Governor Shwarzenegger (R-CA) seems to be all along in California. The typically Liberal, Democrat dominated state has a republican governor, who is having the usual problems getting bi partisan support for any of his ideas.

With Democrat majorities in both hoses of the California State Legislature Arnie has two choices – work with the Democrats or tell the Democrats what you really think of them and as a result achieve nothing until your term expires

Well it appears Arnie has now chosen the latter of the two options. In a veto letter to the congress Arnie has set out why he will not support Assembly Bill 1176.

However if you read the letter closely, the first letter of each of the middle lines, spells out f-u-c-k y-o-u.

Arnie’s spokesman says that this merely a coincidence!

A few weeks old, but still worth a view....

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Scamalot
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we could be in for a long 4 years

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This is possibly the most monumental screw up and recent history.

Who exactly in the US Department of Defense thought it would be a good idea to fly a passanger airliner over downtown New York for 30mins?

Presumably it would be the same person who didnt think to tell either the President or the Mayor of New York

And it must be the same person who thought it fit to not actually tell any one else in New York or even those in the media, to try and stop any panic and evacuations of the financial district

Credit Crunch hits fire-fighters

Six Arizona fire fightershave been arrested for deliberately starting fires, so that they could be paid to put them out.

The six now face numerous charges, and if convicted could be in jail for up to 10 years.

Inauguration = Emergency

President Bush has declared a state of emergency in Washington D.C ahead of the inauguration of President Elect Obama. The emergency has been declared, so that the city has access to federal funds to pay for the security operation and not because the Bush administration is planning another disaster like their response to Katrina.

Illinois just got stranger

In a somewhat bizarre moment of history, later today Illinois governor Blagojevich will chair the Senate for its opening session. Blagojevich is about to be tried for impeachment in the chamber, but he could stop this from happening, if he doesn’t bring the new senate into session.

Late last night President-Elect Obama visited the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Obama has frequently echoed the thoughts and ideals of Lincoln through his campaign, and plans to use the same bible as Lincoln did to be inaugurated in 9 days time.

Governor Rod Blagojevich (D-IL) has been arrested on corruption charges, for allegedly attempting to sell President Elect Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder.

He was arrested a few hours ago by the FBI, who then went onto to release a 76 page press release explaining all the charges. The most serious of these charges is soliciting bribes, from potential candidates to fill the vacant Senate Seat (which as Governor he alone has the power to fill).

The Governor has had a stormy term in office; and has held a rare distinction – he is even less popular than President Bush. He has also managed to piss off just about every politician in Illinois, and there was even talk of him facing impeachment charges, from the lower house of the Illinois State Congress. Described as Kryptonite by a fellow democrat no one will be sad to see him go, the question will simply be; will he go now, or will he have to be pushed?

With Obama’s electoral victory earlier this week, he now has to begin to think about his new administration, which will take office in approximately 70days, or to be precise at 12.00 Eastern Standard Time, on 20th January 2009.
Now unlike the Westminster system where the cabinet members start when they are appointed America’s presidential system requires that all cabinet members are confirmed by the Senate.

Now obviously this shouldn’t be too much of a problem come January but it still means that President Obama will be Cabinet less for quite some time.

There are currently 16 Cabinet Secretaries, and although within the Cabinet they are equal (in terms of power) in reality his isn’t completely true. This is because every member of the cabinet is on the Presidential Order of Succession: and as long as they qualify for the office (they have to be born in America, been a permanent resident of the United states for the last 14 years and over the age of 35) then should the worse happen they could be the next president. Of course this is incredibly unlikely, because the highest ranked member of the cabinet on the list; is behind the Vice President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro-Tempore of the United States Senate.

In fact no member of the US cabinet has ever succeeded the presidency although precautions are taken to ensure that should the worse happensome one would still be president

For the record here is the current list of Government Departments, the Secretary of State for them and the order they currently are within the order of succession;
• The State Department – Condoleezza Rice.
• The Treasury Department – Henry Paulson
• Defence Department – Robert Gates
• Justice Department – (Attorney General) Michael Mukasey
• Interior Department – Dirk Kempthorne
• Agriculture Department – Edward Schafer
• Commerce Department – Carlos Gutierrez
• Labour Department – Elaine Chao
• Health and Human Services – Michael Leavitt
• Housing and Urban Development Department – Steve Preston
• Transport Department – Mary Peters
• Energy Department – Samuel Bodman
• Education Department – Margaret Spellings
• Veterans Affairs – James Peake
• Homeland Security – Michael Chertoff

Now despite the ‘equality’ of all the members there are, like here in Britain there are more important members of the cabinet. They were for so much time known as the ‘big four’; and consisted of the Secretary of State, Secretary of Treasury, secretary of Defence and the Attorney general, although this list now includes another member – the Secretary of Homeland Security. These are the 5 members who garnish the most press coverage in America, and outside of the West wing staff, the President and the Vice President, these 5 people are the most well known members of the administration.

So when President Elect Obama begins to announce his Cabinet nominations, these are the 5 departments that everyone should look out for. And in typical political style names are already either being leaked to positions or just generally thrown at positions in order to make news
The below list has come from various news sites;

Secretary of Defence

Robert Gates. The current Secretary of State is popular amongst both Democrats and Republicans and when he was confirmed by the senate the vote was 95 to 2. The only people who didn’t vote for him were 2 Republicans who voted against his nomination and 3 senators abstained from the vote – they were former Sen. Elizabeth Dole, and current senators Evan Bayh and Joe Biden. During his confirmation hearings Gates said that America was not winning the war in Iraq

Secretary of State

Senator Chuck Hagel. Hagel is a retiring Republican Senator from Nebraska and has been linked to the Obama campaign on previous occasions. He was mentioned as a potential vice presidential candidate, before Obama picked Joe Biden. And whilst he never publically campaigned for Obama, like Lieberman did for McCain, Hagel still carries much weight and respect from the new president elect. So much so he has been linked to two cabinet positions –

Secretary of State or Secretary of Defence. He has characterized the war in Iraq as one of the 5 biggest blunders in American History and that the country should learn from the mistakes of Vietnam.

