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Elections News Stories

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on elections from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

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Latest Word on the Trail?
2012-07-15, New York Times
Posted: 2016-06-20 13:34:13
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/us/politics/latest-word-on-the-campaign-tra...

The push and pull over what is on the record is one of journalisms perennial battles. But those negotiations typically took place case by case, free from the red pens of press minders. Now, with a millisecond Twitter news cycle and an unforgiving, gaffe-obsessed media culture, politicians and their advisers are routinely demanding that reporters allow them final editing power over any published quotations. Quote approval is standard practice for the Obama campaign, used by many top strategists and almost all mid-level aides ... at the White House - almost anyone other than spokesmen who are paid to be quoted. (And sometimes it applies even to them.) It is also commonplace throughout Washington and on the campaign trail. From Capitol Hill to the Treasury Department, interviews granted only with quote approval have become the default position. Those officials who dare to speak out of school, but fearful of making the slightest off-message remark, shroud even the most innocuous and anodyne quotations in anonymity by insisting they be referred to as a top Democrat or a Republican strategist. It is a double-edged sword for journalists, who are getting the on-the-record quotes they have long asked for, but losing much of the spontaneity and authenticity in their interviews. Many journalists spoke about the editing only if granted anonymity, an irony that did not escape them. Those who did speak on the record said the restrictions seem only to be growing.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about government corruption and the manipulation of public perception.


Perfect End to Democratic Primary: Anonymous Superdelegates Declare Winner Through Media
2016-06-06, The Intercept
Posted: 2016-06-13 03:03:35
"https://theintercept.com/2016/06/07/perfect-end-to-democratic-primary-anonym...

The Associated Press - on a day when nobody voted - surprised everyone by abruptly declaring the Democratic Party primary over and Hillary Clinton the victor. The decree, issued the night before the California primary in which polls show Clinton and Bernie Sanders in a very close race, was based on the media organizations survey of superdelegates: the Democratic Partys 720 insiders, corporate donors, and officials whose votes for the presidential nominee count the same as the actually elected delegates. AP claims that superdelegates who had not previously announced their intentions privately told AP reporters that they intend to vote for Clinton, bringing her over the threshold. AP is concealing the identity of the decisive superdelegates who said this. Although the Sanders campaign rejected the validity of APs declaration - on the ground that the superdelegates do not vote until the convention and he intends to try to persuade them to vote for him - most major media outlets ... declared Clinton the winner. This is the perfect symbolic ending to the Democratic Party primary: The nomination is consecrated by a media organization, on a day when nobody voted, based on secret discussions with anonymous establishment insiders and donors whose identities the media organization - incredibly - conceals. For a party run by insiders and funded by corporate interests, its only fitting that its nomination process ends with such an ignominious, awkward, and undemocratic sputter.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about elections corruption and the manipulation of public opinion.


Hillary Clinton Holds $100,000-a-Head Fundraisers
2016-05-13, Wall Street Journal
Posted: 2016-05-29 21:34:48
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/05/13/hillary-clinton-hosts-100000-a-head-...

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton is ramping up her fundraising schedule, attending a number of fundraisers this week that cost donors six-figures to attend. The former secretary of state attended a pair of small, intimate gatherings in New York City on Thursday evening that cost donors a minimum of $100,000 to attend. On Wednesday, she attended two $100,000-a-head events in Englewood, N.J., and New York City. [The] Thursday event was at the home of Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent New York businesswoman and supporter of Mrs. Clinton and Democratic candidates. Six-figure fundraisers are a new frontier in presidential politics, made possible by a 2014 Supreme Court case that tossed a key contribution limit governing how much donors could give across the board in a single election cycle. As a result, campaigns and parties can now fundraise in tandem with each other. Mrs. Clintons events on Thursday [were] not the campaigns first foray into high-dollar fundraising. In April, the campaign held an event at the home of actor George Clooney. The event cost $33,400 to attend, though donors who contributed $353,400 could sit at the head table.

