U.S. Government

The framers of the U.S. Constitution created the Electoral College as a result of a compromise for the presidential election process. During the debate, some delegates felt that a direct popular election would lead to the election of each state's favorite son and none would emerge with sufficient popular majority to govern the country. Other delegates felt that giving Congress the power to select the president would deny the people their right to choose. After all, the people voted for their representatives to the federal legislature. The compromise was to set up an Electoral College system that allowed voters to vote for electors, who would then cast their votes for candidates, a system described in Article II, section 1 of the Constitution.

Each State is allocated a number of Electors equal to the number of its U.S. Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representatives (which may change each decade according to the size of each State's population as determined in the Census).

Whichever party slate wins the most popular votes in the State becomes that State's Electors-so that, in effect, whichever presidential ticket gets the most popular votes in a State wins all the Electors of that State.

2008 Democratic Presidential ticket Barack Obama and Joe Biden will pay their respects to Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones at a memorial service downtown on Saturday. The service will be held at Public Hall from 11 am to 1. Tubbs Jones, who played an integral role for Hillary Clinton during the primary season, died of a brain aneurysm on Wednesday.

Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the congressional representative for Ohio's 11th district, was hospitalized Tuesday evening and remained unconscious Wednesday at Huron Hospital in the Cleveland area. Her car veered off the road Tuesday evening, where police found her unconscious behind the wheel.

A spokesman for the hospital said that family members requested that no other information on Tubbs Jones be released, and a spokesman for the Democrat said that she has "no information" about the accident "at this time."

Tubbs Jones, 58, was the first black woman to represent Ohio in Congress when she was elected in 1998. She is currently serving in her fifth term in Congress, where she is the chairwoman of the House Ethics Committee.

Tubbs Jones was also one of Hillary Clinton's biggest supporters during the Democratic primaries. She is set to be a superdelegate at the Democratic national Convention in Denver next week. She shifted her support to Barack Obama after Clinton dropped out of the race.

The secret is out. This week the United States' National Archives released all of the names and previously classified files identifying nearly 24,000 spies that formed the US's first centralized intelligence effort. Amongst some of the more famous names on the list of spies are famed chef Julia Child, Chicago White Sox catcher Moe Berg, and Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldburg.

Those famous names served in an international spy ring which was managed by the Office of Stragetic Services (OSS), which was an early version of the CIA created during World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. For the first time, the National Archives released the names found in the records, which include 750,000 pages that identify the huge network of military and civilian operatives.

There were people of all professions on the list - soldiers, athletes, lawyers, actors, reporters, historians, etc. - but for a few years they worked together under the OSS where they studied military plans, infiltrated enemy ranks, and created propaganda.

President George W. Bush has approved the death sentence of Ronald A. Gray, an American army soldier convicted of murder and rape. In doing so, Bush becomes the first president to approve a military execution in 51 years.

Gray, a former army cook, has been sitting on death row since 1988 when he was convicted by a court martial panel. In the United States, military courts require the commander-in-chief's signature of approval in order to approve a death sentence.

Bush approved the request this week, signing an order from the Oval Office.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement Monday:

"President Bush this morning accepted the recommendation of the Secretary of the Army to approve a sentence of death for army private Ronald A. Gray, affirming the sentence that resulted from a general court martial for multiple charges of murder and rape committed while serving as a member of the armed services.

While approving a sentence of death for a member of our armed services is a serious and difficult decision for a commander-in-chief, the president believes the facts of this case leave no doubt that the sentence is just and warranted."

Cleveland's own Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) will present a single Article of Impeachment to the House of Representatives today, July 10th, sometime between 3:30pm and 4:00pm.

The Article of Impeachment will specifically deal with President George W. Bush fraudulently obtaining support for an attack on Iraq by creating a false case for war. The full details of the Article of Impeachment will be made available immediately following Kucinich's presentation on the floor.

C-SPAN broadcasts live sessions of the House of Representatives, so if you're interested in catching Dennis Kucinich's reading of the Article of Impeachment today, check with your local cable for the channel or tune in online for a live streaming video at cspan.org.

Kucinich is also collecting signatures for an online petition demanding impeachment hearings that will be presented to members of Congress. You can check that out here: http://impeachment.kucinich.us/petition/

The IRS announced Monday that they will be increasing the optional standard mileage rates for the final six months of 2008. Effective July 1, 2008 the rate will incrase from 50.5 cents per mile to 58.5 cents per mile for all miles driven from July 1 to December 31, 2008.

The IRS made the decision to increase the mileage rate in light of recent gasoline price increases. Typically, the IRS updates mileage rates just once per year in the fall for the next calendar year.

The IRS also some other special adjustments, rasing the rate for calculating deductible medical or moving expenses. This will increasee from 19 cents to 27 cents per mile, also beginning July 1. The rate for charity services will remain at 14 cents because it is a special case and requires an act or law to change it.

Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) stood before Congress Monday evening, delivering 35 Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush. The House session was broadcast live on C-SPAN, and Kucinich took the stage at approximately 7:30 ET.

Suspiciously, Kucinich's website was attacked just hours after he delivered these important Articles of Impeachment before Congress. His campaign issued the following alert via e-mail:

Under circumstances that can best be described as "suspicious," the www.kucinich.us website was crippled early this morning a few hours after Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 extensively documented Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush.

Until we can restore the website and implement additional security measures, you can find the full list and detailed Articles at
http://www.democrats.com/files/amomentoftruth.pdf
and http://chun.afterdowningstreet.org/amomentoftruth.pdf

If you would like to show your support for the Congressman's efforts, please go to myinfo.kucinich.us to offer your comments and provide us with contact information so that we can continue to keep you informed.

The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Karl Rove, a former top political advisor to President George W. Bush, on Thursday to testify before the panel in an investigation into the Bush administration's firing of nine federal prosecutors.

After months of failed efforts to get Rove to testify voluntarily under Oath, House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chariman John Conyers (D-MI) issued the subpoena. For more than a year now, the Judiciary Committee has been investigating the dismissal of nine of the country's 93 US attorneys in 2006.

Last year former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned amid accusations of politics influencing decisions at the Justice Department.

The subpoena issued today orders Karl Rove to testify before the House panel on July 10. Rove is anticipated to face questions about the firing of the nine attorneys, as well as the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, a Democrat.

Conyers said in a statement today:

On Monday, Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), submitted a request to Google to remove videos produced by terrorist groups from its video-sharing site YouTube. In his letter, Lieberman said that radical Islamist groups use the service to share recruiting and training videos.

Google responded to the request and issued a statement on the YouTube blog, indicating that they had removed some of the videos pointed out by Lieberman's staff due to the inclusion of gratuitous violence, hate speech, or that in other ways violated community standards.

Lieberman responded via letter on Tuesday stating that all videos mentioning or featuring these groups should be removed from YouTube, including legal nonviolent and non-hate speech videos.