Word: blocs
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...have profited from the power of communication to mobilize. Back in 1986, some 1 million marchers who flooded the now iconic Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) were summoned by samizdat radio stations that broadcast a political call to prayer. During the recent mass protests in the former Soviet bloc, it was thumbs tapping out cell-phone text messages that brought crowds onto streets. This year in Iran, Twitter and other social-networking sites have served as the carrier pigeons of incipient revolution...
...spot on the CCA and, thanks to a Republican landslide on the coattails of George W. Bush, won her seat. In her second term, she ran successfully for the top slot, the court's presiding judge. Keller has consistently been part of the court's conservative voting bloc and has said she saw her election as an opportunity to balance the high court after several decades of domination by judges inclined toward the defense bar. (However, there has always been a high degree of support for the death penalty in Texas, even among Democratic judges...
...maintains close ties to the Guards leadership, at least five commanders sympathetic to the reformists were put under house arrest in the aftermath of the election. These purges within Iran's security apparatus consolidated power in the hands of the top Guards commanders, who form a united hard-liner bloc that is opposed to reconciliation with the opposition or the West. The IRGC, then, is the most effective power bloc in the country, certainly more cohesive in its top leadership than the conservative political faction, which has seen spats between the Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, and Ahmadinejad. The Revolutionary...
...anti-immigration stance helped drop John McCain's share of the Latino vote to 31% - a 13-point plunge from the 44% George W. Bush won in 2004. Barack Obama not only won 67% of the total Hispanic vote last year, but he got a stunning 57% of that bloc in Florida, where the conservative Cuban-American vote usually holds sway...
Politicians who feed off antiforeign sentiment at home can find it hard to cuddle up to foreigners abroad. The BNP's attempt to establish a far-right bloc in the Parliament foundered. The largest far-right party in the Parliament, Italy's Lega Nord, which serves in Silvio Berlusconi's coalition government, chose to throw in its lot with a medley of Euro-skeptic parties, while the PVV refused to enter any alliance. Opponents would be unwise to take comfort from this apparent disunity. Far-right parties view the European Parliament primarily as a platform from which to launch runs...