'Chewbacca' arrested as he drives 'Darth Vader' to Ukrainian polling station

Chewbacca may have pretended to be a prisoner on occasion but this arrest appeared quite real. A man dressed as the famous Wookie, chauffeuring a mayoral candidate running as Darth Vader, was arrested in Ukraine after refusing to show documentation to police. The Sith Lord's ambitions for power have taken a much more local focus, as he is currently standing to become mayor of Odessa.

Upon arrival at the polling station 'Chewie' was unable to bypass police, who were reportedly enacting the law that prohibits candidates' canvassing on the day of voting. It took four officers to bring the Wookie to justice, forcing him onto the bonnet of a police van.

The Daily Dot reported that the pair are part of the country's Internet Party, whose mayoral candidate is legally named Darth Vader. Chewbacca was then transferred to court, where RT reported he was fined a sum equivalent to around £5 that he was unable to pay, claiming "his funds are in an intergalactic bank that has no branches on this planet."

More at The Independent

Bonus: Chewbacca by Supernova

GOP's Trump problem a monster of their own creation

Rachel Maddow reports on how Donald Trump has been reinforced and legitimized as a political figure by Republican politicians and media outlets, making it difficult to distance themselves from his presidential campaign. Today it was revealed that people attending Trump's campaign announcement included actors paid to attend.

Why is the Israeli Election a Fight Between the Far Right and Further Far Right?

New Rules

Bill Maher had some fun in this Friday's edition of New Rules with everyone from the wingnuts who doubted Nate Sliver's math, to Sean Hannity, to Ted Nugent and Victoria Jackson, to Fox News and their fearmongering about the New Black Panther Party.

US Conservatives Struggle To Explain How Mitt Romney Lost 2012 Presidential Election

Republicans across the US were shellshocked as President Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney in Tuesday’s presidential election, finishing the race with 332 electoral votes and winning every battleground state except for North Carolina. The blame game began almost immediately, as Republicans looked to determine how a vulnerable incumbent like Obama had found a pathway to reelection.

Huffington Post

“Obama is a Muslim, Atheist and a Communist”

Romney held a rally in the town of Defiance to motivate his supporters last week, and Chase Whiteside & Erick Stoll of NewLeftMedia conducted a series of interviews with those in the crowd.

Their reasons for backing Romney, or more precisely, for hating Obama, ranged from the reasonable, to the weird all the way to the the confused and conspiratorial.

"He [Romney] believes in all classes, he likes it to be not just one class superior to the other clases," says one. Which sounds a bit socialist for a Republican. Others lament how much Obama "loves the Muslim religion" and suspect the president "has a soft spot for the Muslims".

One woman goes even further. "He is a Muslim. His father was a Muslim, his father was an atheist and his father was a communist." A perplexed Whiteside asks: "Is his father a Muslim? Or an atheist? The Romney backers concludes: "He's all three."

For another man it was not the Muslims that were the biggest worry. "We're letting them tell us 'you've got to follow our religion," he says. Who has? "The Buddhists. They're there." Whiteside is once again confused:"You think Buddhists have come into the country and taken our freedom of religion?"

Huffington Post

Hacking Democracy

Election Fraud in the USA - Full Length documentary

Opposition duo die at Venezuelan election rally

Two opposition politicians have been killed in Venezuela during a campaign rally, a week before the country's presidential election. Geison Valero belonged to the opposition party First Justice and Omar Fernandez was an independent.

The First Justice party said they were campaigning for opposition leader Henrique Capriles in Barinas state when gunmen shot them dead. Witnesses said the vehicle belonged to the state oil company PDVSA. But there has been no confirmation of this from the Venezuelan authorities.

A statement by the party said a rally had been planned in Barinas, President Hugo Chavez's home state, but the road was blocked by government supporters. When the two men left their car to try to gain access, they were fired on by gunmen inside a van, it said.

