The Job “Recovery” Is Over
With the fifth anniversary of the end of the last recession now approaching, both employment and wages should be fully restored to their pre-recession levels and growing in real terms. Instead, both are still below their 2000-2001 peaks, with no sign of any improvement before the business cycle turns down again.
Book Review: Errors and Omissions
Disillusioned and alcoholic, Michael Seeley, an intellectual property lawyer on the verge of losing his position in his firm, is about to be disbarred for verbally assaulting a judge.
Update: Mexico, the Electoral Battle Continues
Disgruntled PRD presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador continues to pursue his campaign against the TEPJF’s refusal to order a full recount of the July 2 election, most recently calling for a large scale protest to be staged at the same time as President Vicente Foxís September 1 State of the Nation address. He also plans to hold a “National Democratic Convention” on September 16, Mexico’s Independence Day.
Lebanon: A Critical Battle for New Middle East
Using the July 12 capture of two Israeli soldiers - whose unit had apparently crossed the Israeli border into Lebanon - as a pretext, the Bush administration quickly sprung into action: imagining yet a new Middle East, where democracy and freedom reigns over militancy and oppression.
Panhandling Ban Protested Again, One Year Later, in Atlanta
'We pray for those in this building who would be enemies of the poor,' Jim Beaty, 70, activist, exclaimed Tuesday morning at a City Hall protest, on the one year anniversary of the panhandling ordinance in Atlanta.
The Cuban Mirage: Self-Deception in Miami and Washington
For many of the anti-Castro exiles dancing along Miami’s Calle Ocho on Monday, July 31, the announcement of a temporary transfer of power by aging revolutionary Fidel Castro to his younger brother Raúl, marked the happiest of moments as well as the end of a troubled epoch in their lives. While Cuba awaits Fidel’s recovery from gastrointestinal surgery, the rest of the world is left contemplating what will occur if he fails to recuperate, or if he decides not to return to his position as the maximum leader. As Cuba’s closest neighbor and the world’s professed patron of democratization, the United States would seem to be the most likely candidate to aid in the island nation’s transition into its post-Castro era.
Mexico: The Electoral Crisis Goes On
Mexico’s court-ordered recount of 9.07 percent of the ballots cast in the July 2 presidential election concluded on Sunday. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF) has not yet released the results of the recount, but initial reports suggest that a full recount will be merited
Voter ID Law Halted but Not Defeated
(APN) ATLANTA – While Georgia voters were not limited to five forms of ID, instead of the current seventeen, in the recent Primary and Runoff Elections, the possibility is still there that poor, elderly, and disadvantaged voters may be effectively disenfranchised in the General Election or some future election.
Hugo Chávez’s Challenge to U.S. Preeminence in Latin America
As Mexico tensely awaits the official results of a court ordered recount of 9.07 percent of the ballots from the contested July 2 presidential election, COHA's Mexican specialist Michael Lettieri is closely monitoring the situation. As of Monday morning, the electoral court administering the recount ñ the TEPJF ñ had not yet released results from that process, though both parties had suggested that the recount presented favorable trends for their candidate. The PAN anticipated only a slight diminishment of Felipe Calderón's vote total, while the PRD suggested that Calderón's margin of victory would be markedly decreased by the recount and that additionally significant irregularities would justify both a full recount and perhaps the annulment of certain polling stations. When the official results are released by the court, COHA will issue an analysis of recent events in Mexico that will seek to place the recount's results in a context of continuing uncertainty about the election's outcome while discussing the implications for Mexico's ongoing process of
democratization.
Extraordinary Precision: The Logic of Israel's War on Civilians
A Sky News newscaster, interviewing British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett on Sunday, July 30 demanded an answer to this paraphrased question: if indeed Israel had precise intelligence that a Hezbollah operative was present in the village of Qana, in South Lebanon, how could it possibly fail to realize that the area was also crowded with civilians?
