US presidential election system should be changed to empower third party candidates, former congressman says

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Updated 05 September 2024
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US presidential election system should be changed to empower third party candidates, former congressman says

US presidential election system should be changed to empower third party candidates, former congressman says

CHICAGO: Former Chicago Congressman Bill Lipinski, who represented one of the largest concentrations of Arab and Muslim voters in the US, argued that American voters should not take the role of third-party candidates for granted.

A conservative Democrat who represented the third and later redistricted fifth congressional district in Chicago and the suburbs, Lipinski said it is extremely difficult for a third-party candidate to win, but they can force a presidential election into unforeseen results.

In an interview on The Ray Hanania Radio Show, to be broadcast Thursday Sept. 5, Lipinski said historically third-party candidates have denied victory to several major party candidates.

At least four instances in past elections were decided by the presence of popular third-party candidates who were also running for president. They include: Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 undermining the re-election of President William Howard Taft; Ross Perot undermining the re-election of George H.W. Bush to Bill Clinton in 1992; Ralph Nader undermining the election of Al Gore to George W. Bush in 2000; and Dr. Jill Stein undermining the election of Hillary Clinton to Donald J. Trump in 2016.


Given today’s polarized, emotion-driven politics, Lipinski argued that the American election system should be changed to accommodate third-party candidates.

“At times I would like to see a third party. There are other times when I think two parties. In another time in another place, two parties were sufficient. Today, I don’t believe that’s the case. Today, I would really like to see a third party because, unfortunately, the Republicans are controlled to a great extent nowadays by their extreme right wing, the Democrats, by their extreme left wing. That’s not good for the parties, I don’t think. Nor is it good for the country,” Lipinski said, noting that the moderates or centrists are “blocked out” by both parties.

Stein is currently running with the Green Party, and is attracting significant votes from Democratic minority constituencies of Arabs, Muslims and progressives who are angry with the reluctance of Democrat candidate Kamala Harris to force Israel’s government to end its “genocide” of Palestinians in Gaza.

Lipinski blamed the polarization and heightened voter emotion on former President Donald Trump, saying he shifted politics from issues to personalities.

He said that the influence of third-party candidates “can’t be taken for granted” in the election and that there is a misconception among many that the presidential election is decided by who gets the largest “popular vote.”

“This is not a democracy, it’s a republic. Now there is a slight difference between those two, but there is a difference. If no candidate receives the 270 votes necessary, electoral votes, that is, to be elected president, that it goes into the House of Representatives,” Lipinski said, noting that a third-party candidate has never won the election but could affect an election significantly.

Democracy, according to Mariam Webster dictionary, means the direct influence of the people (voters) in the selection of their government, while “Republic” means a process in which government decides what’s in the best interests of the people.

“In 2000, Al Gore would have been the president of the United States if he had won Florida, and he would’ve won Florida if the Green Party had not taken over 100,000 votes.”

American presidential elections are decided instead by the Electoral College Vote which is a system of 538 votes divided among each of the country’s 50 states plus Washington D.C., based on their voter population size. To win the presidency, a candidate must win at least 270 ECV to become president. Lipinski noted that in at least two elections, the losing candidate won the popular vote in the country, but lost the ECV. Those were in 2000 with Gore losing to Bush and in 2016 with Hillary Clinton losing to Trump.

In 2000, Bush won the election by winning the larger number of ECV, Lipinski noted. But Bush received more than 500,000 votes fewer than Gore. Bush had 50,455,156 or 47.87 percent of the total votes and Gore received 50,992,335, which was 48.38 percent. Nader, with the Green party, won 2,882,897 votes in the election causing Gore to lose Florida’s ECV to Bush.

Lipinski said he could not predict who will win the election, and acknowledged that Stein’s candidacy will have an effect, mainly on the Democratic party.

“She praises Joe (Biden) in a general way, but on specific issues. She’s starting to distance herself somewhat from him … She is much more today a centrist candidate than she has ever been before,” Lipinski said, noting Biden was more of a far left “progressive” during this election than he was in the past 40 as a “centrist Democrat” US Senator.

“What has happened with Harris. She’s been a progressive Democrat, going back to when she was the state’s attorney in San Francisco County, and then she was attorney general in California, a US senator. She was very progressive, very much a progressive Democrat. Now that she’s the Democratic nominee for president, she is slowly marching towards the center. It just goes to show you how much real consistency political people in this country have at the present time. Whatever it takes. That is their motto.”

Lipinski acknowledged there was more cooperation between the Republican and Democratic parties in the past, but we don’t see much of that today.

“Once the election is over, we need to have cooperation between the two parties “Republican and Democratic),” Lipinski said, noting Clinton and Gingrich coming together to balance the budget which was the first time since the Second World War.

