral commission said some of the signatures were fake or belonged to dead people.  Candidates and their supporters deny the allegation. Some of the people who gave their signatures used social media to prove that they are not dead.  Lyubov Sobol, an investigative lawyer who was prevented from running, wrote on Twitter that the electoral commission even denounced her sister’s signature as a fake.  Ms Sobol has been on hunger strike for over a week to protest against the decision to bar her from running.  The Moscow Times reported that Mr Navalny called for another protest on Saturday in front of city hall, near the Kremlin, if the election commission does not backtrack on its decision.  “I am glad that in our city there are people who do not want to obediently accept when their signatures are declared fake, and they themselves dead or non-existent,” he wrote on his website.  But a protest near the Kremlin is unlikely to be authorised, which might result in mass detention – or low turnout.  Last weekend, some 1,000 rallied to support the candidates and authorities briefly detained about 40.  Russian laws passed in recent years have made it more difficult for independent candidates to run for office.  The protests come after Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings dropped and Russians’ living standards declined.


theindependent--2019-09-04--Tens of thousands of young people register to vote in just 48 hours as general election looms

Thousands of young people have applied to register to vote in the past 48 hours as a general election seems increasingly likely to take place within the next few weeks.  More than 100,000 people applied, with 58 per cent of applications submitted by people aged 34 and under.  A total of 52,408 applications were submitted on Monday, followed by 64,485 on Tuesday.  The numbers are well above the usual average, which came to around 27,000 applications per day in the last month.  The significant jump reflects a growing public expectation that an election is looming.  On Tuesday Boris Johnson said he intended to request a snap election if legislation in the Commons to block a no-deal Brexit is passed.  Under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011, however, he must secure a two-thirds majority if the poll is to go ahead.  However, Labour have said they will not agree to an election unless the bill blocking no-deal Brexit is passed into law.  In 2017 voters aged 18 to 24 were more likely to vote Labour, while older voters were more likely to vote Conservative.  Just eight per cent of the people who applied to register in the last two days were aged 65 or over.  But John Curtice, the polling expert and and professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, warned against drawing broad conclusions from the data.  “I would take any figures about applying to be registered with a large pinch of salt,” he told The Independent.  “This is par for the course.  “Younger voters always apply in greater numbers because they are less likely to be on the register [in the first place].  “Many will already be registered. You cannot infer motivation from those figures.”  If a snap general election were to take place on 15  October, the proposed date, the deadline for applying to register to vote would be 27 September.


themoscowtimes--2019-06-16--Russia Dismisses Accusations of Meddling in EU Elections

An official from Russia's security council described as absurd accusations that Moscow used disinformation to sway voters towards right-wing parties in last month's European Union elections, the state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper reported on Sunday.  An EU review into elections to its parliament, published on Friday, said there was evidence both Russian and European online sources had sought to promote extreme views and polarise debate on issues such as migration and religion.  The preliminary report is the latest in a string of allegations from Western governments that Russia has used online disinformation techniques, including the creation of fake social media accounts, to try to influence voters.  Sites such as Facebook have come under particular pressure to tackle the issue since the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, when Russian troll accounts and bots allegedly flooded social media platforms with content aimed at undermining Democrat candidates and promoting the victory of current U.S. President Donald Trump.  "Statements made in the Western media that Russia was allegedly deeply interested in the victory of right-wing parties during elections to the European parliament are completely absurd," Russian security council deputy secretary Alexander Venediktov was quoted by Rossiyskaya Gazeta as saying in an interview on Sunday.  "Let me remind you that, until today, no convincing evidence has been presented to the global community to prove that Moscow allegedly tried to influence the elections in the United States or in Europe," Venediktov was quoted as saying.  Friday's EU report found "a continued and sustained disinformation activity by Russian sources aiming to suppress turnout and influence voter preferences."  It called on social networks to do more to protect elections from foreign meddling.


thesun--2019-12-08--Boris Johnson’s election victory could be scuppered by a few thousand tactical voters, major poll re

Boris Johnson’s election victory could be scuppered by a few thousand tactical voters, major poll reveals

BORIS Johnson chances of winning a Commons majority rest with just a few thousand voters across the country, it emerged.  The PM could be denied his desired election victory if fewer than 41,000 people voted tactically in just 36 seats, a major poll showed.  Tory candidates in these seats could be defeated by 2,500 or fewer anti-Brexit voters switching their votes.  Best for Britain, who want a second referendum, say the PM’s projected seat haul has more than halved in just a fortnight when it was at 82.  Tactical voting would have the most impact in places such as Dewsbury, West Bromwich West and Bedford.  The survey was based on a sample size of 28,272 British adults between November 4 and December 5, the Sunday Times revealed. • GOT a story? RING The Sun 0207 782 4104 or WHATSAPP 07423720250 or EMAIL exclusive@the-sun.co.uk


thetelegraph--2019-04-11--Spains election campaign to launch amid accusations of Watergate-style espionage

Spain's election campaign to launch amid accusations of 'Watergate'-style  espionage

Campaigning for Spain’s general election opens on Friday amid accusations of political espionage described as the country’s ‘Watergate’.  Last month Spain’s judiciary launched a probe into an alleged conspiracy by secret police and the former conservative government led by Mariano Rajoy to smear the reputation of the left-wing Podemos party founded in 2014.  On April 1 Spain’s Socialist administration claimed to have deactivated the so-called “patriotic brigade” of senior police officers.  But Podemos’s leader Pablo Iglesias has since claimed the dirty tricks campaign against his party did not end when the more ideologically-aligned Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez came to power last June.  Last weekend Mr Sánchez’s deputy press officer, Alberto Pozas, was summoned by a judge in connection with the theft of data from a mobile phone belonging to Mr Iglesias’s former aide.  The phone was stolen in November 2015, weeks before the first general election in which Podemos took part, when Mr Pozas was editor of a now-defunct sensationalist news weekly called Interviú.  Investigators found data from the mobile phone among the files of former police officer José Manuel Villarejo, jailed since 2017 while a court probes his role as alleged leading member of the “patriotic brigade”.


thetorontostar--2019-06-20--Police fire tear gas as thousands in Malawi protest election

BLANTYRE, Malawi - Police in Malawi fired tear gas at some protesters on Thursday as thousands demonstrated in major cities over last month’s disputed election. The confrontation in Blantyre occurred as some protesters tore down and burned billboards showing President Peter Mutharika, who narrowly won a second term.  The protesters in this southern African nation have demanded the resignation of Malawi Electoral Commission chairwoman Jane Ansah. A Human Rights Defenders Coalition statement alleged that the commission did not properly deal with more than 140 election-related complaints, and it accused Ansah of a “scandalous approach and stubborn attitude” in managing voters’ concerns.  Opposition leaders Lazarus Chakwera and Saulos Chilima, who finished second and third in the election, respectively, joined the protesters in the capital, Lilongwe. Both are challenging the election results in court, alleging irregularities. Also present was former Chief Justice Richard Banda, the husband of former President Joyce Banda. The protesters in Lilongwe delivered a petition listing grievances to the president’s office.  Protesters on Wednesday in Lilongwe scuffled with police as they blocked the road the 78-year-old Mutharika was meant to travel to speak to parliament, forcing his motorcade to use a different route. The president in response to the weeks of unrest has urged unity and calm while accusing the opposition of “mobilizing illegal demonstrations” and trying to cause chaos after the peaceful election. In one incident in Lilongwe earlier this month, police used tear gas on Chakwera’s Malawi Congress Party headquarters while the opposition leader was meeting with the U.S. ambassador , and some of the gas wafted into the nearby U.S. Embassy. Police later told The Associated Press they had not been aware the ambassador was there.


