#facebook and federated... every group needs an invite now

[launch-cronch]

i miss yahoo groups so much, there were actual people inside of them who were willing to give up their experience without all the community approval hoops and automods (oh, the Tanya's Feline CKD group was just invaluable when we had elderly cats battling it) . i miss livejournal, too (though i was shocked to learn thee vaginapagina was still up despite all the censorship and purging that happened when livejournal was bought out. It really was the OG resource for figuring out the body horrors as a kid with no sex ed).

quizilla, too. yeah, i even miss yahoo answers.

it's fascinating, in a trainwreck sorta way, how these sort of communities develop into complex networks of human experiences and info and output, only to get taken out back and axed when they fail to lay the golden egg, so to speak. even more compelling is how we keep throwing an unfathomable amount of cash, electricity, and server space at AI, trying to get its string puppet body to even emulate these networks.

minds take up too much space because you can't sell them

[worldwaronehat]

This letter was posted on the 'Cheney/Adam Kinzinger Against Trump' group. It was not authored by Liz Cheney but rather Dr Pru Lee, who goes by Pru Pru on Facebook. If you agree with her action plan, contact your local Democratic Party or join a local resistance group to learn how you can help. Act quickly. Fascism is moving at the speed of light.

READ CAREFULLY. IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Dear Democratic Party,

I need more from you.

You keep sending emails begging for $15,

while we’re watching fascism consolidate power in real time.

This administration is not simply “a different ideology.”

It is a coordinated, authoritarian machine — with the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate, and the executive pen all under its control.

And you?

You’re still asking for decorum and donations. WTF.

That won’t save us.

I don’t want to hear another polite floor speech.

I want strategy.

I want fire.

I want action so bold it shifts the damn news cycle — not fits inside one.

Every time I see something from the DNC, it’s asking me for funds.

Surprise.

Those of us who donate don’t want to keep sending money just to watch you stand frozen as the Constitution goes up in flames — shaking your heads and saying,

“Well, there’s not much we can do. He has the majority.”

I call bullshit.

If you don’t know how to think outside the box…

If you don’t know how to strategize…

If you don’t know how to fight fire with fire…

what the hell are we giving you money for?

Some of us have two or three advanced degrees.

Some of us have military training.

Some of us know what coordinated resistance looks like — and this ain’t it.

Yes, the tours around the country? Nice.

The speeches? Nice.

The clever congressional clapbacks? Nice.

That was great for giving hope.

Now we need action.

You have to stop acting like this is a normal presidency that will just time out in four years.

We’re not even at Day 90, and look at the chaos.

Look at the disappearances.

Look at the erosion of the judiciary, the press, and our rights.

If you do not stop this, we will not make it 1,460 days.

So here’s what I need from you — right now:

⸻

1. Form an independent, civilian-powered investigative coalition.

I’m talking experts. Veterans. Whistleblowers. Journalists. Watchdog orgs.

Deputize the resistance. Build a real-time archive of corruption, overreach, and executive abuse.

Make it public. Make it unshakable.

Let the people drag the rot into the light.

If you can’t hold formal hearings, hold public ones.

If Congress won’t act, let the country act.

This isn’t about optics — it’s about receipts.

Because at some point, these people will be held accountable.

And when that day comes, we’ll need every name, every signature, every illegal order, every act of silence—documented.

You’re not just preserving truth — you’re preparing evidence for prosecution.

The more they vanish people and weaponize data, the more we need truth in the sunlight.

⸻

2. Join the International Criminal Court.

Yes, I said it. Call their bluff.

You cannot control what the other side does.

But you can control your own integrity.

So prove it. Prove that your party is still grounded in law, human rights, and ethical leadership.

Join.

If you’ve got nothing to hide — join.

Show the world who’s hiding bodies, bribes, and buried bank accounts.

Force the GOP to explain why they’d rather protect a war criminal than sign a treaty.

And while you’re at it, publicly invite ICC observers into U.S. borders.

Make this administration explain — on camera — why they’re terrified of international oversight.

⸻

3. Fund state-level resistance infrastructure.

Don’t just send postcards. Send resources.

Channel DNC funds into rapid-response teams, legal defense coalitions, sanctuary networks, and digital security training.

If the federal government is hijacked, build power underneath it.

If the laws become tools of oppression, help people resist them legally, locally, and boldly.

This is not campaign season — this is an authoritarian purge.

Stop campaigning.

Act like this is the end of democracy, because it is.

We WILL REMEMBER the warriors come primaries.

Fighting this regime should be your marketing strategy.

And let’s be clear:

The reason the other side always seems three steps ahead is because they ARE.

They prepared for this.

They infiltrated school boards, courts, local legislatures, and police unions.

They built a machine while you wrote press releases.

We’re reacting — they’ve been executing a plan for years.

It’s time to shift from panic to blueprint.

You should already be working with strategists and military minds on PROJECT 2029 —

a coordinated, long-term plan to rebuild this country when the smoke clears.

You should be publicly laying out:

• The laws and amendments you’ll pass to ensure this never happens again

• The systems you’ll tear down and the safeguards you’ll enshrine

• The plan to hold perpetrators of human atrocities accountable

• The urgent commitment to immediately bring home those sold into slavery in El Salvador

You say you’re the party of the people?

Then show the people the plan.

⸻

4. Use your platform to educate the public on rights and resistance tactics.

If they’re going to strip us of rights and lie about it — arm the people with truth.

Text campaigns. Mass trainings. Downloadable “Know Your Rights” kits. Multilingual legal guides. Encrypted phone trees.

Give people tools, not soundbites.

We don’t need more slogans.

We need survival manuals.

⸻

5. Leverage international media and watchdogs.

Stop hoping U.S. cable news will wake up.

