Archive - Aug 13, 2008

Greens Sue to Change the Electoral College

Presidential candidates strategize their campaigning not to win a majority of votes, but to win a majority of electoral votes.  Each state allocates a certain number of electoral votes and the candidates try to find the best way to reach the magic number - 270.  The Green Party has filed a lawsuit challenging the winner take all system.  The suit says it discounts the vote of those who didn't vote in the majority.  We spoke with Asa Gordon, chair of the DC Statehood Green Party's Electoral College Task Force and Executive director of the Douglass Institute of Government

PART 2

• Protestors Killed in Clash with Police in Kashmir 
• Challenging The China Story
• Mukasey Will Not Prosecute Justice Department Hiring Abuses
• Wyoming's Wind Power at Risk
• The First Amendment and Clear Channel

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• Mugabe Agrees to Power Sharing Deal: Zimbabwean State-Run Media
• Shooting Attack at Arkansas Democratic Party Headquarters, Chairman Wounded and in Critical Condition
• 3 Aid Workers Killed in Afghanistan
• Iraq Refugees on Hunger Strike in British Immigration Detention Center
• "Green Scare" Defendant Sentenced in Portland

Indian police have killed more than 20 people in Indian administered Kashmir since Monday as people protesting an economic blockade of the region took to streets and tried to lead a March to Muzaffrabad, in Pakistan administered
Kashmir. Local sources put the death toll at 27 for Monday and Tuesday. Shahnawaz Khan reports.

A group of radical scholars is challenging what they say are dominating storylines about China in mainstream media coverage: one, where the US can critique the country's human rights record and strict authoritarian rule, the other where China says it is being denied a spot of international limelight. Critics say the result is a lot of confusion among the general public about what to think about China and the Olympic Games - with a lot of politicization from both the US and China. For some analysis on the situation, we turn to Dongping Han, who grew up as a farmer and managed a collective village factory during China's Cultural Revolution. He says that the United States should take a look at its own human right's record before criticizing China's.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey says he will not prosecute the political hiring of career Justice Department employees. Mukasey called the practice disturbing but says he will not take further action - despite an Inspector General report released this summer that revealed politics were systematically used to determine who was and who was not hired. The report also found that Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson, two people in charge of many hirings, broke civil law by blatantly asking ideological questions during interviews, even failing to hire qualified people with suspected Democratic leanings.