unian--2019-11-11--Bolivian President Evo Morales resigns amid election fraud accusations

The Vice-President, Alvaro Garcia Linera, and Senate President Adriana Salvatierra, also stepped down.  Bolivian President Evo Morales has resigned after nearly 14 years in power, amid turmoil following his disputed re-election last month.  The head of the army had called on him to go after protests over his election win, according to the BBC.  Auditors found irregularities with the poll but Mr Morales said he had been the victim of a coup.  He said he was leaving to help protect families of political allies, after their homes were burned down.  In a televised address, Mr Morales urged protesters to "stop attacking the brothers and sisters, stop burning and attacking".  While for many he was an undemocratic leader holding on to power, for others, especially poor Bolivians, Evo Morales was a president who gave a voice to millions. The first indigenous leader Bolivia ever had, he succeeded in making a deeply unequal society more inclusive.  His supporters have called this a coup – his detractors the end of tyranny. These are uncertain days in South America's poorest nation.  The Vice-President, Alvaro Garcia Linera, and Senate President Adriana Salvatierra, also resigned.  Protesters took to the streets to celebrate, chanting "yes we could" and setting off fire crackers.  Read alsoRussia, China, Iran will try to meddle in 2020 U.S. elections, security officials say  Bolivia has been rattled by weeks of anti-government protests, following the reports of election fraud.  Tensions first flared on the night of the presidential election after the results count was inexplicably stopped for 24 hours. The final result gave Mr Morales slightly more than the 10-percentage-point lead he needed to win outright in the first round of the race.  At least three people died during clashes that followed. Some uniformed police officers also joined the protesters.  On Sunday, the Organization of American States, which monitored the elections, said it had found evidence of wide-scale data manipulation, and could not certify the result of the previous polls.  Pressure continued to build on Mr Morales during the day, as several of his political allies resigned, some citing fears for the safety of their families.  The army chief, General Williams Kaliman, also urged Mr Morales to resign "to allow for pacification and the maintaining of stability".  The military also said it would conduct operations to "neutralize" any armed groups that attacked the protesters.


usatoday--2019-11-11--Thousands of Twitter 'bots' targeted Kentucky with fake news on election night

LOUISVILLE — As the final votes trickled in during last week's Kentucky gubernatorial election, a network of automated Twitter accounts suddenly sprang into action.  They spread misinformation about the election being rigged, according to the CEO of a company that tracks political misinformation on social media.  Gideon Blocq, the founder and CEO of VineSight, told The Courier Journal his company witnessed thousands of accounts with "bot-like" automated behavior spreading misinformation about the race, including a screenshot of a tweet by one account claiming to have destroyed ballots with votes for incumbent Republican Gov. Matt Bevin.  "Immediately at the end of the counting of the votes, these stories started popping up in parallel, all about the election being rigged," Block said.  One of the tweets spreading the furthest came from user @Overlordkraken1, which tweeted at 8:39 p.m. he had "just shredded a box of Republican mail in ballots," adding "Bye bye Bevin." The tweet listed the user's location as Louisville, though it misspelled the word.  Bevin would end up losing to Democratic Andy Beshear by 5,189 votes, though the governor told supporters at 10 p.m. Tuesday that he would not concede the race, sighting unspecified voting "irregularities."  The next day, Bevin requested an official recanvass of the vote, alleging widespread fraud and "thousands of absentee ballots that were illegally counted." In a Courier Journal fact check of Bevin's claims, local elections officials refer to the allegations as "ridiculous" and "flatly not true."  The governor has not provided any proof for such claims, and spokespersons for his office and campaign have not responded to questions asking if this tweet plays into Bevin's allegations.  After being retweeted at least 91 times, the account was suspended — though Blocq said a screenshot of the tweet was then posted Tuesday night and "we saw huge bot networks just pushing it around."  While the suspended account was likely a real person just "trolling" with the shredding tweet, Blocq said "thousands" of bot accounts spread the screenshot in parallel with other tweets alleging that the election was rigged, showing "this is not a small operation... it is not just one person doing this."  By early Wednesday, someone created a meme suggesting thousands of votes for Bevin were not counted because every other Republican candidate on the ballot did so well. That also spread rapidly among social media. For example, one Twitter account with more than 117,000 followers tweeted the meme along with the word "rigged!" which was retweeted more than 1,000 times over the next day, mostly by bot accounts.  Blocq said by Thursday evening, a simple search for the Kentucky election on Twitter would turn up tweets including the screenshot, meme and other claims about the election being rigged in its top results.  While the influence of Kremlin-backed groups to spread misinformation in the 2016 presidential campaign is well documented, Blocq said he could not determine the origin of the bot network pushing tweets about the Kentucky race, as he can only see publicly-available data. However, he said that those working at Twitter would have more answers about the location of the bots.  Kentucky governor's race:'I knew he was in big trouble': An inside look at 24 crazy hours in Bevin vs. Beshear  Twitter told The New York Times this weekend that the spread of misinformation regarding the Kentucky race for governor largely appeared to originate in the United States.  The Department of Homeland Security tracks foreign interference in U.S. elections that exploits divisions through the spread of misinformation on social networks.  Bevin's requested recanvass will take place on Thursday, with voting officials in each county checking to make sure they transmitted the correct numbers to the secretary of state.  Republican state legislators have expressed skepticism that the recanvass will significantly change the official vote totals and warned against Bevin creating a "fishing expedition" by contesting the election in the legislature if that is the case.  Some legislators have also urged the governor to present evidence of fraud or voting irregularities to the public if he has any, saying making such claims without any proof undermines faith in the democratic system.  "Any attempt by Gov. Bevin to undermine these results in the legislature is wrong and should be viewed as a direct attack on the democratic process." state Sen. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, said. "Once the recanvass is complete, the General Assembly must accept the outcome of this election and help Gov.-elect Beshear prepare for the 2020 budget.  Reach reporter Joe Sonka at jsonka@courierjournal.com or 502-582-4472 and follow him on Twitter at @joesonka. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courierjournal.com/subscribe.


usatoday--2019-12-14--Why Trump's Senate GOP allies are pushing accusations of Ukraine election meddling

