Thanks Mags I was just going to open one.

https://theintercept.com/2018/08/10/ohio-special-election-ranked-choice-voting/

But even if we were to credit the assessment that Green Party candidates are responsible for spoiling multiple presidential elections, and now, Ohio’s 12th District, it remains true that the Democratic Party has shown little interest in addressing the underlying cause of the spoiler effect: our first-past-the-post voting system.

In our current system, the person who wins the most votes wins the election. As a result, if a third-party candidate who is ideologically similar to one of the main two parties enters a race, they can split the vote, causing the less popular platform to cary the day. However, in a ranked-choice voting system, voters “rank” the candidates in order of preference. If none of the parties get to 50 percent of the vote, the least popular candidate is stricken, and their votes are allocated according to the second choice of the voter. Meaning that if Stein voters had ranked Clinton second on their ballots, the votes cast by Stein voters would have gone to Clinton once it became clear that Stein finished last.

In 2017, a group of House Democrats, led by Virginia Rep. Don Beyer, introduced H.R. 3057, the Fair Representation Act, which would require every congressional district in America to use ranked-choice voting. It would also require districts to be redrawn by independent redistricting committees, which would diminish the effects of partisan gerrymandering, and it would require the installation of multimember districts — a reform that would allow voters in each district to elect multiple lawmakers instead of just one, so that more people would be represented.

The law would make congressional elections much more competitive and also make it so that voters who feel unrepresented by the major parties, or disenfranchised because they live in a district that is staunchly in favor of one party or another, would have a greater incentive to vote.

When it was introduced, the bill had a total of three sponsors: Beyer; Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.; and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.

A year later, it has only gained two additional sponsors: Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn.

I think she probably should have ignored this one. No need to engage this asshole. It did make me LOL though.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-conservative-commentator-ben-shapiro_us_5b6d3267e4b0bdd06208193c?utm_source=reddit.com

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shot back at a conservative commentator on Twitter Thursday, comparing his invitation to debate him with a solicitation from a catcaller on the street.

“I don’t owe a response to unsolicited requests from men with bad intentions,” Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic candidate for Congress in New York’s 14th District, wrote. “And also like catcalling, for some reason they feel entitled to one.”

Her comments came after Ben Shapiro, a conservative commentator, challenged Ocasio-Cortez to a debate and offered her campaign $10,000 if she participated. Shapiro, called a “provocative gladiator” by The New York Times, has embraced deeply conservative views and built his image as a millennial firebrand.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2018/08/floridas-plan-bullied-lgbtq-kids-send-christian-schools/

This past March, Florida became the first state to create a private school voucher program just for bullied students.

The Hope Scholarship Program gives students who report being bullied $6,700 towards tuition at a private school, or $750 for transportation to another public school.

Anti-bullying activists in Florida opposed the bill, pointing out that bullying occurs in private schools at about the same rate as it does in public schools, that bullies will just pick new targets if their victims leave, and that private schools aren’t closely regulated when it comes to bullying so students will find they have few tools to remedy a situation at a private school.

Now a new analysis by the Huffington Post found that many of the private schools that students can attend in the program would just join in the bullying of LGBTQ students.

Around 70 private schools have signed up for the program to take in bullied public school students. Of these schools, 10% have explicit “zero tolerance” policies when it comes to homosexuality.

For example, Trinity Christian Academy’s student handbook says students are required to refrain from “Any action involving pornography or homosexuality.” Harvest Academy calls homosexuality an “abomination” in its parent/student handbook.

An LGBTQ student is unlikely to find much help at these schools.

Moreover, 30% of the schools use curricula that teaches that homosexuality is wrong. For example, some of these schools use textbooks from Abeka. The company’s 8th grade U.S. history textbook calls gay rights a “moral evil.”

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/401250-trump-administration-calls-current-endangered-species-protections-a

Interior Department deputy secretary David Bernhardt says the way the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is implemented today causes an “unnecessary regulatory burden” on U.S. taxpayers and companies.

