Mediaboss Marketing

WARSAW, Poland -- Polish democracy icon and former president Lech Walesa on Saturday joined the protests that have broken out across Poland over plans by the populist ruling party to put the Supreme Court and the rest of the judicial system under the party's political control.

The European Union and many international legal experts say the changes would mark a dramatic reversal for a country hailed as a model of democratic transition over the past quarter century, and move Poland closer toward authoritarianism.

The ruling Law and Justice party defends the changes as reforms to a justice system that party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski says was never purged of former communists after that system collapsed in 1989. The claim is rejected by critics.

Walesa addressed protesters in Gdansk, his home city, where he led strikes in the 1980s against the then-communist regime that eventually toppled the government and ushered in democracy.

People gather during a protest against the Supreme Court legislation in Poznan, Poland on July 22, 2017.

Agencja Gazeta/Lukasz Cynalewski via Reuters

The 73-year-old Walesa recalled those democratic changes, saying that the separation of powers into the legislative, executive and judicial branches was the most important achievement of his Solidarity movement.

"You must use all means to take back what we achieved for you," he told a crowd that included young Poles. The 1983 Nobel Peace Prize winner also said he would always support their struggle, words that appeared to rule out any leadership role for him in the protests.

Later Saturday night, crowds of thousands began to form in Warsaw, Krakow and other Polish cities. Some people held up placards with the word "Constitution" - a reference to accusations the governing party is destroying Poland's constitutional order.

In Warsaw, 29-year-old lawyer Marzena Wojtczak disputed the ruling party's claim that the judicial system was filled with former communists, saying many judges had been anti-communist dissidents and others are too young for that era.

Another protester, Tadeusz Przybylski, 61, said he opposed the communists decades ago and was back now because the ruling party's moves to control the judiciary have led to a "lack of democracy and justice."

Three bills changing the rules for the Supreme Court and other judicial bodies have been approved by Polish lawmakers but they must still be signed into law by President Andrzej Duda. The protesters, bearing signs "3 X veto," urged him to block the legislation.

The Supreme Court has, among other powers, jurisdiction over the validity of elections. Government critics fear the ruling party could abuse its new power and falsify future elections.

Editor-in-chief of Newsweek Polska, Tomasz Lis, an outspoken government critic, said on Twitter that it was the "worst and the best moment in time for Poland since 1989. A great nation is defending democracy and its own freedom. Bravo."

Other protesters gathered in front of Kaczynski's house chanting "we will bring down the dictatorship!"

After the populist Law and Justice party won power in 2015, it took on the country's system of checks and balances as it sought to cement its power, often passing contentious laws in the middle of the night and without any public consultation. Those steps have led to repeated street demonstrations.

The party has turned public media into its mouthpiece, purged the army of most of its leadership and has already neutralized the power of the Constitutional Tribunal to block any new legislation that might violate the constitution.

On Saturday, presidential spokesman Krzysztof Lapinski said Duda sees some flaws in the legislation on the Supreme Court. But he stopped short of saying whether the president would reject the bill or seek the opinion of the Constitutional Tribunal.

Duda has 21 days to sign the bill into law.

Although the European Commission has expressed its concerns about Poland's judicial changes and recently threatened to strip Poland of its EU voting rights, it has so far been powerless to do anything. Any sanctions would require unanimity of the remaining 27 EU members.

On Saturday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said his country will use all available legal means to protect Poland from what he called the EU's "inquisition campaign."

See original here:
Democracy icon Lech Walesa joins Poland anti-government protests - CBS News

On July 3, the New York Timestweeted outa new story reported from the rural reaches of far northern California, and received some withering responses.

NYT has a whole-ass genre of sad white people staring pensively out window in darkened room stories, podcasterShaun Lau tweeted, followed by an invitation, If youre a sad white person, feel free to tweet a photo of yourself staring out a window and Ill give you a NYT caption, leading, in turn, to a Times Magazine-worthy thread.

Texas Democrats were particularly incensed.