Note: Read about Hillary's direct connections with the Rothschild family, as revealed through Wikileaks data. Read also a recent Washington Post article stating that control over US politics by the financial elites has ushered the country into a "new Gilded Age". For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Report: America's Aging Voting Machines Could Present Election Problems
2015-09-15, NPR
Posted: 2016-05-02 23:29:18
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/09/15/440255752/report-americ...

Voting machines around the United States are coming to the end of their useful lives. That could be a serious problem for next year's presidential elections. According to a new report by the Brennan Center for Justice ... 43 states will use some voting equipment next year that's at least 10 years old. "We're not saying that all the systems are going to fail on Election Day. But the closer you get to this end of projected lifespan, the more likely you're going to see problems," said Larry Norden, one of the report's authors. Problems such as vote flipping - that's when a voter presses one candidate's name only to have the opponent's name light up. It happens when the glue on touch-screen machines gets old and erodes. Norden said everything's coming to a head at once because almost every state bought new computerized voting equipment right after the disputed 2000 election, using $2 billion in federal aid. But he says now there's neither the money nor the same sense of urgency. "More than one official has said to me [that] legislators [and] county funders are waiting for a disaster, which I think is crazy," he said. Disaster does seem increasingly possible. Earlier this year, the state of Virginia realized that machines used in 20 percent of the state were vulnerable to hackers and immediately ordered them replaced. The Brennan Center found a similar pattern in other states. Wealthier counties are getting new equipment, while poorer ones are not.

Note: Read more on the major problems with electronic voting machines in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.


Vulnerable Voting Machine Raises Questions About Election Security
2015-04-16, NPR
Posted: 2016-05-02 23:27:49
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/04/16/399986331/hacked-touchs...

Computer security experts have warned for years that some voting machines are vulnerable to attack. And this week, in Virginia, the state Board of Elections decided to impose an immediate ban on touchscreen voting machines used in 20 percent of the state's precincts, because of newly discovered security concerns. The problems emerged on Election Day last November. "One machine would go and crash. They'd bring it back up. Another one would crash," said Edgardo Cortes, the state's elections commissioner. State auditors investigated. While using their smartphones, they were able to connect to the voting machines' wireless network, which is used to tally votes. Investigators easily guessed the system's passwords - in one case, it was "abcde" - and were then able to change the vote counts remotely without detection. Jeremy Epstein is co-founder of Virginia Verified Voting and one of many computer experts who had warned about the security flaws. He's not at all surprised by the state's findings. Epstein said the vulnerabilities could be used to create a lot of mischief, "to change the list of races, change the list of candidates, change the votes that have been recorded, change the totals recorded, things like that."

Note: Read more on the major problems with electronic voting machines in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.


The new Gilded Age: Close to half of all super-PAC money comes from 50 donors
2016-04-15, Washington Post
Posted: 2016-04-18 08:41:28
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-new-gilded-age-close-to-half-of-a...

A small core of super-rich individuals is responsible for the record sums cascading into the coffers of super PACs for the 2016 elections, a dynamic that harks back to the financing of presidential campaigns in the Gilded Age. Close to half the money - 41 percent - raised by the groups by the end of February came from just 50 mega-donors and their relatives, according to a Washington Post analysis. Donors this cycle have given more than $607 million to 2,300 super PACs, which can accept unlimited contributions from individuals and corporations. That means super PAC money is on track to surpass the $828 million that the Center for Responsive Politics found was raised by such groups for the 2012 elections. The top 50 contributors together donated $248 million personally and through their privately held companies, or more than $4 out of every $10 raised by all super PACs. The last time political wealth was so concentrated was in 1896, when corporations and banking moguls helped McKinley, the Republican candidate, outspend Democratic rival William Jennings Bryan. Populist anger over how presidential races were financed led to a 1907 ban on corporations donating to federal campaigns. Forty years later, Congress prohibited unions and corporations from making independent expenditures in federal races. The picture dramatically changed in 2010, when the Supreme Court said in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations and unions could spend unlimited sums on politics.