WASHINGTON – Former White House Russia adviser Fiona Hill warned House lawmakers last month not to buy into the "fictional narrative" that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.  This week, FBI Director Christopher Wray sought to debunk the theory of election meddling by Ukraine. "We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election," Wray told ABC in an interview that aired on Monday.  Yet several Republican senators, who will serve as jurors in a likely impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, have pushed the notion of Ukrainian meddling. The strategy, experts said, was to sow enough doubts about Ukraine's actions to build a case that Trump's pressure on the country stemmed from legitimate policy concerns, and was not part of a politically motivated shakedown, as Democrats contend.  "I don't think they need to have a coherent counter-narrative as much as they need to say there's reason for Trump to worry about corruption in Ukraine and that there's a long history of corruption there," said William Howell, a political scientist at the University of Chicago,  Sunday, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that he believed there was "considerable evidence" that "Ukraine blatantly interfered in our election."  Last month, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. raised eyebrows when he told Fox News Sunday he didn't know whether it was Russia or Ukraine that was behind the 2016 hack of Democratic emails. "It could also be Ukraine," Kennedy said, adding: "I'm not saying that I know one way or the other."  Though he later backtracked on the suggestion that Ukraine might have been behind the email hack, Kennedy told CNN that when it came to 2016 interference in general, "there is a lot of evidence, proven and unproven, everybody's got an opinion that Ukraine did try to interfere, along with Russia, and probably others, in the 2016 election."  Trump's dealings with Ukraine are at the center of two articles of impeachment – on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress – that were approved Friday by the House Judiciary Committee. If the articles are adopted by the Democratic-led House, as is widely expected, the matter would go to the GOP-controlled Senate for a trial in January where a two-thirds majority would be required to remove Trump from office.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Fox News on Thursday that he will be in "total coordination" with the White House on the strategy for a trial and said he sees "no chance" the president would be removed.  What's the impeachment process?How it works, where we are  Democrats have accused Trump of withholding a meeting and military aid from Ukraine to pressure Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce investigations that would further his political interests.  During a July 25 phone call with Zelensky, Trump asked the Ukraine president to "do us a favor." He urged Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, whose son Hunter once sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, and to look into allegations of Ukrainian election interference in 2016.  Such allegations have been pushed by Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, in numerous media interviews. He has spent months trying to prod Ukraine to investigate the claims and traveled to Ukraine earlier this month.  Giuliani told USA TODAY he has "compelling evidence of Ukrainians giving DNC and other [Democrats] dirty information" to influence the 2016 election.  Several Republican senators have echoed Trump in saying someone should look into claims that Kyiv interfered in the 2016 election, but most have not gone as far as the president and Giuliani in alleging a widespread effort to intervene. Instead, many GOP senators have couched their comments by saying they have "questions" about Ukraine's actions.  Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa have called for the release of records on whether former Democratic National Committee consultant Alexandra Chalupa sought damaging information from Ukraine's embassy on Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman.  “Contrary to the popular narrative in the ‘mainstream media’ that Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election has been debunked, or ‘no evidence exists,’ there are many unanswered questions that have festered for years," Johnson said in a press release announcing the request for documents.  Republicans have argued that Trump's request for an investigation was driven by policy priorities, not by politics, and that his aim was to push Ukraine to root out corruption.  Defying intelligence: Despite Fiona Hill warning, Sen. John Kennedy says Ukraine may be behind 2016 DNC hack  But Howell criticized the willingness of Trump's allies in Congress to give credence to the theory of Ukrainian interference.  "This is a party that is caught in the thrall of Trump," Howell said, "and Trump is about to be impeached."  Karen Finney, a veteran Democratic strategist who worked on Clinton's 2016 campaign, said she believed the strategy was about confusing Americans who may not be closely following the impeachment inquiry.  "It also exemplifies the intellectually dishonest knots that Republicans are having to tie themselves into in order to defend the president," she said.  Trump's claims about Ukraine, now at the center of the impeachment inquiry, can be traced to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling.  Trump has long railed against the Mueller probe, which found that Moscow waged a "sweeping and systemic" interference campaign in the 2016 presidential election. Trump has also repeatedly downplayed the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia interfered.  Intelligence agencies concluded nearly three years ago that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the effort to "undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency," according to a January 2017 report from the Director of National Intelligence. The report also found the Kremlin "developed a clear preference" for Trump.  The Ukraine meddling narrative Trump has raised as early as 2017 has been spread on right-wing websites and promoted by Giuliani.  The discredited theory the president and Giuliani have repeatedly raised is the role of CrowdStrike, a private cybersecurity firm that investigated the breach of the DNC's computers in 2016.  "I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike...I guess you have one of your wealthy people...the server, they say Ukraine has it," Trump told Zelensky on the July 25 call.  When it investigated the DNC hack, CrowdStrike concluded the theft was the work of hackers connected to Russian intelligence services. Mueller confirmed those findings in his own probe, indicting 12 Russian military intelligence officers for the hacking scheme, which targeted the DNC and Clinton's presidential campaign as part of the Kremlin's effort to undermine the 2016 election.  But Trump has floated the possibility that Ukraine was behind the hack and framed Russia. He has also claimed – falsely – that CrowdStrike is owned by a wealthy Ukrainian who sought to cover up the crime by refusing to hand over a physical server to the FBI in its own investigation into the DNC hack. Trump has suggested that server is being concealed in Ukraine.  He repeated the claim during a Nov. 22 Fox and Friends interview.  “And I still want to see that server. You know, the FBI has never gotten that server. That’s a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company?”  When pressed if he believed Ukraine was hiding a server, Trump said: "Well, that’s what the word is."  CrowdStrike is a California-based company founded by American entrepreneur George Kurtz and Dmitri Alperovitch, a Russia-born U.S. citizen who spent all of his adult life in the United States and "has no connection to Ukraine," according to the company.  DNC Communications Director Adrienne Watson said not only was there more than one server, but none of the physical and cloud-based servers used in 2015 and 2016 are missing.  "All of the physical servers are accounted for, and anything to suggest otherwise has no basis in fact," she said. "As we have publicly stated numerous times, we provided copies of all of the servers and related information that the FBI asked for to the FBI in 2016 and continued to cooperate with their investigations."  More:The articles of impeachment explained - and what happens next  Thomas Rid, a Johns Hopkins security studies professor, said investigators aren't interested in the hardware, focusing instead on the adversaries' command and control structure and how they move files out.  "The idea that you physically had an unplugged machine that would contain a smoking gun — that idea just makes no sense."  During the forensic investigation, CrowdStrike used a process called "imaging," which includes creating a "byte-for-byte copy of the hard drives," according to a company statement. Investigators also made copies of the hard drive's memory, capturing evidence that could be lost in a reboot while also monitoring the network's traffic.  Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said Trump's strategy in pushing the conspiracy theories on CrowdStrike is to provide a competing narrative.  “I don’t think anybody who is spouting these theories can coherently explain them and I think that’s exactly the point. It’s to confuse people and just kind of paint Ukraine as a corrupt place that needs someone to ride in on horseback and save,” said Jankowicz, who is writing a book entitled, "How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict."  Accusations of Ukrainian interference were floated as early as 2016 by Manafort, according to FBI testimony from Manafort's former deputy Rick Gates.  Manafort is now in prison for concealing millions of dollars he earned from a once-secret lobbying deal he had with Ukraine’s former pro-Russia president.  Giuliani has accused Ukrainian officials of releasing damaging information on Manafort to the U.S. media to tarnish the Trump campaign.  Giuliani has questioned the credibility of the so-called "black ledger," a document obtained by Ukraine's anti-corruption bureau that showed Manafort received millions in secret cash payments from former President Viktor Yanukovych. Manafort ultimately pleaded guilty to tax fraud for illegally routing that money to offshore accounts.  'A lot of it started with Ukraine':Why the Trump-Zelensky call isn't just about Joe Biden  A 2017 Politico story has been widely cited by Republicans to back up their argument that Ukraine tried to help Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. While the story said individual Ukrainian government officials sought to undercut Trump by questioning his fitness for office, it also said there was "little evidence" of a top-down effort by Ukraine that resembled the Russian interference.  The story discussed efforts by Chalupa to seek damaging information from the Ukrainian embassy on Manafort.  “If I asked a question, they would provide guidance, or if there was someone I needed to follow up with,” Chalupa told Politico. “There were no documents given, nothing like that.”  While Chalupa described the embassy as helpful, Ukrainian embassy official Oksana Shulyar denied working with Chalupa or any reporters to get information on Trump or Manafort.  “We have never worked to research and disseminate damaging information about Donald Trump and Paul Manafort,” Shulyar said.  The DNC said it was not involved with any of her research.  "The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016," Fiona Hill, the former Russia adviser with the White House National Security Council, told the House Intelligence Committee at a hearing last month. "It is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified."  In contrast to Trump and Giuliani, most Republican senators have steered clear of embracing the theory that the DNC hack originated in Ukraine. They also have emphasized that they do not dispute the finding that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.  But several Republican senators have reinforced the theory of Ukrainian interference by suggesting there are "unanswered questions" about Kyiv's actions that deserve to be investigated.  Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah who often breaks with fellow Republicans when it comes to matters involving the president, rejected the theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election.  “I know that the leaders of other countries may be pulling for one candidate or another in our elections, but it's one thing to pull for the candidate. It's another thing to interfere as Russia did.”  John Weaver, a longtime Republican strategist and vocal Trump critic, said promoting the Ukraine meddling narrative could backfire for GOP senators at the ballot box.  "They're looking for any way out of passing the hard judgment on a corrupt president," he said. "These actions are going to put the Senate at risk for Republicans."  But Howell, the University of Chicago political scientist, said the strategy might work to the benefit of some Republican senators, given the increasingly populist tilt of the party.  "They're raising concerns about procedure, they're raising concerns about the Democratic party and they're breathing a little bit of life into these conspiracy theories," he said.  "Populism worldwide traffics in conspiracy theories so, in that sense, I'm not sure we should be all that surprised."  Thomas Patterson, a Harvard University professor of government and the press who has written extensively on political disinformation, said that even though experts have debunked the theories about Ukraine interference, they could have a major impact not by convincing everyone but by sowing just enough doubt with just enough people.  “It’s just one more thing that gets out there and muddies the water and Trump is very good at muddying the waters,” he said. “You get enough people to believe it and it clouds people’s judgment.”


