#mp by election 2020

[fandomtrumpshate]

Defeating Tr*mp and the Republican party: how you can help

So as you've probably heard, there is a presidential election coming up in the US this November. You may even be experiencing some concern about the outcome of that election -- given both the high stakes and the active efforts by Republicans to suppress the vote -- and wondering what more you can do to stave off the possibility of a literal fascist takeover of the United States.

The good news is: you're not helpless. There are wonderful organizations out there -- staffed by knowledgeable, talented people with their feet already on the ground -- and they could use your help.

Here are a few of them:

VoteBeat offers deeply-researched local reporting about elections, which is both valuable and rare in the current news environment. A spinoff of ChalkBeat, it was founded and is run by journalists from ProPublica.

Spread the Vote is an organization that works on the ground to help every eligible voter secure the documentation and the access they need to make their voices heard. In particular, StV runs a program called Vote by Mail in Jail to help ensure that incarcerated persons also have access to these rights.

VoteRiders, like StV, works to ensure that every American has the opportunity to vote. In particular, they provide financial and practical support to trans people so that they can get hold of the documentation they need and can vote safely and confidently.

FairVote advocates for ranked-choice voting, a system in wide use outside the US which far more effectively captures the will of the electorate. (we don't have an individual feature page for them, but FV was one of FTH's supported orgs in 2020.)

(This is just a short starter list of amazing organizations, pulled from FTH's supported orgs list in past years; there are plenty of others. Please feel free to add them in reblogs!)

Ways you can help

Donate to one (or more!) of these organizations. These are all fairly small operations, even if their goals and their impact is large; they could use the help!

Volunteer your time. Many of these organizations rely on volunteers to make their day-to-day operations work. Sometimes it's necessary to do this volunteering in person, but often there is a remote option for volunteering if that's what works for you.

Run a fanworks auction to raise money. FTH recently rolled out a full and detailed playbook, sharing all of our organizational materials and step-by-step guides for how to use them and adapt them to your needs. This is a great moment to put that to work! Whether you want to raise money for one of the organizations listed above, or for some other nonprofit, or even for a progressive local candidate that could use the support (FTH doesn't do individual candidates, but you shouldn't let that stop you!) you can make a real difference while also helping to put more fanworks into the world.

[mydaddywiki]

Alex Salmond

Physique: Average Build Height: 5'8" (1.73m)

Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (31 December 1954 – 12 October 2024; aged 69) was a Scottish politician, economist and television host who served as First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014, the first Scottish nationalist to hold the position. He was the Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) on two occasions, from 1990 to 2000 and from 2004 to 2014. He then served as leader of the Alba Party from 2021 until his death in 2024.

Born in Linlithgow, West Lothian, Scotland, Salmond was educated at Linlithgow Primary School, before attending Linlithgow Academy from 1966 to 1972. He studied at Edinburgh College of Commerce from 1972 to 1973, gaining an HNC in Business Studies, and was then accepted by the University of St Andrews, where he studied Economics and Medieval History. After Salmond graduated, he worked as an economist in the Scottish Office, and later, the Royal Bank of Scotland. He was elected to the British House of Commons in 1987, serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Banff and Buchan from 1987 to 2010.

Lets see… In August 2018, Salmond resigned from the party to fight allegations of sexual misconduct which he denied. In January 2019, he was charged with 14 offences, including attempted rape and sexual assault, but was later acquitted of all charges after trial in March 2020. Not the handsomest man in the world, but clearly others would have sex with him as Salmond admitted had an extramarital “sexual liaison” with one of the complainers. That's surprising as he kinda pings and was married to an older Moira McGlashan (17 years his senior) and they have no children. And they closely protected their private lives. Beard cough, cough Beard.

Anyway, Salmond's main interests outside of work and politics are golf, horse racing, football and reading. He takes an interest in Scottish cultural life, as well as watching Star Trek and listening to country music. Wait he's a Trekkie. Now I want to fuck him more. Sadly, Salmond died on 12 October 2024, at the age of 69 of a heart attack.

[mulderscully]

i'm thinking about how casey mcquiston wrote rwrb as a way to cope with tr*mp bring elected and how that resonated with so many queer people and how popular that book got at the height of the pandemic when we really needed a book like that to make us laugh and imagine a world where 2020 wasn't.. Like That. and in that one way things have changed, in terms of the popularity of rwrb allowing publishers to see that queer romance is worth publishing and that queer people deserve happy endings too and how noticeable the change in romance is from 2019 to today. casey really did make history with that book; do you understand? they changed everything with that book.

[mariacallous]

A few days after the US presidential election, I wrote a piece about how the coming age of information chaos and the profound consequences on what comes next. The destabilisation in our information system that we woke up to in 2016 has now entered a wholly dangerous new reality: the merger of Silicon Valley and an authoritarian US state.

