Government

NYS “Independent” Redistricting Commission Maps are Anything But – The BenCen Blog

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NYS “Independent” Redistricting Commission Maps are Anything But – The BenCen Blog

At this point, it is plain as day that partisanship trumped consensus and that the commission is willing, in the form of these first released set of maps, to demonstrate the party actors are very much viewing and operating with a partisan lens, despite the commission’s charge to be independent (it is in the body’s name, afterall). So, two sets of plans were released – one Democrat and one Republican – each for redistricting the State Assembly, State Senate, and our Congressional districts. At best, this reflects the bipartisan nature of the commission, but bipartisanship is not independence from the political process, and a bipartisan commission is only advantageous when compromises are struck and a consensus is built. Since the Democrat supermajority in the Assembly and the Senate will have the final say on how the lines are drawn, it is troubling then that partisans on the commission released separate maps in opposition to each other. It demonstrates the challenge of having this redistricting task completed by vested interests; that is, incumbents and a party that would like to stay in power.

Minority Rights

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America is the one of the few countries that protects minority rights through our political system. Most democracies do not have a mechanism that protects the rights of minorities through the power of the filibuster, federalism, and the ability of different political parties to control different branches of government.

We also have a Constitution which protects additional rights, that can not be questioned by Congress or the President. Congress has two branches, the House and Senate, drawn from distinctively different constituencies. It also have a separate executive, the President, who is drawn from a national constituency. Unless all these diverse groups agree, no policy can be implemented.

Most countries allow their governments to engage in rash decisions, allow a simple majority to act in a tyrannical fashion. Fortunately, America is globally unique, and and we restrict the power of the majority by empowering minorities. This is one of the reasons why America’s democracy has outlived most other countries, and has proven to be a stable, long-lasting form of government.

The Rise of the Taliban

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Afghanistan: The Rise of the Taliban

9/16/21 by NPR

Web player: https://podcastaddict.com/episode/128545712
Episode: https://play.podtrac.com/npr-510333/edge1.pod.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/throughline/2021/09/20210916_throughline_final_mix_afghanistan_2_taliban_wads_lw_91521_-_real.mp3

How did a small group of Islamic students go from local vigilantes to one of the most infamous and enigmatic forces in the world? The Taliban is a name that has haunted the American imagination since 2001. The scenes of the group’s brutality repeatedly played in the Western media, while true, perhaps obscure our ability to see the complex origins of the Taliban and how they impact the lives of Afghans. It’s a shadow that reaches across the vast ancient Afghan homeland, the reputation of the modern state, and throughout global politics. At the end of the US war in Afghanistan we go back to the end of the Soviet Occupation and the start of the Afghan civil war to look at the rise of the Taliban. Their story concludes Throughline’s two-episode investigation on the past, present, and future of the country that was once called “the center of the world.”

NPR

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HUD Sells Flood-Prone Houses To Often Unsuspecting Buyers : NPR

But an NPR investigation finds that the homes HUD sells are disproportionately located in flood-prone places, compared with Zillow records of all homes sold in the United States. The agency does not fully disclose the potential costs and dangers of living in harm's way, and some of these transactions have happened as local governments are buying out properties in the same areas to mitigate flood risk.

Geo Maher’s ‘A World Without Police’ On Abolishing The Police : NPR

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Book Review: Geo Maher’s ‘A World Without Police’ On Abolishing The Police : NPR

Details that have come into focus after the attack on Capitol Hill on January 6 have made clear, Maher writes, just how the police and the violent far-right of this country blur together. Neither Ahmaud Arbery nor Trayvon Martin, among countless others, were killed by active police officers, but they were nonetheless killed by what Maher calls the "pig majority" — which includes not just police but their "volunteer deputies...the judges, the courts, the juries, and the grand juries... the mayors and the district attorneys who demand 'law and order'... the racist media apparatus that bends over backwards to turn victims into aggressors." As Tupac Shakur famously put it, the police is "the biggest gang in America," Maher contends.