ITALY’S late dictator, Benito Mussolini, once denied it was difficult to govern the Italians, adding “It is simply pointless.” But what if it were impossible?
The question is posed by a new electoral law, approved by the Senate on October 26th after a stormy passage through parliament. About a third of the members of both houses of parliament will be elected on a first-past-the-post basis; the remainder by proportional representation. Only parties that win more than 3%, and electoral alliances that get more than 10%, of the national vote will be admitted to parliament.
The law harmonises the rules for the Senate and the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies. But it fails to resolve a problem at the heart of Italian politics since the last general election in 2013: a party with a quarter of the vote, Beppe Grillo’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), has so far refused to ally with any of the others. That means that every government since has been an...Continue reading
Souce: Europe http://ift.tt/2zmI4tI
AMERICAN politics has a new rhythm: the president does something outrageous; lawsuits fly; a judge stops the new policy in its tracks. The ban on travel from Muslim countries came first, halted within hours of its appearance at the end of January. The second and third versions of the travel ban have been frozen too, though version 2.0 escaped full Supreme Court review when it expired earlier this month. The White House’s attempts to punish sanctuary cities for refusing to cooperate on immigration enforcement have also been halted by federal judges—three times. Now Donald Trump’s ban on transgender troops—a policy he announced in a series of tweets over the summer—has been dealt a significant legal blow.
On July 26th, Mr Trump tweeted that the government will no longer “accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the US military”. Why this reversal of an Obama-era policy opening the armed services to transgender people? “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory”, Mr...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2zT8qzE
CALL it the “Al Capone trap”. Ever since the authorities used tax evasion charges to jail the notorious Chicago crime boss in 1931, the idea has taken hold that federal prosecutors work a bit like legal vigilantes: using any weapon that comes to hand to achieve their sworn mission, which is always to take down the biggest bad guys they can, by any means necessary.
That is not how Robert Mueller, the lantern-jawed special counsel and former FBI chief, sees his mission, say well-informed former federal prosecutors. Mr Mueller’s mission is not to topple President Donald Trump and claim a political scalp. Mr Mueller’s—deadly serious—mission is to investigate Russian government efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, and whether there was any coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign in those efforts. There is an important difference between those two possible missions, even if they may end in a similar place, namely grave political jeopardy for the 45th president.
That distinction should...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2iNBMMF