21stcenturywire--2019-11-08--Blair’s War on Corbyn: Warns ‘Antisemitism’ Smear Campaign Will Intensify Before Election

Ever since the popular emergence of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2015, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been busy – diligently working in the background, organising various columns of opposition within the Labour Party and through other well-funded special interest groups, with a singular objective: to take down the Labour leader and force his party back to its previous right-of-centre position during 12 years of New Labour.  One of the main phalanxes for bringing down Corbyn and his party allies, has been a sophisticated multi-pronged “antisemitism” smear campaign, designed to weaken both party and public confidence in Corbyn’s leadership ability, and ultimately to split the Labour by using the contrived crisis to create artificial division within the party. Looking back at 2019, this plan seems to have worked, so far.  To help reinforce Blair’s ‘antisemitism’ bona fides, in June 2015 he was gifted the role of chairman of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation, said to be in charge of “tackling antisemitism” across the continent. Enter 2017, when the “antisemitism in Labour” political and media campaign began accelerating. This smear operation was coordinated out of the Israeli Embassy in London, and incredibly, the entire blueprint for this operation was exposed in detail in Al Jazeera’s 2017 investigative documentary, The Lobby. To help with the task of bringing down Corbyn, Blair has enjoyed tactical support from Britain’s mainstream corporate media, and in particular, his old ally Rupert Murdoch and his UK paper, The Times. The Israeli Lobby could also count on the full support of the Tory government in helping to promulgate this weaponised libel campaign of “antisemitism in Labour.” Thus far, their defamation campaign has been cold and efficient, and has effectively split the Parliamentary Labour Party, although the grassroots membership are for the most part still loyal to the leadership.  With the country’s General Election only five weeks away, Tony Blair has finally come out from behind the shadows to declare open warfare against the Labour leader, all but threatening to bludgeon the left-wing leader with the full force of The Lobby and its loyal media network. During a meeting earlier this week with the Board of Deputies of British Jews president’s dinner, Blair revealed his true intentions, issuing what can only be described as a not-so-veiled threat to destroy Jeremy Corbyn:  “Let me be frank, there is going to be a complete battle in the Labour Party because what has happened over these past years — particularly over antisemitism — is absolutely killing the party.”  Blair went on to explain to a friendly audience of Jewish community luminaries how he intends to re-frame the issue of Israel and Palestine to the British public and electorate, in a way that’s more palatable to Israeli interests, by insisting that there is “a need to explain Zionism and the way Israel was created and why it deserves support today .… Israeli democracy is a real democracy.”  Here Blair reveals the key objective of this entire ‘antisemitism in Labour’ smear campaign. It’s about inverting reality. The campaign will only work if charges of ‘antisemitism’ against Corbyn and other Labour members like Chris Williamson are based solely on the false premise that anyone who supports the basic human rights of the Palestinian people, or demands an end to Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories – will be framed as anti-Jewish and then defamed and libeled as a racist and an ‘antisemite.’  Here, the US, Israel and much the British establishment are ‘shoulder to shoulder’ – they will not allow any leader or party to take control of Downing Street which might be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, or hostile to Israeli expansion, and which might lean towards a non-interventionist foreign policy.  The Lobby took their defamation campaign up a level this week, by pushing the completely fraudulent claim that fearful British Jews are going to flee the country in droves if Jeremy Corbyn wins the upcoming General Election and becomes Prime Minister. This latest phase the smear campaign was fronted by the Jewish Chronicle which ran a completely over-the-top front page on Thursday, which read: “This front page is addressed not to our usual readers — but to those who would not normally read the Jewish Chronicle. In other words, to non-Jews. This is why:”  The paper then went on to claim, “that nearly half (47 per cent) of the Jewish community said in that same poll that they would “seriously consider” emigrating if Mr Corbyn wins on December 12…”  A baseless claim for sure, but it is indicative of just how desperate Blair, Murdoch, Tory elites, and the Israeli Lobby are to head-off any chance of a successful Corbyn run at Downing Street.  To aid in their efforts, Blair and The Lobby have found a willing accomplice in the Liberal Democrat Party and its leader divisive leader Jo Swinson, who has openly endorsed the Jewish Chronicle’s outlandish fear claims:  It is yet unclear exactly how far Blair will go in his quest to slander the current Labour leader. It would not be at all surprising if Blair took to the road over the next month and traveled to the European continent and the US in order to build-up international fear and revulsion towards a potential Corbyn government, just as he did this past summer while touring Israel in an effort to convince Israelis that Corbyn was indeed an antisemite.  Regardless of the election outcome in December, history will have noted the marked demise of intellectual and moral standards in British politics – a mission which has been spearheaded by one of Britain’s most reviled political figures ever – and a man who was caught red-handed, lying to the electorate in order to take the country into an illegal war in Iraq in 2003.  Longtime Labour supporter and famous British comedian, Alexei Sayle, put it best when he said, “The search for antisemitism in the Labour Party is the ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ of our age.”  Indeed, no evidence could be found in either case.  As with Iraq, Blair’s latest campaign of deception will not end well for the belligerent parties either.


