#New Democrats Party

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XII (Victoria 2022): New Democrats

Prior reviews: None, this is a new party.

No, this is not a revived version of the Australian Democrats. Do not be fooled. The remnants of the Australian Democrats tried to register for this election and failed because they could not demonstrate they had enough members. Nor, fortunately, does this party have anything to do with the Liberal Democrats. So, who are they?

The challenge is finding out anything about them, because even at this late stage in the election their homepage does not appear in the top results on Google. If you want to find it, you need to know that independent MLC Kaushaliya Vaghela is in fact the party’s lead candidate, and follow the link from her Facebook profile (or from the bottom of this post, either way).

This, in turn, raises the question: who is Kaushaliya Vaghela? She was elected in 2018 as a Labor member for Western Metropolitan. Labor expelled her after she crossed the floor to support a motion by Adem Somyurek. Now, whatever the merits of the motion might have been, you do not want to appear affiliated with Somyurek, who is this year a candidate for the bilious DLP and around whom corruption allegations swirl. It seems Vaghela was not so close to Somyurek as to follow him into the DLP, and she now leads the New Democrats.

As best as I can tell, Vaghela and her party sit on the centre-right. There’s a general “migrant family values” vibe about it all. Most of the New Democrats’ candidates are of South Asian origin, so it’s pretty clear what base the party has—and Vaghela likes to highlight that she was the first Indian-born Hindu member of an Australian parliament.

In general, the party rhetoric emphasises education, equality of opportunity, and financial independence. That said, some of its language is much more extreme than simply that of a disillusioned centre-right Labor faction. The New Democrats purport to be “anti-dictatorship and will fight to uphold the TRUE Australian democracy”, which is troublingly close to the “Dictator Dan” language of so many cookers. Also, I can’t help but look askance at the party name, which appears to be intentionally misleading. This isn’t the worst party I’ve seen so far but it’s also not ideal.

My recommendation: Give the New Democrats a weak to middling preference. Remember to vote below the line on the large ballot for the Legislative Council so that your preference goes where you want it to go; all ballots with 5 or more preferences marked below the line are valid votes.

Website: https://www.newdemocrats.com.au/

[izzylimon]

PLEASE SHARE

[destiel-news-channel]

[Image ID: The Destiel confession meme edited so that Dean answers 'Tim Walz is Kamala Harris' running mate.' to Cas' 'I love you'. /End ID]

This is according to a source that told CNN, he has not been formally called by Harris yet. CNN link

EDIT: It is now official!

Tim Walz is the one who started the tactic of calling Republicans 'weird', by the way.

Tim Walz is in his second term as the Minnesota governor. He is 60 years old and a former high school teacher.

Memorable information (click the text for its source)

Walz is "a champion of Democratic causes, including union organizing, workers’ rights and a $15-an-hour minimum wage."

eliminated nearly all of Minnesota's abortion restrictions

protected gender-affirming care for transgender youth

legalized the recreational use of marijuana

"free school meals to children, free tuition at public colleges for students whose families earn less than $80,000 a year, a paid family and medical leave program, health insurance regardless of immigration status, gun violence prevention, abortion rights protections, voting rights expansion and more"

Feel free to add more.

[sher-ee]

Rise up people! Vote BLUE.

[reasonsforhope]

Literally begging anyone who can vote in US elections to vote, and to vote against Trump. Which means voting for Harris, not abstaining or voting third party.

My family actually did move here from an authoritarian country, where voting literally didn't matter, they literally did throw out your vote, and they literally did assassinate citizens who spoke out against them.

We would all very much like to keep living in a country where those things are not the case!

You know, the same things that Trump and his stooges have openly said they want to do. And two of the main propaganda lines for why people in the US shouldn't vote, which is a lie.

Voting matters. The parties are not the same.

And make sure to vote in down-ballot races!!!

And like. The fact that voting matters in the US is a very real reason for hope. It is something you should genuinely appreciate. We can make a difference.

And a lot of people risked their lives or even died to earn that right, and it's a right not everyone has.

[ngdrb]

[destiel-news-network]

(Source)

[directactionforhope]

"Starting this month [June 2024], thousands of young people will begin doing climate-related work around the West as part of a new service-based federal jobs program, the American Climate Corps, or ACC. The jobs they do will vary, from wildland firefighters and “lawn busters” to urban farm fellows and traditional ecological knowledge stewards. Some will work on food security or energy conservation in cities, while others will tackle invasive species and stream restoration on public land. 

The Climate Corps was modeled on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, with the goal of eventually creating tens of thousands of jobs while simultaneously addressing the impacts of climate change. 

Applications were released on Earth Day, and Maggie Thomas, President Joe Biden’s special assistant on climate, told High Country News that the program’s website has already had hundreds of thousands of views. Since its launch, nearly 250 jobs across the West have been posted, accounting for more than half of all the listed ACC positions. 

