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raqi policemen display their inked fingers to show that they voted March 4, 2010, near a special needs polling site in Arapha, Iraq. Iraqi security forces are given the opportunity to vote early to assist in providing security on election day. Photo credit: U.S. Army photo by Spc. Joel LeMaistre
Like many other editorial pages the world over, The New York Times reflected on the Iraq election, as well as defended a man suing McDonald’s against charges of “frivolity.”
The New York Times agreed with the many other editorial pages that lauded the Iraqi people for turning out in droves to vote, “defying bombs and a flawed pre-election process to cast their ballots.” Now, it’s time for the Iraqi leaders to step up to the plate and become the government their people need, and to deal with much of the political wrangling and legislation that it put off until after the elections, including the vital oil law.
“Supporters of tort reform — and late-night comedians — like to make fun of what they say are frivolous lawsuits,” The New York Times wrote today. But these so-called “frivolous lawsuits” hold corporations accountable, the paper contended, citing the recent decision of a federal appeals court in Virginia to allow the lawsuit of a man who sustained severe burns to his lips and face after biting into an extremely hot McDonald’s fried chicken sandwich. Said the paper, “[C]ompanies that sell food to the public have an undeniable responsibility to ensure their products are safe. That’s no joke.”
The Washington Post today wrote about restarting the Middle East peace talks and lauded Attorney General Eric Holder for his initiative to improve legal services to poor defendants.
The Post is cautiously optimistic that Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to the Middle East will re-ignite peace talks between Israel and Palestine, but added, “there is considerable cause for concern about this iteration of the seemingly endless Middle East “peace process.’” George Mitchell, the US’s special envoy to the Middle East, needs to move the “indirect talks” quickly into direct negotiations, while avoiding raising expectations about what they can ultimately accomplish.
In applauding Holder’s recent initiative, The Washington Post said that the country has long failed to uphold the promise of landmark Supreme Court decision Gideon v. Wainwright, under which sates were no required to provide an attorney for those defendants who could not afford one. But money remains one of the biggest deterrent to quality representation for the poor – public defenders aren’t paid nearly as much as their counterparts at prosecuting law firms. “The Justice Department cannot force such changes on the states, but it can provide incentives to states that adopt best practices and it can help states improve the quality of indigent defense through training and other means,” The Post concluded.
The Los Angeles Times also congratulated the Iraqis on Sunday’s historic vote; agreed with recent editorials at the smear campaign against Justice Department lawyers is ridiculous; and contends that too may illegal immigrants are passing governmental background checks.
“When the history of the U.S. war in Iraq is written, Sunday’s parliamentary election may well provide the final chapter,” the paper wrote on the parliamentary election Iraq at the weekend. Contending that though the struggle for functioning democracy is by no means over for Iraq, the paper wrote that US’s involvement in the nation has necessarily come to an end and that advice should only be given when asked.
The Los Angeles Times echoed the concerns of both The Washington Post and The New York Times in recent days over a recent conservative smear campaign against the nine Justice Department lawyers defending 9/11 terror suspects. The attempt to cast the Obama Administration as soft on terror by villainizing the lawyers is absurd and ultimately damaging to the US legal system.
And E-verify, the government background check that employers use to determine the immigration status of potential employees, is wrong most of the time, not only misidentifying legal workers as legal, but failing to flag illegal ones. The Los Angeles Times says the federal government needs to fix this system before they can even being to think about expanding the program.
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