21stcenturywire--2019-11-08--Henningsen: New UK ‘Russia-Brexit Interference’ Report Will Flop, Distracts from Real Election Issue

Henningsen: New UK ‘Russia-Brexit Interference’ Report Will Flop, Distracts from Real Election Issues

This week, Russia mania has taken over the UK General Election agenda, as both parties revert to hurling ‘pro-Kremlin’ accusations at each other in an attempt to extract the last remaining drops of political capital from an increasingly dilapidated Russiagate narrative.  Among the items being thrown in this cross-bench brawl is the accusation by Labour MPs that PM Boris Johnson is intentionally suppressing a new report by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) on alleged ‘Russian interference‘ in British politics, and specifically in the Brexit referendum. Interestingly, one of the report’s star witnesses is none other than the infamous Christopher Steele from the notorious UK-based private intelligence firm, Orbis.  On Wednesday Nov. 6th, RT International spoke with 21WIRE editor Patrick Henningsen about the ridiculous political circus that’s unfolding, as opponents ramp-up old Skripal and ‘antisemitism’ smears against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and also why both parties might prefer to obscure this new ‘Russia’ report due to its lack of substance. Watch:


21stcenturywire--2019-11-21--Facts Now Reveal How OAS Lied About Bolivian ‘Election Irregularities’

Opinion: The OAS lied to the public about the Bolivian election, and covered-up the subsequent military coup. Facts show there was nothing suspicious about the re-election of President Evo Morales.  According to data compiled in the report below, but also from the recent study available at CEPR, there was no election fraud in Bolivia, which means that the ouster of President Evo Morales was indeed a coup d’etat…  What is the difference between an outright lie — stating something as a fact while knowing that it is false — and a deliberate material representation that accomplishes the same end? Here is an example that really pushes the boundary between the two, to the point where the distinction practically vanishes.  And the consequences are quite serious; this misrepresentation (or lie) has already played a major role in a military coup in Bolivia last week. This military coup overthrew the government of President Evo Morales before his current term was finished — a term to which nobody disputes that he was democratically elected in 2014.  More violent repression and even a civil war could follow.  The Organization of American States (OAS) sent an Electoral Observation Mission to Bolivia, entrusted with monitoring the Oct. 20 national election there. The day after the election, before all the votes were even counted, the mission put out a press release announcing its “deep concern and surprise at the drastic and hard-to-explain change in the trend of the preliminary results…”  Here is what the OAS was referring to: there is an unofficial “quick count” of the voting results that involves contractors who upload results at intervals, as the tally sheets are available. At 7:40 p.m. on election day, they had reported about 84% of the votes and then stopped reporting for 23 hours (more on that below).  When they resumed reporting results at 95% of votes counted, Morales’s lead had increased from 7.9% before the interruption to just over 10%.  This margin was important because in order to win without a second-round runoff, a candidate needs either an absolute majority, or at least 40% and a 10-point margin over the second-place finisher. This margin — which grew to 10.6% when all the votes were counted in the official count — re-elected Morales without a second round.  Now, if you had any experience with elections or maybe even arithmetic, what is the first thing you would want to know about the votes that came in after the interruption? You might ask, were people in those areas any different from people in the average precinct in the first 84%?  And was the change in Morales’s margin sudden, or was it a gradual trend that continued as more vote tally sheets were reported?  You might even want to ask these questions before expressing “deep concern and surprise” about what happened, especially in a politically very polarized situation that was already turning violent.     This graph shows that the lead held by President Evo Morales (light blue dots) and by his party in parliamentary elections (dark blue dots) rose at a steady rate for most of the vote counting. There was no sudden surge at the end to put him over the 10% threshold.  A look at that data shows that the change in Morales’s lead was actually gradual and continuous, and started rising many hours before the break in reporting of the quick count. You can see that in a graph of the results.  Why did it happen? The answer is simple and not that uncommon: the people in later-reporting areas were more pro-MAS (Morales’s party, the Movement Toward Socialism) than those in areas that reported earlier. Hence the gradual and continuous rise in Morales’s lead, in which the votes after the interruption put him over the top.  The OAS has published two press releases, one preliminary report, and one preliminary audit on the election. How many of these contained the disparagement of the election results implied by the “deep concern and surprise” quoted above? Three. How many contained anything about the difference between the percentage of MAS/Morales voters in areas with later returns versus earlier? Zero.  As it turns out, the interruption in the quick count was not a sign of foul play either.  The quick count is separate from the official count, and has no legal status to determine the results. It’s never been intended or promised to be a complete count; in prior elections it did not even near 84%.  It’s just a quick series of snapshots, done by contractors, to provide early results before the official count is done. It makes sense that the electoral authorities might not want two sets of voting results, which are inherently different, coming out at the same time in a violently polarized political situation.  For those who like numbers better than graphs: Morales’s margin after the first 84% of votes was 7.9%, as noted. If we look at the remaining 16% of precincts, and we ask, what is Morales’s pre-interruption margin in the areas where these later-reporting precincts were located? That margin is about 22%. Again, a simple explanation of how his margin increased as it did with later returns.  For a more powerful statistical analysis, we can project the remaining (and thus total) vote count on the basis of the first 84% reported. And — no surprise here — Morales’s projected final margin based on the first 84% of votes turns out to be slightly more than 10%.  It is difficult, almost impossible, to believe that this OAS mission, or those above them in the OAS Department of Electoral Cooperation and Observation, felt “deep concern and surprise” and yet were too incompetent to even look at this data.  That is why I would say that they lied at least three times: in the first press release, the preliminary report, and the preliminary audit. And that is why I would regard with great skepticism the allegations presented in their preliminary audit, and further publications — unless these can be verified by independent investigators from publicly available data.  And the OAS isn’t all that independent at the moment, with the Trump administration actively promoting this military coup, and Washington having more right-wing allies in the OAS than they did just a few years ago.  Not to mention that the U.S. supplies 60% of its budget. But the OAS has horribly abused its mandate in election monitoring before, helping to reverse election results as the U.S. and its allies wanted: most destructively, in 2000 in Haiti; and also in the same country in 2011.  More evidence: in the last three weeks, the OAS has refused to answer questions from journalists, on the record, about their statements or reports since the election.  Maybe they are afraid that a curious reporter would ask questions like these: Is there a difference between the political preferences of people who live in later-reporting areas as compared to earlier ones? Doesn’t this explain how Morales’s lead rose to more than 10% as votes from more pro-Morales areas came in? Did you even look at this question?  Since I am an economist, I believe in incentives: I am offering a $500 reward for the first journalist who can get a substantive answer to these questions from an OAS official, on the record. Even if turns out to be a lie.