That was followed by another tweet with an illustrative map of the Austin areas imaginatively constructed congressional districts: Pretty amazing how our city can somehow hold only slivers of deep red rural expanses and be 5 districts in one.

TheTimesstory itself absurdly conflated the global reality of rural economic distress a genuine problem neglected decades too long with the most grandiose persecution fantasies of the particular Northern California locale. A prime source of the distress is the same as that seen by the prairie populists in 1880s a global capitalist system in which rural raw producers, as well as workers, are always precarious, regardless of how hardworking they are.

Its also broadly true thatcities grow more efficient as they grow larger, which underscores the need for dedicated government programs to mitigate the resulting stress this inevitably causes for more stagnant regions. America already has a baseline model for thissort of thing the plethora ofrural and agriculturally-oriented projects and programs that were part of the New Deal. Yes, the big bad government these Trump voters love to hate.

The grandiose fantasies get more notice, however, as reflected in theTimes headline, Californias Far North Deplores Tyranny of the Urban Majority. Its a bizarre rip-off ofLaniGuiniers1994 book, The Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy,whose inclusive spirit and depth of insight and scholarship could not be more opposite to the views of the Trump supporters in Californias far north. Many of them want to secede from the state, in which they actually wielddisproportionatelymorepower than those they feel oppressed by, due to supermajority rules that if anything foster a tyranny of the minority. Failing that, they want to grab even more power for themselves five times the power of Los Angeles voters in one scheme, and100 timesthe powerin another.

People up here for a very long time have felt a sense that we dont matter, theTimesquotes StateAssemblyman James Gallagher. We run this state likeitsone size fits all. You cant do that.

Gallaghers answer? Drastically quash the representation of the states majority of voters with a new scheme based on geography, rather than population: one acre, one vote rather than one person, one vote.

As theSacramento Bee notedin early June,Gallaghersproposal would create eight proposed regional districts which range in size from 923,000 registered voters in Northern California to more than 5.2 million in Los Angeles County, meaning that Angelenos would have less than one-fifth of the vote, compared to his constituents.

TheTimesgave it a more benevolent spin, quoting Gallagher uncritically: I am asking the people with power to give up some of their power in order to allow all the voices in the state to have a little bit more strength than they do right now.

Anothermeasure mentioned in the story superficially appears to point in the opposite direction. A lawsuitto expand the size of the legislature might appear to improve democratic responsiveness overall, but would do nothing to alter the fact that these rural northerners are a tiny minority of the states population. Again, theSacramento Beeclarified whats actually going onin an early May story, observing that the plaintiffs seek to return to a pre-1966 legislative structure in which each California county had one state senator, and to add more members to the Assembly so that districts encompass far fewer residents.

The filing itself notes that Siskiyou County had a population of about 45,000 people as of July 1, 2015, meaning that under this scheme its residents would have more than 100 times the voting power of Los Angeles County residents a breathtakingly anti-democratic outcome.

Many states used to have such unfair systems, giving rural minorities the power to rule over urban majorities, until the Supreme Courts landmark cases Baker v. CarrandReynolds v. Simsin the 1960s. Since then, the notion of one person, one vote they upheld has become synonymous with democracy around the world except among some American conservatives, that is.

In short, nothing actually happening in Northern California is remotely comparable to what has happened in Texas. Asnoted in theAustin Chronicle last March, Parts of five congressional districts are located in Travis County yet not one of those districts is anchored (i.e., has a majority of its residents or voters) in Travis. Austin, the 11th largest U.S. city, is also the largest without an anchoring district or acongressmanwhose primary responsibility is representing the city.

Four of those five districts are represented by Republicans. Only peripatetic Democrat [Rep. Lloyd] Doggett has deep Austin ties and a progressive agenda, the Chronicle noted, and indeed a secondary but thus far futile purpose of the GOP map has been to eject Doggett from Congress. He is trenchant on the larger effects of the GOP divide-and-conquer strategy: Crooked congressional districts, attaching distant communities across Texas to fragments of Travis County, continues to harm communities far beyond Austin.

