A Beginner's Tour of the Elections: Money, the Tea Party, and the House of Representatives

In an a normal election cycle, contests for the House of Representatives do not receive as much attention as races in the Senate. Representatives are elected every two years, with the possibility they may be defeated after a short period of time in Congress. They also possess little influence, when first elected, as power resides in the hands of the party leadership. As a consequence, campaign financers regard a Senatorial election as giving them a better return for their investment. Senators hold office for six years, and even the most junior member holds a significant ability to affect the proceedings in the upper chamber.

But this is not a normal year, and the story that is emerging alongside the partisan differences in the outlook of candidates is the astounding sums of money that are being spent on House elections. According to your personal opinion of how political business should be conducted, this is either a good development or a dangerous precedent.

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Israel: On the Verge of Discussing "US War Crimes"

On Wednesday, the secretariat of Israel's parliament, the Knesset, changed the title of a motion considering US military documents soon to be released by the website WikiLeaks. The initial proposal, n "U.S. War Crimes", was put forward by a right-wing MK Michael Ben-Ari.

Any guess about who stood up against this proposal? Full marks if you said Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon:

I don't know if you did this to be defiant or teasing or maybe even just out of black humor. I just have no other way of looking at this.

In Jerusalem, in the Israeli house of legislation, this is how we present something like this?. This is terrible, and not just from a utilitarian perspective. The fact that the U.S. is our best and strongest friend cannot be appealed.

MK Ben-Ari, I completely appreciate your parliamentary abilities, but you are almost wasting a motion for the agenda.

Had you said "Al-Qaida war criminals", I would have understood. Had you said "the report that emerged, that was leaked", I would understand. But "U.S. war crimes"?

Israel Counterpoint: To Weaken Hamas, Open Gaza's Gates (Haas)

Do you really want to weaken Hamas? Surprise it. Go back and open Gaza's gates - to ordinary human movement, not just to cherries, shavers and a handful of pious Muslims who manage to wend their way past the Egyptian bureaucracy. Open the Erez checkpoint. Then you'll see how Gazans yearn for life. 

Let young people study outside the Gaza Strip. Despite the exasperating presence of Israel's foreign rule, in the Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank those young people will encounter a form of diversity that is becoming extinct in Gaza. They will discover that such diversity is better than the monolithic reality imposed by Israel's siege and messianic politics. Allow female pupils and female teachers to tour their land and see that the world is more complicated than brainwashing television programs and competitions to obtain relief packages. Consider this: Diplomats report that most Hamas summer camps in Gaza have been closed; most children preferred camps operated by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

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China This Week: 11th Five-Year Plan; Sino-US Judicial Cooperation; Beijing on Iran and Israel

The Next Five-Year Plan:  China must make "major breakthroughs" in economic restructuring and maintain stable and relatively fast economic growth, as well as advance "vigorous but steady" political reform, Communist Party leaders have said.

Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Central Committee, delivered a report at the four-day Fifth Plenary Session of the 17th Communist Party Central Committee. The meeting examined and approved proposals for formulating the nation's next Five-Year Plan, commencing in 2011.

Navigation in South China Sea: A high-ranking Chinese military officer has responded to Washington's demand for more involvement in the South China Sea, saying that freedom of navigation is never a problem in that region.

"We believe the situation in the region is stable and all the passing ships and planes have a sufficient amount of freedom and security," Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of general staff of the People's Liberation Army, said at a security forum on Friday.

Ma's remarks came two weeks after US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that the US has a stake in disputes in the area because of international commerce.

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An EA Tribute: RIP Paul the Octopus, Psychic and Friend of the Green Movement

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From EA on 11 July 2010:

The ever-vigilant German Bureau notes that there is a political pay-off in the latest developments with Paul the Octopus. For Paul has not confined himself to sporting forecasts. This week he was placed before photographs of Iran's Supreme Leader on one side and opposition figure Mir Hossein Mousavi on the other. The outcome....

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Afghanistan Corrected: US Officials "Did We Say Victory? We May Have Exaggerated."

Was it really only 11 days ago that Carlotta Gall of The New York Times, fed the line by the US military, was declaring that the Taliban had been "routed" and that high-profile pundits like Slate's Fred Kaplan were effusive about the superiority of US intelligence and rockets?

Was it only this past weekend that General David Petraeus, the US commander in Afghanistan, was proclaiming a key victory in southern Afghanistan?

Oops.

This from Greg Miller in today's Washington Post:

An intense military campaign aimed at crippling the Taliban has so far failed to inflict more than fleeting setbacks on the insurgency or put meaningful pressure on its leaders to seek peace, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials citing the latest assessments of the war in Afghanistan.

Escalated airstrikes and special operations raids have disrupted Taliban movements and damaged local cells. But officials said that insurgents have been adept at absorbing the blows and that they appear confident that they can outlast an American troop buildup set to subside beginning next July.

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EA on the Road: Studying Obama in The Netherlands

We'll be speaking and participating in "The Obama Effect" conference at the Roosevelt Center in Middelburg in The Netherlands from Wednesday to Friday. Ali Yenidunya and Mike Dunn will be watching the shop, but features may be lighter than normal. 

In the meantime, continued thanks to readers who make EA Worldview "The Best Little Website on the World in the World".

The Latest from Iran (27 October): In Transit

2130 GMT: Corruption Watch. According to Peyke Iran, former Minister of Interior Mostafa Pourmohammadi has said that, on behalf of the Supreme Leader, consideration of some files of economic fraud has been postponed.

2115 GMT: Rafsanjani vs. the Islamic Republic? Hossein Salami, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guard, has declared that if Islamic values disintegrate, Iran will proceed to a collapse.

So who could pose such a threat to Islamic values? Khabar Online has an intriguing reference: the arrest of sedition leaders was discussed in the National Security Council, but President Ahmadinejad did not present documents for his allegations against former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

2045 GMT: The Khamenei Roadshow. So what did the Supreme Leader do on the 9th day of his stay in Qom?

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A Beginner's Tour of the US Elections: The Power of the House of Representatives

Presently in the House, there are 255 Democrats, 178 Republicans, with 2 vacancies. These numbers, however, are set to drastically change in November. Real Clear Politics’ latest predictions give Republicans 222 likely or certain seats, Democrats 177, and 36 races are still too close to call.

There are widely divergent estimates as to how many seats Republicans will gain in the mid-terms, ranging from less than 40 --- made by Democrats still clinging to the hope they will retain a majority --- to the extremely optimistic claim of the Tea Party Express that Republicans can pick up 102 seats. But, partisan predictions aside, it is looking increasingly likely that the GOP will win enough contests to become the new majority party in the House. And because of the different rules that pertain to House procedures compared to those that apply to the Senate, a majority in the lower chamber is a much more potent weapon for a party opposed to the administration.

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Iran Witness: The Small Exchanges of Currency and Politics (Persian Umpire)

UPDATE 1400 GMT: An EA correspondent comments:

My personal experience contradicts this account completely. I sent several hundred pounds last week to my business partner in Tehran, via my usual route - a money exchange operator working out of an officially registered office in central London. I paid cash on Friday, money was in the business partner's account in Tehran the next morning. The profit made by the exchange was agreeable --- the rate quoted was only 22 tomans lower than the Central Bank one per pound.

In short, there might be restrictions and problems in money transactions, but it is not yet as categorical as what Umpire is saying.

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Persian Umpire writes from Tehran:

I paid a visit to a pawnshop this week. That’s one effect sanctions have on the lives of ordinary people. Fortunately, my trip wasn’t for pawning anything, although such a day may just be around the corner, but it was the end of a long quest to find a way to get paid by a foreign client.

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