But, the speed of it still shocks. And the events of the last week show how fast this is going to happen, in a confused hyper-accelerated political news cycle that cannot even process what is happening let alone adequately respond.

The world has never seen power like this before. The state machinery of a global superpower allied to the power and reach of global information platforms. And this last week has been a preview of what this is going to mean: a restructuring of the world order and global geopolitics as we know it.

Flooding the zone

Trump’s threats against three sovereign nations are just the start. He’s said that he’ll acquire Panama and Greenland by force and Canada he will take through “economic force”. This is mafia tactics. And for us, in Europe, trade agreements aka “economic force” are nothing compared to the big one: US withdrawal from NATO, a sword of Damocles, over our heads.

But, the biggest threat is that we can’t even see or hear or contemplate this, what it means let alone engage in the urgent debates needed because our entire news cycle has been drowned in noise. This is how it happens.

Steve Bannon who may turn out the most prescient philosopher of our era said you don’t have to prove or disprove anything, you just need to drown the zone in shit. Or, in the case of Elon Musk a ten-year-old British scandal that has dominated the news cycle and parliamentary debate for day after day.

We are so ill-equipped to face the coming threat. Our entire news and information system was submerged by a barrage of noise from the richest man on the planet and because we’ve failed to grapple with the enormity of what’s happened to the underlying communication and power structures of our world, we are helpless to withstand them. We walked straight into Musk’s trap and allowed him - facilitated him - to set the political agenda in a crucial week.

Donie, who posted this, is an Irish CNN reporter who stood amid the insurrectionists on January 6, 2020, and said conspiracies on Facebook had done this. He’d spent months interviewing Trump supporters at rallies about the conspiracies they’d been reading on Facebook. And, through it all, he reported straight without judgment. I watched him that night, live on CNN, and saw him break cover and make that statement and that he had no choice: this was an insurrection that Facebook facilitated.

We need to start understanding that Elon Musk’s X is a weapon. It’s a weapon that is currently owned and controlled by a non-state entity. But from January 20, that changes. At that point, Musk’s behaviour must be understood in the context of information warfare from a hostile nation state.

That’s a week away and the UK parliament and half the press has been obsessively talking about the fire that Musk started rather than what that tells us about the colossal firepower he controls and the profound national security threat that poses.

This looks like a joke. It isn’t. And it’s exactly the same approach the Kremlin uses. It at least had to infiltrate an independent platform. Musk is the platform. It’s a whole new paradigm of threat.

Britain is utterly powerless against this currently. Worse, swathes of the British media actually increased the velocity and power of these threats. Meanwhile, the UK government is still refusing to even investigate foreign interference or how it works. That’s the entire thrust of the legal case I’ve helped to organsise with three MPs who are taking against the UK government: its failure to protect our right to a free and fair election.

The personal attacks against Keir Starmer, Jess Phillips and ex-prime minister Gordon Brown are exactly the the kind of witch-hunts that are going to accelerate from here. The third point in my guide “How to Survive the Broligarchy” was this:

What I didn’t anticipate is that those witch hunts would start in the UK against elected officials before Trump had even been sworn into office.

But that’s why this also goes far beyond a witch hunt. This is “foreign interference”, a fundamental threat to our sovereignty and security. Musk owns the information equivalent of an entire fleet of aircraft carriers and fighter jets. And last week he demonstrated his almost total command and control of the UK information space.

And this is all before contemplating the profound cynicism of Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that he would not no longer allow “politically biased” factcheckers to establish anything so old-fashioned as actual facts. Truth will now be outsourced to a global community of bots and trolls, state actors and highly motivated online edgelords. The first victims of this will be the most vulnerable: Muslims, women, LGBTQ, children. But it won’t stop there. No-one will be immune.

It was the open society that enabled Zuckberg to build his company, that educated his engineers and created a modern scientific country that largely obeyed the rules-based order. But that’s over. And, this week is a curtain raiser for how fast everything will change. Zuckerberg took a smashing ball this week to eight years’ worth of “trust and safety” work that has gone into trying to make social media a place fit for humans. That’s undone in a single stroke.

So much has happened in a single week, the live-time dissemination of conspiracy theories and finger-pointing blame while the LA fire is still raging is another terrifying glimpse of our infodystopian future. The biggest danger in the coming months and years will be the exhaustion of our critical faculties, our failure to withstand the noise, and to retreat into personal spaces. Certainly, no good came this week from listening to UK political coverage: much of it was, at best, witless, at worst dangerous. The BBC Today programme channelling Musk’s political agenda into the mainstream is in the second category.

