An Interview with Jorge Alatorre from Mexico’s National Anti-Corruption System
From the disappearance of millions of dollars from public universities and hospitals, to former governors and even the former head of national security being accused by U.S. authorities of accepting million-dollar bribes from drug cartels, corruption in Mexico is an enormous problem. Over the last 23 years Mexico has fallen 92 places in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions ranking from the 38th least corrupt country in 1996 to the 130th least corrupt country in 2019.
As corruption has worsened, increasingly frustrated Mexicans have demanded change. Things came to a head in 2014 when a high-profile corruption scandal with the previous president and the disappearance of 43 teaching students led to massive protests in the streets. The public pressure helped Mexican civil society organizations push a constitutional reform they helped design through congress and into law in 2016, creating Mexico’s National Anti-Corruption System. The system is led by a Citizen Participation Committee, a group of 5 citizens from Mexican civil society tasked with coordinating anti-corruption efforts between 6 government agencies and institutions responsible for preventing, investigating and sanctioning corruption crimes. …
What polling averages can tell us about the moments that have shaped the race over the last 6 months.
Yesterday I was looking at the Real Clear Politics polling averages over the last six months of the Democratic primary, and I had the idea of trying to identify key moments in the race that have affected the candidates’ polling numbers over the last 6 months. What really stood out to me was how fluid this primary has been, where even seemingly minor events have helped shape a race that’s more about taking down Trump than a battle of policy ideas. Here are a few of my takeaways:
It’s All About Trump
Exit polling on Super Tuesday found that twice as many voters prioritized nominating a candidate that can defeat Donald Trump than one that agrees with them on the major issues. In September, a YouGov poll found Democratic voters favored electability at the same 2 to 1 margin. But while Democrats have long decided on the most important quality for their future nominee, they’ve been much more indecisive about which candidate owns that quality. …
Fear of infection makes people more conservative. That could spell trouble for both Sanders’ campaign and Democrats in November
An Epic Comeback
Just a week ago, media pundits were discussing whether Joe Biden’s run for the presidency was over. After a year as the race’s frontrunner, the Biden campaign was in freefall. According to Real Clear Politics’ (RCP) national polling average, Biden fell from 27.3% support nationally the day of his disappointing fourth-place finish at the Iowa caucus to 16.5% a week after his even more disappointing fifth-place finish in the New Hampshire primary.
Then, a dominant win in South Carolina on Saturday and a string of impressive victories on Tuesday revived his previously moribund campaign. …
Part 5 of “Everything I Learned from the Impeachment of Donald Trump.”
From “corporations are people my friend,” to the video of him oddly blowing out each individual candle on his twinkie birthday cake, Mitt Romney is normally a robotic, unemotional social and fiscal conservative. However, for 10 extraordinary minutes, the man who famously strapped his dog to his car roof and categorically dismissed 47% of Americans delivered a powerful, emotionally moving speech explaining his vote to convict Trump of abuse of power. …
Part 4 of “Everything I Learned from the Impeachment of Donald Trump”
“If right doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter how good the constitution is, it doesn’t matter how brilliant the framers were, it doesn’t matter how good or bad our advocacy is in this trial, it doesn’t matter how well written the oath of impartiality is, if right doesn’t matter we’re lost, if the truth doesn’t matter we’re lost. The framers cannot protect us from ourselves if right and truth don’t matter.”
Adam Schiff delivered that powerful message during his closing arguments at Trump’s Senate trial, and it perfectly describes the reality Vladimir Putin is trying to push us towards, a reality he’s already managed to create in his own country (check out the video below for a great NYT piece on the disinformation strategies Russia has weaponized over the last 50 years). …
Part 3 of “Everything I Learned from the Impeachment of Donald Trump”
As I followed the impeachment proceedings, I began to realize that Trump and his inner-circle were involved in a myriad of quid pro quos in Ukraine that show exactly the kind of transactional approach to foreign policy that Gordon Sondland characterized as Trump’s modus operandi, that Trump “is a businessman — when a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check.” …
Part 2 of my series “Everything I Learned from the Impeachment of Donald Trump”
In Part 1, I learned how to separate fact from fiction regarding Hunter Biden, Burisma, and Rudy Giuliani.
Today I’ll detail how two associates of Giuliani appear to have co-opted the former NYC mayor into a scheme that included removing the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovich, and how her removal and other aspects of the scheme appear to support Russian interests in Ukraine.
The two Giuliani associates, Ukrainian-American Lev Parnas and Belarusian-American Igor Fruman, carried out an influence campaign that reached the highest levels of the Republican Party, donating $675,000 in 2018 to at least 14 Republicans’ campaigns, money which the FBI alleges came from foreign sources. …
Part 1 of “Everything I Learned from the Impeachment of Donald Trump”
The year was 2014. Barack Obama was President, Donald Trump was merely a reality TV star with a history of dubious business ventures, and Obama’s “reset” in U.S.-Russian relations had achieved some positive cooperation — a new nuclear arms treaty, U.S. support of Russia’s inclusion into the World Trade Organization, and the strengthening of sanctions on Iran — and yet the positives had given way to renewed tensions: Vladimir Putin accused Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of meddling in Russian politics when she questioned the fairness of the 2012 elections that brought Putin back to Russia’s presidency. Overall though, things appeared relatively normal. There were no sanctions on Russia and no outright conflict. …
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