Bernhardt makes the case for the administration’s recently proposed changes to ESA implementation in a Washington Post op-ed on Friday, arguing that plans to strip “threatened” species of the same protections as listed “endangered” ones would clean up the “muddle” of the current state of the law.

While Bernhardt promises that the Fish and Wildlife Service will consider the “best science” when determining endangered species act protections, he also pushes an administration idea of incorporating the economic impact of listing a species — calling it a “hallmark of good government.”

That concept has received pushback from conservation groups, who think species protections should be determined based on need, not economic impact.

In the editorial, Bernhardt, a former energy lobbyist who worked at the Interior Department under President George W. Bush, also appears to speak directly to those environmental groups who largely oppose the administration’s new measures, calling them “familiar faces” and saying that their opposition is “hyperbolic and unhelpful in promoting constructive discussion.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/10/millions-of-government-workers-paid-poverty-wages-study-says

The federal government employs more workers making less than $15 an hour than any other employer in the US, a new report has revealed.

The study, compiled by pro-union group Good Jobs Nation, analyzed federal data and showed that the government spends more than $1.6tn on federal contractors employing more than 12.5 million people with 4.5 million of those workers making below $15 an hour.

Many of these workers are employed by contractors as janitors, cafeteria workers, call center workers, administrative assistants and healthcare aides, and union campaigners say they are being kept on poverty wages.

Under the Obama administration, the federal government began to take steps to lift the wages of federal contractors. In 2012, Barack Obama signed an executive order raising the minimum wage for all workers employed on federal contracts to $10.10 an hour. In 2014, Obama signed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order, which prevented contractors who violate labor law from receiving federal contracts.

Organized labor applauded the orders as some of the most far-reaching reforms for workers achieved under Obama, though they fell short of their aim of establishing a $15 minimum wage.

The Trump administration has already started clawing back the moves. In 2017, the administration repealed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order. Then, in June of this year, the White House exempted contractors employed by the National Park Service from having to pay their workers the $10.10 minimum wage rate.

A email I got from my Rep. Debbie Dingel

Friend,

Michigan’s primary is now behind us. But as our team traveled the district this week to polling locations throughout the day on Tuesday to victory events that night and the Unity lunch on Wednesday – one thing is clear – momentum is on our side!

But first – a big thank you for being a part of Team Dingell! In fact – we’ve got 102,565 reasons to be thankful at our campaign headquarters because that’s the number of votes our campaign received – almost double what we received in 2016 – a Presidential year!

Everywhere you look – there are more and more signs that Democrats are serious about taking our country back this November. More women are running for office than ever before and right here in Michigan – women nominees will hold the top slots on the ballot, half of our Congressional nominees are women and the first Muslim woman is poised to be elected to Congress.

But the energy is happening all across America from a near upset in Ohio in a seat held by Republicans for over 3 decades to Democrats nearly beating sitting incumbents in Washington State in their open primary earlier this week!

But – you’ve heard me call myself Debbie Downer before. While the excitement we all feel is real, we simply can’t take anything for granted! We’ve got to double down and knock more doors, make more calls, raise more money and talk to more family and friends in the next 90 days than we ever have before!

It’s no secret that the Republicans have more big moneyed interests on their side – dark money that is sure to flow into races we least expect in the final days of this campaign. Right here in Michigan’s 12th District – we face multiple opponents this fall including a Republican and Socialist – and any sign of weakness will send up flare signals to come spend money and try to shut us down.

Our campaign makes one promise – no one is going to work harder than we will over the next 3 months to turn Michigan blue and take back the majority in the United States House of Representatives. Every progressive value we care passionately about is on the line – from making healthcare affordable and accessible to ALL Americans to protecting Social Security and Medicare to stopping the attack on our nation’s clean air and water laws.

And friends – big ideas like Medicare for All can’t even be put on the table unless we win back the Congress!

Not sure what to make of this

Right here in Michigan’s 12th District – we face multiple opponents this fall including a Republican and Socialist