Note: The "Koch Empire" alone plans to spend $889 million on US elections in 2016. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about elections corruption and the manipulation of public perception. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.


Cable News Devotes 30 Seconds to Mass Arrests Protesting Political Corruption
2016-04-12, The Intercept
Posted: 2016-04-18 08:31:16
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/12/democracy-spring-media-coverage/

A protest movement calling on Congress to end the corruption of big money in our politics and ensure free and fair elections, converged on Capitol Hill on Monday, staging a nonviolent sit-in that resulted in over 400 arrests. While the action, dubbed #DemocracySpring, garnered wide coverage on social media and over 136,000 tweets, cable news programs found little time to cover the political protests. During daytime and afternoon news segments, CNN did not devote any coverage to the actions. MSNBC mentioned the protests for approximately 12 seconds, while Fox News mentioned the arrests and discussed the protests for about 17 seconds. Hosts on both networks misrepresented the protests. The focus on systemic political corruption ... during the rally yesterday was ignored. The protests were widely covered by CSPAN, Al Jazeera, and NPR, among other outlets. But cable news programs, which specialize in American political news, were another story. The parent companies of cable news networks are closely tied to the Washington establishment being challenged by protesters. Comcast, parent company of MSNBC, is among the biggest spenders on political lobbying. Broadcasting companies have lobbied in recent years against reforms that would diminish the role of big money in election campaigns largely because the bulk of campaign funds are spent on television advertisements. [An] estimated ... $4.4 billion [will] be spent on television ads during the election cycle this year.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about elections corruption and the manipulation of public opinion.


Hacker claims he helped Enrique Pea Nieto win Mexican presidential election
2016-04-01, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2016-04-11 10:02:58
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/31/mexico-presidential-election-enr...

Mercenary hackers helped Enrique Pea Nieto win Mexicos 2012 presidential election, according to an imprisoned Colombian hacker who says he was involved. Andrs Seplveda ... claimed he had also helped to manipulate elections in nine countries across Latin America by stealing data, installing malware and creating fake waves of enthusiasm and derision on social media. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, the Colombian who is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence - boasted of his ability to hack into campaign networks and manipulate opinion. My job was to do actions of dirty war and psychological operations, black propaganda, rumours the whole dark side of politics that nobody knows exists but everyone can see, the 31-year-old told Bloomberg. Although he was well paid for his work, Seplveda said his primary motive was political. He supported right and centre-right candidates against what he called dictatorships and socialists governments. In Mexico ... he reportedly had a $600,000 budget, [and] used a virtual army of fake Twitter accounts to direct public debate. When I realized that people believe what the internet says more than reality, I discovered that I had the power to make people believe almost anything, he told Bloomberg. To varying degrees, he said he applied similar tactics in other elections over an eight-year period in in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Costa Rica and Guatemala. Seplveda is now in jail for hacking crimes related to Colombias 2014 presidential election.

Note: Read an excellent article on how electronic voting machines are likely being manipulated in the 2016 US elections. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about elections corruption and the manipulation of public opinion.


How ghost corporations are funding the 2016 election
2016-03-18, Washington Post
Posted: 2016-03-27 20:40:37
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-ghost-corporations-are-funding-th...