Elongating districts and fragmenting communities is one of many ways in which gerrymandering harms democracy at the most basic level of impairing effective representation, as formerSaloneditor David Daley described in Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal Americas Democracy.

The big-picture impact of Daleys story was the GOPs success in holding the House of Representatives. As Ivepointed out before, that success was concentrated inseven key statesidentified by Mother Jonesjust after the 2012 election: Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, all states Barack Obama won in 2008 but that sent more than a 2-1 Republican majority to the House in 2012, a year when Democrats narrowly carriedthe House across the rest of the nation.

Holding the House in 2012 allowed Republicans to gridlock the government, and win back control of the Senate in 2014 as a result. Even with that, the 52-seat GOP Senate majority today represents only around 50 million voters, compared to the 84 million voters represented by the 48-seat Democratic/independent minority. On top of that, theres news of a newKoch-supported effortto repeal the 17thAmendment, getting rid of all those pesky popular voters entirely and putting Senate elections back in the hands of gerrymandered state legislatures. So the Austin microcosm of deliberate disenfranchisement is an accurate reflection of the systematic subversion of American democracy pushed by Republicans nationwide, which keeps getting worse.

California hasnothing even close to that. Both state and federal district lines are drawn by acitizen commission, established by initiative, anda 2013League of Women Voters reportnoted that the end results earned majority votes for its final maps from all three required groups of commissioners: Democrats, Republicans, and those not aligned with either major party.

That doesnt mean democracy works perfectly in California not by a long shot. But the most egregious problems with democracy in California are in fact 180 degrees away from the romantic rural concerns highlighted bytheTimes article.

First theres the supermajority problem.As noted in early 2015by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, California is one of justseven states in which the constitution requires a supermajority vote of each house, plus the governors signature, to enact any bill that includes a tax increase. The argument that this is needed to keep state taxes lower doesnt stand up to scrutiny, however; supermajority states levy taxes at nearly the same level as other states, on average, over a three-decade period. States usually pass tax increases in response to recessions, paired with spending cuts, and then cut taxes again when times are good. In addition to being unnecessary, CBPPsaid, supermajorityrules can be economically counterproductive for states:

Every year in California there are dozens of stories about budgetary political problems at different levels of government that trace back to these supermajority requirements. The worst part of this, as the last point above highlights, the power denied to a simple majority isnt wielded by any sort of coherent or principled minority instead. Its often not much better than a simple bribe.

A second major problem with democracy in California is the skewed and limited nature of the electorate, which is far more conservative ideologically than the population as a whole. In 2006, the Public Policy Institute of California produced a report, Californias Exclusive Electorate, which Iwrote aboutat the time. It found that the difference between voters and nonvoters is especially stark in attitudes toward governments role; elected officials; and many social issues, policies, and programs. Nonvoters, for instance, were found to prefer higher taxes and more services to lower taxes and fewer services by an enormous margin, 66 to 26 percent. Among actual voters, the split was nearly even: 49 to 44 percent.

Ten years later, PPIC producedanother editionof that report. Thepress releasecited some key distinctions, including the following:

Nonvoters dont vote for a wide range of reasons, but one obvious one is that politicians seeking donor support speak to a very different set of concerns. If you (accurately) dont think that anyones speaking to you, why wouldyoupay any attention? And if you dont pay attention, why vote? This is how a democracy in name only works. And its designed to work that way.

So how do the complaints of secessionists in remote Northern California hold up?

Theyre right that Californias legislature is too small, and less responsive than it should be. The states population was around 7 million in 1940, and is almost 40 million today. Making the legislature five times larger would bring it back in line with pre-World War II levels. But the smart way to do that would be to keep district lines as they are, and elect five representatives per district using proportional representation.

The Illinois House used a similar system for almost a century, which allowed Chicago Republicans and downstate Democrats both to have representation, despitetheir minority status. This helped keep both parties more diverse at higher levels, and thus more able to craft sensible legislation. The same could be achieved in California today. Perhaps most importantly, it could help mix things up ideologically.

