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Algernon Moncrieff

Algernon Moncrieff's Journal
Algernon Moncrieff's Journal
June 20, 2018

RSVP TO JOIN TOM STEYER IN OMAHA, NE

https://www.needtoimpeach.com/omaha/

Will you join Tom Steyer on June 21st for a special Town Hall event in Omaha? Tom will discuss how the Need to Impeach campaign is standing up to Trump and his administration in 2018. Your voice is an important part of this movement, and we would love to hear from supporters like you.

The event is free, but we have a limited number of seats available. Tell your friends and family to plan ahead and save their spot. Each person must RSVP individually.

LOCATION: The Omar, 4383 Nicholas St, Omaha, NE 68131

DATE: Thursday, June 21st

TIME: A reception with light refreshments will begin at 6:15pm. The program will begin at 7:00 pm.

If you have any translation or accessibility needs or questions, please email volunteer@needtoimpeach.com and we will do our best to accommodate. Requests made at least 4 days ahead are more likely to be fulfilled.
June 19, 2018

Yes, the Democratic Party is at nearly its weakest point in a century

Politifact

Republicans made dramatic down-ballot gains over the past decade, a trend that may have been overlooked somewhat given Democratic control of the executive branch for most of this time. But as the party vies to recapture the House and Senate from the GOP in upcoming midterm elections, the roots of Democrats’ recent losses are being reexamined.

"Unless Democrats face up to this reality and devise a strategy to reverse this tidal wave of defeat, they might find themselves surprised one more time this November," said CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. "When you tally up their representation in Congress, state legislatures and governorships, the Democrats almost have their lowest representation in about 100 years."
June 10, 2018

The Fiscal Ship Game



Link to game

Are you a fiscal hawk? Or a staunch environmentalist? Your own priorities will affect how you lower the debt, and “The Fiscal Ship” will teach you what will and won’t work.

The game was developed through a partnership between the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings. To kick off the informal event, Hutchins Center Director David Wessel made brief opening remarks about how the game was made, what choices went into its underlying policies, and what we learned from early testing. After Wessel’s remarks, participants were invited to play the game, enjoy complimentary refreshments, and network with other members of the policy community.

Rising federal debt isn’t a game. It’s a real problem—and many Americans know that. We hope you’ll play “The Fiscal Ship” and spread the word about the problem and actual solutions to the dangers of rising debt.
May 25, 2018

If women refuse to tell the truth about their abortions in Ireland, we'll never win bodily autonomy

From "The Independent" If women refuse to tell the truth about their abortions in Ireland, we’ll never win bodily autonomy from the state

The Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution is the reason I had to leave Ireland and travel to the UK when I needed an abortion. I was 18, in a relationship and the contraception we were using failed. The Eighth Amendment was voted for in 1983 after contraception had been made legal in Ireland in 1980. The conservative forces, accustomed to locking away women and girls like me in mother and baby homes and Magdalene laundries, were worried that abortion would become legal too.

So they put pressure on politicians to insert a clause into the constitution which would make abortion legal only if there is a direct threat to a pregnant person’s life, ruling out abortion being made legal in cases of rape or in instances of fatal foetal abnormality, while compromising the wellbeing and medical consent of all pregnant people in Ireland.

The Eighth Amendment has caused suffering for hundreds of thousands of women all over Ireland. I know I am one of at least 170,000 who travelled to the UK and gave an Irish address. Not all of us do, some give a friend or family member’s UK address or some travel to the Netherlands. Women who until very recently didn’t share their stories.

To change attitudes and laws when abortion is illegal, it takes women standing up and telling their truth – that they had an abortion. With abortion having been so heavily stigmatised here in Ireland, it has taken a lot of courage to do so, especially when having one at home (which people do by ordering pills online) currently carries a 14-year criminal sentence.
May 23, 2018

Umair Haque: The Age of the Imbecile

LINK

I’d bet, these days, shortly after reading the headlines, you’ve thought, shaking your head and muttering, something like: “Jesus. We live in an age of impossibly catastrophic stupid.”

