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Tag: American politics

Could US Elections Be Stolen? Election Integrity Activists Say Yes

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Election fraud is a dangerously real possibility in the United States, but Donald Trump is wrong about how elections could be rigged under the current system.

The Republican nominee has warned his supporters that the election could be rigged against him, and there have already been reports of Trump supporters with guns at polling places intimidating voters.

However, Mark Crispin Miller, a self-described “election integrity activist,” dismissed Trump’s claims.

“It’s basically impossible to vote ten times or fifteen times,” said the professor of media studies at New York University who has spent more than a decade studying election results.

Should Third Parties Support ‘Vote Pacts’ To Avoid ‘Spoiling’ Elections?

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Third-party candidates are often accused of acting as “spoilers” by siphoning votes from the two major parties’ nominees and potentially tipping the balance in an election.

Perhaps the most notable example of this is Ralph Nader. The former Green Party candidate is frequently accused of helping George W. Bush win the 2000 presidential election by diverting votes which otherwise would have gone to Democratic nominee Al Gore, although this theory has been disproven many times.

“A lot of people have basically grown to depend on the confines of the two-party system and have a hard time getting their brain around a constructive, strategic path out of it,” Sam Husseini, a political activist, told MintPress News.

Husseini proposed an alternative strategy in which voters form “voting pacts” across party lines. For example, a Democrat and a Republican might each agree to vote for a third-party candidate of their choice, rather than the two major parties’ candidates. The strategy reduces the potential for “spoiling” votes, as long as voting pacts don’t cross state lines, because each of the major candidates loses voters equally.

Greens & Libertarians Rally To Secure 5% Of The Popular Vote Ahead Of Election Day

Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News

Although some indicators suggest the 2016 presidential election could be closer than initially expected, prominent third-party candidates are urging voters not to waver in their support for options outside the traditional two-party system.

Alternatives to the Democrat and Republican nominees, such as the Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein and former Gov. Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, received unprecedented attention in this election cycle as dissatisfaction with the two major candidates soared to unprecedented highs.

But third parties traditionally struggle to hold the public’s interest as Election Day approaches, with many voters eventually falling in line with one of the two major parties. While some polls previously suggested a landslide victory for Hillary Clinton, others are now showing a tighter than expected race, which could also scare off some potential third-party voters.

Green Party Senate Candidate Margaret Flowers Crashes Two-Party Debate

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Dr. Margaret Flowers, a Green Party candidate for Senate from Maryland, interrupted a televised debate to protest her exclusion from the forum on Wednesday.

“I’m a candidate on the ballot. I have a statewide campaign. I don’t understand why I’m not up here,” Flowers declared as she briefly occupied the debate stage.

Flowers is running for the seat long occupied by Democratic incumbent Barbara Mikulski, who announced her retirement earlier this year.

During the direct action, Flowers took the stage amid loud applause from the audience and shook hands with her opponents, Democratic nominee Chris Van Hollen and Republican nominee Kathy Szeliga, both of whom agreed to debate Flowers.

Noam Chomsky: US Had A ‘Pretty Supportive Attitude’ Toward Fascism In 1930s

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

While the typical narrative of American history positions the United States as a supporter of democracy and opponent of fascism which helped to defeat the Nazis, key figures in Washington also supported dangerous dictators in Italy and Germany in their early days of power.

Noam Chomsky, the renowned political philosopher, historian and scholar, examined the flip side of U.S. opposition to dictatorship in a conversation with Zain Raza, a senior editor at the independent media outlet acTVism Munich. An excerpt from the conversation was published Sept. 30 as part of acTVism Munich’s “Reexamining History” series.

Speaking to Raza about Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, Chomsky said President Franklin Roosevelt was “pretty supportive of Mussolini’s fascism.”

Nestle Spent $11M Lobbying Congress To Control Water, Cocoa & Trade Since 2013

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Nestlé’s political influence in the United States is backed by a generous war chest which funds the often controversial company’s efforts to lobby against the types of trade, labor, and environmental regulations which might impede its profits.

The Swiss multinational has been accused of using slave labor in the seafood and cocoa trades, and environmental activists have targeted Nestlé for harnessing scarce natural resources in the production of bottled water from California to Canada.

And a closer look at Nestlé’s political spending suggests that it’s working to prevent increased regulation in these profitable industries.