Senator John Kerry – The Junior Senator from Massachusetts has been along supporter of Obama, endorsing him early in the primary election campaign.

Senator Richard Lugor (R- Indiana) – Another republican who is being linked to the position and another who thinks the war in Iraq is not working. He has also campaigned for an end to the use of Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Weapons.

Governor Bill Richardson (D-New Mexico) – Richardson is a former US Ambassador to the UN, as well as a Secretary of Energy. Both took place under President Clinton. He like Hagel was linked to the Vice Presidency position. He is very popular amongst the senate democrats and harry Reid (the majority leader in the senate) has signalled that confirmations shouldn’t be to hard - "There's no one more qualified to be part of the president's cabinet than Bill Richardson and I would hope that he's under consideration."

Secretary of treasury

Lawrence Summers– A former Secretary of Treasury under Bill Clinton and is currently serving as a member of Obama’s economic transition advisory board.

Timothy Geithner – The current head of the Federal Reserve and a former Under Secretary of State for International Affairs in the Department of Treasury from 1999 to the end of President Clinton’s term.
Paul Volcker – another economic adviser to Obama and another linked to the position of secretary of the Treasury.

Robert Rubin - The final rumored candidate is another former Treasury Secretary for President Clinton.

Attorney General
Eric Holder - he is a former Deputy Attorney General, under the Clinton Administration, and served as acting Attorney General for the first few weeks of President Bush’s term, until John Ashcroft was confirmed by the Senate. He was one of the three people Obama asked to look for his vice presidential nominee, and has also been a prominent legal advisor for the President Elect.

Governor Janet Napolitano (D – Arizona) has also been mentioned for the post. Like Senator Kerry she was an early supporter of Obama during the primary campaign, and before becoming Governor of Arizona she served as the States Attorney General for Three Years. If she doesn’t get a position in the new administration, she will likely serve out the remained of her term, and then challenge McCain for the senate seat at the 2010 elections.

Secretary of Homeland Security

Tim Roemer - a former congressmen from Indiana and a member of the 9/11 commission.
Raymond Kelly - the current commissioner of the New York Police Department, and a former Under Secretary for Enforcement, within the Treasury Department. Many of the agencies he used to supervise are now a part of homeland Security.
James Lee Witt - a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, under President Clinton.

Other Potential nominees

Governor Tom Vilsack - for Secretary of Agriculture

Senator Max Cleland - Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Former Governor Howard Dean, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and former Senator Tom Daschle are mentioned as possibilities for – Secretary of Health and Human Services

Congressmen Jay Inslee - Secretary of Interior

The news media keeps reporting that Obama will announce his decisions shortly, and whilst they may be true for the big 5, it is unlikely that we will here the names of the full cabinet before January. There are of course other matters: specifically that both Senator Obama and Biden will have to resign there senate seats, before the 20th January. One person being talked about for Biden’s seat is his sonBeau Biden who is currently serving as Delaware’s Attorney General, as well as a tour of duty in Iraq.

But all that is to be sorted out, and there is plenty of time before January

After last weeks Vice Presidential debate,


as well as the first presidential debate, Senator Obama has opened up a commanding lead over Senator McCain. In fact if the election were held today it would come down to 10 states, and only one would need to go for Obama, in order for him to win. In fact the times are getting so bad for McCain that he has now pulled out of Michigan, effectively giving up on any hope of winning the state’s 17 electoral college votes.

As it stands Obama is predicted to be on 264 votes, to McCain’s 174. 10 states are in play, equalling 100 more votes. Below is the list of what states each candidate is predicted to win, along with the all important undecided list.

Likely Obama: CA, CT, DE, DC, HI, IL, ME, MD, MA, NY, RI, VT (157 electoral votes)
Lean Obama: IA, MI, MN, NH, NJ, NM, OR, PA, WA, WI (107 votes)
Undecided: CO, FL, IN, NV, NC, OH, VA (100 votes)
Lean McCain: MO, MT (14 votes)
Likely McCain: AL, AK, AZ, AR, GA, ID, KS, KY, LA, MS, NE, ND, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, WV, WY (160 votes)

For McCain to win, based on these predictions he needs to win every state in the undecided list, as well as all the states that he has at the min, where as Obama needs to keep his states, and win just one other.

A candidate needs 270 votes to win the presidency meaning McCain now has an uphill battle. There are 29 days till the votes are casted, two more debates will take place between now and then )the next one is tomorrow night and is a ‘town hall meeting’ meaning that anything can be asked of the candidates. McCain now has to win these debates – that’s not have a good performance but win the debates hands down and hope that a few of the likely Obama states will go back into the undecided list.

...that the current US elections have all been seen before. A ‘rouge’ freshly elected Democrat VS a almost liberal, old guard Republican Senator.

Yes the sixth and seventh series of the fictional TV show, the West Wing seem to be playing out once again before eyes, only this time the ending isn’t scripted.

The similarities are all to apparent, in the primary process on the show, the Democratic race saw, a fictional congressman called Matt Santos, who had little legislative experience, entered the race against the person who everyone assumed was going to win (in the shows case Vice President Bob Russell), whilst in reality Obama entered in to the race which everyone assumed was Clinton’s to win.

On the republican side the shows similarities are seen again, with McCain resembling fictional senator Arnold Vinick. Both are from Eastern states, both are elderly statesmen, and when you first look at them on paper, they shouldn’t have made it through the tuff conservative Republican primary, and yet they both went all the way through, defeating conservative candidate, after conservative candidate.

