Palos Verdes Democrats will hold our May meeting at the Peninsula Center Library and on Zoom. Our program is still being finalized, so stay tuned!
Our meeting starts at 2:30, but join us at 2:00 to chat with like-minded residents. This month, we will have 3 speakers joining us via Zoom.
Heather Hargreaves is the Manager for Tom Steyer’s campaign for California Governor. She previously served as Steyer’s 2020 Presidential Campaign Manager and was field director for the 2008 Barack Obama (D) campaign. Prior to joining the Steyer campaign, Hargreaves has also worked for NextGen America, a group founded by Steyer. Hargreaves' experience comes primarily from advocacy work. From 2015 until joining the Steyer campaign in 2019, she worked for NextGen America in leadership roles: national advocacy director and national program vice president while the group was known as NextrGen Climate, and executive vice president and executive director of NextGen America. NextGen America was founded by Steyer in 2013 as NextGen Climate and was renamed in 2017 to NextGen America when the group broadened its focus beyond environmental issues. The group's stated focus after the rebranding was "prosperity, health care, immigration, and equality." Hargreaves served as the general election director in Nevada as part of Barack Obama's (D) 2008 presidential campaign. She earned a B.A. in economics and political science from Stanford University. Campaign Manager Hargreaves will discuss the unique qualifications, priorities and plans Candidae Steyer has if elected as Governor of the State of California.
Alfred Tom is rising star -- an independent investigative researcher, producer and host of a dynamic political analysis and commentary series leveraging the reach and accessibility of social media to unmask the power, structures and dark money networks operating beneath the surface of the American political landscape. In his recent work, he illuminates the connections among unelected actors behind Project 2025. Alfred Tom distills complex and often obscured political agendas into clear comprehensible truth, revealing a coordinated and deeply anti-democratic effort to reshape American government against the interests of its people. Driven by a mission to inform the public, Alfred’s fact and evidence-based analysis has enjoyed a rapid growth—expanding his platform by 1,300% in ten weeks to reach more than 81,000 engaged followers. Based in New York City, Alfred Tom is a professional producer, director, and actor with a multidisciplinary background that includes 17 years in financial services and a Master of Arts from Fordham University. Tom’s presentation at the May 17 meeting will expand on the themes from his Project 2025 and “Book of Villains” commentaries.
Mikey Weinstein is an attorney, activist, former Air Force officer and founding President of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. He is the author of two books, With God on Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military and No Snowflake in an Avalanche. Weinstein graduated with honors from the United States Air Force Academy in 1977. Weinstein spent over three years working in the West Wing of the Reagan Administration as Assistant General Counsel for Executive Office of the President of the United States. He founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) to ensure that all members of the United States Armed Forces fully receive the Constitutional guarantee of religious freedom granted by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Nearly 100,000 active duty, reserve, National Guard, cadets and midshipmen, DoD and VA civilian personnel, veterans, clients among the 18 national security agencies, DHS (Coast Guard), and DOT (U.S. Maritime Service), ROTC, including individuals involved in High School JROTC around the nation, have come to the MRFF for redress and assistance with their with civil rights concerns. Hundreds more contact the MRFF each month. Weinstein has been named by The Jewish Daily Forward in the "Forward 50", a list of those it considers to be the most influential Jews in America. He received the Wings of Justice Award. Jews for Racial and Economic Justice awarded him its Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer Risk-Taker Award for taking extraordinary risks in pursuit of justice. In December 2012, Weinstein was named one of the "100 Most Influential People in U.S. Defense" by Defense News.