A trust called DE First Holdings was quietly formed in Delaware. A day later, the entity dropped $1 million into a super PAC. The trust, whose owner remains unknown, is part of a growing cadre of mystery outfits financing big-money super PACs. Many were formed just days or weeks before making six- or seven-figure contributions - an arrangement that ... violates a long-standing federal ban on straw donors. But the individuals behind the ghost corporations appear to face little risk of reprisal from [the] Federal Election Commission. The 2016 campaign has already seen the highest rate of corporate donations since the Supreme Court unleashed such spending with its 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision. One out of every eight dollars collected by super PACs this election cycle have come from corporate coffers, including millions flowing from opaque and hard-to-trace entities. Such groups, which can accept unlimited donations ... are on track to far exceed the $86 million they gave to super PACs in the entire 2012 presidential cycle. A significant share of the money is coming from newly formed LLCs. Several campaign finance watchdog groups have filed complaints with the FEC against the recent pop-up LLCs, but the chances of the agencys looking into the cases appear slim. Last month, the agency closed a nearly five-year-old complaint about a limited liability company allegedly used to mask a donors identity unable to even agree whether it merited investigation.

Note: The "Koch Empire" alone plans to spend $889 million on US elections in 2016. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about elections corruption and the manipulation of public perception. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.


Angry Arizona Voters Demand: Why Such Long Lines at Polling Sites?
2016-03-24, New York Times
Posted: 2016-03-27 20:29:29
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/us/angry-arizona-voters-demand-why-such-lon...

Cynthia Perez, a lawyer, stopped by a polling site on her way to work. She found a line so long she could not see the end of it. Days later, angry and baffled [Arizona] voters are still trying to make sense of how democracy is working in Maricopa County, the states most populous, where officials cut the number of polling places by 70 percent to save money - to 60 from 200 in the last presidential election. That translated to a single polling place for every 108,000 residents in Phoenix, a majority-minority city that had exceptional turnout in Tuesdays Democratic and Republican primaries. Many observers saw Arizona as ... pointing toward potential problems nationally. The presidential election will be the first since the Supreme Court dismantled a crucial section of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, freeing nine states, including Arizona and parts of seven others, to change their election laws without advance federal approval. Arizona has a long history of discrimination against minorities, preventing American Indians from voting for much of its history because they were considered wards of the nation, imposing English literacy tests on prospective voters and printing English-only election materials even as the states Spanish-speaking population grew. On Tuesday, calls poured into the office of Arizonas attorney general ... well into the night, as people heard poll workers tell them to go home, the election has already been decided, said a spokesman.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.


CBS Chief: Trump's Success Is 'Damn Good' For the Network
2016-03-01, Fortune
Posted: 2016-03-07 13:20:31
http://fortune.com/2016/03/01/les-moonves-cbs-trump/

Its still up for debate whether or not the media created Donald Trump - or, at least, the GOP presidential frontrunner version of him - but there is no doubt the billionaire reality TV star turned politician has meant big ratings - and income - for networks. Leslie Moonves, the chairman of CBS, admitted as much on Monday. It may not be good for America, but its damn good for CBS, Moonves said at a Morgan Stanley conference in San Francisco. In addition to around-the-clock TV news coverage of Trump and his fellow presidential candidates (but, mainly Trump), major broadcast and cable networks have pulled in record ratings for televised debates throughout this election cycle. Roughly 13.5 million tuned in to CBS for a GOP debate last month, making that one of the most-watched debates so far this year, as nearly 5 million more viewers tuned in to watch Trump battle his GOP rivals than did for a Democratic debate on CBS last November. Thanks to those high ratings, networks have reportedly been able to gouge advertisers for higher ad-rates during this cycles debates. Moonves indicated that he is more than happy to have Trump in the White House race if it means more advertising money.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about elections corruption and the manipulation of public perception.


The Populist Revolution: Bernie and Beyond
2016-01-27, Huffington Post
Posted: 2016-01-31 19:33:18
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-brown/the-populist-revolution-b_b_9080300...