21stcenturywire--2019-12-13--UK Post-Election Analysis: The Winner, Losers and Collateral Damage

Last night saw UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Tory Party win big in the UK general election, meaning that he will likely be able to fulfill his pledge to “get Brexit done” by the end of January 2002. But the drama did not end there – as the Labour Party descends into chaos as the party’s Blairite faction attempts oust leader Jeremy Corbyn following last night’s crushing defeat. Who is to blame? Who will reap a backlash? All this and more.  .   SEE MORE UK COLUMN EPISODES HERE


21stcenturywire--2019-12-25--William Binney on RussiaGate, UkraineGate and British Meddling in US Elections

Going into 2020, Donald Trump continues to face one poliical crisis after another, and now becoming only the fourth US president behind Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton – to face Impeachment. But how much of what is being reported in the mainstream media is fact, or fiction?  This week, UK Column’s Mike Robinson spoke with former NSA Techinal Director, William Binney, about new forensic findings which strongly indicate that the DNC emails from 2016 were leaked to WikiLeaks and not hacked, as well as evidence of likely CIA or clandestine involvement with the online cut-out ‘Guccifer 2.0’, and evidence of British interference in the 2016 election, as well as perspectives on UkraineGate and the hysterical Impeachment circus on Capital Hill, Russiagate and UK, not Russian, interference in the US election process. Watch:


abcnews--2019-01-01--Changes may be ahead for criticized Georgia election system

Georgia's outdated election system has drawn criticism from cybersecurity experts and voting integrity advocates, and now a commission tasked with examining potential replacements is preparing to make recommendations to lawmakers.  The paperless system was closely scrutinized during last year's nationally watched gubernatorial race between Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp, who was Georgia's secretary of state and chief elections official. Abrams and her allies accused Kemp of suppressing minority votes and mismanaging the election, including by neglecting elections infrastructure. Kemp, now governor-elect, has vehemently denied those allegations.  Cybersecurity experts have warned that the touchscreen voting machines Georgia has used since 2002 are unreliable and vulnerable to hacking, and provide no way to do an audit or confirm that votes have been recorded correctly because there's no paper trail.  The state's voting system has been challenged in lawsuits, including one filed after the November election by Fair Fight Action, a nonprofit backed by Abrams. In addition to the outdated machines, critics also raised concerns after security lapses exposed the personal information of Georgia voters.  U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg wrote in September that Georgia election officials had stalled too long in the face of "a mounting tide of evidence of the inadequacy and security risks" of the state's voting system. She declined to order the state to use paper ballots in the midterm elections, saying there was not enough time before voting began. But she warned that "these same arguments would hold much less sway in the future."  Kemp has insisted that the current system is secure and reliable. But after legislative efforts to replace it failed earlier this year, he established the Secure, Accessible and Fair Elections, or SAFE, Commission in April to study potential replacements.  Made up of lawmakers, political party representatives, voters and election officials, the commission is expected to make recommendations before the legislative session begins Jan. 14. A vendor demonstration of election technology is scheduled for Thursday.  Ryan Germany, general counsel for the secretary of state's office, told the commission at a meeting last month in Macon that Georgia must act quickly.  "The 2020 election cycle is an aggressive goal, but I think it's the correct goal," he said, adding that the state would almost certainly face additional litigation if a new system isn't in place by then.  The commissioners seemed to agree Georgia's system should produce a paper record and that election officials should conduct post-election audits.  Some commission members said they support paper ballots that voters mark by hand, filling in bubbles with a pen or pencil. But others prefer touchscreen ballot-marking machines that print a paper record.  Republican State Rep. Barry Fleming, who co-chairs the commission, said costs vary widely. Initial expenditures would be roughly $50 million for a hand-marked paper ballot system and about $150 million for a ballot-marking machine system, he said at last month's meeting.  Georgia Tech computer science professor Wenke Lee, the only computer and cybersecurity expert on the commission, told his fellow commissioners that technology evolves quickly and investing in an expensive, tech-heavy system could leave Georgia with an outdated system again within just a few years. He recommended hand-marked paper ballots read by optical scanner.  "From a cybersecurity point of view, that's the best available solution," he said at the meeting. "Now, if you say we don't want that, you need to justify why."  Supporters of ballot-marking machines argue that they reduce voter error and provide better accessibility for voters with disabilities. They say the touchscreen machines are similar to those in use now, so voters already know how to use them.  Critics say such machines are no more secure than the current system and don't actually allow voters to verify their votes.  The machines print out barcodes that correspond to the voter's selections, as well as a separate list that's readable by a voter. But votes are counted by machines that scan the barcodes, so there's no way for voters to know whether what's scanned actually reflects their votes, said Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, which has sued the state over the current system.  Additionally, she said, voters may not notice if a race is missing or may not remember how they voted on, say, "Statewide Referendum B."  Wenke said voters might not bother to review a printout. If what the machine recorded is incorrect and the voter doesn't catch it, the ability to audit is meaningless, he said.  Commission member Darin McCoy, the probate judge and election superintendent in Evans County, dismissed that concern.  "If we provide the voter with a paper ballot of what they've done and they don't take the time to look at that and verify, there's nothing we can do," he said. "That's the voter's responsibility."  After the commission makes its recommendations, lawmakers would have to pass legislation to change the state's election laws. Funding would have to be secured and the system purchased in time to educate election workers and voters.  Whatever they decide, the timeline is tight. Commission members seemed to agree they'd like to have a trial run during the November 2019 municipal elections and implement a new system statewide for the 2020 election cycle.


abcnews--2019-01-16--Senators nearing subpoena for Michael Cohen in Russian election interference probe

