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SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras. (Photo by Eurokiniossi/ Stelios Missinas)

ATHENS Speaking to Saturdays edition of Efimerida Ton Syntakton, main opposition SYRIZA party leader Alexis Tsipras expressed his view that the government of New Democracy will not see the end of its four-year term, and how he also believes that it is quite possible to see a political power shift to social democracy in Greece, along the lines of the Spanish governmental alliance between the socialists and the Podemos party.

The collapse of Mitsotakis government has begun, while New Democracy officials and the prime minister himself are exploring the idea of snap elections to prevent the loss of political equilibrium, said Tsipras and that their policy and the reactions it causes, are forcing them to draft an early elections plan.

The ruling New Democracy on Friday voted the re-enforced proportional system of distributing seats after national elections, but because the draft did not collect the minimum 200 votes required by the constitution to go into effect on the next national elections (which will be held on the current system of simple proportionality, introduced by the SYRIZA government), the new system will go into effect on the next but one elections. The issue relates to the number of bonus seats awarded to the winning party, which was abolished under the current electoral law.

Criticizing the re-introduction of the system Syriza abolished when once in government, Tsipras said that they (New Democracy) underestimate the fact that whenever next elections are held-will be held on the current system of simple proportionality, and now they mention double elections, so what are they thinking of doing? Go to the polls claiming votes by telling voters that the first ballot is of no value-so wait for the next one? They are risking a big surprise, he noted.

In any case we will be ready to claim a victory in the elections, whenever they may be held, as the popular support for SYRIZA and a government of democratic and progressive co-operation, will not include New Democracy as part of the solution, concluded Syrizas leader.

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Tsipras: "New Democracy Will Not See the End of Its Four-Year Term" - The National Herald

Lets say you owned a house and needed extra cash to make ends meet, so you decided to rent two of your bedrooms. Would you agree to lease those rooms to two people, but under the condition that you could only meet and run a credit check on one of them? Would you allow a anonymous rando move into your second room, no questions asked, not even their name?

Its an absurd question. No one would do that. Yet thats exactly what the parties ask millions of voters to do in American presidential primaries.

Thanks to debates and news reports weve gotten to know Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and the other presidential contenders pretty well. Democratic voters have the information they need to vote for their party standardbearer. But they have no idea who will represent their party for vice president.

We dont even know what kind of veep the candidates would pick. Would Biden balance his centrism with a progressive, or someone younger like Pete Buttigieg? Would Sanders double down on progressivism by pairing up with Warren, or vice versa?

Since four out of ten vice presidents have become president, this is not an academic question. (I include those who ran for the presidency using the formidable springboard of incumbency and the name reconciliation it bestows.)

You might think no big deal, my choice for president will select a running mate with a similar temperament and ideological leanings. History shows that balance, i.e. contrast, is a common strategy. Bush, an affable moderate Republican, went with maniacal hardliner Dick Cheneyand by many accounts he was the one in charge. The US (and Iraq!) lost a lot when Bush prevailed over Al Gore; whereas Gore was a staunch environmentalist and a thoughtful liberal, his running mate Joe Lieberman was a charmless Republican in sheeps clothing. Whatever you thought of John McCain (in my case, not much) it would have been a tragic day for America had he croaked and been succeeded by the shallow imbecile Sarah Palin.

It is strangenay, it is insanethat a self-declared democracy allows, effectively, 40% of its future leaders to be elected not by the voters but by one person, the presidential nominee of one party or, at most, by a half-dozen of his or her confidants.

Sometimes it works out. The assassination of William McKinley gave us Teddy Roosevelt, who set the standard for the contempt with which a president ought to treat big business. How long would we have awaited the Civil Rights Act had LBJ not been prematurely promoted? Still, this is not democracy.

It is time for the United States to require that candidates for president announce their veep picks at the same time they announce their intent to run. Its truth in advertising.