The world is undergoing a populist revival. From the revolt against austerity led by the Syriza Party in Greece and the Podemos Party in Spain, to Jeremy Corbyn's surprise victory as Labour leader in the UK, to Donald Trump's ascendancy in the Republican polls, to Bernie Sanders' surprisingly strong challenge to Hillary Clinton - contenders with their fingers on the popular pulse are surging ahead of their establishment rivals. What Sanders is proposing ... is a real financial revolution, a fundamental change in the system itself. Banks today have usurped the power to create the national money supply. As the Bank of England recently acknowledged, banks create money whenever they make loans. Banks determine who gets the money and on what terms. How can banking be made to serve the needs of the people and the economy, while preserving the more functional aspects of today's highly sophisticated global banking system? We could have a system of publicly-owned banks that were locally controlled, operating independently to serve the needs of their own communities. Making these banks public institutions would differ from the current system only in that the banks would have a mandate to serve the public interest, and the profits would be returned to the local government for public use.

Note: Why is the only US presidential candidate talking seriously about bank reform being given little attention by mainstream media? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in government and in the financial industry.


Black Americans for a Better Future Super PAC 100% Funded by Rich White Guys
2016-01-28, The Intercept
Posted: 2016-01-31 19:19:57
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/28/black-americans-for-a-better-future-super...

New FEC filings show that all of the $417,250 in monetary donations to a Super PAC called Black Americans for a Better Future comes from conservative white businessmen - including $400,000, or 96 percent of the total, from white billionaire hedge fund manager Robert Mercer. Mercer, co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies on Long Island, is best-known politically for donating $11,000,000 to Keep the Promise I, a Super PAC backing Ted Cruzs presidential run. BABF appears to exist solely as a vehicle for Washington, D.C., consultant Raynard Jackson, who is African-American. Jackson is quoted on his firms website stating that You have a fundamental right to pursue business interests with the least amount of interference from the government. Jackson has elsewhere accused Barack Obama of relentless pandering to homosexuals. At an event in November 2015 at the National Press Club, which cost BABF $13,252.79 for the venue and catering, Jackson said that Having well-trained, credible, experienced African-Americans constantly challenging the liberal orthodoxy in the media will create a tectonic shift in the perception of the Republican Party within the Black community. Other donations to BABF [include] $10,000 from Keller Investment Properties of Utah, whose CEO is the white Scott Keller, a member of Mitt Romneys donor network, [and] $5,000 from the very white Marc Stanley Goldman.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about elections corruption and the manipulation of public perception.


Father of Koch Brothers Helped Build Nazi Oil Refinery, Book Says
2016-01-11, New York Times
Posted: 2016-01-17 15:52:00
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/us/politics/father-of-koch-brothers-helped-...

The father of the billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch helped construct a major oil refinery in Nazi Germany that was personally approved by Adolf Hitler, according to a new history of the Kochs and other wealthy families. The book, Dark Money, by Jane Mayer, traces the rise of the modern conservative movement through the activism and money of a handful of rich donors. The book is largely focused on the Koch family, stretching back to its involvement in the far-right John Birch Society and the political and business activities of the father, Fred C. Koch, who found some of his earliest business success overseas in the years leading up to World War II. One venture was a partnership with the American Nazi sympathizer William Rhodes Davis, who, according to Ms. Mayer, hired Mr. Koch to help build the third-largest oil refinery in the Third Reich, a critical industrial cog in Hitlers war machine. The Kochs vast political network, a major force in Republican politics today, was originally designed as a means of off-loading the costs of the Koch Industries environmental and regulatory fights onto others by persuading other rich business owners to contribute to Koch-controlled political groups. In Ms. Mayers telling, the Kochs helped bankroll - through a skein of nonprofit organizations with minimal public disclosure - decades of victories in state capitals and in Washington, often leaving no fingerprints.

Note: Coincidentally, George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was also in business with the Nazis. The conservative political network overseen by the Koch brothers plans to spend $889 million on US elections in 2016. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Defense Contractors Laud Themselves for Steering Candidates Toward Militarism
2015-12-07, The Intercept
Posted: 2015-12-20 18:19:16
https://theintercept.com/2015/12/11/defense-contractors-laud-themselves-for-s...