A key Senate panel is moving closer to issuing a subpoena for Michael Cohen, the president’s former personal attorney and fixer, as part of its ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.  Asked Wednesday whether it is fair to say the Senate Intelligence Committee is moving closer to issuing a subpoena to Cohen after trying for some time to get him to agree to testify, the panel’s chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., told ABC News, “Fair.”  Cohen was sentenced in December to three years in prison for financial crimes, two violations of campaign finance law, and lying to Congress – a charge based on false testimony he provided to the Senate and House intelligence committees in the fall of 2017.  He met twice with the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee in September and October of 2017, but the first interview was hastily cut short by “disappointed” committee leadership after Cohen released his own statement to the press beforehand.  Burr’s comment comes less than a week after the House Oversight Committee announced that Cohen had agreed to appear in an open session next month. The committee has been trying for months to bring Cohen back to the Hill.  Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has also expressed interest in scheduling Cohen to appear before his panel in a closed session.  President Trump, in an interview with Fox News over the weekend, accused Cohen of agreeing to testify before Congress as part of an effort “to get his sentence reduced,” and suggested without evidence that Cohen’s father-in-law might face legal exposure because “that’s the money in the family.”  The president’s comments prompted a statement from three top Democrats, Reps. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and Schiff, warning Trump to cease any “efforts to discourage, intimidate, or otherwise pressure [Cohen] not to provide testimony to Congress.”  Cohen’s hearing in front of the House Oversight committee is scheduled for February 7. He is due to report to federal prison on March 6.


abcnews--2019-01-24--Special election set for May to replace Marino in US House

Voters in heavily Republican northcentral Pennsylvania have a special election date set to elect a new representative to the U.S. House after the five-term incumbent resigned just three weeks into the new congressional term.  Gov. Tom Wolf said Thursday he scheduled the special election to coincide with Pennsylvania's primary election on May 21.  Republican Tom Marino's last day in office was Wednesday. Marino was a strong ally of President Donald Trump and easily won a fifth term in November, but the 66-year-old abruptly announced his resignation last week, saying only that he's taking a job outside government.  The sprawling congressional district covers all or parts of 15 counties, and Republicans are heavily favored, with about 100,000 more registered voters than Democrats.


abcnews--2019-11-21--Somali official: 2020 could see first election in 50 years

The head of Somalia’s electoral commission told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that 2020 is “a pivotal year” for the country whose citizens have been denied the right to political participation for 50 years and are hoping for an election with universal voting.  Halima Ismail Ibrahim said the country’s political leaders must follow through on agreements since 2011 to holding a one-person, one-vote election as a replacement for “clan-based power-sharing.” In presidential elections most recently in 2017, lawmakers were chosen by about 14,000 clan delegates and they in turn elected a president.  Ibrahim urged Somali leaders to treat one-person, one-vote elections in 2020-2021 “as a constitutional obligation and a national priority and provide the necessary political and financial support” for the National Independent Electoral Commission which she chairs to conduct an election with universal voting next year.  Since Somalia became an independent nation in 1960, she said, “universal suffrage elections have only been conducted twice, 1964 and 1969.”  Later that year, a coup brought military leader Siad Barre to power. After three decades of civil war, extremist attacks and famine, Somalia established a functioning transitional government in 2012 and has been working to rebuild stability.  But U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said the government must still tackle violent extremism, terrorism, armed conflict, political instability and corruption.  James Swan, the U.N. envoy for Somalia, told the Security Council that “political dynamics” in the country are increasingly focusing on the 2020 election and the federal government has committed to adopting an amended federal constitution by June 2020, but significant challenges remain.  First and foremost, he pointed to the lack of “effective cooperation” between the central government and states for more than a year, which has become “an obstacle to achieving important national priorities.”  “Somalia’s leaders must act urgently to break this stalemate between the central and the federal member states in the interest of the nation,” Swan said.  He also urged parliament to approve the electoral code and amendments to the law on political parties in December, warning that any delay “puts the 2020 electoral calendar at risk.”  Somalia’s U.N. Ambassador Abukar Dahir Osman told the council the government is continuing to make preparations to hold one-person, one-vote elections in the last quarter of 2020. And it has made a commitment to pass the electoral law by the end of December and to conclude the review of the constitution by June 2020, he said.  Osman said President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed’s meeting Wednesday with two former presidents “sends a strong signal of Somalia’s commitment to ... truly historic, democratic elections next year.”  He said the government recognizes it will not meet its goals and reform agenda without the cooperation and engagement of member states — but this requires “genuine reconciliation efforts and holding fair, transparent and inclusive elections” in the states.  “Where electoral process does not meet those criteria, the federal government will not recognize the outcomes and so should our partners,” he said.  U.N. envoy Swan stressed that “insecurity remains a major challenge to progress in Somalia” because al-Qaida linked al-Shabab militants continue “to execute deadly terrorist attacks against civilians as well as military targets.”


abcnews--2019-11-22--US working with Taiwan to combat China election interference

The top U.S. representative in Taiwan says Washington is working with it to combat efforts by Beijing to influence upcoming elections on the island.  The U.S. is “aware that China is attempting to apply pressure through various means on Taiwan ... to influence Taiwan's democratic process,” Brent Christensen told reporters on Friday.  "We believe that malign actors are using disinformation campaigns to make people lose faith in democratic institutions,” said Christensen, who serves as the de facto U.S. ambassador to Taipei.  The U.S. and Taiwan have been “working very closely to combat these disinformation efforts” by sharing information and experience and mobilizing civil society, he said.  Independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen is seeking a second term in the Jan. 11 vote for head of state and lawmakers.  China is believed to strongly favor Tsai’s main opponent in the race, Han Kuo-yu of the Beijing-friendly Nationalist Party.  Self-governing Taiwan split from China in 1949 and transitioned to full democracy in the 1990s. China claims the island as its own territory, which it threatens to annex by military force, and opposes all official contact between the U.S. and the island.  Despite the lack of formal diplomatic relations, the U.S. is legally bound to ensure the island can defend itself and to treat all threats to it as matters of “grave concern.”  Christensen’s remarks came days after Tsai told reporters that China’s Communist leaders were “using every means they can” to interfere in the election campaign.  China’s previous efforts to influence Taiwan’s democracy have yielded mixed results and could become a liability for Han, who in March met with Chinese officials on a visit to China, Macao and Hong Kong and has struggled to shake accusations of collusion with Beijing.  Han held an early lead in public opinion surveys but has trailed Tsai, often by several percentage points, since June.  Several of the National candidates for at-large seats in the legislature — those that are distributed according to the party’s proportion of the popular vote — also have strong China connections and have spoken in favor of unification with China.  One, retired Lt. Gen. Wu Sz-huai, has been heavily criticized for leading a delegation of retired officers to a ceremony held at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, at which he stood for the Chinese national anthem and listened to an address by President and Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.  Wu was also a leader of a pro-China group that staged violent protests outside the legislature last year, at one point invading a nearby children’s hospital.  Those protests were ostensibly sparked by plans to reduce pension benefits for retired officers and other public servants that had been criticized for being overly generous. Some accused China of spreading misinformation exaggerating the size and impact of the cuts.  Election interference would be a continuation of Beijing’s unrelenting campaign to undermine Tsai’s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party government through increasing diplomatic, military and economic pressure.  That has included wooing away Taiwan’s remaining handful of diplomatic allies and barring its participation in international gatherings, in a campaign to demoralize and isolate the island.  A total of seven countries have switched recognition to China since Tsai was elected in 1996, leaving just 15 nations that maintain formal ties with Taiwan.  China has also stepped up its military threat through words and deeds.  The sailing of China’s Type 001A aircraft carrier and accompanying ships through the Taiwan Strait on Sunday was viewed by some as its latest display of saber rattling.