Mr Chavez and Mr Capriles are wrapping up their campaigns over the next few days ahead of the 7 October elections. There have been other incidents of violence on the campaign trail. Supporters of both candidates threw stones at each other earlier this month when Mr Capriles attempted to march through the city of Puerto Cabello.

BBC News

Egypt court dissolves parliament

Judges appointed by Hosni Mubarak have dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament and ruled his former prime minister eligible for the presidential runoff election this weekend - setting the stage for the military and remnants of the old regime to stay in power.

Thursday's politically charged rulings dealt a heavy blow to the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, with one senior member calling the decisions a "full-fledged coup", and the group vowed to rally the public against Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister to serve under Mubarak.

The decision by the Supreme Constitutional Court effectively erased the tenuous progress from Egypt's troubled transition in the past year, leaving the country with no parliament and concentrating power even more firmly in the hands of the generals who took over from Mubarak.

Egypt court dissolves parliament

Romney adviser dismisses women’s issues as ‘shiny objects’

Mitt Romney’s senior campaign adviser, Eric Fehrnstrom, on Sunday said that social issues important to women, like contraception coverage and abortion rights, were “shiny objects” that were being used to distract voters.

David Plouffe, one of President Barack Obama’s top aides, last week told New York Magazine that Democrats needed to be clear about what a Romney presidency would mean for women’s rights and other social issues. “Potentially abortion will be criminalized,” Plouffe said.”Women will be denied contraceptive services. He’s far right on immigration. He supports efforts to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage.”

The Raw Story

Right Wing Billionaires Push Israel's Agenda in US 2012 Elections

The Real News Network

Burma's president calls elections a success

Burma's president said Tuesday that elections won by democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and her party were successful, issuing the first government endorsement of the historic polls.

When asked by The Associated Press if he thought the weekend by-elections were free and fair, President Thein Sein said: "It was conducted in a very successful manner." Thein Sein's remark was the first comment by a top government official since Sunday's polls. He spoke on the sidelines of a summit in Cambodia of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, which gave him a vote of confidence Tuesday.

CBS News

Children 'forced to shout Long Live Sarkozy!' when French president visited their school

The French president has caused an outcry after dozens of infant school children were forced to chant 'Long Live Sarkozy!' when he visited their school.

Parents complained about the youngsters being used as 'propaganda tools' after they were made to treat Nicolas Sarkozy as a hero, waving Tricolour flags and constantly shouting his name. Some were even kissed by Mr Sarkozy, who is hugely unpopular and widely expected to lose the presidential election being held in France in the Spring.

More on Mail Online

Elections, Russian Style

The Russian Central Elections Commission has cancelled the results in a polling station in Dagestan after allegations of electoral violations. A webcam appeared to show several men standing feeding dozens of ballots into a ballot box.

Putin declares victory in Russian presidential election

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin claimed victory for a new term as president after early results in Sunday's election showed him taking an insurmountable lead. Putin, who has previously served two terms as president, had received a comfortable 63% of the vote, with 28% counted, according to the preliminary tabulation of the Russia Central Election Commission. He declared victory at a large rally of supporters outside the Kremlin.

"I asked you once if we would win and we did win!" Putin said loudly as the crowd, numbering in the thousands, began chanting: "Putin, Putin, Putin!" Meanwhile, observers voiced concerns about large-scale election violations and opposition activists predicted forthcoming protests in Moscow and other big cities.

latimes.com

Iran election: President Ahmadinejad's sister fails to win seat

Parvin Ahmadinejad, a sister of the president and a current member of Tehran's municipal council, was defeated by a conservative rival in their hometown of Garmsar. She only lost by 728 votes, which would indicate that she did have considerable support - albeit not enough to defeat her rival.

Her failure is seen as a big blow to Mr Ahmadinejad in the first balloting since his disputed re-election in 2009. Conservative rivals of the president were leading in the race for parliament according to early election results on Saturday in an indication he may face a more hostile house in the remaining 18 months of his second term in office.

The strong showing by loyalists of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Friday's parliamentary elections also reflected staunch support for Iran's theocracy and its firm stance in the nuclear standoff with the West.

