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Algernon Moncrieff

Algernon Moncrieff's Journal
Algernon Moncrieff's Journal
November 1, 2024

With less than a week to go, how do you feel?

Confident?
Excited?
Frightened?
Depressed?
Angry?
Anxious?
Serene?

As for me - I've seen the hanging chads and Gore V. Bush, so I'm working under the assumption we won't actually know who the next president will be or which party controls Congress until December.

I think Total Wine/ Wall to Wall Wine will be the real winners.

August 21, 2024

NBC: RFK Jr. plans speech on 'path forward' as his campaign weighs backing Trump

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to make a campaign speech addressing "his path forward" on Friday, days after his running mate said the campaign faced a choice about staying in the 2024 election or dropping out to back Donald Trump.

Kennedy's campaign announced he will hold the event in Phoenix on Friday. Trump, meanwhile, is also set to host an event on Friday night, in Glendale, a Phoenix suburb.


https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/rfk-jr-plans-speech-path-forward-talk-potentially-backing-trump-rcna167606

July 6, 2024

David Axelrod - Opinion: Biden's defiant delusion

CNN


Editor’s Note: David Axelrod, a CNN senior political commentator and host of “The Axe Files,” was a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama and chief strategist for the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaigns.

Biden could be excused for wanting to put his awful debate performance in the rear view mirror. That was his purpose Friday in sitting down for the interview — to try and quell the panic that has gripped the Democratic Party.

He didn’t succeed.

[...]

“I’ll feel, as long as I gave it my all, and did as good a job as I know I can do … that’s what this is about.”

No, sir. It’s not.

Sometimes the Lord Almighty comes in the form of enlightened self-awareness.

The stakes are as great as Biden describes. And if he believes it, as I think he does, he will eventually do what duty and love of country requires, and step aside.

If he does not, it will be Biden’s age, and not Trump’s moral and ethical void, that will dominate the rest of this most important campaign and sully the president’s historic legacy.


July 4, 2024

Starmer set to be PM as Tories face worst defeat - exit poll

Source: BBC

Labour is set to win a general election landslide with a majority of 170, according to an exit poll for the BBC, ITV and Sky.

If the forecast is accurate, Sir Keir Starmer will become prime minister with 410 Labour MPs – just short of Tony Blair's 1997 total.

The Conservatives are predicted to slump to 131 MPs, their lowest number ever.

The Liberal Democrats are projected to come third with 61 MPs.

Read more: https://bbc.com/news/articles/cd1xnzlzz99o

July 4, 2024

UK - How the BBC reports this election

When are the results expected?

Voting in this election ends at 22:00 BST on Thursday, 4 July. Ballot boxes for the 650 constituencies are taken from polling stations to counting centres and counts begin immediately. The first seats declare some time close to 23:00 BST, the vast majority are declared before 09:00 on Friday morning.

We estimate 20 results will come in before 02:00 BST and the pace will pick up after that. Between 02:00 and 04:00 there will be 325 seats declared and between 04:00 and 06:00 another 275. The last few results come in later on Friday morning.

It is hard to say when we will know if any party has won the election, with enough MPs elected to form a majority in the House of Commons. It depends on how close the contest is, but it is likely to be sometime after 03:00 BST.


LINK

So shortly after fireworks end on the East Coast, we might have an idea of whether Labour will take Parliament or if the Tories hang on.
July 1, 2024

My guess: Prayer in school will return next year

Even if Biden wins, this court seems clearly poised to undo most of the Warren Court. Obviously the 10 Commandments Louisiana rule and the Oklahoma admonition that the Bible must be taught in schools will be challenged, but it now seems likely they would be upheld 6-3.

Other cases I expect conservative states to push to revisit include Miranda (being read your rights on arrest) and Gideon (entitled to a defense attorney).

April 21, 2024

Isra Hirsi, Ilhan Omar's Daughter, On Columbia Arrests, Barnard Suspension, Palestine Protests

Source: Teen Vogue

When Barnard junior – and former Teen Vogue cover star – Isra Hirsi, 21, tweeted on April 18 she was suspended for her involvement in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University, I immediately headed uptown so we could talk about the suspension. While I was on the subway, she stopped responding. Columbia students launched the encampment in the center of campus at 4 a.m. on Wednesday April 17, timed to a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism featuring Columbia University President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik. Though her mother, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), would go on to make noteworthy contributions at the hearing, Hirsi was otherwise occupied with the occupation.

...

Social media posts showed that during that same 1 p.m. block on Thursday, Shafik emailed the Columbia University community, informing them that she had officially told the New York Police Department to enter campus and dismantle the encampment. Isra, fellow Barnard junior Soph Askanase, and Barnard freshman Maryam Iqbal were the first to receive suspensions at the encampment; the three were arrested alongside over 100 students in the 20 minutes it took me to get into Columbia’s campus — past the police officers, campus security, additional hired Allied Universal private security, media, and protesters swarming the locked gates. (Despite the heavy security presence, NYPD Chief John Chell later told the Columbia Spectator that the students “offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner.&quot

That Thursday, Columbia became one of the nation’s trending topics, and Hirsi in particular caught intense heat, though not for the first time, as a longtime advocate on social justice issues. After her release, Hirsi faced being evicted from her dorm and inflamed social media backlash — much of which, she says, is based on “misunderstanding” and “misrepresentation.” Simultaneously, pro-Palestine campus encampments in solidarity with Columbia’s were popping up across the country, from Miami University in Ohio to the University of North Carolina to Yale. We met on Saturday at Morningside Park, 48 hours after her arrest.

Read more: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/isra-hirsi-ilhan-omar-columbia-arrests-barnard-suspension-palestine



I am told that the Barnard protesters who were evicted were given 15 minutes to remove their possessions from their dorms. For a wealthy student whose family resides in the area, this is a surmountable problem. For a student on financial aid, or with no support system in the area, the move is a de facto expulsion. Columbia and Barnard represent themselves to students and parents as centers of debate and free thought. But a non-violent camp set up to protest policies was met with arrests and evictions.
January 8, 2024

No Golden Globes threads?

I'm surprised....

Oppenheimer
Christopher Nolan
Lily Gladstone
The Boy and the Heron
Paul Giamatti

....and many more

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