“Obviously, the West is facing tremendous impacts of climate change,” Thomas said. “It’s changing faster than many other parts of the country. If you look at wildfire, if you look at extreme heat, there are so many impacts. I think that there’s a huge role for the American Climate Corps to be tackling those crises.”  

Most of the current positions are staffed through state or nonprofit entities, such as the Montana Conservation Corps or Great Basin Institute, many of which work in partnership with federal agencies that manage public lands across the West. In New Mexico, for example, members of Conservation Legacy’s Ecological Monitoring Crew will help the Bureau of Land Management collect soil and vegetation data. In Oregon, young people will join the U.S. Department of Agriculture, working in firefighting, fuel reduction and timber management in national forests. 

New jobs are being added regularly. Deadlines for summer positions have largely passed, but new postings for hundreds more positions are due later this year or on a rolling basis, such as the Working Lands Program, which is focused on “climate-smart agriculture.”  ...

On the ACC website, applicants can sort jobs by state, work environment and focus area, such as “Indigenous knowledge reclamation” or “food waste reduction.” Job descriptions include an hourly pay equivalent — some corps jobs pay weekly or term-based stipends instead of an hourly wage — and benefits. The site is fairly user-friendly, in part owing to suggestions made by the young people who participated in the ACC listening sessions earlier this year...

The sessions helped determine other priorities as well, Thomas said, including creating good-paying jobs that could lead to long-term careers, as well as alignment with the president’s Justice40 initiative, which mandates that at least 40% of federal climate funds must go to marginalized communities that are disproportionately impacted by climate change and pollution. 

High Country News found that 30% of jobs listed across the West have explicit justice and equity language, from affordable housing in low-income communities to Indigenous knowledge and cultural reclamation for Native youth...

While the administration aims for all positions to pay at least $15 an hour, the lowest-paid position in the West is currently listed at $11 an hour. Benefits also vary widely, though most include an education benefit, and, in some cases, health care, child care and housing. 

All corps members will have access to pre-apprenticeship curriculum through the North America’s Building Trades Union. Matthew Mayers, director of the Green Workers Alliance, called this an important step for young people who want to pursue union jobs in renewable energy. Some members will also be eligible for the federal pathways program, which was recently expanded to increase opportunities for permanent positions in the federal government...

 “To think that there will be young people in every community across the country working on climate solutions and really being equipped with the tools they need to succeed in the workforce of the future,” Thomas said, “to me, that is going to be an incredible thing to see.”"

-via High Country News, June 6, 2024

--

Note: You can browse Climate Corps job postings here, on the Climate Corps website. There are currently 314 jobs posted at time of writing!

Also, it says the goal is to pay at least $15 an hour for all jobs (not 100% meeting that goal rn), but lots of postings pay higher than that, including some over $20/hour!!

[politijohn]

Source

[sayruq]

The UNCOMMITTED campaign started in Michigan 3 weeks before the primary and it got about 101,000 votes. It has since spread to other states but with a much smaller time frame. These are the results

North Carolina

Colorado

Iowa

Massachusetts

Minnesota

Nevada

North Carolina

Tennessee

Most of the states have at least 10,000 votes which was the initial goal of the Uncommitted campaign in Michigan.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

“The Palestinian people have the right to a state, and this right is nearly universally recognized at the United Nations. Today, 140 other States (139 UN member states and the Holy See) already recognize the State of Palestine. After decades of the near universal affirmation, including by Canada, that the Palestinian people have a right to self-determination, members of the international community must see to it that this right is finally given effect before it is too late. The United States and United Kingdom have said they are looking into avenues to recognize the State of Palestine and Canada must do the same. For decades Palestinians have been subject to foreign military occupation, resulting in the denial of political and economic sovereignty and the right to move and live freely within what are considered to be Palestinian territories. Canada’s longstanding policy ‘recognizes the Palestinian right to self-determination and supports the creation of a sovereign, independent, viable, democratic and territorially contiguous Palestinian state, as part of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace settlement.’

Read the full statement here.

Tagging @politicsofcanada

[deadpresidents]

On the cliffs of Normandy, in a small holding area, the President of the United States was looking out at the English Channel. It was only six weeks ago, on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, and President Biden had just finished his remarks at the American cemetery atop Omaha Beach. Guests had been congratulating him on the speech, but he didn't want to talk about himself. The moment was not about him; it was about the men who had fought and died there. "Today feels so large," he told me. "This may sound strange -- and I don't mean it to -- but when I was out there, I felt the honor of it, the sanctity of it. To speak for the American people, to speak over those graves, it's a profound thing." He turned from the view over the beaches and gestured back toward the war dead. "You want to do right by them, by the country."

Mr. Biden has spent a lifetime trying to do right by the nation, and he did so in the most epic of ways when he chose to end his campaign for re-election. His decision is one of the most remarkable acts of leadership in our history, an act of self-sacrifice that places him in the company of George Washington who also stepped away from the presidency. To put something ahead of one's immediate desires -- to give, rather than to try to take -- is perhaps the most difficult thing for any human being to do. And Mr. Biden has done just that.