Candidates terms dont expire with them. If a president succumbs to an assassins bullet, a foreign drone or an aneurism prior to the end of their four-year term, votersprimary votersought to have the right to know who would finish it out. Toward that end, they also ought to pre-announce their cabinet picks. Many cabinet positions are in the line of succession. And they can make a big difference. I would not have voted for Barack Obama if I had known he would appoint Goldman Sachs Timothy Geithner to run the Treasury Department.

Announcing veeps early enough for voters to take them into consideration before casting their primary ballots would deprive political conventions of their last remaining bit of drama, but lower TV ratings are a small price to pay compared to what is to be gained: transparency and choice.

Its not like revealing the number-two spot ahead of time is a crazy idea no one has tried before.

Nowadays, once a candidate has locked up the presidential nomination, we expect them to choose their running mate by whatever process they choose to employ, introduce him (or, in two recent cases, her) to the public a few days before the convention, and we all understand that the convention will rubber-stamp that choice, and the veep nominee will make a televised speech, which will occur on Wednesday night, the third day of the four-day TV show that conventions have become, Eric Black wrote for the Minnesota Post. In the earliest days of the Republicand this was the way the Framers of the Constitution intended itwhoever finished second in the Electoral College voting would become vice president. Thats how John Adams, the first vice president got the job. Even as the two-party system (which is not mandated by the Constitution) developed, that remained the case, which is how Adams (when he succeeded George Washington in 1796) ended up with his chief rival in the presidential race (Thomas Jefferson) as his vice president.

The parties usurped the voters role in the choosing of the vice president in 1832.

Were a weird country. Few electoral democracies elect a president the way we do and even fewer deal with succession the same way. Most nations replace their departed presidents with a temporary fix, typically an acting president who is a parliamentary official analogous to the Speaker of the House pending a special presidential election, or a quickie election to find a replacement. Were pretty much on our own when it comes to figuring out a better construction.

Whats clear is that nothing would be gained and much would be gained by requiring presidential candidates to declare their running mates, and their cabinets, up front.

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If This is a Democracy, Why Don't We Vote for the Vice President Too? - CounterPunch

Recently Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters for The Washington Post Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig published their assessment of Donald Trumps presidency to date, seeking to step out of the news cycle and assess the reverberations of his administration throughout the nation. Titled A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trumps Testing of America, the book layers scene after scene of Trumps ineptitude, prioritization of self-interest over care for the nations well-being, and general lack of any moral compass or intellectual rigor.

As Dwight Garner, in his review for The New York Times characterized the tale Rucker and Leonnig weave, It reads like a horror story, an almost comic immorality tale. Its as if the president, as patient zero, had bitten an aide and slowly, bite by bite, an entire nation had lost its wits and its compass.

The story is a compelling one, and one seemingly validated for Americans by what we have witnessed in the impeachment hearings played out in the House of Representatives and now in the ongoing trial in U.S. Senate.

The wealthy businessman Trump, corrupt to the core, is dismantling democracy and putting the nations well-being and security at risk for his own private gain and ego interests.

And yet we shouldnt let the high drama of the very necessary impeachment process distract us from the more mundane threats to American democracy that seem to have become largely accepted in American life but which are no less deleterious to the American people and our supposed political ideals than Trumps presidency is.

As an example of what Im talking about, take billionaire Jeff Bezos and his Amazon empire, which includes, by the way, The Washington Post.

The admonitory slogan of The Washington Post is, of course, Democracy Dies in Darkness.

The sentiment is a warm and fuzzy one for sure, even articulating a noble mission and role for the free press in sustaining our democracy.

And Jeff Bezos dollars nobly enable that mission.

But what he gives with one hand (it is a business after all), he taketh with the other, underscoring the severely limited application of democratic principles throughout American society.

And can we call a form of government that limits democratic rights in practice a democracy at all?

Bezos Amazon, for example, recently threatened to fire its employees who spoke out publicly against the companys environmental policies.

As Annie Palmer reported for CNBC earlier this month, employees reported that Amazons policy on workers external communications was updated last September and now requires employees to seek prior approval to speak about Amazon in any public forum while identified as an employee.