You’re not wrong. About a decade or so ago, hot on the heels of the financial crisis, something happened — an old story began to be rewritten, as the world found itself poorer once again. There was an explosion, somewhere deep in the human heart, and a tsunami rippled across the globe — one boiling and bubbling with every imaginable variety of stupid: human folly, gleeful ignorance, self-destructive greed, reckless spite, dim-witted cruelty parading itself as enlightenment.

And so now a tsunami of imbecility is rolling like a slow-motion thermonuclear bomb across the globe. Lightning bolts of foolishness shiver down it. Smoke clouds of idiocy billow from it. Here are the five kinds of stupid wrecking the globe — because your first job, these days, as a human being, is to make sure you’re not being turned into an imbecile by this wave of stupid, too.

Economic stupid is nationalism, populism, or austerity, three words that craftily mean the same thing. It’s the idea that “we don’t have the money to pay for it!!”, whether “it” is school lunches, healthcare, education, parks, libraries, media, or trains. Sure we have the money. What do you think an era of zero interest rates mean? It means that there is so much money sloshing around in the treasure chests of the global economy, so much loot piled up by Jeff Bezoses and Bill Gateses, that there is nowhere left to put it. Not a single place: all the yachts, super mansions, and trophy castles have been bought. Nada left to buy equals zilch interest to lend at. Zero interest doesn’t just means “societies can borrow for better than free and give everyone healthcare, education, an income, and savings” — it means that if they don’t, the economy will go right on cruising into oblivion, because that money will go on piling at the top, instead of doing anything remotely useful, beneficial, or necessary.
May 22, 2018

Sharon Herald:Mercer County Democrats face eviction from headquarters over unpaid rent

Link

SHARON – Leadership on the Mercer County Democrat Committee is split over whether the party has been locked out of its headquarters on Vine Avenue, even though the property’s owner has posted an eviction notice on the door of the building.

Diane Syphrit and Mercer County Commissioner Tim McGonigle, who won seats on the state Democratic Committee according to unofficial results from Tuesday’s election, said that the headquarters’ locks at 16 Vine Ave. in downtown Sharon had been changed, a contention that county Democrat chairman Ryan Mergl disputes.

“No, the locks were not changed,” Mergl said. “Tim is full of misinformation because he never comes around, by the way.”

The small office space on Vine Avenue, across from Mergl’s law practice, is in a building owned by HomeTown Community Rentals.
May 16, 2018

Interesting Result in NE-2 Tonight

U.S. House - District 2
One advances

Brad Ashford 16,282 votes 49.14%
Kara Eastman 16,851 votes 50.86%

http://www.omaha.com/ @ 11:24 Central

Quick summary: NE-2 is currently held by Don Bacon, an ex-USAF general who votes with Trump 97.5% of the time. Bacon narrowly beat Brad Ashford in 2016 (by less than 1%). Ashford flipped the seat from red to blue in 2014 when Lee Terry made a famously stupid remark about wanting to continue to get paid during the government shutdown because he had a nice house.

Ashford is establishment and conservative by current Democratic standards. His opponent in tonight's primary is Kara Eastman, a relative political newcomer who has been doing social work and organizing.

http://eastmanforcongress.com/about/

Nebraska splits its electoral votes, and NE-2 went for Obama in '08 in what is generally considered a deeply red state. The 2018 race here is considered to be a bellwether (one of several to be sure) for Democratic chances for winning back the House.

May 8, 2018

NY AG Quick Poll

No judgement. Just the names I've seen posted and some others I dreamed up. Den Governor; Den Assembly; narrowly GOP state Senate. I have no idea who'd actually be interested.

May 6, 2018

LA mayor, eyes on White House, hawks ties to Hawkeye state

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/la-mayor-eyes-white-house-hawks-ties-hawkeye-54969410

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, the Democratic leader of a city with 75 miles of coastline, immigrants from around the world and the Kardashians, is considering running for president in 2020. But first he would have to make it through Iowa. On a recent visit, he did his best to connect, playing up everything his city shares with the rural, overwhelmingly white voters. It was no easy task.

"Iowa and Los Angeles have much more in common than you might think, and it's not just because we have the USS Iowa parked in the Port of L.A.," Garcetti said at a party dinner.

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