USA: Republicans are quietly rigging election maps to ensure permanent rule - by David Pepper

The long-term health of American democracy is in peril, to a degree far worse than people imagine. But not where most people are looking.

While many eyes go to Washington DC or Mar-a-Lago, the attack on democracy is actually most concentrated and coordinated in state capitals. Whether it’s gerrymandering or voter suppression or attacks on offices that provide needed checks and balances – the states have become widely undemocratic. As I outline in my book Laboratories of Autocracy, the consequences of this anti-democratic movement are only getting worse.

Read more at: Republicans are quietly rigging election maps to ensure permanent rule | David Pepper | The Guardian

Wall Street: The Coin of the Realm: How Inside Traders Are Rigging America - by Robert Reich

A few years ago, hedge fund Level Global Investors made $54 million selling Dell Computer stock based on insider information from a Dell employee. When charged with illegal insider trading, Global Investors' co-founder Anthony Chiasson claimed he didn't know where the tip came from.

Chiasson argued that few traders on Wall Street ever know where the inside tips they use come from because confidential information is, in his words, the "coin of the realm in securities markets."

Last week the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which oversees federal prosecutions of Wall Street, agreed. It overturned Chiasson's conviction, citing lack of evidence Chiasson received the tip directly, or knew insiders were leaking confidential information in exchange for some personal benefit.

The Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 banned insider trading but left it up to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the courts to define it. Which they have - in recent decades so broadly that confidential information is indeed the coin of the realm.

Read more: The Coin of the Realm: How Inside Traders Are Rigging America | Robert Reich

Ukraine: As vote held in Ukraine's Crimea, allegations of poll rigging, intimidation - by Pamela Constable

Officials in the Crimean capital tried with mixed success Saturday to put a professional face on arrangements for the hastily planned referendum on joining Russia, and they shifted the tone of their message from overtly pro-Russian propaganda to messages and events that stressed the democratic legitimacy of the poll.
 
Jumbotron broadcasts that had been touting the glories of life in Russia all week switched to more neutral messages that called on voters to "defend Crimea" against the threat of Nazism by participating in the poll. Pictures of German World War II helmets were juxtaposed with happy images of children, flowers and butterflies.

Several people within earshot of the broadcasts said that they thought the Nazi threat was being overdone but that they planned to vote to be reunited with Russia in any case. A carpenter had constructed a long banner that passersby were signing with phrases such as "We are not anyone's puppets, we are Titans!" and "NATO go to hell!"
 
Read more: As vote held in Ukraine's Crimea, allegations of poll rigging, intimidation - Today's Zaman, your gateway to Turkish daily news