Tag archive: Victoria

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AAA Profile: Elizabeth Warren

On Saturday 9 February 2019, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren formally announced her candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination at a rally in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Warren was the first to establish an exploratory committee, in late December, but this announcement makes it official: “This is the fight of our lives. The fight to build an America where dreams are possible, an America that works for everyone. I am in that fight all the way. And that is why I stand here today to declare that I am a candidate for president of the United States.”

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AAA Profile: Kamala Harris

On Sunday, 27 January 2019, Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) officially kicked off her 2020 presidential campaign in her home town of Oakland, California, before a crowd estimated at some 20,000. Harris is the former Attorney General of California, elected to the US Senate in 2016. As a mixed race child of a Jamaican father and a Tamil Indian mother, Harris is the first potentially viable candidate who is a woman of color to run for president. Her candidacy will electrify liberals and promote progressive goals, such as universal pre-K, debt-free college, and Medicare for all, and a long career in law enforcement may help to remove the “soft on crime” sting that many conservatives will attempt to apply.

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The (Cosmic) Week That Was

The week of January 13th, 2019 presented a number of interesting stories, which together paint a picture of celestial heavy weather such as we have rarely seen. With the Sun still within orb of its annual conjunction with Pluto, fresh off its tete-a-tete with Saturn, it was likely we’d have limitation and devastation on our minds, and events proved that to be the case. But it was asteroid NOT that really made its presence felt, in story after story, illumining various dead ends, impasses and reversals. NOT lent its particular brand of obstructionism to the proceedings, issuing a variety of nolle prosequi rulings worldwide, applying the breaks and throwing up roadblocks.

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Aster-Obit: George H. W. Bush

On Thursday, 30 November 2018, George H. W. Bush died at his home in Houston, Texas, at age 94. The 41st president of the United States, Bush was the son of a Senator, the father of the 43rd US president and of a former governor of Florida. Bush served two terms as Vice President for Ronald Reagan before succeeding to the office for a single term, losing the presidency to Bill Clinton in 1992. The subsequent friendship which grew between the two men (Bush and his wife Barbara often referred to Clinton as another son) was a beautiful example of a nonpartisan spirit that seems quaint and antiquated in today’s cruder, rough-and-tumble political atmosphere.

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AAA Profile: Nancy Pelosi, The Once and Future Speaker

When the 116th Congress convenes on January 3rd, 2019, it’s likely to have a most remarkable woman at its head. If chosen Speaker by the incoming Democratic majority in US the House of Representatives, it won’t be Nancy Pelosi’s first crack at wielding the gavel. The California-based Representative made history in 2007 when she became the first female Speaker of the House, a post she held until the 2010 electoral rout against the Affordable Care Act, spearheaded by the Tea Party, tossed Democrats out of power for 8 years. But progressives and Pelosi are back, and 2018’s Blue Wave has once again turned the tide in DC.

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Midterm Elections 2018: Post Mortem

Well, it’s finally over. Mostly. As of this writing (Wednesday morning, November 7, though a protracted Verizon service outage may delay posting), the results appear to be a mixed bag. The Democrats have retaken the House of Representatives, but the Republicans have expanded their Senate majority. Barring a few key races (Arizona, Florida and Montana Senate races still too close to call, a Mississippi Senate race requiring a run-off, and a likely legal challenge in Georgia’s gubernatorial election), the broad outlines are clear.

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