Lipinski said that in the event that no candidate receives 270 ECV, the contest would go to the US House of Representatives where each of the country’s 50 states would get one vote based on which party had the most members in Congress. The Senate would decide the vice presidential contest in a different way, with each senator casting a vote.

You can listen to the entire interview with former Congressman Bill Lipinski on Thursday Sept. 5 at 5 p.m. EST and again on Monday Sept. 9 on WNZK AM 690 radio in Michigan, or by going online at https://ArabNews.com/RayRadioShow.


French PM lays out plan for stricter immigration policy

French PM lays out plan for stricter immigration policy
Updated 4 sec ago
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French PM lays out plan for stricter immigration policy

French PM lays out plan for stricter immigration policy
“We no longer have satisfactory control over our migration policy,” Barnier said
“As a result, no longer are we meeting our integration objectives in a satisfactory manner“

PARIS: French Prime Minister Michel Barnier on Tuesday said that France needed a stricter immigration and integration policy as he laid out his government priorities to parliament.
The conservative premier’s plan to tighten immigration policies and border controls is emblematic of the rightward shift in French politics following this summer’s legislative elections that resulted in a hung parliament.
“We no longer have satisfactory control over our migration policy,” Barnier said.
“As a result, no longer are we meeting our integration objectives in a satisfactory manner,” the 73-year-old told French parliament’s lower house, the National Assembly.
France has a long tradition of welcoming refugees and immigrants.
But a rise in the number of asylum seekers, a chronic affordable housing shortage and a cost-of-living crisis have worsened social tensions.
Speaking in parliament, Barnier vowed to be “ruthless” with people-traffickers, who he said “exploit misery and despair” and encourage migrants to illegally cross the Channel and the Mediterranean.
“We also want to better control our borders,” Barnier added, citing the example of Germany, which has recently tightened controls in response to several suspected Islamist attacks.
“For as long as necessary, France will continue to re-establish controls at its own borders, as permitted by European rules and as Germany has just done,” Barnier said.
By introducing tougher policies, France would be able to “integrate those we choose to welcome into our country in a proper and dignified manner,” the prime minister added.
Barnier delivered his speech following the recent rape and murder of a 19-year-old Paris student, which has further inflamed French debate on immigration after a Moroccan was named as the suspected attacker.
Prosecutors have said the 22-year-old suspect had been the subject of an expulsion order, while France’s far right has been accused of seeking to exploit the tragedy.
The prime minister said his government would seek to facilitate “the exceptional extension” of a detention period for undocumented migrants in order to better enforce expulsion orders.
“We issue more than 100,000 orders to leave the country, but tens of thousands of illegal immigrants remain on our territory,” Barnier added.
France routinely issues deportation orders, but only around seven percent of them are enforced, compared to 30 percent across the European Union.
Barnier on Tuesday said that the hot-button issue should be approached with humanity.
“Immigration is an issue that we must look at with lucidity and confront with pragmatism,” he added.
Every year, France receives more than 150,000 asylum applications and two-thirds are rejected, Barnier said, adding he wanted the government to process such requests more quickly.
Critics have accused Barnier of pandering to Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party, which could decide the fate of his minority government.
Last December, France passed a controversial immigration law.
The bill was hardened to gain the support of the RN and other right-wing MPs.
But the country’s highest constitutional authority censured most of the new amendments which were dropped before President Emmanuel Macron signed it into law.
On Tuesday, Le Pen said she wanted Barnier’s government to draft a “restrictive” new immigration law that would include measures previously struck down by the Constitutional Council.
“We will remain the tireless and vigilant guardians of the interests of France and the French people,” Le Pen, who hopes to succeed Macron in a 2027 election, said in parliament.

‘Everything black’: Russian strike kills six at Kherson market

‘Everything black’: Russian strike kills six at Kherson market
Updated 01 October 2024
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‘Everything black’: Russian strike kills six at Kherson market

‘Everything black’: Russian strike kills six at Kherson market
  • Deadly strikes are frequent and locals live on edge
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Ukraine abandon the entire Kherson region