And the similarities continue... to the vice presidential nominees. On the show the democrats was a party elder, for massive foreign policy experience and in reality Obama did the same, whilst McCain choose a conservative who would help sure up support from the party base (like on the show except Vinick didn’t choose a woman.

So with all the similarities seen so far, how did the show end (if you haven’t seen the finale stop reading now!!!)



In the end the democrats win, but the election is close...it all came down to Nevada and in the end the electoral college was 272 to 266, but Vinick won the popular vote. So on the show the democrats won, but it wasn’t a complete win - the vice presidential candidate died. So that’s maybe not the outcome most of us are hoping for

The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Speaker Pelosi (Democrat) has become the highest ranking american politican to visit Hiroshima.

No sittin President, or vice President have ever been to the site, although Jimmy Carter did vist after his term of office

Friday 25th July

I’m not going to do a proper post today; instead I’m going to post the following picture – which is something I've been meaning to do for weeks. I found it on the internet and its pretty self explanatory.

Having spectacularly failed to blog recently, here is a round up of news items from around the world.

Last week a US governor signed state wide legislation into affect that made cyber-bullying illegal in the state of Missouri. The bill means that harassment is not just defined in terms of offensive communication through written letters or through conversations on the phone, but also includes text messages and messages sent using the internet, specifically the use of social network sites.

President Bush has celebrated his final birthday of his term, aboard Air Force. The President, First Lady and the majority of his senior staff were flying to his final G8 summit, which is taking place in Japan. The President was presented with a wooden box made out of a tree that fell in the White House grounds that was planted Benjamin Harrison’s daughter. The box was filled with letters and cards from White House staff.

And finally on Thursday the by-election in Haltemprice and Howden by election will take place, but now no-one seems to care as a more interesting election is now taking place in Glasgow . Some of the candidates in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election include; Ronnie Carroll who is standing for Make Politicians history Party who want to abolish MPs and parliament altogether in favor of devolving powers to city states. So in theory if elected Ronnie Carroll will have to find a way to abolish himself.

Whilst David Davis is resigning his seat in the House of Commons, the US Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners at Guantanamo bay have the same constitutional rights as American citizens do. The court ruled 5-4 in favour of the fact that the government has no right to break habeas corpus and imprison anyone without a fair and free trial.

So if the United States most powerful court has ruled that detention without trial is illegal, why exactly is our government trying to push through a law which allows for exactly the same thing? Yesterdays vote was a victory for the government, but only in the sense that they won the vote and taken in any other sense it is a loss, not just for the government but society as a whole. When a government has a majority in the 60’s it should not have to buy off opposition MP’s in order to win a vote.

For society this is perhaps our greatest loss; our loss of our rights. These rights are the very thing that terrorist hate about us – the fact that we are free to choose who and what to believe, the fact that we have the rights to say what we want, protest against the government and have the freedom to live our lives as we see fit. By passing this law, and the other civil liberty infractions that the government has perused over the years, we are being forced in to changing our way of life, and as a result are we not letting the terrorists win?

After 7/7 the most important underlying message that our political leaders told us was to go about our lives as normal and not change a single thing, yet despite this advice the politicians seem to ignore it and slowly but surely they pass law after law which means that our way of life can, at least not for now never return to the way it was.

There is only one ray of sunshine to all of this, and that is at least for now this law will not reach the statue books. Whilst the government has a majority in the House of Commons, it does not have this in the House of Lords and unlike the spineless opposition MPs who were bought with empty government promises the membership of the House of Lords cannot be bought so easily. The government will have to overcome the combined effort of the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrats as well as the cross benchers, who for the most part hold the balance of power in the chamber, and this combined group will likely vote down this legislation, and with the DUP only having a handful of peers in the chamber, the government will have to look elsewhere for new friends to help them out.

So the bill will not pass, at least not any time soon, and it will be sent back to the House of Commons, and so the game of political ping-pong will start and the two chambers at the heart of our democracy will fight it out for the heart of our rights. And once the House of Lords has rejected the bill 3 times, the government will ask the speaker to invoke the parliament Act, and the fight for our rights will move from the legislative branch, to the judicial branch (just like it has done in America).

So the fight will have moved, first it will go to the High court, then either to the Supreme Court, or if it still isn’t ready it will ironically go back to the House of Lords, where the Law Lords currently sit and have the right to vote in the chamber. Assuming that neither side accepts the ruling of the Law Lords the fight will end in the European Court of Human rights, which take one look at the bill in all its glory and then take one look at the European Convention, of which we are signatories to and strike down the bill as it violates Article 6 of the convention – specifically the right to fair trial.

So that is what we can expect to see and this fight for our freedom. It all seems like a waste of time when the conclusion is well known that this bill violates the heart of our freedoms and will be, eventually, ruled illegal by the courts.

So the race is still going on, and maybe just maybe soon we will know who will face John McCain in the fall and have a chance to become the next president of the United States.

The race officially began in January with the first primary, and it unoficaly began in 2003 when Hilary implied that she may run in 2008, whilst ruling out a run in 2004. And here we are a mere 4 months later, after the official start, and unlike the Republicans, who have nominated Senator John McCain, who out of the original possible contenders, is best described as the ‘liberal Republican’ – in other words he may not be pro everything but he unlike most republicans feels that maybe just maybe the 10th Amendment to the constitution should be followed instead of ignored when it comes to something that you don’t agree with.

Anyway, back to the democrats; as it stands Senator Obama is in the lead with 1,652 including known super delegate endorsements, to Senator Clintons 1,508 delegates. The grand total required to win the nomination now stands at 2,025 – the reason for this is the super delegates. As they represent 19% of delegates there numbers fluctuate, meaning that until the convention the exact number of super delegates can rise and fall. This can happen through many ways – e.g. the resignation of any super-delegate, like former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer, or the death of a democratic member of congress such as the late Tom Lantos. But of course with the loss of a member, by whatever means, always sees a replacement take over, but in the case of Gov. Spitzer’s former place his replacement as governor – the former Lt Governor of New York David Paterson was already a super-delegate.