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XV (federal 2025): Katter’s Australian Party

Running where: QLD. The party is contesting three House divisions: Bob Katter himself for Kennedy, plus candidates in Herbert and Leichhardt, while in the Senate, a candidate is second on a joint ticket with Rennick First for Group G

Prior reviews: federal 2013, federal 2016, federal 2019, federal 2022

What I said before: “For those of us on the left, KAP has a few things to like and a lot to detest.” (federal 2022)

What I think this year: I’ve already covered a bunch of “dontcha know who I am?” cult-of-personality parties, and here is perhaps the most larger-than-life personality of the Australian political scene: the North Queenslander in the big hat, the man who would let a thousand blossoms bloom, part of the parliamentary furniture itself, the one and only Bob Katter.

Now, Bob is a character but he's consistent one, so instead of reprising the greatest hits that I've featured before, I thought I would present you with some history to contextualise him and his electorate. Katter’s seat of Kennedy is a vast one. It stretches from the Coral Sea coast between Cairns and Townsville, across the Great Dividing Range, and through Outback towns such as Charters Towers, Hughenden, and Cloncurry out to Mount Isa, across to the NT border, and up to the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Bob Katter has seemingly stomped the length and breadth of it to become an enduringly popular local member. Although Kennedy is one of the original 65 electorates from Federation in 1901, Katter is remarkably just the seventh person to hold it.

Kennedy was in Labor hands from 1929 to 1966 while Darby Riordan and then his nephew Bill held the seat, but for the last 59 years it has been a family business for the other side of politics:, a Katter has represented Kennedy for all but 3 years. Bob’s father, Bob Katter Sr, won it for the Country Party (later renamed the Nationals) and held it from 1966 until his death in 1990, while the young fella learned the family business as a state MP from 1974. Bob Jr served as a cabinet minister from 1983 under another larger-than-life Queensland pollie, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, and in August 1989, Sir Joh unsuccessfully endorsed Katter as his successor as premier. Instead, Bob Jr had an annus horribilis: he went into opposition at the December 1989 Queensland state election, his dad died days before the March 1990 federal election, and Kennedy fell to Labor. The new MP, Rob Hulls, however, only got one term representing this sprawling constituency (and yes, Victorian readers with long memories, that is the Rob Hulls, deputy premier to John Brumby in 2007–10; quite the change of scenery!).

Katter shifted to federal parliament at the 1993 election, winning back the seat of dear old dad, and he has held Kennedy ever since. In 2001 he left the Nationals to sit as an independent: he disagreed with the rise of neoliberal economics (good!) and with some of the Coalition’s more socially liberal policies (bad! especially as the Coalition is uhh not very socially liberal!). In 2011, he founded Katter’s Australian Party, which met with very little success outside Queensland at the 2013 and 2016 federal elections and has since focused on winning seats in North Queensland. It really ought to be called Katter's North Queensland Party.

Bob’s son Robbie has been the party leader since 2020, and at state level KAP holds three seats that overlap with the Division of Kennedy. But Bob is the only KAP representative at federal level; ex-One Nation lunatic Fraser Anning briefly joined KAP as a Senator in 2018 but proved to be too barmy even for the Katters. I see little reason to anticipate any change to the party’s representation this year. If you live in Kennedy, you probably know Katter is a strong favourite to retain his seat; if you don’t, I hope the history above helped make this explicable.

What is Bob emphasising in his campaign this year? Well, per the homepage, “KAP = Castle Law”. Yes, their core focus is a fear campaign that “crime in Queensland is out of control” and people have a “right to defend their home against intruders without facing legal consequences”. Look, I spent my teenage years in a conservative Queensland setting where A Current Affair was as serious a source of news as the 7:30 Report, but shooting dead a trespasser in your garden is disproportionate. KAP states that “Under the current law, people must demonstrate they have only used ‘necessary’ force under the ‘reasonable belief’ that the intruder was entering their home to commit a serious crime”. Seems fine to me! But they think that people “cannot always make split-second, measured decisions in moments of crisis”. The existing law as per their own description already accommodates this: a person fiddling with your gate is obviously a different degree of threat to somebody confronting you in your bedroom with a knife, and going out all guns blazing at the former is not "reasonable". KAP's policy is a solution in search of a problem.

Other policies? Still on crime, KAP has a four-step “send ‘em out bush” policy for young offenders that in practice would just make them more resentful. You won’t be surprised to learn that KAP wants harsher sentences in general for youth offending and backs the LNP’s “adult crime = adult time” approach. Turning to energy, KAP want more coal, more gas, and new nuclear. Other infrastructure policies focus mainly on roads and on dams to support agriculture. Unsurprisingly for a party whose largest donors are from the gun lobby, KAP’s approach to firearms is permissive. And maybe one of their odder policies is that “KAP wants flying foxes gone from populated areas” and supports culling them. Did a flying fox steal your dog Bob? Come on man. Three of seven species of flying fox in Australia are listed as vulnerable or endangered.

