December 18, 2018 - Sent to Governor by the House

HB 41 VOTER REGISTRATION Will modify the law concerning challenges to voter registrations, the appointment of observers, and absent voting, and to change the manner in which counties may use reimbursements for voting machine acquisitions.

HB 58 CURSIVE HANDWRITING  Will require the Department of Education to include supplemental instructional materials in cursive handwriting in the English language arts model curriculum.

For further information:  berniedelegates@rootsaction.org

December 13, 2018

Former Sanders Delegates Vote Overwhelmingly

To Relaunch Bernie Delegates Network for 2019

Former Bernie Sanders delegates to the 2016 Democratic National Convention have voted to reconstitute the independent Bernie Delegates Network.

The vote was 408 “yes” to 23 “no” in response to this question: “Do you favor a relaunch of the independent Bernie Delegates Network in 2019?”

Organizers called the vote “a landslide” and said they will proceed with relaunching the nationwide network in early January.

The election was conducted online over a five-day period ending December 11. Former delegates were given a unique code that could only be used to vote once.

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been fooled.” -- Carl Sagan,"The Fine Art of Baloney Detection" (February 1, 1987)

This morning, just as I was about to start writing my weekly Duty to Warn column, I glanced through the Duluth News-Tribune and couldn’t help but notice a full-page ad on page A3. The ad was titled “Rallying to Address Opioid Addiction”. The color-printed ad likely cost well over a thousand dollars and was paid for by an entity that I had never heard of before called “Rx ALI Minnesota” (Rx Abuse Leadership Initiative). The group was apparently a fresh new “alliance” of “concerned” corporate entities that were suddenly interested in the opioid crisis that is affecting all portions of America.

Jami Brandli’s Sisters Three has an intriguing, promising premise that is similar to Amy Heckerling’s 1995 Clueless starring Alicia Silverstone and 2011’s From Prada to Nada, which updated and adapted to contemporary milieus Jane Austen’s 19th century novels, respectively, 1816’s Emma and 1811’s Sense and Sensibility. In Sisters Three Brandli locates the real life Brontë siblings, who wrote later in the 19th century than Austen did, in the 21st century.

Adapting the Brontës to the social media era is an inspired idea, and Brandli captures the artsy, antsy, angsty anguish that reportedly troubled the three sisters - and their brother, Branwell, who is a palpable offstage presence in this clever production. The playwright extrapolates from what is known of the siblings’ real lives in her modern day-set 90 minute or so one-acter that takes place on a college campus, although it was not clear to me where - but probably closer to New York than Yorkshire.

Ohio lawmakers met at 1:00 in the morning Friday to sneak their pay raises into a Widows and Orphans bill. Besides providing cover for their raid on the taxpayers, the action also prevents Governor Kasich from using a line-item veto . which is only available on appropriations bills for special projects. He is now forced to either veto the bill completely and expose himself to charges that he is against widows and orphans or give the politicians their pay raise. Under the bill legislator’ salaries would rise automatically over the next 10 years from $60,584 to $73,167, the politicians thus spare themselves from having to vote each year to increase their pay. This is good money for a part time job. The legislature is only in session a few months of the year and most of the lawmakers hold full time jobs outside politics. These same lawmakers who can not find funds to repair Ohio’s roads and help the homeless  had no trouble finding money for themselves. By trying to use widows and orphans as a vehicle for their pay raises, politicians only confirm the opinion of most Ohioans that they are using their offices for personal enrichment not public service.

George Moss