So, Obama is 373 delegates away from the nomination, Clinton is 517. The total number of delegates left, from the primaries is 566. Now this means that in theory either candidate could win by gaining the most delegates from the remaining primaries, but in practice this is very unlikely as instead of having winner takes all primaries, the reaming races see the delegates split along the lines of the vote. This means that the race is likely, although Obama could still win out-right, to be decided by the Super-delegates.

There is, currently 307 super-delegates who are yet to pick a side – including current House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Al Gore. But many of these have suggested that they will follow the way of the votes and side with the nominee who has the most support from the party at large, meaning that if things stay the way they are, Senator Obama will clinch the nomination away from Senator Clinton, but it will go down to the last race, and maybe even down to the convention itself.

One thing is for certain though, this is the most expensive election in US history, and not just in terms of the money being raised by the candidates, but also the effort it is taking to protect them. Senator Clinton, as a former first lady is entitled to protection provided by the US Secret Service for the rest of her life, providing that she does not re-marry (and thus leave President Clinton). That meant that from the moment she started to campaign she was unique from every other candidate in history – she was having Secret Service protection before the outcome of the primary process was clear to the world.

Ever since the assassination of Robert Kennedy the major candidates at a presidential election of received Secret Service protection, but this usually only happens within 120 days of the actual election date. But the word ‘usually’ doesn’t apply to this election, as now both of the Democrat candidates have been protected by the Secret Service for the vast majority of the campaign.

In Senator Obama’s case he was given secret service protection after there were worries that threats against his life maybe made, or even acted on (much in the same way that in the first series of 24 the character of David Palmer was given Secret Service protection.

What’s more Senator McCain, who has been confirmed as the Republican nominee for quite some time now, is yet to get his own Secret Service detail – but only because he hasn’t asked for one yet.

So, back to delegates. It is now a numbers game, for all the strategists to work out all the possibilities following results from each of the remaining primaries. One thing is for sure, whilst the democrats look like a fighting rabble Senator McCain is looking more and more winnable, although he is struggling to get any media coverage as everyone it seems, for now at least, is far more interest in watching two Democrat Senators fight on national TV, day after day after day.

...Through the eyes of David Letterman

So a little later than I had planned, here is what I got up to in New York, last week.

We left on Sunday morning, at a ridiculously early time – just after 7.30 am. That meant I got up at 6 am, showered and got dressed, and then checked I had everything before heading up to the university to meet the bus. It was strange seeing Lincoln so quiet, as if the place had been evacuated and I was the only person left. I got to bridge house nice and early, I was surprised to learn that the first person there, was someone who usually shows up late to lectures. But anyway, I got there, and was one of the last of our group – our group that was easily recognisable as we had gotten hoodies made. Sad maybe; funny yes; easily recognizable in a crowd defiantly.

The coach ride down to Heathrow was interesting, everyone was strangely hyper and the time seemed to fly by. We got to Heathrow just after 12, and were checked in within the next 30 mins and from then we were ‘free’ – no lecturers watching over us, the only rules were don’t get wasted and be at the gate for when it opens. So what did we do – well as soon as we cleared the security checks including a separate scanning machine for people’s shoes, we headed off into the duty free area and took advantage of the free samples – one of baileys, one of whiskey and one of something else...and then we headed off to the bar.

Our flight was at 3.55pm, and the gate opened just after half 2, I think, which left us little time to do anything. I saw some of Nick’s speech and then the clapping at then end, before learning the news that Britain was about to be hit by a massive storm, and fortunately for us, although not for everyone else, we were going to fly around the storm. We had a couple of drinks in the bar, as well as a little bit of food, before it was time to head to the gate, and to break with airport tradition we were at gate number 1.

I’m usually fine with flying, once were in the air that is, it’s the take-off and landings for some peculiar reason that I don’t like. So once we had taken off, and throughout the group had swapped seats so we were all sat in our particular friend circles, the onboard entertainment came on, and the drinks were served. Most of the students in our group were under 21, which meant once they got to America they weren’t going to be able to drink and so everyone seemed to take advantage of the free alcohol, whilst bearing in mind that getting absolutely hammered wasn’t an option.

I watched Juno whilst on the flight and for me it lived up to all the hype that’s been going around about it. I can easily see why Ellen Page was nominated for an Oscar for it, her performance is stunning, and the movie is brilliant – Allison Jenney’s smallish part is perfect for her, funny and serious at the same time, just like CJ in the West Wing. As for other entertainment I watched 2 episodes of Family Guy and 2 episodes of the Class, the Top Gear episode where they had to make their own limousines as well as Stardust – another brilliant film.

Unfortunately the food on the flight was not so brilliant. The choice on both flights was either Chicken or Beef, both of which I tried, and both of which I will never try again. After a time the flight became tedious. People were already tired having been up since 6am (British time) and as we didn’t land till 7.50pm in New York, which in essence was 11.50 British time – we would come to learn, after staring at the clocks in JFK for an hour, that America had moved their clocks forward on the Saturday night so they were now only 4 hours behind the UK, instead of the usually 5.

Once we had landed, we then faced the troubles of immigration. Firstly we were queued for over an hour to get the actual people, and there we had to hand over the forms we had filled in on the plane, one of which includes a question asking if you were involved with the Holocaust. With tighter security after the 9/11 attacks travellers entering the United States now have their finger prints recorded, and their Iris scanned. It didn’t take to long to get through security, once you had got an actual person that is, and for their part the officials were directing people to the American section of the desks (usually for Americans re-entering the country) to clear the backlog of people. So all was going relatively well until one member of our group was taken away to be furthered questioned.