The Amazon Employees for Climate Justice tweeted in response to the suppression of employee free speech:

How will the world remember Jeff Bezos in the era of climate emergency? Will he use his immense economic power to help, or not?Please tell @Amazon and @JeffBezos: Our world is on fire & desperately needs climate leadership. Stop silencing employees who are sounding the alarm.

It needs to be stressed, of course, that Amazons suppression of its workers speech is not illegal and certainly not unique.

In other words, Americans do not enjoy democratic rights in the workplace. U.S. law allows for the denial of First Amendment rights when you are at work, as Ive written about previously for PoliticusUsa.

So, as conceived currently in our nations legal codes, the most sacred tenets of democracy are only applicable in American life on a part-time basis. Ask Colin Kaepernick.

When you are at work for 40 to 60 hours per week, please know that democracy is on hold. Please leave your rights in your locker before you punch your time card.

Sometimes its even worse.

Remember Juli Briskman, a marketing executive at Akima, a government contracting firm, who was fired for flipping off President Trumps motorcade while riding her bike? She wasnt even at work. Because she had been photographed and the photograph had been published with great popularity, she identified herself to her company and was promptly called into a room and fired for violating code-of-conduct policies. Clearly, she did not have the right to express herself as she chooses, even outside of the workplace, without consequences for her employment.

Democracy dies in the workplace, and certainly at Amazon, where, similar to many companies, workers efforts to unionize are vigorously resisted. Like Target and Walmart, among others, Amazon has produced its own anti-union video that is part of employee training.

And the union structure, which collectively organizes workers and negotiates their rights and remuneration, is the main and really only means for workers to have a voice in their workplace, where they spend a good deal of their lives contributing to the world in which we all live.

Bezos and Trump have a long adversarial history, as they spar over the size of their . . . bank accounts.

Trump basically foiled a Pentagon contract that seemed destined for Amazon but was eventually awarded to Microsoft.

Trump regularly attacks The Washington Postas Bezos lobbying group (even though, admittedly, he does reporting critical of Amazon).

In the end, though, Trump and Bezos, along with much of corporate America, stand together against democracy and in favor of American oligarchy.

Dont let people speak. Let money and private ownership have the biggest voice in decision-making.

Perhaps the impeachment hearings and trial will enliven the democratic sensibilities in the American people to understand not just Trumps horror show but also these wider efforts at work in our culture and society aimed at preventing and dismantling democracy.

Tim Libretti is a professor of U.S. literature and culture at a state university in Chicago. A long-time progressive voice, he has published many academic and journalistic articles on culture, class, race, gender, and politics, for which he has received awards from the Working Class Studies Association, the International Labor Communications Association, the National Federation of Press Women, and the Illinois Womans Press Association.

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Opinion: Democracy Dies at Amazon, Are Trump and Bezos Really Such Strange Bedfellows? - PoliticusUSA

Here in Manhattan, actor Annabella Sciorra told a packed courtroom Thursday that disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein forced his way into her New York City apartment one night in the early 1990s, where he held her down and raped her. The experience, Sciorra testified, left her so scarred that she fell into a deep depression, started cutting herself and began drinking heavily. It was the first time one of Weinsteins accusers has confronted him directly in court since his arrest in May of 2018 on charges of rape and criminal sexual acts.

Five more of Weinsteins accusers are expected to testify during the trial, though the statute of limitations has expired for all but two of their claims. Weinstein faces life in prison on the New York charges and up to 28 years in a separate criminal case in Los Angeles County. Over 100 women have accused Weinstein of rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment and professional retaliation.

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Annabella Sciorra Testifies That Harvey Weinstein Raped Her in 1990s - Democracy Now!

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Im Amy Goodman, with Juan Gonzlez. Today is the Senate impeachment trial day in Washington. It is historic. Were speaking with Rick Perlstein, who has written several books on President Nixon and what happened to him, also has focused on what happened to President Clinton. And were joined by Kristen Clarke. She is head of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Shes in Washington, D.C.