And, of course, for a party led by a man whose most famous remark is about crocodiles tearing people to pieces in North Queensland, there is a policy that “values human life above crocodiles”. Enjoy. Should this move you, perhaps you might also want to buy an official “let there be a thousand blossoms bloom” shirt. If so, Bob’s got a shop for that. I am not kidding.

Recommendation: Give Katter’s Australian Party a very low preference in the House and a weak or no preference in the Senate.

Website: https://kattersaustralianparty.org.au/

(For the pol nerds: Bob is currently Father of the House, i.e. the longest-serving current MP, but at just over 32 years in office he is not yet in the top ten ever. If the new parliament goes to term and Bob does not retire before the election, he will be either 10th or 11th  on the all-time list depending on the exact day of election. He needs to serve five years from today to get into the top five, 10.5 years to get into the top two, and just shy of twenty years to pass Billy Hughes’ record of 51 years and 213 days. Keep in mind that Bob turns 80 next month. Now, yes, he served 18 years in Queensland’s state parliament, so as of this year he has been in a parliament for half a century, but Billy Hughes served in the NSW parliament for 7 years; to exceed Hughes’ cumulative time, Katter needs to be in office for another 8.7 years)

[coochiequeens]

March 05, 2025 • By Nathalie Ebead

On 8 March, as the world observes International Women's Day and marks the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, it is essential to recognize the key roles women continue to play in Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement since the illegal 2021 military coup.

The military coup precipitated an unprecedented human rights and humanitarian crisis  in Myanmar severely impacting women and girls. 

In 2025, women and girls in Myanmar continue to bear the brunt of the ongoing crises and conflict in Myanmar: 10.4 million women and girls need humanitarian assistance, including 7.1 million women and 3.3 million girls. Women-headed households are 1.2 times more likely than male-headed households to live in poverty, and families with more children face higher risks.  Women and girls deal with a host of crisis-driven hardships, including the risk of forced conscription, early and child marriage, human trafficking, and gender-based violence. 

Deep-rooted patriarchal norms continue to relegate women to secondary roles in decision-making, making it difficult for them to participate in legislative and constitution drafting in Myanmar’s post-coup transition. Structural barriers such as a lack of legal protections, discriminatory practices, and economic barriers further hinder women’s full participation. 

Despite these challenges, women in Myanmar have shown exceptional resilience by stepping into leadership roles in politics, combat and the humanitarian field, driving grassroots activism, and advocating for equality and justice in their communities, contributing to a vision of a federal democratic union as outlined in the Federal Democracy Charter (FDC) . The FDC’s human rights provisions include gender equality and children’s rights, and a prohibition of discrimination on any grounds, including race, faith, gender, disability, and sexual orientation. The FDC also aims to build inclusive state institutions, establishing a Women Rights and Gender Equality Commission and including a 30 percent quota for women at all levels of decision-making in Myanmar’s future democratic institutions.

Women MPs and Ministers: Shaping the Future of Governance

Women MPs elected in the 2020 general elections joined the pro-democracy movement in 2021, establishing the Myanmar Women Parliamentary Network (MWPN) , a coalition of more than 100 female MPs from various ethnic groups and all states and regions of Myanmar, including those in exile and from conflict-affected areas, as a platform for collective action to strengthen women’s political participation. Women MPs continue to work as advocates for policy and legal frameworks that support gender equality and to participate in governance on state and regional level. Their increased outreach efforts to their constituents since 2023 in the form of in person townhall meetings in liberated areas address core issues such as women’s rights, service delivery including healthcare access and interim education, security, human rights protection and the prevention of gender-based violence, thereby promoting a more inclusive democracy that reflects the needs of all citizens.

In their outreach to the international community, the MWPN has worked to expand its network and relations with regional MPs and in global fora such as the United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), organising regional exchanges on the challenges of women’s political participation, and amplifying the voices of Myanmar’s women. 

Watch the video by Aye Mya Mya Myo, the Chairperson of Myanmar’s Women Parliamentary Network (MWPN) on the challenges and work of the network:   

"If we were to mention the greatest challenge under Myanmar's current military rule, it is that some believe that the role of women and gender equality is no longer important. I, however, truly believe that women's leadership is the key to building a peaceful society. However, we cannot do it alone: we need to join forces and work together, unite and collaborate more effectively. This is crucial for women in Myanmar to be able to take on more leadership roles and work towards a just and equal society." Aye Mya Mya Myo, Chairperson MWPN

Women have also taken up ministerial roles within the National Unity Government (NUG),  leading key Ministries such as education, health, and social welfare as well as the Ministry of Women, Youth, and Children Affairs. Furthermore, the Interim Gender Equality Policy (2024-2026) was recently adopted by the government, prioritizing Myanmar’s efforts to ensure gender-responsive governance, strengthen women’s political participation, economic empowerment and social protection, advance women, peace, and security efforts, and secure a better response to gender-based violence.

