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Ahmadinejad Returning To New York!
LGF is reporting via Drudge that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is making a return trip to NYC. The dictator plans on attending the U.N. General Assembly like he did last year. This will mark his third trip to New York since 2005.
You just gotta love the fact that Ahmadinejad can give the middle digit to the entire International community, then swagger around NYC at the U.N. General Assembly.
Although as LGF points out, this will provide an excellent opportunity for Obama to get some face time with our bitter enemy. After the U.N. concludes, Obama and Mahmoud should head over to Spark’s Steakhouse and grab a meal.
African Union Gives Hero’s Welcome To Mugabe
The continent of Africa has once again proven that it’s just as corrupt as ever. Just hours after taking office again (’taking’ in the literal sense) Robert Mugabe traveled to the African Union Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh where he should have been shunned.
Instead he was hugged and kissed warmly by his fellow African dictators and treated like a hero. Only veiled references to the violence, intimidation, and murder, that has gripped Zimbabwe in the wake of Mugabe’s power grab were made.
Until African nations begin to take a stand against corruption and bloodshed and demand democracy and diplomacy, the continent of Africa will remain a place synanamous with poverty and misery.
Putin’s Opponent Barred From Upcoming Presidential Election
From Washington Post:
Former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, a political opponent of President Vladimir Putin, was barred Sunday from running for president after the Central Election Commission said it had found tens of thousands of forged signatures among the 2 million gathered by his campaign to get his name on the ballot.
Opinion polls indicated that Kasyanov posed no political threat to Putin’s chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev, the overwhelming favorite in the March 2 vote, and his disqualification will immediately raise questions about the Kremlin’s willingness to face any competition or debate. As a candidate, Kasyanov would have enjoyed some access to state-controlled national television stations, which rarely mention him and then only to attack him as corrupt or declare him irrelevant.
Kasyanov alleged that the commission’s decision was “made personally by Vladimir Putin,” who fired him in 2004.
During Stalin’s reign if you did something the Kremlin didn’t like you would have immediately been arrested and sent to the gulags and likely killed.
In the Russia of 2008 it’s a different kind of tyranny. Putin uses the legal system to bring down opponents through a Kangaroo court system and completely fictitious cases.
-Chris Jones
Putin Continues to Chip Away At Democracy
Left-wing critics of the Bush Administration love to howl about how the President is rolling back our freedoms and trying to create a “fascist” government.
People who are even remotely connected with reality know that’s complete nonsense. However, what’s happening in Putin’s Russia is very real.
Vladimir Putin actually is rolling back freedoms. The Kremlin has near complete control over who can run for office in Russia. The next President of Russia when Putin steps down will be someone he chooses as his replacement. There are opposition candidates running, but it’s really not possible for them to actually win.
Opposition candidates also run the very real risk of being killed by the FSB formerly known as the KGB, as do journalists, businessmen, or anyone else that offends the Putin.
The NY Times is reporting today that Putin’s latest anti-democratic power grab involves clamping down on election observers.
The Kremlin aims to curtail the activities of election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe — just in time for Russia’s December parliamentary elections and March presidential election.
President Vladimir Putin is not trying to bar the observers altogether; that would be too obvious. What he wants is to cut the size of the monitoring missions and stop them from immediately releasing their reports, thus diminishing their impact.
What President Putin is doing is what rolling back Democracy actually looks like, not anything President Bush is doing. As long as liberals can go on TV and call the President a liar and a war criminal and not end up dead, then I think America is still pretty damn free.
-Chris Jones
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