Telegraph – Women in Iran (Wikipedia)

Election anger mounts in Senegal

Senegalese are continuing their protests against incumbent president Abdoulaye Wade's decision to seek a third term in office, erecting barricades and pelting police with rocks just days before a presidential election.

The state-owned news service confirmed the death on Monday of a young man in a suburb of the capital Dakar as demonstrations intensified, and the opposition said they would organise more protests.
Several people have been killed since the street clashes began late last month after Wade's candidacy was validated by the country's top legal body.

The 85-year-old Wade, who came to power in 2000, is insisting on running again, despite the deepening unrest and calls from both France, Senegal's former colonial master, and the US to hand power to the next generation.

Wade will face more than a dozen rivals in the election, including former allies Macky Sall and Idrissa Seck. A runoff will be held if no candidate wins more than half the total vote. "We will not give Abdoulaye Wade any rest until he understands that he can't run in these elections.," Tidiane Gadio, an opposition candidate, told Al Jazeera.

Next US President Romney: "I'm Not Concerned With the Very Poor"

Oh, dear. Robot Romney's wires have malfunctioned again, jut when he should have been soaking up his win in Florida last night. Check out this unfortunate soundbite from a CNN interview this morning, in which the .006%er said he wasn't concerned about the very poor:

The Washington Post reports on the exchange: “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there,” Romney told CNN. “If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine.”

More on AlterNet

Fears of Slavic spring in Russia as protests grow

MAJOR unrest has broken out in Russia after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's controversial election win on Sunday. Protesters claim the parliamentary poll was rigged. There have been demonstrations in Moscow and other big cities.

Authorities imposed a TV news blackout on the unrest but Putin's opponents have got round it — by using Facebook, Twitter and a host of Russian social websites to organise peaceful protests. So far more than 40,000 have pledged online to attend a rally on Moscow's Revolution Square tomorrow.

Some believe the protests could become part of a wider Slavic Spring — which will echo the Arab Spring that saw the fall of several unpopular regimes around the Middle East this year. Katia Mironova, a 22-year-old Moscow student, vowed to take part and said: "The TV reporting is disgusting. "Vladimir Putin must think that if people can't see it on the news, they won't know about the demos and arrests over election fraud. He mocks our intelligence."

Already there are stark warnings that things could get nasty. The authorities insist a mere 300 protesters may legally attend the rally.  (The Sun)

Russia: Respect Right to Peaceful Protest – Human Rights Watch

Russia election descends into violence as riot police clash with protesters

Moscow riot police arrest opposition leaders Alexey Navalny and Ilya Yashin as crowds opposed to Vladimir Putin take to streets.

Several thousand people have taken to the streets of Moscow shouting "Down with Putin" as international observers in Russia's parliamentary elections speak of flagrant violations. Some scuffles were reported and Russian police said they had detained more than 300 protesters.

The OSCE says the vote was slanted in favour of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party, United Russia. President Dmitry Medvedev insisted the election had been fair and democratic.However, a White House spokesman, Jay Carney, expressed "serious concerns". United Russia won the election, but with a sharp drop in its support, ahead of Mr Putin's bid to return to the presidency next March.

BBC News

Update:

Anger over a Russian election marred by widespread violations and the shadow of Vladimir Putin's likely return to the presidency broke into violence late on Monday, as thousands of people took to the streets of Moscow in protest.

Several thousand people, mainly young men, filled a park in central Moscow to listen to liberal opposition leaders call for Putin's ousting in a meeting approved by city authorities. But when they attempted to march to Lubyanka, the headquarters of the feared Federal Security Service, they were met by baton-wielding riot police who beat some protesters over the head and dragged others into waiting lorries.

Hundreds appeared to be detained, including opposition leaders Alexey Navalny and Ilya Yashin, as well as several journalists. Police put the number of protesters at 2,000 but some Russian media said the number was as high as 8,000.

The Guardian