State ballot measures highlight social, labor issues
Claiming voters’ attention this fall alongside races for national, state and local elective offices are over 150 state ballot initiatives and a wide range of local measures.
Economic crisis clobbers California
Less than a month after California’s legislature and governor finalized the state’s budget after an 85-day delay, that budget — patched together with accounting sleight-of-hand and optimistic guesswork — may be headed back to the drawing board under the impact of the growing economic and financial crises.
Free Liliany Obando!
Liliany Obando, closely associated with Colombia’s largest rural labor organization, was arrested Aug. 8 in what police called a “preventive” arrest. In the process, officers of Colombia’s National Police Anti-Terrorism Unit and Criminal Investigation Directorate harassed her children, seized her family’s personal documents and removed left publications.
In Virginia, military families mobilize
Stacie Burgess, wife of an active-duty sailor in the U.S. Navy, was in the crowd at an Oct. 4 rally of 20,000 in Newport News where Obama urged a last-minute push to register more first-time voters and get them to the polls. She joined a group chanting “O-ba-ma” so loudly it caught his attention. Wading through the crowd after his speech, Obama reached out and shook her hand.
