Tag: March for our lives

“One of my goals in the next two years is to get 71% youth voter turnout in 2020,” Hogg told the Guardian in a recent phone interview. I think there’s a lot of people that, quite frankly, really, really, really hate our president David Hogg Working with young gun violence prevention activists from across the country, the Parkland made a bet this past spring that local organizing – and more local news coverage – could make a difference in the 2018 midterm elections. Over the summer, the March for Our Lives activists traveled on a bus tour to dozens of states to host rallies and voter registration drives, all with the goal of increasing youth voter turnout in the midterm elections. March for Our Lives is still focused on gun policy. The group is hoping to play a stronger lobbying role to pass gun control bills in state houses this year, as well as pressuring the senate, which is still controlled by Republican allies of the National Rifle Association, to pass a historic bill expanding background checks on gun sales. It’s possible to measure the influence of March for Our Lives so far by tallying up their year of wins and losses. These laws are already being used to prevent shootings, Hogg said. A national movement While the media spotlight still focuses most often on a handful of the most famous Parkland students, the teenage survivors a have spent the past year connecting with young activists who have long advocated for gun violence prevention in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington DC. This was the answer that Hogg, among others, gave , in a phone interview that had been scheduled for 9pm. “Does March for Our Lives still exist in four years?

The Henderson High senior is among a wave of young people mobilizing for the midterm elections — whether to turn out voters or register themselves — and energized specifically by the issue of gun violence. Students in Philadelphia, the suburbs, and Pittsburgh are part of organizing efforts to push stricter gun laws; promote local, state, and federal candidates who support those laws; and register voters. Between 10,000 and 17,000 people attended the March for Our Lives in Philadelphia, said chairwoman Serita Lewis. The Philadelphia March for Our Lives chapter has worked on "cross-cultural, cross-community" conversation, and students have also helped their parents and relatives decide to vote, Lewis said. "There have been kids being shot in Philadelphia forever. … What I loved was Parkland did not forget about those kids," said Parkinson. Turner threw herself into organizing her school's walkout against gun violence, attended the Washington march with Parkinson, and decided to talk at some local events about Ramsay and the shooting. "I realized that I didn't want her death to just become another piece of data in a statistic about mass shootings in schools," Turner said. "[It's] a whole generation, the active shooter generation, of kids who … are sort of thinking about politics for the very first time. And they're doing it through the lens of gun violence and school shootings," said Peter Ambler, director of Giffords' group.

The voters who are most amped for the 2018 elections look elite in nearly every way. “They have something to win back.” It’s the segment that’s surprising: Religiously unaffiliated voters, who may or may not be associated with other civic institutions, seem most excited about supporting or donating to causes, going to rallies, and expressing opinions online, among other activities. Political engagement may be providing these Americans with a new form of identity. By 2014, those numbers had shifted significantly: Pew found that 28 percent of Democrats identified as religiously unaffiliated. During that time, they were significantly more likely to have contacted an elected official or to have donated to a candidate or cause. The data on religiously unaffiliated Democrats combines with other statistics to form a rough picture of the voters who have been getting the most civically involved over the past year. It may be challenging to understand these people through a national poll: While it’s easy for Democrats to talk about their angry Facebook posts, it’s more difficult to capture the kind of political transformation that Putnam is seeing among local groups in Pennsylvania. She met one group of women who knew each other largely through Girl Scouts and chartered a bus to the Women’s March in 2017. Many liberals are feeling anger, and finding ways to express that. It’s not going to occur over one election cycle,” Cox said.

Kanye West has been a vocal supporter of President Trump since the 2016 election. According to the New York Times, the rapper is headed to the Washington to have lunch with the president Buzz60 It’s the celebrity feud that will not die. Call it an unforeseen effect of the Donald Trump era that Swift and West have become representatives of America’s political divide – in a way that nobody could have ever predicted nearly a decade ago, when the two stars’ fates collided onstage at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. How different things are now. After stepping away from public appearances shortly after his summit with the president-elect at Trump Tower in 2016, West returned with a vengeance this year, bringing his Make America Great Again hat with him. He praised Trump on Twitter and, most recently, in a monologue on “Saturday Night Live” – again deleting his social media accounts after embarking on several politically motivated rants. From associating with alt-right figures to sharing his questionable takes on slavery, West’s political turnaround has thrilled conservatives – he has a White House visit with Trump and Jared Kushner reportedly lined up for Thursday – while rendering him unrecognizable to fans that connected with his raps from a decade ago. It wasn’t until Sunday, though, that Swift made the leap toward endorsing candidates – she posted a letter on Instagram supporting Tennessee’s Democratic congressional candidates while condemning racism and discrimination. Like so many other aspects of 2018, how fans feel about Kanye vs. Taylor likely comes down to how they feel about Trump, with the president routinely praising West on Twitter while announcing Monday that he “likes Taylor’s music about 25% less” after her Democratic endorsements. And as the same voices on the right that praise West begin to voice their newfound aversions to Swift, with other commenters claiming that Swift actually "cares more about black people" than West, the two artists are once again diametrically opposed, in a more bizarre way than fans ever could've expected.

Dr. Patricia "Pat" Spearman is a retired Lieutenant Colonel, ordained minster, and the first lesbian member of the Nevada State Legislature. During her 29 years in the U.S. Army, Pat served around the world with her final assignment being at…

Black Lives Matter. Occupy Wall Street. The Women's March. All big movements that didn't really lead to any policy change. Will the March for Our Lives be different?

CNN commentator and former Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Rick Santorum suggested students protesting for gun control legislation would be better served by taking CPR classes and preparing for active shooter scenarios. "How about kids instead of looking to someone else to…

Parkland shooting survivor Sam Fuentes says, although she was terrified to speak at the March for Our Lives event, she felt like if she hadn't her cause would've been "lost in the vomit".

At the March for Our Lives, Democratic U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Parkland, Florida Mayor Christine Hunschofsky join Joy Reid on how student activists from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and beyond have moved the needle on common…

Jane Raybould, candidate for U.S. Senate for Nebraska, is angry about the lack of moral leadership in Washington on gun violence and calls for the assault weapons ban renewal, pledges not to accept money from the NRA, and challenges others…