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US Illegal Sanctions vs Cuba

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  Despite heavy US pressure this year, the annual condemnation of illegal US sanctions vs Cuba drew a massively lopsided vote Background The US government has imposed sanctions against Cuba ever since 1960, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower cut U.S. sugar imports from Cuba and banned most exports to the island, excepting food and medicine, after Cuba nationalized American oil refineries. Those were quickly added to in 1962, when   President John F. Kennedy proclaimed a formal, near-total trade embargo under the Trading with the Enemy Act, following the Bay of Pigs invasion (April, 1961) and the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis October, 1962). President Ronald Reagan added Cuba to the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism list, in 1982,  for its support of leftist groups in Central America and Africa. This prevented Cuba from accessing credit and loans in international financial markets, including financial assistance from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and ot...
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Roll Call - Riding the Blue Wave...

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Coming soon to Disneyland...err, Washington, DC The battle lines are being drawn. The Blue Wave to the rescue! Impeachment is finally on the table (again). Iran War funding will be cut off. Defund ICE. Etc. They can't remove Trump from office. The House can impeach him, but that's nothing more than an indictment. The trial takes place in the Senate. Conviction requires a 2/3 vote, or 67 out of 100. Democrats only have a maximum of 56. Trump can veto any budget, including one which lacks this or that funding. Then there will be an override vote, which will fail except as political theater/ Mouseketeer roll call . There will likely be huffing and puffing on both sides, raw meat for the two cults, and then some compromise (along with shifting the war, ICE funding, etc . elsewhere, still serving the same purposes). It's really just a matter of packaging to segmented markets. This pile of sh*t comes in a Red package. There's a cohort that just LOVES that Red package. This ...
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More on Gerrymandering...

Some relevant history from a Google AI query: Q.- What section of the us constitution regulates the configuration of congressional districts? A.- The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly use the word "district," but several key sections and federal laws govern how congressional districts are configured: • Article I, Section 2 (Apportionment Clause): Requires that House Representatives be chosen by the people and that seats be apportioned among the states based on population. Under Supreme Court rulings such as Wesberry v. Sanders (1964) and Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, this section mandates that congressional districts maintain substantially equal populations ("one person, one vote"). • Article I, Section 4 (Elections Clause): Gives state legislatures the primary authority to prescribe the "times, places and manner" of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, subject to oversight and regulations by Congress. • Federal Statutes (e.g., Uniform Con...
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Google AI: How the House of Representatives is Really Controlled

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Q.- What does "gerrymandered" mean? A.- Gerrymandering means manipulating the boundaries of an electoral district to give one political party, group, or incumbent an unfair advantage over its rivals. Common Strategies When politicians gerrymander a map, they typically use two primary methods: Packing: Cramming as many voters from the opposing party into a single district as possible to waste their excess votes, ensuring they only win that one seat by a landslide. [ 1 , 2 ] Cracking: Splitting the opposing party’s voters across multiple districts so they remain a minority in all of them, preventing them from winning any of those seats. (See, e.g., https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/gerrymandering-explained#:~:text=But%20when%20maps%20are%20gerrymandered%2C,at%20the%20polls%20shift%20dramatically.) Q.-  Is the House of Representatives gerrymandered? A.-  Yes, the U.S. House of Representatives is heavily shaped by partisan gerrymandering, where s...
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