KHERSON, Ukraine: When Russian artillery pounded a market in southern Ukraine on Tuesday, a safe was blown from the windowsill of the pharmacy where Anya works, hitting her in the head.
She believes it was a stroke of luck.
“The safe hit me and saved me at the same time, because on the other side of the safe there were a lot of holes,” she told AFP, suggesting the metal box had shielded her from other projectiles that had been blasted toward her.
Six people were killed by the Russian strike, which hit a market in the city of Kherson around 9:00 am (0600 GMT), according to the regional prosecutor’s office.
It was the latest attack on a city that has borne the brunt of Moscow’s war for more than two and a half years.
Captured in the first weeks of the invasion in early 2022, residents that stayed there spent more than eight months living under Russian occupation.
In September 2022, Moscow claimed to have annexed the entire Kherson region, despite not having full control over it.
Facing military setbacks and stretched resources, it then withdrew its forces from Kherson city, the regional capital, in November 2022, retreating across the Dnipro river.
The waterway now serves as a de facto front line snaking through southern Ukraine — one that puts Kherson well within reach of Russian artillery stationed on the opposite bank.
Deadly strikes are frequent and locals live on edge.
“Everything happened very quickly. We didn’t understand anything. We only heard an explosion. It went dark, there was dust and something hit me on the head,” said Anya, recalling the blast.
She had stuck a plaster to her forehead where the safe had struck her.
When an AFP video journalist arrived at the market after the strike, debris and broken glass were strewn across the ground and pools of blood were congealing under the autumn sun.
Crates of fruit and vegetables lay on the pavement, abandoned as their sellers fled for cover.
“All those people who suffered, they worked here,” Anya told AFP. “They were our clients, people we knew.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Ukraine abandon the entire Kherson region — as well as parts of Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Lugansk that Ukraine still controls — as a precondition to peace talks
Kherson local Gennady was in a hardware kiosk when the artillery hit.
“I didn’t even notice I’d fallen to the floor,” he told AFP.
“Everything here was black. And what was outside — I was afraid to go out.”


Indian doctors resume strike over colleague’s rape and murder

Indian doctors resume strike over colleague’s rape and murder
Updated 01 October 2024
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Indian doctors resume strike over colleague’s rape and murder

Indian doctors resume strike over colleague’s rape and murder
  • The discovery of the 31-year-old’s bloodied body at a state-run hospital in August rekindled nationwide anger at the chronic issue of violence against women
  • Protesting Indian doctors had briefly returned to limited work in emergency departments last month but later decided at a union meeting to cease work again

KOLKATA: Indian doctors in Kolkata said on Tuesday they had resumed a strike to protest against the brutal rape and murder of a colleague because their demands for hospital safety improvements had not been met.
The discovery of the 31-year-old’s bloodied body at a state-run hospital in the eastern city in August rekindled nationwide anger at the chronic issue of violence against women.
Doctors briefly returned to limited work in emergency departments last month but decided at a union meeting to cease work again.
Union spokesman Aniket Mahato said the West Bengal state government had failed to deliver on its promises to upgrade lighting, CCTV cameras and other security measures in hospitals.
“The state government has failed to provide safety and security in the workplace,” he told AFP.
Mahato said doctors would return to the streets on Tuesday night to insist the government meet its pledges and to demand justice for their murdered colleague.
Tens of thousands of ordinary Indians joined in the protests following the August attack, which focused anger on the lack of measures for female doctors to work without fear.
One man has been detained over the murder but the West Bengal government has faced public criticism for its handling of the investigation.
Authorities sacked the city’s police chief and top health ministry officials.
India’s Supreme Court ordered a national task force last month to examine how to bolster security for health care workers, saying the brutality of the killing had “shocked the conscience of the nation.”
The gruesome nature of the attack drew comparisons with the 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus, which also sparked weeks of nationwide protests.


Kashmir votes in final round of regional polls as Modi promises statehood

Kashmir votes in final round of regional polls as Modi promises statehood
Updated 01 October 2024
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Kashmir votes in final round of regional polls as Modi promises statehood

Kashmir votes in final round of regional polls as Modi promises statehood
  • Modi’s government scrapped Kashmir’s autonomy and statehood in 2019
  • He promised to restore it during election campaign in the region last month

NEW DELHI: Voters in Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir went to the polls on Tuesday in the final round of local elections, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to restore the region’s statehood.

Modi’s government brought Kashmir under New Delhi’s direct control in 2019, after it repealed Article 370 of the constitution — which granted the region its semi-autonomy — and downgraded it from a state to a federally administrated territory.

The three-phase polls that started last month are the first in this political setting.

The election has been held in three stages from Sept. 18 to choose a 90-member local assembly. The result will be announced next week.

More than 9 million Kashmiris were registered to vote. In the first phase, the turnout was in excess of 61 percent, and in the second, 57 percent — relatively high for the region traditionally known for boycotting elections.

“The motivation is that the people want their statehood back,” Subhash Chandra Sharma, and advocate in Jammu, which was the last area to cast ballot votes, told Arab News.

“There is a strong resentment among the people that Article 370 was wrongly abrogated. Jammu people are feeling the pinch of losing the special constitutional status.”

Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir is part of the larger Kashmiri territory, which has been the subject of international dispute since the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.

Both countries claim Kashmir in full and rule in part. The Indian-controlled region is predominantly Muslim and has for decades witnessed outbreaks of separatist insurgencies to resist control from the government in New Delhi.