An underlying theme in theTimesstory is the supposed evils of regulation that have stifled capitalism..Theyvedevastatedagjobs, timber jobs, mining jobs with their environmental regulations, Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a Republican who represents the northeastern quadrant of the state, told the Times. So, yes, we have a harder time sustaining the economy, and therefore theres more people that are in a poorer situation.

But historically, free market capitalism has devastated such communities. A classic example in the region is recounted in The Last Stand: The War BetweenWall Street and Main Street Over Californias Ancient Redwoods. Generations of sustainable forestry practice were wiped out in less than a decade, destroying forests, jobs, pensions and lives. Fighting back against such destructive forces can best be done lead by those living there, a theme articulated potently by Nebraska Democratic Party chair JaneKleebin a recentIn These Timesinterview.

Its important that we talk about climate change in different ways, right?In rural and small towns we may not use the word climate change in the first five sentences, but everything were doing is talking about protecting the land and water and stopping these risky projects, which ultimately, obviously, impact climate change.

Youknow, small towns hate big corporations. Right, they hate big anything. They think Tyson is the devil, trying to consolidate markets and put chicken farmers under these really bad contracts. And so, there are lots of threads that Democrats should be talking to rural and small town voters on. And Bernie [Sanders] was obviously one of the best messengers for that.

The threads are there, and the people are, too. James Gallagher, the state assemblyman interviewed by the Times,won his most recent re-electionby 63 to 37 percent. In a five-member district elected by proportional representation, there would be enough Democratic voters to elect two members. Their daily presence in the state capitol would educate and inform the Democratic Party in ways that just dont happen as things stand now. Their presence as local elected officialswould also help invigorate the politics of the communities they represent. It wouldnt be anything like the secession fantasy that Trump voters in places like that claim to want. But it might actually help address the reality-based aspects of their anguish. We would all come away winners as a result.

Read more:
Who are the real victims of American democracy? Hint: It's not rural white conservatives - Salon

This month, President Donald Trump made his first official visit to France to participate in that countrys Bastille Day celebrations and mark the 100th anniversary of Americas entry into World War I.

During the visit, much was made of the historic ties between France and America, calling to mind how American forces marched through Paris in July 1917 and paid homage to the grave of the Marquis de Lafayette, who had served with George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and others during the American Revolution.

The centennial anniversary of Americans entry into the First World War is an appropriate moment to honor such historic bonds, but we should also remember the larger purpose that compelled us to fight in that war, a purpose that has great relevance to the challenges we face today.

America entered World War I with the overarching goal of preserving democracy in Europe and extending the reach of democracy so as to make the world a safer, more prosperous place.

As President Woodrow Wilson said in his statement to Congress when asking for a declaration of war, It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

Such was our conviction that America must champion and defend democracy the unalienable right of people to shape their government that we sacrificed our own blood and treasure, with more than 50,000 Americans giving their lives in battle, so that the light of democracy would not be extinguished in Europe.

In the hundred years since the First World War, this conviction has been at the heart of our nations great efforts abroad and at home to make democracy more secure, more meaningful and more accessible in the world.

From the American civil rights movement to our defense of democracy overseas during World War II and the Cold War, Americans from across the political spectrum have rallied together around this idea that the right to participate in the political process is an essential human right.

Even acknowledging the deep inequities that persist to this day in our own politics, the conviction that we are all made better when people can peacefully change their government by voting was a shared article of faith among Americans.

Yet in the past several years, this conviction has come under attack.

There is an extremist agenda being pushed in our country that seeks, under false pretenses, to deny Americans the right to shape their government by voting.

President Trumps voting commission, with its attempt to compile a national database of voter information, is a direct and terrible manifestation of this extremist movement; but we also saw this agenda advance here in New Hampshire with the passage of Senate Bill 3, a bill that will cause American citizens to doubt whether they can lawfully participate in the making of their government.

This agenda repackages familiar false justifications used by power-hungry regimes throughout history that in order to protect the integrity of voting, the government must make it harder for certain individuals to vote. History and our own experience have taught us that in a democracy we do not need laws to protect us from fellow citizens abusing the right to vote so much as we need laws to ensure the government does not disenfranchise people.

