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Biden gave flippant response to NBC reporter Peter Alexander In media news today, an NBC report blasts Biden's 'humiliating' Afghanistan withdrawal, Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin gets accused of 'running PR for the Taliban,' and Andrew Cuomo gets stripped of his Emmy amid sexual harassment scandal The White House cut off the audio feed for President Joe Biden after he was posed a question Wednesday on stranded Americans in Afghanistan. As he wrapped up a meeting on cybersecurity in the State Dining Room, Biden dismissed the press as they continued to ask questions. However, he appeared to answer one reporter’s query...

Hawking her new book, Fascism, former secretary of state Madeline Albright said she is concerned about Fascism in the U.S. and around the world. She told a BBC reporter that Donald Trump isn’t a Fascist but he is the “most undemocratic president in modern American history and that troubles me.”

In a further blow to Turkey’s spotty global image, the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) called March 8 for Turkey to come under its formal scrutiny, a status reserved for members that are deemed to be backsliding on democracy. Nine countries, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Russia are currently on that hook. In a report statement the Strasbourg-based body, of which Turkey is a founding member, said, “Eight months after the [July 15] failed coup and the declaration of a state of emergency, the Monitoring Committee is concerned to note that there has been a...

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is keeping pressure on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to increase the number of Democratic presidential debates. "We're making a big mistake, as Democrats, if we try to limit debate and have an undemocratic process," O'Malley said Monday on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports." "Shame on us as a party if the DNC tries to limit debate and prevents us from being able to put forward a better path for our people that will make the economy work for all of us again," he said. O'Malley — who trails front-runner Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders...

Brussels is awash with stories about the unhealthy influence of lobbyists on lawmakers, but as big a scandal, say some experts, is the increasing amount of legislation made with little scrutiny at all. The lack of oversight—despite the EU capital’s 754 MEPs and thousands of lobbyists—is down to the rising use of so-called secondary legislation coupled with a greater tendency to fast-track primary laws. The twin effect has been to make much of EU law-making “untransparent” and “unpredictable,” says Daniel Gueguen, himself a lobbyist and long-time expert on so-called comitology. … The second layer system is complicated and, says Gueguen,...

Russia skewers US election as undemocratic, ‘the worst in the world’By Julian Pecquet - 11/04/12 06:00 AM ET The Russian government is lambasting the U.S. presidential race as an undemocratic spectacle amid growing concerns about the country’s own commitment to free and fair elections. The Foreign Ministry this week accused America of hypocrisy following reports that some U.S. states would turn away international election monitors at the polls. The Kremlin-funded Russia Today television station, meanwhile, is serving up a steady stream of outraged U.S. election coverage, reporting on topics such as the lack of polling places in Indian country and...

In compliance with Truth in Advertising regulations, the Democratic party has announced that it will be changing its name to the Undemocratic party. "We've done the research and crunched the numbers," said party Chairman Tim Kaine, "and people don't want to run their own lives.

What is the Obama administration thinking? A close ally of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez sits barricaded in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, having been lawfully convicted of attempting a slow-motion coup in Honduras. Paid bands of his rent-a-thugs are terrorizing and looting the city. And the Obama administration is effectively cheering them on. It all began this summer, when Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was deposed and deported following his attempt to subvert the Honduran Constitution. In a part of the world where strongmen -- or caudillos -- too often use democratic means to gain power but then refuse to relinquish...

Members of the carpenters union in New York City have ruined any chance that authorities there will take their union out of government oversight by beating unconscious William Davenport, a union dissident running for office in the union. After an August 5 candidates forum, the candidate was beaten by members of the carpenters union audience outside a church. Outside a CHURCH! This thuggery along with continued Mob involvement, indictments and convictions on corruption of union members convinced Judge Charles S. Haight, Jr. not to release the union from government oversight.... Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...

The ethics bill before the Senate not only cracks down on lawmakers, but also subjects politically active ministers and neighborhood groups to the same rules as K Street lobbyists. Under the legislation, grass-roots organizations that attempt to "influence the general public" to contact members of Congress would have to register as lobbyists and file financial reports -- or face a $200,000 fine. The requirements could apply to a preacher who goes on TV or radio and tells listeners to call their congressman in support of a particular issue, such as a constitutional amendment against homosexual "marriage." But late last night,...

Same-sex marriage bill passes in Commons CTV.ca News Staff Canada will become the third country in the world to officially sanction same-sex marriage. In a 158 to 133 vote, the House of Commons adopted Bill C-38 -- the controversial legislation legalizing same-sex marriage from coast to coast -- on its third and final reading Tuesday night. The Liberals had the support of almost all New Democrat and Bloc Quebecois MPs for the vote. The bill will become official once it receives approval in the Senate. An earlier Conservative motion to send the bill back to committee was voted down 158...

Shielded by the media glare of presidential politics and daily explosions in Iraq, two crucial issues are about to be decided by the U.S. Senate, without the knowledge of the American people. Issue 1: Should the United States ratify the Law of the Seas Treaty (Treaty Doc. 103-39)? Issue 2: Should any U.N. treaty be ratified without full, open debate and a recorded vote? The answer to both questions should be a resounding "no." Nevertheless, the treaty is very near ratification by unanimous consent, having never been debated, and without a recorded vote. This is the same procedure used to...

Dec. 13, 2004 19:28 | Updated Dec. 13, 2004 20:01 Qassem withdraws from PA race By KHALED ABU TOAMEH Nablus academic Abdel Sattar Qassem announced on Monday his decision to drop out of the race for the presidential election of the Palestinian Authority, saying he has reached the conclusion that the vote would not be fair and democratic. In a letter to the PA's Central Election Committee, Qassem, who teaches political science at An-Najah University in Nablus, said there were several factors that raised questions about the integrity of the upcoming election. He said one of the factors was the...

WASHINGTON - The U.S. administration is to establish a channel of communication with the brokers of the Geneva Accord and will follow its progress, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell agreed Friday during a meeting with the Israeli and Palestinian co-authors of the unofficial peace plan in Washington. Powell told Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo that he would discuss the initiative with President George W. Bush in the near future, and the two would work out the American stance on the issue. Speaking after their meetings with Powell, and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in New York, Beilin and...

<p>A coalition of political interest groups, led by public employee unions, is promoting a ballot measure that would, if enacted by voters, abolish the two-thirds vote for state budgets and the taxes to finance them, effectively eliminating the power of minority Republicans to affect state spending decisions.</p>

The new E.U. constitution sure sounds familiar to many Eastern Europeans, in ways that ought to worry us too. No, the EU is not a tyranny - but anyone who has even casually read history should be worried, because it's ceratinly headed that way: endemic corruption, design for insulation from voters, complete lack of serious internal accountability mechanisms, refusal to accept democratic votes that don't go their way (especially votes to leave the EU), now moves making it easy to ban political parties, controls on online speech, and intolerance of dissent... it's an ugly picture. Winds of Change.NET links you...