activistpost--2019-02-10--Most Expensive Midterm Election Ever Special Interests Paid Billions in 2018 for a Shot to Rule Ove

Most Expensive Midterm Election Ever: Special Interests Paid Billions in 2018 for a Shot to Rule Over You

When I first started out as an independent journalist in 2007, I remember interviewing a congressional candidate who put his law career on hold to seek public office. Through my naive and hopeful eyes, before the interview, I looked from afar and wondered what may have inspired him to serve the public. Was it to reform corruption, stop the wholesale fleecing of the citizens of Louisiana by their criminal government, or was he standing up for a noble cause?  Turns out, I was wrong on all fronts. When I asked him why he chose to run for Congress, his answer back to me—knowing that this was going to go on record—was “I thought I could win.”  There was no desire to right any wrongs—no desire to seek positive change and create a better life. The entire impetus behind his campaign was due to the the notion that he thought he could win. I thought to myself at the time that surely this man was an anomaly and most other politicians must be motivated by some selfless concern for the well-being of others, otherwise known as altruism. But I was dead wrong.  The anomaly is actually the reverse. The politician who seeks office for personal gain is the rule, not the exception. Self-interested narcissists fill the halls of Washington stomping on anyone who gets in their way and unafraid to lie, cheat, and steal to get there. The politician who risks their career to stand for what they believe in and to serve the people, however, is the actual anomaly.  Our politicians, they tell us, commit themselves to a life of government so they can serve their constituents and represent them at a national level to further the democratic process and uphold our rights. Promises of lower taxes, free stuff, more freedom, and more security flow from the mouths of political candidates like treated water from a sewage plant. But it’s the exact same story once they all get elected—sell out to lobbyists and push more war.  The opportunity of public office has become such a position of power and control people are paying billions of dollars just for a crack at landing their candidate a job in D.C. In fact, according to a report this week, the cost of the 2018 was the most expensive midterm election in history.  As OpenSecrets.org reported, with more than $5.7 billion shelled out by candidates, parties, committees, PACs and outside groups, the 2018 midterm leapfrogs even the then-record breaking 2008 presidential election which saw nearly $5.3 billion in total spending. It also smashes the previous midterm spending record of $3.8 billion in 2014.  “Just as the 2018 elections brought historic wins for a more diverse group of candidates, they also saw greater spending than we’ve ever seen or anticipated for a midterm election, capitalizing on years of loosened campaign finance regulation and oversight,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.  It would be irresponsible reporting not to mention that a little less than 17 percent of this money came from individuals in the form of small donations. But this likely has more to do with candidates getting better at appealing to emotion than it does with any grassroots movements affecting real change.  The following chart shows just how much money people continue to pour into the opportunity to sell you out to special interests.  If you think that people are spending record amounts of money just to have the opportunity to act as or support a public servant, think again. The election process has morphed into a circus in which billionaires vie for your attention through their shill candidates or shill candidates vie for your attention through their appeals to emotion. All of it is a charade to get into power and if voting actually accomplished anything resembling real change, it would likely be illegal.  Even if you vote, or not, and your party wins, or not, because this system is set up this way, the police state will continue. Constantly voting for the lesser of two evils has manifested into an inevitable cycle in which the government gets more powerful and the people get poorer. But don’t take my word for it, just look at the current state of America.  50 percent of all American workers make less than $30,533 a year. In the meantime, however, the politically connected elite made up of the 0.1% have increased their wealth by more than $1 trillion in the past year. One trillion also happens to be the same amount of money that the US taxpayer has had placed on their backs in the form of government debt in the last year too. Coincidence? Probably not.  “But if the Republicans keep the house we will make America great,” right? Or, “if the Dems take the house, we can finally have nice things,” right? Wrong. The reality of the situation is that no matter who gets elected, these politicians have already made a Faustian bargain to keep the police and warfare state in power.  In today’s political climate, it is no longer a question of which party is in power, or which party will usher in totalitarianism. Instead, we have reached a point of simply waiting for the hammer to finally fall.  Donald Trump ran on a platform to make government smaller, get America out of these endless wars, cease the chaotic and out-of-control spending, and rein in the overreaching executive. Instead, he’s continued wars, increased spending, and followed in his predecessor’s footsteps in using his position of president to write executive order after executive order—most recently threatening to alter the very Constitution with one.  We’re not only speeding toward the edge of a perilous cliff, but arguing over who should steer the wheel — leaving no one competent enough available to man the brakes.  Any politician who attempts to apply the proverbial brakes is laughed out of Congress, pushed to the fringes, and never sees the light of day in the mainstream media unless it is to smear them. Case in point: Justin Amash and Tulsi Gabbard.  The ruling elite have no problem flaunting this in front of our faces either. In fact, one Congressman even spoke out in a book, bragging about how voting doesn’t matter and that the US government views the citizens as “sheep.”  In 2016, the Internet exploded when the book Congressman X was published. In it, the supposed current or former congressman explained that voting is what keeps assholes like him in power.  “My main job is to keep my job, to get reelected,” Congressman X asserts in the book. “It takes precedence over everything.” In regard to how the political class views the citizens, Congressman X did not hold back. “Voters are incredibly ignorant and know little about our form of government and how it works,” he says. “It’s far easier than you think to manipulate a nation of naive, self-absorbed sheep who crave instant gratification.” “Voters claim they want substance and detailed position papers, but what they really crave are cutesy cat videos, celebrity gossip, top 10 lists, reality TV shows, tabloid tripe, and the next f**king Twitter message,” he rants. This craving for ignorance is why these politicians and their supporters are spending billions on your attention. If they keep you distracted long enough to take power, they have won. We have got to wake up to this system of fraud and extortion that we call government before they have taken all we have left. We need to stop being tricked by the slick-tongued snakes in suits with red and blue ties when promising us golden unicorns. We need to reclaim our rights as humans before they are legislated out of existence for our perceived safety. And, we need to never be silenced for calling out this corruption because once we reach critical mass, true change will be on the horizon. No army can stop an idea whose time has come. Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project, where this article first appeared. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter, Steemit, and now on Minds.