We need only consider the outrageous means used by various levels of government to prevent African-Americans from participating in the electoral process (efforts that continue to this day, as most recently demonstrated by the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling this year that North Carolina legislators had unconstitutionally drawn congressional districts to pack African-Americans into two districts) to know the most pernicious examples of voter fraud are when governments deny citizens their lawful right to vote.

The idea that in a democracy we must perpetually guard against government infringement on individuals right to vote used to be, and I believe still is, a belief shared across the political spectrum.

We are still a country that puts fidelity to what Abraham Lincoln called government of the people, by the people, for the people above partisanship, but we need to make this abundantly clear right now through our words and actions. Silent disagreement with this extremist agenda is insufficient; there are concrete actions we need to take.

The first step is to publicly reject any pretense that there is widespread, intentional voter fraud in New Hampshire and in America in general.

Many Granite Staters from both major political parties have already made it clear that there is no meaningful amount of voter fraud, but we need our political leaders, most notably Gov. Chris Sununu and Secretary of State Bill Gardner, to reject the Trump commissions request for voter data and condemn the presidents selection of Kris Kobach as vice chairman of this commission.

As the secretary of state in Kansas, Kobach has faced four court cases brought by the ACLU over actions he took to deny people the right to vote, and he has said on the record that he thinks the number of illegal votes cast in the 2016 election exceeded Clintons popular-vote margin (which was over 2,800,000 votes).

The Kobach agenda is a direct assault on our most basic democratic institution, and we need Gov. Sununu and Secretary Gardner to lead our state in defeating this attack.

But lets not stop at just rejecting the extremist agenda; lets advance a true democratic agenda.

From passing legislation for automatic voter registration to organizing volunteers to support more polling stations on election days, there are many ways we can remove barriers to voting and increase citizen participation.

Gov. Sununu, Secretary Gardner and all of our elected officials should champion these efforts and work in a nonpartisan fashion to show that the way we improve and strengthen our democracy is by engaging more people in the making of it.

The ideals of democracy that were worth fighting for 100 years ago in Europe are still worthy of our dedication and fight today in America.

(Dan Vallone is a West Point graduate who served six years on active duty as an infantry officer. He lives in Concord.)

See the rest here:
My Turn: Ideals of democracy worth fighting for - Concord Monitor

photo:courtesy

While going through an online edition of theWashington Post, a publication that I admire for its objectivity and carefully researched news and opinions, I suddenly noticed something unusual.

On the front page of the newspaper where the date used to be, there was the motto, democracy dies in darkness. Death is of course a shocker for any human being. But why should such an influential newspaper, respected around the world, put such a motto on its front page? Of course the choice of this motto is influenced by the local issues in America and that does not really interest me much.

DEMOCRACY IN CHAINS

One of the opinion columns, to my shock, again was giving a literary criticism of a book by Nancy MacLean entitledDemocracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Rights Stealth Plan for America. Seeing these two seemingly pessimistic views on democracy quickly sent my medulla oblongata into a heightened mode. Indeed, democracy is in trouble.

Immediately the image of Donald Trump came into my mind. Nancy MacLeans book criticism of the ultra-right definitely smells of a conspirators theory but I believe it also gives a view shared by many today that indeed democracy is in trouble not only in America but even right here in Kenya.

The recent court ruling that ordered the printing of the presidential ballot papers be done by Al Ghurair printing company is, to say the least, worrisome. The issue at hand in my view is not really whether this Dubai-based company is capable of performing this task or culpable as far as underhand dealings are concerned.

ALSO READ: Opinion: Recognition of Kenyans of Asian origin welcome

INSTITUTIONS

It is really about the process. This court ruling prompted me to ask whether our Kenyan democracy was dying at infancy considering that ours is a much younger democracy. Just like Nancy MacLean raised concerns on whether the the so-called radical right is killing democracy. I also want to think that the Jubilee Party and its affiliates in various State institutions are out to kill our young but vibrant democracy.