To be clear: Mr. Biden is my friend, and it has been a privilege to help him when I can. Not because I am a Democrat -- I belong to neither party and have voted for both Democrats and Republicans -- but because I believe him to be a defender of the Constitution and a public servant of honor and of grace at a time when extreme forces threaten the nation. I do not agree with everything he has done or wanted to do in terms of policy. But I know him to be a good man, a patriot and a president who has met challenges all too similar to those Abraham Lincoln faced. Here is the story I believe history will tell of Joe Biden. With American democracy in an hour of maximum danger in Donald Trump's presidency, Mr. Biden stepped in the breach. He staved off an authoritarian threat at home, rallied the world against autocrats abroad, laid the foundations for decades of prosperity, managed the end of a once-in-a-century pandemic, successfully legislated on vital issues of climate and infrastructure and has conducted a presidency worthy of the greatest of his predecessors. History and fate brought him to the pinnacle in a late season in his life, and in the end, he respected fate -- and he respected the American people.

It is, of course, an incredibly difficult moment. Highs and lows, victories and defeats, joy and pain: It has been ever thus for Mr. Biden. In the distant autumn of 1972, he experienced the most exhilarating of hours -- election to the United States Senate at the age of 29. He was no scion; he earned it. The darkness fell: His wife and daughter were killed in an automobile accident that seriously injured his two sons, Beau and Hunter. But he endured, found purpose in the pain, became deeper, wiser, more empathetic. Through the decades, two presidential campaigns imploded, and in 2015 his son Beau, a lawyer and wonderfully promising young political figure, died of brain cancer after serving in Iraq.

Such tragedy would have broken many lesser men. Mr. Biden, however, never gave up, never gave in, never surrendered the hope that a fallen, frail and fallible world could be made better, stronger and more whole if people could summon just enough goodness and enough courage to build rather than tear down. Character, as the Greeks first taught us, is destiny, and Mr. Biden's character is both a mirror and a maker of his nation's. Like Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, he is optimistic, resilient and kind, a steward of American greatness, a love of the great game of politics and, at heart, a hopeless romantic about the country that has given him so much.

Nothing bears out this point as well as his decision to let history happen in the 2024 election. Not matter how much people say that this was inevitable after the debate in Atlanta last month, there was nothing foreordained about an American President ending his political career for the sake of his country and his party. By surrendering the possibility of enduring in the seat of ultimate power, Mr. Biden has taught us a landmark lesson in patriotism, humility and wisdom.

Now the question comes to the rest of us. What will we the people do? We face the most significant of choices. Mr. Roosevelt framed the war whose dead Mr. Biden commemorated at Normandy in June as a battle between democracy and dictatorship. It is not too much to say that we, too, have what Mr. Roosevelt called a "rendezvous with destiny" at home and abroad. Mr. Biden has put country above self, the Constitution above personal ambition, the future of democracy above temporal gain. It is up to us to follow his lead.

-- "Joe Biden, My Friend and an American Hero" by Jon Meacham, New York Times, July 22, 2024.

[izzylimon]

Harrison Ford coming in at the last minute to endorse Kamala Harris even tough he´s never endorsed a political candidate before is the most Han Solo thing he´s ever done.

[tmcphotoblog]

Kamala Harris knew Biden was unfit and led him to failure, now seizing his position. She's a ruthless, power-hungry individual willing to sacrifice America for her ambitions.

[sher-ee]

I know I am exhausted after almost 10 years of this MAGA craziness. I can’t imagine the toll it and he has taken on those reporting and making content of all the hate and bigotry and cult mindedness that the Republican Party has embraced and become.

[reasonsforhope]

"California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed a first-of-its-kind state law Monday aimed at protecting LGBTQ+ students from having their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression revealed by schools without consent.

The SAFETY Act prohibits schools from enforcing policies that forcibly out a student and shields teachers and other school staff from retaliation if they refuse to obey such policies. 

The new law makes California the first state to ban outing policies, according to the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus.

Chris Ward, a San Diego Democrat who first introduced the bill in the California Legislature, said in a statement Monday that the SAFETY Act combats a rise in politically motivated attacks on queer and transgender students nationwide. 

"While some school districts have adopted policies to forcibly out students, the SAFETY Act ensures that discussions about gender identity remain a private matter within the family,” Ward said. “As a parent, I urge all parents to talk to their children, listen to them, and love them unconditionally for who they are."

The law’s enactment came nearly a year after Tony Thurmond, the state superintendent of public instruction, said he was forcibly removed from a local school board meeting where he was opposing a district's proposed outing policy, which was eventually blocked in court. 

“Our teachers can now focus on teaching the critical academic skills that our students need to succeed, not on policing the gender identities of children,” Thurmond said in a statement Monday."

-via USA Today, July 16, 2024