Secretary of State

Secretary of State intervenes in redistricting case before SCOTUS

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MicheleReaganArizona’s queen of voter suppression, Secretary of State Michele Reagan, has decided that she wants to join the pantheon of truly despicable secretaries of state alongside Katherine Harris (FL), Ken Blackwell (OH), and Kris Kobach (KS).

This partisan hack is the reason why elections should be managed by an independent nonpartisan election commission, rather than a partisan secretary of state.

Howard Fischer reports, Arizona secretary of state wants redistricting plan voided:

Secretary of State Michele Reagan has joined with Republican interests in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to void the state’s legislative redistricting plan.

In new filings with the high court, attorneys for Reagan point out the population differences among the 30 legislative districts created in 2011 by the Independent Redistricting Commission. They said this raises constitutional questions because it effectively gives voters in some districts more power than others.

But what’s particularly problematic, they said, is that the disparity was done deliberately to achieve a result of improving the chances of Democrats getting elected to the Legislature.

Uh-huh. What Howie fails to mention is that “competitiveness” is one of the criteria enacted by a citizens initiative, Prop. 106 (2000), which created the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission: “‘Competitive districts’ are favored if competitive districts do not significantly harm the other goals…” You remember, this is the citizen initiative that Republicans tried and failed to kill in the U.S. Supreme Court this year.

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Clinton Rules of reporting: The e-mail ‘scandal’ that isn’t

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Hillary-Clinton-textingWhen the supposedly “liberal” New York Times engages in the Clinton Rules of reporting, something it did with reckless abandon in The Hunting of the President (Bill Clinton) during the 1990s, it gives the imprimatur of acceptable media standards to the mainstream media to similarly engage in scandal mongering reporting without any substance.

Such is the case with all the media hyperventilating over the so-called Clinton e-mail “scandal” (the first rule of Clinton Rules is that everything is a “scandal”).

Jeffrey Toobin recently explained at The New Yorker that the first thing the public needs to know is that The Government Classifies Everything:

As [Sen. Daniel Patrick] Moynihan explained in his book “Secrecy: The American Experience” and explored during a lifetime in public service, the definition of what constitutes a government secret has never been clear. Classified information is supposed to be defined as material that would damage national security if released. In fact, Moynihan asserted, government bureaucracies use classification rules to protect turf, to avoid embarrassment, to embarrass rivals—in short, for a variety of motives that have little to do with national security. As the senator wrote, “Americans are familiar with the tendency to overregulate in other areas. What is different with secrecy is that the public cannot know the extent or the content of the regulation. Thus, secrecy is the ultimate mode of regulation; the citizen does not even know that he or she is being regulated!”

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The Colors fly over Cuba again

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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS on August 14, 2015. Pool photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais.

Secretary of State John Kerry was in Havana, Cuba this morning for the formal flag raising ceremony at the U.S. Embassy.  The Colors fly over Cuba again.

Secretary Kerry took with him Three Marines who took down the U.S. flag in Cuba in 1961. Today, they watched it rise again:

It was a few days into January 1961 when three Marines at the U.S. Embassy in Havana were given a sad task: Take down the American flag. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was shutting down the diplomatic compound and pulling Americans out, a response to the downward spiral in U.S. relations with the new government of Fidel Castro.

The noncommissioned officer in charge at the embassy asked for three volunteers — “the biggest, ugliest Marines you can find,” recalled retired Master Gunnery Sgt. Jim Tracy, then a sergeant. He and two others — then-Lance Cpl. Larry C. Morris and then-Cpl. F.W. Mike East — were sent out to part a crowd of about 300 Cubans and take down Old Glory, Tracy said.

“We didn’t have anybody on the sidewalks at all,” Tracy said. “They knew what we were going to do.”

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Marine Corps veterans Francis ‘Mike’ East, James Tracy and Larry Morris wait to present the U.S. flag to Marines stationed in Cuba during the raising of the U.S. flag over the newly reopened embassy in Havana, Cuba on Friday, Aug. 14. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Pool)

On Friday, the Marines, now in their 70s, returned to Havana alongside Secretary of State John F. Kerry to take part in a ceremony to raise the flag again. It has been more than 54 years since U.S. relations with Cuba were severed, but the embassy has reopened following an agreement reached earlier this year between Havana and Washington.

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U.S. and Cuba Embassies reopen

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The New York Times reports today that the U.S. Embassy in Cuba Reopens After More Than 50 Years:

us-cuba_relations_300x225_1After more than a half-century defined by mistrust and rancor, the United States officially reopened its six-story embassy in the Cuban capital on Monday, the culmination of many months of negotiations to overcome decades of historical enmity and to restore diplomatic relations between the two nations.

More than two years of effort went into restoring relations between Cuba and the United States, both public and private, yet most observers say they believe it will be many more years before mutual wariness fades.

Re-establishing diplomatic relations does not resolve a host of issues for further negotiations.

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P5+1 powers and Iran agree to nuclear ‘framework’

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There is one certainty that you can take to the bank: regardless of whatever the P5+1 world powers and Iran agree to, Neocon Tea-Publicans will reject it in knee-jerk opposition, because they have invested years in preparing for their Neocon war against Iran. It simply does not matter to them what is in any agreement; they want to get their war on with Iran.

The bloodlust of these sociopaths willing to send your sons and daughters to die in a war in Iran, a war that they themselves will never dirty their hands nor risk their lives fighting but from which they will profit financially, and perhaps politically, rather than to exhaust every diplomatic avenue for peaceful settlement, is truly disturbing and is unconscionable.

From the Whitehouse:

Nuclear-IranIn November 2013, the P5+1 and Iran took an important first step toward that goal with the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), which halted the progress of Iran’s program and rolled back it back in key areas for the first time in nearly a decade. The IAEA has verified that Iran has met all of its obligations under the JPOA.

Today, after many months of principled diplomacy building on the JPOA, we have achieved a framework for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The Washington Post reports, Iran and world powers agree on parameters of Iranian nuclear deal:

Negotiators from Iran and major world powers reached agreement Thursday on a framework for a final agreement to curb Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions, an accord that President Obama hailed as a “good deal” that would make the world a safer place.

Participants in the talks said the sides, including the United States and its key European allies, would promptly start drafting a final accord to be completed by a June 30 deadline.

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