Apparently his name flashed up on some terrorist watch list and hence he was taken to a room away from the rest of us. Two of our lectures went to find out was happening, and stay with him to make sure he would be ok, whilst the third lecturer took the rest of the students passed customs and into the main arrivals building where we waited for news. We waited as long as we could before we had to go and get the coach transfer to the YMCA we were staying out. As it turned out whilst we were on our way into Manhattan the student and the lecturers cleared immigration and customs and were on their way in a cab.

After settling in, to our rooms and ordering take away pizza, we all went to bed at just after 1 am local time (5am GMT). Sleep would have been a great idea, if it wasn’t for another group of students arriving at the YMCA and making an absolute racket for the next hour or so :(

Monday

We got up and got smartly dressed, as we were spending the day at the UN – first for a tour of the building and then for a student conference in the afternoon. We walked to the UN, from west 63rd street where we were staying, down to Times Square which spreads from 42nd street at its southern point to 46th Street at its northern point, and from 46th street we walked east, to the end of the road and there is the HQ for the UN. The tour of the building it self was amazing, although the facts given out by the tour guide were mostly things you can find on the UN website. On the tour itself we saw the UN Security Council Chamber, the UN General Assembly chamber as well as items which survived the nuclear detonation at Hiroshima but had been melted so that they no longer resembled their former selves and for most people in our group the highlight of an AK-47 being turned into a guitar.

The conference in the afternoon was for students from across Britain, and took place within the UN itself, in one of the conference rooms that is normally used by the diplomats when they are discussing whatever it is they do. It took the format of three guest speakers and then question an answering sessions with each of them, and then we were meant to have a debate on the powers of the UN Security Council, and specifically should the 5 permanent members of the Security Council have a veto. However instead of having the debate we had a general Q&A session with the man in charge of the conference.

The conference finished just before 6 o’clock and for the rest of the night we were once again free from our lecturers. We decided to head back to the YMCA, so headed off to the nearest subway station, which was Grand Central Station. So before we got on to the subway itself we went into the main bit of Grand central and took a few pictures, then tried to work out how to get back to the YMCA. The plan was simple – get a subway to Time’s Square and from there head north, and the plan worked really well, until we went the wrong way at Times Square and ended up on 14th Street.

So we turned around and eventually got to 66th Street which was the closest station. Quickly went to our rooms to pick up some money and get leave our conference stuff their, then we headed back to the subway and headed to Times Square to find some food. We ended up at an Irish bar just off Times square had a nice meal out, before going back to Times Square and then heading off to Rockefeller centre via another bar. I took a few more photos at Rockefeller, before heading back to the YMCA.

Tuesday

In the morning we visited Ground Zero, and unlike the last time I was there the site has changed and is now no longer more a memorial but a building site. The vender’s across the street are all gone now and work has begun to build the new World Trade Centre. After visiting the site we headed down to the Tenement museum, which looks at housing for immigrants up to the 1930’s. It was interesting to see the changes the people faced in just a short amount of time.

After the museum we went to 34th street where the Empire State Building is, but before going up we went and grabbed some food from diner, with a waitress who could not count to 7. The Empire state Building looked really busy, based on the queue to get in the building, but once we got passed the ground floor there was practically no-one there. Once we got to the observation deck, the view was clear for miles, we could see all over the city, from downtown to the tips of the city.

We stayed up there for maybe half an hour, before heading off to Macy’s, and there we went our separate ways as we shopped. I bought a necklace for my mum, which was a late mother’s day present, and after I got that, I headed up to Times Square, which I walked to. Took a look round the virgin megastore, looked for a few CDs, but it turned out they were cheaper here in the UK, then headed off to the Hershey’s store to get some chocolate for a friend.

After walking from Macy’s, on 34th street to 63rd street my legs finally gave up, so I went up to my room and rested on my bed for an hour whilst I waited for some pain killers to quick and my leg would stop hurting.
In the evening we got smartly dressed again and went to the Marriot at times square, to go to a revolving bar called ‘The View’. We each had a drink, and it was expensive but when you’re not just getting a drink but a spectacular view of the whole city it was incredibly worth it. We saw most of the city while we were up there and pretty much went all the way around, before we headed out, and down to Rockefeller again so that some of the group could go ice skating, which was very funny to watch. It was around 11 before we went for food and being very hungry and wanting somewhere we knew would still be serving, so we headed back to the Irish bar form Monday night. And after that we headed back and crashed in our rooms

Wednesday

Wednesday was the hardest morning to wake up...the jet lag had finally set in and everyone was absolutely shattered...which is why it was kind of sad that Wednesday was our last day in New York. In the morning, after checking out of our rooms we got on the subway and headed down to Battery Park so that we could get the ferry over to Ellis Island. The views from the ferry were amazing, not just of Ellis Island but also of the Statue of Liberty, and downtown Manhattan. Ellis Island it self was interesting. They’ve turned the building now into a museum that not just looks at the history of the Island, but also at the history of immigration throughout the United States. We stayed at Ellis Island for a couple of hours before heading back to the Manhattan, got the subway back to the YMCA and were all ready to go to the airport, when we found out form the travel company that the information that they gave us on our itinerary was wrong, and we had a couple more hours in the city to explore before we were needed to get the coach to the airport.

So we went Strawberry fields and saw where John Lennon was shot, and then explored central park for over an hour before going back to the YMCA and getting a drink in the cafe and waiting for everyone else to assemble before we headed off to JFK. We checked in incredibly quickly, and then had a little over 2 hours in the airport, and after we’d bought some duty free and had a bite to eat it was time to get on the plane and fly home.