After the scrapping of Kashmir’s autonomy and statehood, a series of administrative changes followed, with the Indian government removing protections on land and jobs for the local population, which many likened to attempts at demographically altering the region.

The promise to restore the statehood was given by Modi last month as he visited Kashmir’s main city, Srinagar, to campaign for his party in the local election. He said that he has pledged in parliament that “Jammu and Kashmir will again be a state” and that only his Bharatiya Janata Party “will fulfill this commitment.”

Kashmir has been without a local government since 2018 when Modi’s Hindu-nationalist party brought down a coalition government elected in 2014, forcing the assembly to dissolve.

“So far, as the voting is concerned, I feel the BJP will not perform well in the Kashmir region and even in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region their performance would go down,” Sharma said.

Qazi Insha Shakeel, a homemaker, also from Jammu, said that people “feel the loss” of their region’s special status and statehood.

“If we elect our leader, then that leader without power would be meaningless,” she told Arab News. “Statehood is important to restore the power of the elected representatives so that they can address our grievances.”

For others, such as Aijaz Ahmad, a business professional from Srinagar, the election also meant a chance for the regain part of its agency.

“(To) vote is the only option for us to save our dignity,” he said.

“Without statehood, our elected representatives are powerless, and this election will hold no meaning.”


Former US president Jimmy Carter turns 100

Former US president Jimmy Carter turns 100
Updated 01 October 2024
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Former US president Jimmy Carter turns 100

Former US president Jimmy Carter turns 100
  • No longer regularly appearing in public, the Democratic ex-president will spend his birthday in the home he and his late wife Rosalynn had built in Plains in the 1960s
  • President Joe Biden, in a video posted on his official X account, hailed Carter as a “beloved friend” and “one of the most influential statesmen” in US history

PLAINS, United States: Jimmy Carter celebrated his 100th birthday on Tuesday — the first ever US president to reach the century mark and another extraordinary milestone for the one-time peanut farmer who found his way to the White House.
Carter’s longevity — he began hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia, more than 19 months ago — has defied all expectations.
No longer regularly appearing in public, the Democratic ex-president will spend his birthday in the home he and his late wife Rosalynn had built in Plains in the 1960s.
It will include a lunch with some 20 members of his extended family, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
President Joe Biden, in a video posted on his official X account, hailed Carter as a “beloved friend” and “one of the most influential statesmen” in US history.
“Your hopeful vision of our country, your commitment to a better world and your unwavering belief in the power of human goodness continues to be a guiding light for all of us,” he said.
First Lady Jill Biden’s office said a display would be set up on the White House lawn with the message “Happy Birthday President Carter.”
Beyond serving as president for a single term from 1977 to 1981, Carter worked as a global mediator, rights activist and elder statesman, founding the well-respected Carter Center in 1982 to pursue his vision of world diplomacy.
His presidency included the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, establishment of diplomatic relations with China following a rapprochement initiated by president Richard Nixon, and return of control of the Panama Canal to Panama.
But his administration hit numerous snags, including the Iran hostage crisis and a renewed oil crisis in 1979-1980, which saw Ronald Regan sweep into power in a landslide.
“We are thrilled that the president from this little town is going to be the only president to ever live to be 100 years old,” Jill Stuckey, superintendent of the National Park Service’s Jimmy Carter historical site and longtime family friend, told AFP.
She spoke from Plains High School, where Carter graduated in 1941 and which now serves as the visitor center for the national park that features sites from his early life, including the nearby peanut farm where he grew up.
On Tuesday, the school will hold an evening concert and also a naturalization ceremony for 100 new US citizens.
A devout Baptist and self-described “born-again” Christian, Carter is remembered for a moralistic streak, but also his civility, admired even by detractors across the aisle.
“Healthy habits and his faith are a lot of the reasons why he is still with it today,” Stuckey said, referencing Carter’s penchant for fresh food and exercise.
According to family, Carter remains keenly interested in politics and was highly motivated to make it to 100 and to vote in the November election for fellow Democrat Kamala Harris.
“He will be voting by mail-in ballot,” Stuckey told AFP, adding “he’s always been very politically active, and nothing has changed with that respect.”
In Plains, like in many rural places with strong evangelical Christian leanings, far more yard signs support Republican Donald Trump than Harris.
But it is also not uncommon to see a sign celebrating Carter’s centennial birthday next to one supporting Trump.
Carl Lowell, who has lived in Plains since infancy, said he tries not to get involved in politics because it is “so divisive” right now.
Like most residents of Plains, the 59-year-old retired firefighter is linked to Carter in various ways — he says his grandfather helped build the Carters’ house and that he himself even went dove hunting with him once.
“Jimmy’s a good man, he’s a godly man, and that’s what people like about him,” he said.