Original Author:
Democracy for New Mexico
From the UNM Center for the Study of Voting, Elections, and Democracy (UNM C-SVED): With a Presidential election just over one year away, there are major events happening that may change the way we select our President. In Pennsylvania and Nebraska, legislators are getting national headlines as they consider altering the method by which their states’ Presidential electors are chosen. Nationally, a national popular vote movement has quietly amassed 49% of the electoral votes it needs to change the method of electing Presidents. New Mexico must be heard in this important, national debate.
Abe Lincoln, And John Paul II, Rightly Honored Labor
Original Author:
(James Rowen)
E. J. Dionne Jr at The Washington Post notes that these historical figures and moral leaders were also friends of labor.
So it would take a brave man to point out that unions “grew up from the struggle of the workers — workers in general but especially the industrial workers — to protect their just rights vis-a-vis the entrepreneurs and the owners of the means of production,” or to insist that “the experience of history teaches that organizations of this type are an indispensable element of social life.”
That’s what Pope John Paul II said (the italics are his) in the 1981 encyclical “Laborem Exercens.” Like Lincoln, John Paul repeatedly asserted “the priority of labor over capital."
And as someone whose first job at the Journal Sentinel was labor reporter, I winced when I read this Dionne paragraph:
Cohen/Bodall as a symptom.
We really have to fix the image of what politics is, teaching civics and making service through politics something more people aspire to.
In case everyone missed it, Middlesex County had its own version of the Cohen scandal the last few weeks. Jamesburg Councilman Thomas Bodall was arrested for obscenely hitting on what he thought was he thought was a 14-year-old. Fortunately, the Jamesburg Council is appointing a replacement. But that brings us back to the problem. Bodall, who it seems was quite recognizably a creep with something seriously off, was also originally appointed, and never faced a competitive election. Politics should not be an ego-outlet for those with extreme self-esteem issues. But when not enough others are interested, that what it becomes.
Traditionally, one of the President's jobs is civics-teacher-in-chief. Presidents' efficacy in that role has all but disappeared in the past 40 years. One of the best reasons to support Obama is that he could be the best in that role since Lincoln.
Lincoln
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