Most Kenyans now believe institutions such as IEBC do the bidding of the Government and this is reinforced by the fact that both the IEBC and the Government have maintained the same position on various contentious issues. One amongst these is the printing of the ballot papers and who should do that job.

TheWashington Postmotto, democracy dies in darkness, therefore, is very relevant to the Kenyan context. In a democracy it is expected that every step of the elections need to be transparent, any sign of doubt brings the whole election process into doubt and its legitimacy into disrepute.

VOTERS CHOICE

Ideally, an election should be left to the voters to decide. And the voter must have the perception and the feeling that the election in which he is about to participate in is fair and free. If a voter finds his rights to vote for the right choice of candidates is violated, this leads to anger and as we saw in 2007, violence. The nation is polarised already due to the more than active campaigns seen on both sides of the divide. What to do?

The NASA candidates are relentless in their efforts to convince the voters. In these numerous political rallies, the kind of words being used by both sides of the political divide are already scaring many people, most of them, sadly, investors.

ALSO READ: Tourism industry calls for issue-based campaigns, credible elections

The Government also appears to be bracing for violence after it procured armored vehicles equipped with instruments to control and contain riots.

I hear most airlines are fully booked in the periods around the elections. People with money are fleeing with their cash. An investor friend of mine from the UK who was planning to invest in the real estate business with colossal sums of money has halted his plans until after the elections.

NON DELIVERY

All these fears and anxiety are caused by concerns that institutions mandated to oversee the election processes might not deliver credible elections. But is it for nothing that we should wonder whether the IEBC, the Judiciary, the security agents are impartial?

Visit link:
Democracy dies in darkness: the worrying case of Kenya's polls - The Standard

With Republicans dominating the White House, Congress and state governments, its no surprise that dominating the judiciary is the next goal. Efforts to control that independent branch of government have prompted debate on an obscure Senate rule called the blue-slip process.

Billionaire industrialist brothers David and Charles Koch, among leaders of the effort, urged supporters at a recent private retreat to work against the rule. The 100-year-old rule keeps judicial nominees from moving forward in Senate confirmation if a home-state senator objects.

The slim Republican margin in the U.S. Senate 52-48 has party bigwigs concerned that if the practice isnt eliminated, Democrats will retain too much power to delay or derail President Donald Trumps federal court nominees.

The Kochs one-page document on the rule urged attendees, who included many important Republicans, to press the issue with the Senates GOP leadership and other Republican senators they know. Tell them not to allow needless delay tactics and obstruction of the process, the document read.

The stakes are high. Trump arrived in office with more than 100 vacancies to fill on the federal bench, partly because Senate Republicans blocked many of President Barack Obamas nominees.

Nine of the countrys 13 federal appeals courts currently have a majority of Democratic presidents nominees. Among the 179 appeals court seats there are 21 vacancies. Trump has announced nine nominees for those courts and 22 for 107 lower court openings.

Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is pushing back. She says ending the practice would allow nominees to be hand-picked by right-wing groups, and accused the White House, the Koch brothers, and the conservative Judicial Crisis Network of falsely suggesting Democrats are trying to obstruct presidential nominees.

Democratic senators are considering nominees fairly, and many have long judicial records home-state senators must review carefully, Feinstein says. Scrutiny is most important when home-state senators were not consulted before nominees were chosen, she says, adding, and that goes for Democrats and Republicans.

Congressional rules that aim to keep the branches of government operating within the two-party system must be carefully preserved. If they work for both Democrats and Republicans, the party in the majority shouldnt opt to exercise their authority because it will come back to bite them.

Witness Democratic senators response to the Republican blockade of Obamas nominees in 2013. They changed the rules to allow simple-majority approval of judicial or executive branch nominations, enabling them to win swift victories for the presidents picks. That backfired when Democrats lost the majority and Republicans could approve Trumps Cabinet nominees with the lower, 51-vote threshold.

Americas federal court system is not perfect, but its not rigged, as Trump asserted. Efforts by billionaires to undermine judicial independence threaten our democracy.

See original here:
Editorial: Maintaining an independent judiciary is critical for democracy - STLtoday.com