Kristen Clarke, today were expected to see a battle between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. They will debate for several hours about whats going to take place. Then theres going to be 24 hours for both the House managers, the prosecutors, the Democrats, and President Trumps lawyers. And as Mitch McConnell laid out the rules last night, these 24 hours each have to be over two days each, 12-hour days, clearly wanting to make this extremely fast, then a debate over whether there will be witnesses. And then there will be 16 hours where the senators will weigh in. They are kind of like jurors. Theyre all sitting there, cant have any phones. They cant actually get up and ask questions of both sides. They have to hand their cards, their questions, to Chief Justice John Roberts, who will then read out their questions. And apparently this will go on for about 16 hours. Can you talk about the form of this, and also what information hasnt been gotten out, or only recently?

KRISTEN CLARKE: The process feels rigged and intentionally designed to keep the Senate and the public in the dark. And thats unfortunate. No doubt, Senator McConnell has constructed the rules here to extend debate well into the night, during hours in which the public likely would miss the opportunity to hear the evidence and hear the facts. This is not following the precedent that was set under Clinton. Its important that we remember that the Clinton trial lasted for about a month. For President Johnson, that process extended for about two months. The way the rules have been set forth here, were looking at the possibility of this process concluding by the middle of next week. There has been resistance to entering the record that was built in the House into the record in the Senate. And the way that Senator McConnell has constructed the rules is intended to make it virtually impossible for a majority to agree and come to consensus that we should hear from the witnesses, that we should hear from the facts.

This is particularly startling when you think about the very positions that Senator McConnell and Senator Lindsey Graham took during the Clinton impeachment. Both of them were there, and both of them talked very openly and frankly about conducting a searching examination for the truth, about the importance of hearing from witnesses, about the importance of having a full and fair trial.

So Im deeply concerned about the process that is underway, because at the end of the day we cant forget the very issues that are the subject of this impeachment, which concerns allegations that a president interfered with our elections. As somebody who has been practicing voting rights and election law for virtually every day of my professional life, I care deeply about the allegations at hand. The idea that wed have a president who would abuse his power and leverage a $400 million payment, that had been authorized by Congress, in order to secure from a foreign country a public announcement that is televised or broadcast that a political opponent is under criminal investigation is deeply troubling. This is conduct that undermines democracy, that undermines the integrity of our elections, that destroys public confidence in the process. So, you know, there is much debate about the rules and about new evidence circulating every day, but we cannot forget the deeply troubling and startling allegations that are the very subject of this impeachment process.

JUAN GONZLEZ: Yeah, I wanted to get back to those rules for a second. You mentioned, and Chuck Schumer has lamented, the reality that McConnell is proposing to go into the wee hours of the morning. He wants to start the 12-hour process that 1 p.m. each day, so that it will go at least until 1:00 a.m. in the morning. And also, the amazing revelation that the Republicans are going to control the camera angles of whats actually seen on C-SPAN, is in an uproar over the fact that basically theyre not going have even control over the cameras to be able to show individual senators or whatever from the hearing as the trial is ongoing.

KRISTEN CLARKE: There is no question that Senator McConnell is rigging the rules, that this is being set up in a way that feels like a sham process. It is a gross departure from the precedent sent by the Clinton impeachment process, where there were 24 hours of debate that extended over a longer period of time. By cramming and forcing the senators to sit for this length of a period of time over two days, it is absolutely clear that they intend for the debate to extend into the wee hours of the night, when the public will miss the opportunity to hear the very important facts at issue here.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go stay on that issue of press restrictions. The Republican Senate leaders have issued these restrictions on journalists covering the impeachment trial. Press will be restricted to a pen and would be subjected to passing through a magnetometer that would check to make sure theyre not carrying electronic devices that would allow them to report on the trial from the press gallery. Several news organizations have criticized the rules, as Juan mentioned, including C-SPAN, which is calling on the Senate to allow its cameras to document the trial. A coalition of organizations, led by the ACLU, has written an open letter to Senate leaders, saying, quote, The public and the press should be empowered to bear and use computing devices to bear witness to history from the galleries. C-SPAN should be allowed into the Senate Chamber to position its cameras so that they can broadcast the historic proceedings throughout the country and make the archives available to the public. Journalists are not, as the Senate itself unanimously affirmed in 2018, the 'enemy of the people,' nor should they ever be treated as such by an institution in the United States government. Kristen Clarke, also being told that they cannot talk to senators something like I dont know the exact time restriction half an hour before the proceeding and a half an hour after, that means, especially the Republican senators, who wont want to go on the record on this, know when they can run into the Senate chamber without being bothered, is how they would view it, by reporters. But, of course, its our role to put our elected leaders on the record.