Grassroots Leadership and Peacebuilding

Women in Myanmar have emerged as leaders of grassroots movements, which are essential to the fabric of the pro-democracy struggle. The Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) has seen significant contributions from women who organize protests, share resources, and provide essential humanitarian support to communities impacted by the coup. 

The voices of civil society and disadvantaged groups, particularly women, youth, and ethnic minorities, must be heard and integrated in the political processes shaping a future Myanmar. Practical strategies to promote coalition building and financial support to empower women are essential, including creating supportive networks and training programs to allow them to effectively participate in political processes and to deliver humanitarian aid to the most vulnerable. The sudden and significant loss of funding that has already occurred this year will severely impact the ability of women’s organisations and the CDM to continue providing life-saving assistance and to participate in shaping a future democratic Myanmar.

A Vision for the Future

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, it is vital to acknowledge the sacrifices and achievements of women in Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement. Their courage, leadership, and relentless advocacy not only inspire future generations but also frame a vision for a just and equitable society.

Moving forward, it is essential that the international community continues to support the efforts of Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement to make the necessary structural changes for women's inclusion and representation. Strategies must be implemented that prioritize women's voices in all areas of decision-making, from community-level initiatives to national governance combined with financial support, resources, and capacity-building for women-led advocacy initiatives.

To read more about women’s challenges of political participation since the coup and proposed strategies to promote gender equality, please go to Inclusion and Gender Equality in Post-Coup Myanmar: Strategies for Democratic Constitutional Reform – Perspectives and Key Takeaways. For further International IDEA resources on gender equality and Myanmar please visit:

Preventing Gender Based Violence in Myanmar A Guide to being an effective advocate for gender equality International IDEA Gender Quota Database Constitution Assessment for Women’s Equality Women in Conflict and Peace

[sadbitchfangirl]

my stomach hurts, like this is a different kind of heartbreak. millions of women & poc just lost their rights because this country full of stupid, uneducated/ignorant & racist ass imbeciles who would rather elect a felon, racist, rapist, and selfish reality show star instead of a POC woman who is MORE than qualified to run this country. Not to mention all the men in the black community voting tr*mp because they think he gave them the “stimulus check” in 2020 for the pandemic he failed to act on. Who in their right mind thinks he’s fit to be president after being impeached TWICE

[zoobus]

Rukchanok "Ice" Srinork, 28, had pleaded not guilty to posting tweets critical of the monarchy.

Ice's Move Forward party, which won this year's election, had urged reform of the lese-majeste laws.

But the unelected senate used this as the main reason for blocking the party's attempt to form a government.

Opposition to the lese-majeste laws was one of the issues which sparked mass protests in 2020, lasting several months. According to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, around 260 charges have been filed under the lese-majeste law since 2020. Some 2,000 people have been prosecuted under a variety of laws for their involvement in the protests.

On Wednesday, Ice was found guilty of insulting the monarch by a Bangkok court for two posts made before she joined Move Forward - in the first, she criticised the country's handling of the pandemic, and the second was a repost of a tweet that was said to be critical of the monarchy.

Ice will lose her seat if she eventually goes to jail.

Several other leading figures in the Move Forward party are also facing lese-majeste charges - many of whom were activists who took part in the 2020 protests. Those protests were ignited by a controversial court decision in February 2020 which dissolved Future Forward, the previous incarnation of Move Forward and the first party to campaign on a programme of sweeping reform of Thailand's institutions.

Future Forward had done unexpectedly well in the 2019 election, mainly on the back of enthusiastic support from younger voters. This year, Move Forward stunned Thailand's establishment by doing even better, winning more seats than any other party thanks to victories like the one Ice won in Bang Bon.

After King Vajiralongkorn succeeded his father in 2016, use of the lese-majeste law was suspended for around two years, apparently at the monarch's request.

But the boldness of the 2020 protesters in demanding royal reform prompted the authorities to start using the law again, more extensively than at any other time in Thailand's history.

The lese-majeste law is notoriously broad, which makes mounting a legal defence very difficult.

It is regarded officially as a national security law, and it is extremely rare for judges to acquit defendants. Often the trials are held behind closed doors, with no independent observers. There is also huge pressure on defendants to plead guilty, regardless of the strength of the case against them - conviction is almost certain, and judges routinely halve the sentences of those who plead guilty.

Trials in Thailand often take many years to conclude, which means the lives of the young activists facing lese-majeste and many other charges in relation to the 2020 protests will be consumed for the foreseeable future by incessant court hearings.

This form of "judicial attrition" has proved very effective at snuffing out the protest movement. Protest leaders, some of whom face dozens of charges, simply have no time now to organise.

[oneshortdamnfuse]

All this talk of third party voters when voter turnout for both candidates was significantly lower than in 2020.

Tr*mp had less people vote for him this election than last by ~1 million.

Trump winning =/= Trump gaining popularity. He won by less votes than he got in 2020.