A group formed this year by executives and lobbyists for the defense contracting industry is taking credit for driving the national debate on foreign policy during the 2016 presidential election, and in particular for getting Republican presidential candidates to call for escalating military action in Syria. In an email to supporters over the weekend, Mike Rogers, the founder of Americans for Peace, Prosperity, and Security, hailed the group for pushing candidates on national security. The email also highlighted a quote from Jeb Bush at an APPS forum calling for the U.S. to be prepared for a long haul war on ISIS, and a similar comment from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who said the U.S. should engage ISIS as it had against the Taliban in Afghanistan. APPS was formed by current and former officials from Raytheon, BAE Systems, SAIC, and other major defense contractors. Lobbyists who represent the defense industry are also involved. Rogers, the former House Intelligence Committee chairman who retired from Congress last year, also represents private clients. To help elect a president who supports American engagement and a strong foreign policy, the group spends money on public events in primary states and encourages presidential candidates to take hawkish positions.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about government corruption and the manipulation of public perception.


Wheres Bernie? Media Ignores Sanders Though Hes More Popular Than Trump
2015-12-17, The Intercept
Posted: 2015-12-20 18:13:44
https://theintercept.com/2015/12/17/wheres-bernie-media-ignores-sanders-thoug...

The headlines about Donald Trump hitting new highs in national polls are tremendously deceptive, as they only measure his support among self-declared Republican primary voters, a small subset of the nation as a whole. For example, in [a] recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Trump was the first choice of 27 percent of the Republican voters who responded. Given the weighted samples in this poll (38 percent identify as Republican or leaning Republican) this translates into Trump capturing the support of about 11 percent of American voters in total. In the same poll, 37 percent of Democratic voters supported Democratic contender Bernie Sanders. Given the weighted samples (43 percent identify as Democrat or leaning Democrat) that translates into roughly 16 percent of all American voters. Additionally, in a recent Quinnipiac poll, Sanders beat Trump in a head-to-head matchup - by an even larger margin than Hillary Clinton did. But in terms of coverage by the mainstream media, Trump is besting Sanders 23 to 1, by some estimates. Some of this can be explained by the fact that Trump is the GOP frontrunner, and Sanders has consistently run second to Clinton. But its also partly because of what a spectacle Trump has made of himself - and because the media has consistently treated Sanders as a marginal candidate. Media executives view Trumps outrageous antics as good for their bottom line. Go Donald! Keep getting out there! Les Moonves, the chief executive of CBS, [recently] cheered.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about elections and the manipulation of mass media.


Saudi Arabia: First women councillors elected
2015-12-13, BBC News
Posted: 2015-12-20 18:03:02
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35086357

Women have been elected to municipal councils in Saudi Arabia for the first time after a ban on women taking part in elections was lifted. At least four women were elected, the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. Other news agencies put the number between nine and 17. The vote is being seen as a landmark in the conservative kingdom. However, the councils have limited powers. Saudi women still face many curbs in public life, including driving. A total of 978 women registered as candidates, alongside 5,938 men. Officials said about 130,000 women had registered to vote in Saturday's poll, compared with 1.35 million men. The disparity was attributed by female voters to bureaucratic obstacles and a lack of transport, the AFP news agency says. Female candidates were also not allowed to address male voters directly during campaigning. Elections of any kind are rare in the Saudi kingdom - Saturday was only the third time in history that Saudis had gone to the polls. There were no elections in the 40 years between 1965 and 2005. The decision to allow women to take part was taken by the late King Abdullah and is seen as a key part of his legacy. In announcing the reforms, King Abdullah said women in Saudi Arabia "have demonstrated positions that expressed correct opinions and advice". Before he died in January, he appointed 30 women to the country's top advisory Shura Council. There were 2,100 council seats available in Saturday's vote. An additional 1,050 seats are appointed with approval from the king.

Note: Remember that Saudi Arabia was recently selected to head a UN human rights panel. Yet they only now are allowing women to vote and public beheadings are still commonplace.