KRISTEN CLARKE: Yeah, I smell a potential legal challenge here. I think the restrictions that have been imposed on the press and that are limiting and stifling their ability to do their job are deeply troubling and go to the heart of the First Amendment. So well see how that plays out. But no doubt, when you think about the effort to stifle the publics ability to follow and observe this process, when you think about the restrictions on the press, when you think about Senator McConnells rules, which are intended to not shine light on the evidence and the fact but are constructed to keep the public in the dark and to keep what played out here shrouded in secrecy, you know, it almost feels like we are witnessing the death of democracy here.

All of these issues a public and open forum in Congress, free elections, a free press really go to the heart of American democracy. I think that whats playing out here is deeply troubling. And I hope that we can get the American public to focus again on the issues at hand, which really go to the heart of democracy. We want elections where theres a level playing field, where candidates can compete freely and fairly. And thats critical to ensuring that at the end of the day that the public can have confidence in the outcome produced by our elections.

And the allegations levied against the president here are deeply troubling, are very concerning. Weve got about 286 days left until the November 2020 presidential election. And whats to keep him from doing this again? Its important that the Senate do its job, that it air all of the facts, lay to bare all of the evidence, so that the public and the Senate can understand what the president did here and determine whether or not the president violated his oath of office and abused his power.

JUAN GONZLEZ: Im wondering if you could comment also on the announcement by Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham last week that while the trial is ongoing, that there will be no meetings of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the possible implications of that?

KRISTEN CLARKE: This is a very significant development. So, we now mark three years into the Trump presidency, and President Trump has moved at lightning speed to fill vacancies across our federal court system, and has done so at a record-breaking pace. When you compare the number of nominees named by President Trump three years into his presidency compared to President Obama at the same point, there is a stark disparity. He has put in place two Supreme Court justices, 50 judges on the federal circuit court Obama appointed 25 over that time period and 133 district court judges. Obama appointed about 97 during that same time period. These are judges who are there for a lifetime. These are judges who are overwhelmingly white and male. They dont reflect the diversity of our country. These are judges who bear extremist records and raise real questions about their ability to hear issues that come before them impartially.

This development matters, because it is hard to imagine how the Senate could carry out the grave responsibility of reviewing the questions before them during the impeachment trial and properly vet judicial nominees for lifetime appointments. I am glad that Lindsey Graham has suspended the Judiciary Committees process during the time period, and hope that the senators will take all of their time and attention to uncover the evidence and facts at hand in this impeachment process. Im glad that the public will get a reprieve from President Trumps dangerous judicial nominees during this time period.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to a video tweeted by the Senate Democrats showing remarks made by Senators Lindsey Graham and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, though he wasnt at the time, during the Clinton impeachment trial.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: In every trial that there has ever been in the Senate regarding impeachment, witnesses were called.

SEN. MITCH McCONNELL: Its not unusual to have a witness in a trial.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: If theres any doubt, call witnesses.