Kamala had less people vote for her than Biden this election by ~10+ million.

In 2020, we voted like our lives depended on it. This election, a lot of people didn't vote at all.

Which is much more concerning because the presidential race was not the only thing at stake.

e.g. Florida needed 60% to vote yes on abortion protections, but only got 57%.

[sonicenvy]

I feel like I've felt genuinely hopeful about the state of things in the last week, which has been a trip y'all. I watched the Harris/Walz rally from Philly earlier and it made me feel so hopeful for the future actually. The fact that people are coalescing around this ticket, and are ready to come out to vote against tr*mp and his pr*ject 2025 weirdos gives me hope. For a minute there I was like, have I stepped into a time machine back to 2008????

For those of you who are not old enough to remember 2008, it was truly and wholly such a "you had to be there" moment. The hope, the optimism and the energy was off the charts because people were ready for a change that would dump dubya. I'm from Chicago (and I was living there in 2008), and the energy on the ground here was insane y'all, and I'm getting shades of that now.

So, like 2008 was the first presidential election that I was really aware of, and I think it fundamentally shaped something in me politically. I was 11 years old in 2008, and it was truly an unforgettable moment. My bff at the time's mom was a huge Obama supporter (she even drove to Iowa to canvas for Obama ahead of the Iowa Caucuses) and she had an election night watch party which we all were at. The energy there was palpable. The number of Obama/Biden signs in my neighborhood was off the charts, thick, thick on the ground. That night when it was announced that Obama had won, people immediately started blowing off fireworks. We were all partying out in the streets, filled with excitement and hope. There was a massive rally downtown with the Obamas that night. Fireworks kept going off all night. It was such a moment. So yeah, I'm getting shades of this now, and I like that so much.

In case y'all didn't know (or forgot) FLORIDA went blue in 08. Here's the map of the election btw, for those who don't know:

Anyways, the fact that there have been people rallying for Harris in republic*n strongholds (like THE VILLAGES) in FLORIDA is a promising sign. The fact that GEORGIA went blue in 2020 despite massive amounts of republic*n ratfuckery, is a sign of good things ahead.

But yeah, anyways, fellow Americans, check ya voter registrations and get out the vote!!!!!!!!!!

[lesbianrobin]

Not them implying you're voting for tr*mp when they're obviously a BT and a certain someone playing a character in that ship (it aint oliver) supported tr*mp back in the 2020 elections

DMCKSKXMSXJJEC PLSSSSS like ok i don't think it's necessarily fair to judge fictional characters by the actions of their actors or vice versa BUT! considering that tommy called chimney a chinese food delivery guy. i do have my suspicions as to his voting record

[capnsoapy]

congratulations to boris johnson for managing to resign in disgrace twice in nine months

(detailed explanation of Johnson's premiership below if you need to catch up)

After David Cameron resigned due to the Brexit referendum (2016), and Theresa May resigned after failing to enact Brexit (2019), Boris Johnson became the next UK Prime Minster.

Soon after, the COVID-19 pandemic began, and Johnson was in charge of the UK response. Lockdown laws were implemented, so meetings with others were highly restricted and it was an offence to do so; the exact rules changed frequently as the infection spread.

During this period (2020-2021), Boris Johnson held a number of work meetings and parties at Downing Street. When rumours of this circulated (Nov 2021), he repeatedly insisted in parliament that this was not true.

These claims were escalated from rumour with the publication of the "Sue Gray report"; an in-depth investigation into the so-called "Partygate" scandal, which resulted in (amongst other things) Boris Johnson being fined for breaking the law (May 2022).

When this news broke, a vote of no confidence was held in Johnson, and though it narrowly failed to oust him as Conservative leader (59-41), shortly afterwards a slew of Tory MPs began resigning in protest, threatening to collapse the government. His hand was forced, and he resigned as party leader (Jul 2022).

However, he continued as an MP, and so the inquiry continued over whether him lying to parliament should result in him being expelled from the house. During this inquiry, Johnson has claimed that any misleading was due to incompetence and ignorance, rather than intentionally lying (Mar 2023).

Boris Johnson received a copy of the inquiries findings, which recommended he be suspended and that a by-election be held to potentially replace him. After seeing the evidence and conclusions, Johnson immediately resigned (Jun 2023).

The full report will be published to the public shortly.

[wild-wombytch]

Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, representing Te Pāti Māori, was appointed New Zealand's youngest MP at 21 (since James Stuart-Wortley, who was elected in the country's first general election in 1853 when he was aged 20 years and 7 months).