The flight home was quick, just under 6 hours, and very turbulent but it was fine although I got practically no sleep, which basically meant that I slept on the coach back to Lincoln, and then slept for 12 hours Thursday night.

So, ive been in New York for he last few days, and have had an amazing time. I'll write about what i got up to, sometime in the next fewdays, but for now here are a few photos from the trip;

I know that I’m late blogging about this, when you consider that it happened Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning, but it’s official now John McCain will be the Republican Nominee for President of the United States. Whilst for now we are no closer to knowing who will be the Democrat nominee will be, since Obama and Clinton still remain neck and neck in the race to, be in the race to the white house.

It is looking more and more likely that the race is going to be decide by the Superdelegates. Although there is still a chance that the voters will decide the outcome of the primary process, this is looking slimmer and slimmer, and so the Campaigns move on; today to Wyoming and Tuesday to Mississippi.

Me on the other hand; I will actually be in America when the next primary takes place. I’m off to New York tomorrow, hence my absence from the party conference in Liverpool, to attend a student conference at the United Nations.



The one day conference which will see a debate on whether or not the five permanent members of the Security council should give up their Veto, added to other educational activities on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, including visits to Ellis Island and the Tenement museum will see me out of the country for the first time since I went to university, and the first time I’ve been to America in over 5 years.



In fact the last time I was there (in America) I was in New York, a mere 18 months after the 9/11 attacks. Like last time I will again visit ground zero, which was a strange experience the first time. A site where thousands of people died; and tens of thousands of people’s lives changed forever; for it to now be a tourist attraction just seems wrong. But that unfortunately isn’t the worst thing about the site. I’m hoping that times have changed and that what I remember being there is no longer there.



Last time I was at ground zero it was a cold it was a foggy Sunday morning which just added to the cold effectiveness of the site. But opposite was something I did not expect to see, people capitalising on the tragedy by selling all things American.



Posters, photos and American flags decorated over everything and there they were not seeing the tragedy but seeing a chance to make money.

So will New York have changed? At the moment I don’t know, but so much has changed since that dreadful day that it now impedes upon all of our lives, and of course our elections.



And America is no different; terrorism and the war on terror remain key issues for the campaigns that are fighting across America, for the chance to fight for America. Mississippi is next for the Democrats, whilst the republicans look to unite around John McCain and the one interesting thing now for the republicans will be; will McCain let President Bush who for the most is seen to blame for all that has happened since that day, campaign with him. He faces a choice bring Bush along to unite the party, or risk bringing Bush along and alienate the rest of America against a new Republican administration. For the democrats we all wait, and I’m fairly sure to say, in boredom to see will one give up to help the other. Will it be Obama or Clinton, or could we get very lucky and despite the negativity of the campaign see the dream ticket of either Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama in the race to the White House, a race that will not finish for over 7 months.

The US Presidential election is still over half a year away, and while we are almost sure that Arizona Senator John McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party; we will not likely know who his main opponent from the Democratic Party will be until after the North Carolina primary on May 6th.

But with the results already so close there is the possibility that neither nominee will have the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination, and if after the results have been counted and delegates divided up on May 7th, then the Democratic Party will have no nominee and will in essence be broken in half. One party official said that the result will lie with the super delegates, but if they have to make the call over the party at large then this will be compared to the Supreme Court decision in Florida, at the 2000 election, which saw Bush win despite Al Gore wining the popular vote.

So if the result now lies with the small group super-delegates, are super-delegates democratic?

Well no, they’re not, but then again they are. On the one hand they were not directly voted into this position of being able to vote for the party’s presidential nominee but on the other hand almost all of these have been voted for by the party, as they are elected officials. And under party rules this is perfectly legal, and can happen. But in a party that’s name is democratic, is it right for the will of the people to be changed by a small group within its own party?

Take Massachusetts for example, where the states two senators, Senator Kennedy and 2004 Presidential nominee Senator Kerry have endorsed Senator Obama. However Senator Clinton won the states primary. So after the first round of voting in August, at the nomination convention and the results are tied, as is the prediction at the moment, with no clear winner, is it fair for these two senators to ignore the wishes of their own state?

Well under the rules of a primary contest; when people vote in a primary they do not vote for how their states super-delegates vote, they vote for what are known as ‘pledged’ delegates, who are divided up according to the votes for the candidates, and at the convention they vote accordingly, whilst the super delegates are ‘unpledged’ and are free to vote as see fit.

The super-delegates are any member of the party who is either; a Senator, a member Congress, a State’s Governor or a former Party leader such as President Clinton, as well as some senior activists in the party. Super delegates do have the right to change their mind at the convention, which means it is perfectly reasonable for both the Massachusetts to change their vote for Clinton, but with that Clinton runs the risk of loosing some of the super-delegates, especially those from the Black community in America, who are beginning to switch sides and support Obama.

Congressman David Scott, who represents a district in Georgia, has said he will vote for Obama at the convention, despite already endorsing Senator Clinton. He said “You've got to represent the wishes of your constituency”. His district gave more than 80% of its vote to Obama, and because of this he will vote for Obama and not Clinton. Other members of the congressional black caucus, who have endorsed Clinton, are thought to be thinking of doing the same thing and switching their vote from Clinton to Obama.

Because Super-delegates can change their mind at any time, and in fact do not even have to endorse a candidate their views are hard to track, which makes getting an accurate count of how many delegates have, incredibly difficult. Currently Obama has 1,116 of the pledged delegates, to Clinton’s 985, while according to the AP Clinton has won more super-delegates (241) compared to Obama (164). This means that the actual totals the candidates are on are 1,280 to Obama compared with 1,226 for Clinton.