SEN. MITCH McCONNELL: The crisis will only be resolved by a fair and sober search for the truth.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: When you have a witness, who was there, who was engaged in it, who was in the middle of it, telling you about what they were doing and why, its a totally different case, and its the difference between getting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

SEN. MITCH McCONNELL: Its certainly not unusual to have a witness in an impeachment trial.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: But if we dont get to call meaningful witnesses, direct witnesses to the point, is that youre basically changing impeachment.

AMY GOODMAN: So, thats to the issue of witnesses. Again, Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell now saying that they dont want witnesses. And now I want to go to play two clips of Alan Dershowitz, one of the newest members of Trumps legal team. This is Dershowitz speaking in 1998 in reference to the Clinton impeachment.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: It certainly doesnt have to be a crime. If you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president and who abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty, you dont need a technical crime.

AMY GOODMAN: So, thats Alan Dershowitz in 1998 around Clinton. This is Dershowitz Sunday appearing on ABC This Week, referencing former Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Curtis defense of President Andrew Johnson during his impeachment trial in 1868.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: When you read the text of the Constitution, bribery treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors, other really means that crimes and misdemeanors must be of a kin akin to treason and bribery. And he argued, very successfully, winning the case, that you needed proof of an actual crime. It neednt be a statutory crime, but it has to be criminal behavior, criminal in nature.

AMY GOODMAN: So, there you have the complete turnaround of these men. Rick Perlstein, youve covered Nixon. You covered the Clinton impeachment. Talk about what Dershowitz is now saying and what the others are saying around witnesses, how it played out with Clinton.

RICK PERLSTEIN: Right. A wise man once defined conservatism as the ideology that says the law covers but does not bind certain people, and binds but does not cover others. In other words, its about protecting the powerful, and procedural neutrality, fairness, logic, a lack of hypocrisy has nothing to do with it.

And that, you know, really goes back to, again, these media restrictions. Its not just that the public is going to be kept in the dark. Whats happening is that Republicans are being protected from the humiliation and the political damage of being forced to go on camera and say that black is white, that up is down, that two plus two equals five. Theyre being protected from the judgment of history. I mean, if the world ends up in smoking ruins because of Donald Trump, these guys do not want to be recorded in the history books as the people who did not stand up.

The Clinton trial shows, actually, quite the difference between this very flawed Democratic Party and this deeply corrupt Republican Party. When Clinton was impeached, the reason this happened was because Clinton was willing to allow his attorney general to replace an independent counsel when that counsels term was up and that the attorney general, Janet Reno, chose a partisan Republican. Thats how committed the Democratic Party was to fairness. You know, in the same way, when the Democrats took over the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy gave enormous latitude to allow Republicans to pink blue-slip, or veto, Democratic judges right? this commitment to procedural neutrality.

The Republicans have no commitment to procedural neutrality. Theyre only interested in, basically, a Fhrerprinzip, like the one in Germany: The leader is always right; were going to protect him at all terms. And whether our republic can survive this sort of depredation is very much in question. The walls are closing in. The hour is very late.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Kristen Clarke, you are a voting rights leader in this country. How do you answer those who say, Why impeachment? If people dont like what President Trump has done, vote him out of office in the next election?

KRISTEN CLARKE: We need fair rules. We need a level playing field in order for our democracy to work. And when you have a public official here, the president who abuses his office and abuses his power to rig the outcome, to undermine a political opponent because they are afraid to compete on that level playing field, then we should all be concerned. We want elections where the outcomes are ones that people feel are fair, outcomes where they can have confidence. And here, I think its important that we all ask: With 286 days to go, whats to stop President Trump from doing it again? Its important that the Senate do its job, lay bare the evidence, and that we determine whether or not he indeed abused his office and withheld aid to Ukraine in order to buy a public pronouncement about a criminal investigation in a political opponent. That is not conduct that we should tolerate in American democracy today.

AMY GOODMAN: Kristen Clarke, we want to thank you for being with us, president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Rick Perlstein, author of The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan and Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.

When we come back, the National Archives erases history? Stay with us.

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Voting Rights Advocate: The Impeachment of Trump Is Needed to Protect Our Elections & Democracy - Democracy Now!