During her maiden speech in December 2023, Maipi-Clarke criticised the National-led coalition government, claiming that it had "attacked my whole world from every corner." She identified health, the environment, water, land, natural resources and children as key areas of disagreement with the Government. She performed a haka for said maiden speech :

Maipi-Clarke has ancestry in Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou, Te Āti Awa, and Ngāi Tahu. The broadcaster Potaka Maipi is her father. She is the grand-niece of Māori language activist Hana Te Hemara. Taitimu Maipi, whose activism contributed to the removal of the Captain Hamilton statue in 2020, is her grandfather. Wi Katene, the first Māori MP to be appointed to the Executive Council, was her great-great-great-great-grandfather

[mariacallous]

In case you're wondering "Ms. Callous, who is Andriy Derkach?"

[themalhambird]

UK ELECTION 2024: WHO'S LEADING THE FOUR MAJOR PARTIES?

The Conservatives currently have a majority in Parliament and form the Government. The Labour Party, with the second highest number of seats, leads the opposition. The SNP (Scottish National Party) are the second largest opposition party, and the Liberal Democrats are the third. Who's leading them?

This is, as far as possible, a non-partisan guide. The information is chiefly summarised or otherwise pulled directly from the candidate's respective Wikipedia pages. Any other sources will also be linked.

Click below to keep reading, and all that jazz.

Rishi Sunak, Leader of the Conservative Party. Current Prime Minister; Member for Richmond.

Rishi Sunak was born in Hampshire in 1980. His father is a GP for the NHS and his mother was a pharmacist who owned her own pharmacy. Sunak became head boy during his time as a day pupil at Winchester College, and worked as a waiter in a restaurant during summer holiday. He read philosophy, politics and business at Lincoln College, Oxford, and during the course of his degree undertook an internship at Conservative Campaign Headquarters. 

Sunak’s pre-Westminster career was in banking. He worked as an analyst for Goldman-Sachs before moving to work for a hedgefund management firm. He later became a partner in this firm, , and spent a couple of years as Director of an Investment firm owned by his father in law: In 2009 he married Akshata Murthy, an heiress; business woman; fashion designer; and venture capitalist in her own right. The couple have two daughters, aged 13 and 11. 

Sunak first became an MP in 2015. He campaigned in favour of Brexit in 2016. He became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2020  whilst Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, and shot to popularity after the COVID furlough scheme was implemented. His Eat Out to Help Out scheme, which was designed to boost the hospitality sector during COVID  by offering a 50% discount on eligible meals, is thought to have contributed massively to the need for a second COVID lockdown. In April 2022 Sunak was issued with a fixed penalty notice by Police as part of the investigation into Downing Street breaches of their own COVID rules (this is commonly referred to as The Party Gate Scandal). 

Sunak became Prime Minister in October 2022 after his predecessor, Liz Truss, crashed and burned rather spectacularly. 

Kier Starmer K.C., Leader of the Labour Party. Current Leader of the Opposition. Member for Holbourn and St. Pancress.

Kier Starmer was born in Southwark, 1962, and raised in Surrey- the second of four children. His father was a tool maker; his mother was a nurse. Both were active in the Labour Party and Starmer was named after Labour’s first leader, Keir Hardie. As a teenager, Starmer was a member of the Labour Party Young Socialists. Starmer was the first member of his family to attend university, studying Law at the University of Leeds and graduating with first class honours. He completed his Post-Graduate studies at Oxford, during which time he served as the editor of a Trotskyiest radical magazine, Socialist Alternatives. 

Starmer’s  pre-Westminster career was in law. He became a barrister in 1987, undertaking legal aid work, including pro bono cases: he was instructed by Arthur Scargill during the Miners’ Strike of the Thatcher years.

Starmer worked primarily on Human Rights issues, including defending people facing the death penalty. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2002 and became joint head of the Doughty Street Chambers that same year. He was Human Rights Advisor to the Northern Ireland Policing Board, and he marched and wrote legal opinions against the Iraq War. 

Starmer became head of the Crown Prosecution Service and Director of Public Prosecutions in 2008 and served in the position until 2013. Noteworthy incidents during his tenure include:

In 2009, Conservative MP David Davies calling for Starmer to be dismissed after Starmer  vocally opposed the Conservative Government’s proposal to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 

In 2010, Starmer prosecuting MPs and a Member of the House of Lords for false accounting in the aftermath of the Parliamentary Expenses Scandal. 

In 2013, Starmer published a study demonstrating that false reports of rape are rare, and started an enquiry into the reduction of rape and domestic violence reports being made to the police. 

Starmer was knighted for services to law and criminal justice in 2014 and became a Labour MP in 2015. He was opposed to Brexit and  advocated for a second referendum. He replaced Jeremy Corbyn as leader of Labour Party in 2019, when Corbyn stepped down after Labour suffered their worst electoral defeat in roughly 80 years. 

In 2007 Starmer married Victoria Alexander, who was previously a solicitor and is now an Occupational Health Worker for the NHS. The pair have a 15 year old son and a 13 year old daughter. 