So the super-delegates are making an already close race, even closer, and they could be the king or queen maker. But whether or not this right or not is highly debated, not least within the Democratic Party; Speaker Pelosi the highest ranking Democratic in Congress has said "I don't think it was ever intended that super-delegates would overturn the verdict, the decision of the American people,"

Whether or not they are needed to cast the winning vote is still unsure, as some of the larger states in the union are yet to have their primaries, and the votes in these states could give one of the two senators the necessary delegates they need to win the nomination.

One quick note though, on the Republican side; Senator John McCain who is the virtual winner of the race has received another vital endorsement this one from former President George H.W. Bush. Whether or not this will help McCain solidify the republican party behind him, whilst the Democrats continue to fight remains to be seen

The media is reporting that senator Clinton and Mitt Romney have won today’s Nevada caucuses, and thus giving the Romney campaign some much needed momentum after his opponent won in New Hampshire and Clinton the continued momentum that started with her win in New Hampshire. But the results are not that simple, as the race to win the most delegates makes things are a little more complicated.

After a state holds either their primary or caucus the votes are counted and the number of delegates for each state is divided up, according to the percentage of the vote each candidate got and these delegates vote for their nominee at the nomination conventions, which will be held later this year. This means that even if you don’t win a state in the popular vote, you can still gain some momentum by increasing your delegate count, and that has happened today. Both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama are now tied on 37 delegates each, despite Clinton winning two states compared to Obama’s one. To win the democrat’s nomination you need to win 2,025 of the party’s delegates, and both Obama and Clinton now need to win 1,988 delegates, in the remaining primaries and caucuses. The only other candidate to have won any delegates John Edwards has 18, and his campaign seems to be stalling whilst the media focuses on the two Senators especially as he has failed to win any delegates in today’s caucus in Nevada, and has only received 4% of the vote.

On the Republican side Mitt Romney continues to dominate, and this latest win has meant he leads the pack on 59 delegates, with a grand total of 1,191 needed to win the nomination. His closets rivals Huckabee and McCain have 34 and 17 respectively. Interestingly the former favourite to win the candidacy, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is in last place, having won his first delegate today.

The other primary to be taking place to day is in South Carolina where the polls won’t close until 12 am GMT. This primary is for the Republican’s nomination only – the Democrats will hold theirs later in the primary calendar, on 26th January. Here the US media is reporting that Senator McCain, who lost the race to be president in 2000 to the governor George Bush, is going to win by a small margin.

UPDATE - Senator McCain has won the South Carolina primary gaining 19 delegates, with Huckabee winning the states other 5 delegates. this means that McCain now has 36 delegates, but is still in third, Huckabee is in second place on 39 delegates and Romney who failed to win any delegates in South Carolina is still in first place with 59 delegates

The governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson (D) has decided to withdraw from the race to be president. the decision comes after he got just under 2% in the Iowa caucus and under 5% in the New Hampshire primary, which took place on tuesday, both of which meant he came an overal 4th out of the democratic candidates.

Richardson will remain the governor of New Mexico, a post he was elected to twice with great ease, but will be forced to leave office in 2010, due to term limits on the office. Before becoming governor Richardson had been a member of the federal congress (which total 14 years), served in President Clinton's cabinet as Secretary of Energy, a member of the New Mexican state house as well as a foreign diplomat (including time as the US ambassador to the UN) which saw him work for the release of american soliders, political prisoners and hostages all over the world.

Because of his close ties to President Clinton it is believed that he will endorse Senator Clinton, who seems to have regained some momentum following her win in New Hampshire.
The race for the Presidency is now over for Bill Richardson, but with such a strong resume he looks like a very strong candidate for the Vice Presidency

MSNBC is reporting the Senator John McCain has won the Republican New Hampshire Primary. On the democrat side it is currently too close to call with both Senator Clinton and Obama fighting for top place

85% Barack Obama
82% John Edwards
82% Hillary Clinton
80% Bill Richardson
79% Chris Dodd
74% Joe Biden
74% Dennis Kucinich
73% Mike Gravel
46% Rudy Giuliani
40% John McCain
34% Mitt Romney
30% Mike Huckabee
26% Tom Tancredo
20% Fred Thompson
19% Ron Paul

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Today will see the second state to vote on the nominees to be president, in the
New Hampshire primary. But voting has already taken place in two small hamlets(Dixville Notch and Hart's Location), and have given Senator McCain and Senator Obama more good news as they did what is expected for them to to throughout the state - they won the votes. The polls suggest the Obama will win the state, on the deomcrat side of the vote, with Senator Clinton in second place, whilst on the Republican side McCain is in the lead, with former massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in second place.

But the race wont be over tonight, as the biggest states are yet to vote, and winning there will give any candidate massive momentum within the primary race

Happy New Year to everyone who reads this blog! I will try to keep posting regularly but with uni work already building up (again) I will unfortunately be spending my time working my way through that :(

So, 2008 will hold the Presidential elections for the United States of America (taking place on 4th November), and will therefore be President Bush’s last full year in office. He officially leaves office on 20th January 2009, so plan your party now.
But for now we don’t even know who will be the candidates for the election. Democrats and Republicans will this year continue their campaigns to win the, respective, nominations. The campaigns, which all so far began last year (and a few ended last year) have effectively made this presidential campaign (which hasn’t technically started yet) a 2 year long race. I will look at these races in more detail shortly, but first there has been one very interesting development.

Michael Bloomberg, the current mayor of New York City is considering a run for the White House. Bloomberg left the Republican Party last year to become a political independent, and after this move he said that “no body is going to elect me President of the United States”. Now it seems that Mr Bloomberg has changed his mind and is considering a run, as an independent, and would likely spend over a billion dollars of his own money on the campaign.