The 158 Families Who Are Buying American Democracy
2015-12-11, Newsweek
Posted: 2015-12-13 04:40:08
http://www.newsweek.com/158-families-who-are-buying-american-democracy-403807

Half of all the money contributed so far to Democratic and Republican presidential candidates - $176 million - has come from just 158 families, along with the companies they own or control. Who are these people? According to the report, most of these big contributors live in exclusive neighborhoods where they have private security guards instead of public police officers, private health facilities rather than public parks and pools. Most send their kids and grand kids to elite private schools rather than public schools. They fly in private jets and get driven in private limousines rather than rely on public transportation. They don't have to worry about whether Social Security or Medicare will be there for them in their retirement because they've put away huge fortunes. It's doubtful that most of these 158 are contributing to these campaigns out of the goodness of their hearts. They're largely making investments, just the way they make other investments. And the success of these investments depends on whether their candidates get elected, and will lower their taxes even further, expand tax loopholes, shred health and safety and environmental regulations so their companies can make even more money, and cut Social Security and Medicare and programs for the poor - and thereby allow these 158 and others like them to secede even more from the rest of our society. These people are, after all, are living in their own separate society. They want to elect people who will represent them, not the rest of us.

Note: As the Democrats and Republicans duke it out, the ultra-rich laugh all the way to the bank. What if instead of fighting each other, we worked together to expose the manipulations of the ultra-rich? This essay was written by former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing income inequality news articles from reliable major media sources.


How trustworthy are electronic voting systems in the US?
2015-06-05, Significance (An official magazine of the American Statistical Association)
Posted: 2015-11-30 15:00:09
http://www.statslife.org.uk/significance/politics/2288-how-trustworthy-are-el...

When you ... cast your vote for the various candidates and public propositions at an electronic voting machine, how confident are you that the results will be tabulated honestly? If you feel less than sanguine about it and do a bit of the research to assuage your doubts, be prepared to feel even less confident afterwards. My statistical analysis shows patterns indicative of vote manipulation in machines. These results form a pattern that goes across the nation and back a number of election cycles. The data reveals multiple (at least two) agents working independently to successfully alter voting results. The official report from the congressional hearing on [the 2004 Ohio presidential] election describes it as 'the abuse and manipulation of electronic voting machines and the arbitrary and illegal behavior of a number of elected and election officials which effectively disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters in order to change the outcome of an election.' For a thorough assessment, [read] 'Post-Election Audits: Restoring Trust in Elections' published by the Brennan Center for Justice. Voting machine software ... is proprietary and even the election officials are not allowed to inspect it. This is termed Black Box Voting and combined with Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting, which permits touchscreen machines and does not require a paper trail allows a situation ripe for exploitation. We have a serious pervasive and systematic problem with electronic voting machines.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Just 158 families have provided nearly half of the early money for efforts to capture the White House
2015-10-10, New York Times
Posted: 2015-10-18 17:24:41
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/11/us/politics/2016-presidential-e...

They are deploying their vast wealth in the political arena, providing almost half of all the seed money raised to support Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. Just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the campaign, a New York Times investigation found. Not since before Watergate have so few people and businesses provided so much early money in a campaign, most of it through channels legalized by the Supreme Courts Citizens United decision five years ago. The 158 families each contributed $250,000 or more in the campaign through June 30. An additional 200 families gave more than $100,000. Together, the two groups contributed well over half the money in the presidential election - the vast majority of it supporting Republicans. The campaign finance system is now a countervailing force to the way the actual voters of the country are evolving and the policies they want, said Ruy Teixeira, a political and demographic expert. The donor families wealth reflects, in part, the vast growth of the financial-services sector and the boom in oil and gas. They are also the beneficiaries of political and economic forces that are driving widening inequality. Together, the [energy and finance] industries accounted for well over half of the cash contributed by the top 158 families.

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