Stephen Flynn, Leader of the Scottish National Party* in the House of Commons. Member for Aberdeen South.

*Perhaps obviously, The Scottish National Party only stands candidates in Scotland. Flynn is therefore unlikely to be the next Leader of the Opposition, though the SNP will probably remain a major voting bloc in Westminster.

Stephen Flynn was born in Dundee in 1988. He studied History and Politics at the University of Dundee. He was elected to Aberdeen City Council in 2015, leading the SNP group in the Council. He was elected to Parliament in 2019. He replaced Ian Blackford as Leader of the Scottish National Party in the House of Commons in December 2023. 

Ed Davey, Leader of the Liberal Democrats. Member for Kingston and Surbiton.

Ed Davey was born in Nottingham  in 1965. By the time he was fifteen he had lost both his parents and was being raised by his maternal grandparents. He studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Oxford. In 1989 he became an economics researcher for the Liberal Democrats, and was elected to Parliament in 1997. During the coalition Government he served as Undersecretary of State for Business (2010-2012), and Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (2012-2015). He lost his seat in 2015, a disastrous election in general for the Lib Dems, but was knighted the same year for political and public services. He regained his seat in 2017 and became leader of the Liberal Democrats in 2019. He married Emily Gasson, also a Liberal Democrat Politician, in 2007. The couple have one son. 

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Additions to this post are welcome, but please stick to facts and not personal opinion. Provide sources where possible. Do NOT attack or otherwise insult anybody mentioned in this post based on physical appearance or other similar traits. The UK election will be on July 4th 2024. You can register to vote here.

[peninsulaisms]

Call for ban on developer donations - MP News

MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire councillors have united in imploring the state government to immediately ban all donations from property developers, gambling businesses, and politicians to candidates running for local councils.

Councillors voted unanimously in favour of the move at their 28 January meeting after Cr David Gill led a motion to end the three streams of financial contributions for candidates, as well as set a cap of $500 for all other donations ensuring the process is “transparent and it is accountable”.

“The state government has the power to make these changes,” said Gill, who has made similar pushes in previous years. “It’s not about individuals. People who have accepted donations in the recent election have done so legally, and I’m not arguing with that. “What I’m saying is the process needs to improve and asking the state government who are the only ones that can make the improvement to act. “And it needs to come from lots of councils and from the Municipal Association [of Victoria] so we get to the stage where it is transparent, and it is accountable.”

In supporting the motion, councillors also voted that disclosures of donations are to be made “in real time” up until election day, which Gill believed was only in “fairness to the voter” so “people know about it when they’re voting”. This included the period up to “councillors being sworn in and that all donations to councillors be banned from the time of being sworn in”. Additionally, the shire will also call on the state government to set up a statewide donor register so all donations are tracked by name “and not just by company or any other mechanism that may conceal knowledge about the donor”.

The Victorian Electoral Commission has a campaign donation register, which lists donations made to political parties, candidates and members of parliament for state elections. But there is currently no statewide register for local government elections, which Gill said was needed. “What we’re asking for is a level playing field for local government also”.

Cr Kate Roper said transparency was critical, noting Operation Sandon, which held public examinations in 2019 and 2020 into allegations of serious corrupt conduct in relation to planning and property development decisions at the City of Casey, had “really caused a lot of mistrust to the public about councils and what goes on in the background and how people can influence them”.

Deputy mayor Cr Paul Pingiario said he “wholeheartedly” supported the motion to improve transparency and “to make sure that everyone is playing with the same rules”. “We need to make sure that when we do put these things forward and we do lobby for policies that they are integral to our integrity and they play a massive part in how we move forward as a democracy,” he said.

The shire will now write to the state government calling for all measures to be acted on in the motion. The move comes as just over $30,000 was donated to four Mornington Peninsula Shire candidates, including two who were elected, by a private organisation called the Friends of the Peninsula, which is run by a property developer Ari Lakman, according to records from the Australian Securities and Investment Commission.

As reported by The News last month, Friends of the Peninsula gave donations to newly elected councillors Cam Williams ($5,055.16) and Bruce Ranken ($7,136.12) while unsuccessful candidates Peter Clarke and Susan Bissinger received $14,065.72 and $8,873.31 respectively.

Under the Local Government Act council candidates have 40 days after election day to complete a campaign donation return including a record of donations and gifts for the Local Government Inspectorate. Failure to submit a return or providing false or misleading information can result in prosecution and fines exceeding $11,090.

Council Watch president Dean Hurlston welcomed the push by the shire, saying the “key is getting to the source of donations, not the web of companies or associations that they are hidden through”. “As far as we’re concerned, all donations should be real time so that voters, when they vote, know who’s funding candidates,” he told The News.

Hurlston added donations of more than $500 from political parties should also be banned “because a political party is the ultimate hidden funding source; you don’t know who’s donated to that political party and what those funds are made-up of”.