So he may have more money than any other potential candidate, but can he win? An Independent has never won the Presidency in America; in fact an independent has never come close. To the win the presidency you need to win 270 votes in the electoral college, and to win votes in the electoral college you need to win the majority of votes from within in a state (there are a couple of exemptions to this but most states operate a simple majority system). Electoral college votes are decided by population with ever state having 2 votes (representing their 2 senators) and an additional vote for each member of the House of Representatives they have. For example North Dakota has 3 votes (representing 2 senators and 1 House member) while California has 55 votes (representing 2 Senators and 53 House members).

The last major independent to run was Ross Perot who ran in 1992 against then President Bush and then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. Perot was then, and still is a multi Billionaire and used much of his finance to run the campaign. He got 18.2% of the national vote, but not a single Electoral College vote although he did finish second in Maine and Utah (which would have given him 9 votes in the Electoral College, if he had won).

If Bloomberg does stand he faces the challenge of getting himself on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia (which has 3 Electoral College votes), which requires a set number of signatures (varying from state to state) and may also have to decide whether or not he can remain as mayor while running for President.

One advantage of running as a party’s nominee is that you are guaranteed to get on to all the states ballots, as the party workers provide the signatures needed. But before that can happen someone needs to win the nomination, and that process (finally) begins on Thursday. The Iowa caucuses for both parties will take place and they will be followed by the New Hampshire Primary on Tuesday 8th November. Caucuses and Primaries are two separate things, with a state holding either one or the other. A caucus sees only members of the particular party deciding who will be the nominee, whereas a primary is more of an open vote where by all registered votes in a state can vote for their preferred candidate. The results of these caucuses and primaries affects how many delegates each candidate gets at the nomination conventions (the more votes = more delegates), which for the Democrats will be held at the end of August and the Republicans will hold there’s at the start of September.

Current polls show that the race is growing closer, and on the democrat side Senator Clinton’s once dominate position at the top of all polls seems to be ending, with her and fellow Senator Obama tied on 28 percent. Former Senator and vice presidential nominee John Edwards is on 26 percent.

On the Republican side Giuliani’s reign as number 1 is over, as he’s only on 7 per cent and is being beaten by Huckabee (who is on 28%), Romney (on 26%) and McCain and Thompson who are both on 12%. Whoever comes out of the Iowa caucus with the most votes, will then gain momentum which will help with all the other primaries and caucuses over the next few weeks.

This year there is the additional challenge of the fact that most of the primaries have been moved forward, compared with 2004 where the race was decided by March (after Super Tuesday) this year the race will be decided after the 5th February when Super Tuesday will see 20 states hold their primaries or caucuses, which has led to it being called Super Duper Tuesday.

Nevertheless the Iowa Caucus is very important; as the winner of (either party’s caucus) has gone on to win their respective party’s nomination for the presidency at every election since 1972.

Sky news have begun to look back at this years news stories, as they always do (give it a week or so then every half hour on sky news will be a look back on the years events).
On the sky news website they are showing the top 9 new stories, as judged by American news editors. Here are the 9, in the order that they were picked;

Right first off is the Massacre at Virginia Tech in April of this year. The shooting saw 32 people killed and many more injured in the worst ever shooting incident at American school.



The shooter Seung-Hui Cho suffered form an anxiety disorder, and despite this fact he was still able to buy a gun legally, and as a result go on to commit the massacre. As a result of the incident Virginian State law was changed so that people who were ‘mentally unsound’ were no longer able to buy guns. The incident also had an affect with national politics, with a new gun control bill passed by the federal congress.

Second in the top 9 list is the global financial crisis, caused by the collapse of the sub prime Housing market in America (I would say more but I have no idea what this is technically about, apart from the stock markets crashing)

Third on the list is the ongoing Iraq war, and the slow, but that said important, changing mood of the American people in their attitude towards the war. 2007 has seen the implementation of the US’s ‘Surge’ policy which saw over 21,500 additional troops sent to the country to stabilize the security nightmare. To date President Bush has agreed to bring back at least 5,700 personnel by Christmas. For its part the Surge did quell the amount of attacks by insurgents, it just remains to be seen if this can be maintained after the troops have left the country.

Fourth, is another Middle East related story – the rising price of oil. This year has seen unstable oil prices, which seem to be a yearly theme lately. The latest crisis has been caused by members of OPEC voicing concerns over the state of the US $. The price of oil is reaching, although it hasn’t hit, $100 a barrel.

Fifth place of the list of the top 9 (and for those wondering I don’t know why there are 9 on the list instead of 10) is the global issue (yes America cares about global issues) of global warming. The high profile campaign, led by former Vice-President Al Gore, including the academy award winning film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ (which won for best documentary and best original song, for ‘I need to wake up’) as well as the live earth concerts has raised the issue to become one of the most important in American politics.

Sixth place was the devastating collapse of the bridge crossing the Missippi River. Over 100 vehicles were on the bridge at the time of its collapse, but only 13 people were killed and 98 people were injured, and only a few vehicles were submerged.

Seventh on the list is the battle to be the Democrats nominee for President of the United States. The media seems to be deciding between two people; either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama, with Clinton winning in the polls, but Obama beginning to gain momentum as we finally enter primary season, after a nearly year long campaign just to get this far. The winner of the democratic primary will face the Republican’s nominee (who could at this point be any of the candidates) on 4th November 2008 (and the winner of that election will be sworn in on January 20th 2009 at 12.00pm EST)

Eight (nearly there!!!!) is President Bush’s immigration reform plan which failed to pass as the republicans in congress (along with some democrats) voted against the bill.

Ninth and the last story on the list is the growing tensions between the United States of America, and Iran which has been linked to Iran’s nuclear program. Whether or not Iran is the next target of the American military power remains to be seen but for now, the Bush administration is having trouble sustaining the Iraqi and Afghanistan conflicts, so the thought of a third war seems doubtful.

So that is the end of the top 9 American new stories of the year, as chosen by American news editors.