They’re too busy playing both sides of fascism.

Feed the real stories to BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Reuters, Der Spiegel — hell, leak them to anonymous dropboxes if you have to.

Make what’s happening in America a global scandal.

And stop relying on platforms that are actively suppressing truth.

Start leveraging Substack. Use Bluesky.

That’s where the resistance is migrating. That’s where censorship hasn’t caught up.

If the mainstream won’t carry the truth — outflank them.

Get creative. Go underground. Go global.

If our democracy is being dismantled in broad daylight, make sure the whole world sees it — and make sure we’re still able to say it.

⸻

6. Create a digital safe haven for whistleblowers and defectors.

Not everyone inside this regime is loyal.

Some are scared. Some want out.

Build the channels.

Encrypted. Anonymous. Protected.

Make it easy for the cracks in the system to become gaping holes.

And while you’re at it?

Stop ostracizing MAGA defectors.

Everyone makes mistakes — even glaring, critical ones.

We are not the bullies.

We are not the ones filled with hate.

And it is not your job to shame people who finally saw the fire and chose to step out of it.

They will have to deal with that internal struggle — the guilt of putting a very dangerous and callous regime in power.

But they’re already outnumbered. Don’t push them back into the crowd.

We don’t need purity.

We need numbers.

We need people willing to burn their red hats and testify against the machine they helped build.

⸻

7. Study the collapse—and the comeback.

You should be learning from South Korea and how they managed their brief rule under dictatorship.

They didn’t waste time chasing the one man with absolute immunity.

They went after the structure.

The aides. The enforcers. The loyalists. The architects.

They knocked out the foundation one pillar at a time —

until the “strongman” had no one left to stand on.

And his power crumbled beneath him.

You should be independently investigating every author of Project 2025,

every aide who defies court orders,

every communications director repeating lies,

every policy writer enabling cruelty,

every water boy who keeps this engine running.

You can’t stop a regime by asking the king to sit down.

You dismantle the throne he’s standing on — one coward at a time.

⸻

Stop being scared to fight dirty when the other side is fighting to erase the damn Constitution.

They are threatening to disappear AMERICANS.

A M E R I C A N S.

And your biggest move can’t be another strongly worded email.

We don’t want your urgently fundraising subject lines.

We want backbone.

We want action.

We want to know you’ll stand up before we’re all ordered to sit down — permanently.

We are watching.

And I don’t just mean your base.

I mean millions of us who see exactly what’s happening.

I’ve only got 6,000 followers — but the groups I’m in? The networks I touch? Over a quarter million.

Often when I speak, it echoes.

But when we ALL

speak, it ROARS with pressure that will cause change.

We need to be deafening.

You still have a chance to do something historic.

To be remembered for courage, not caution.

To go down as the party that didn’t just watch the fall — but fought the hell back with everything they had.

But the clock is ticking.

And the deportation buses are idling.

Thoughts?

Sounds good to me.

[trooper1023]

This letter was posted on the 'Cheney/Adam Kinzinger Against Trump' group. It was not authored by Liz Cheney but rather Dr Pru Lee, who goes by Pru Pru on Facebook. If you agree with her action plan, contact your local Democratic Party or join a local resistance group to learn how you can help. Act quickly. Fascism is moving at the speed of light.

READ CAREFULLY. IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Dear Democratic Party,

I need more from you.

You keep sending emails begging for $15,

while we’re watching fascism consolidate power in real time.

This administration is not simply “a different ideology.”

It is a coordinated, authoritarian machine — with the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate, and the executive pen all under its control.

And you?

You’re still asking for decorum and donations. WTF.

That won’t save us.

I don’t want to hear another polite floor speech.

I want strategy.

I want fire.

I want action so bold it shifts the damn news cycle — not fits inside one.

Every time I see something from the DNC, it’s asking me for funds.

Surprise.

Those of us who donate don’t want to keep sending money just to watch you stand frozen as the Constitution goes up in flames — shaking your heads and saying,

“Well, there’s not much we can do. He has the majority.”

I call bullshit.

If you don’t know how to think outside the box…

If you don’t know how to strategize…

If you don’t know how to fight fire with fire…

what the hell are we giving you money for?

Some of us have two or three advanced degrees.

Some of us have military training.

Some of us know what coordinated resistance looks like — and this ain’t it.

Yes, the tours around the country? Nice.

The speeches? Nice.

The clever congressional clapbacks? Nice.

That was great for giving hope.

Now we need action.

You have to stop acting like this is a normal presidency that will just time out in four years.

We’re not even at Day 90, and look at the chaos.

Look at the disappearances.

Look at the erosion of the judiciary, the press, and our rights.

If you do not stop this, we will not make it 1,460 days.

So here’s what I need from you — right now:

⸻

1. Form an independent, civilian-powered investigative coalition.

I’m talking experts. Veterans. Whistleblowers. Journalists. Watchdog orgs.

Deputize the resistance. Build a real-time archive of corruption, overreach, and executive abuse.

Make it public. Make it unshakable.

Let the people drag the rot into the light.

If you can’t hold formal hearings, hold public ones.

If Congress won’t act, let the country act.

This isn’t about optics — it’s about receipts.

Because at some point, these people will be held accountable.

And when that day comes, we’ll need every name, every signature, every illegal order, every act of silence—documented.

You’re not just preserving truth — you’re preparing evidence for prosecution.

The more they vanish people and weaponize data, the more we need truth in the sunlight.

⸻

2. Join the International Criminal Court.

Yes, I said it. Call their bluff.

You cannot control what the other side does.

But you can control your own integrity.

So prove it. Prove that your party is still grounded in law, human rights, and ethical leadership.

Join.

If you’ve got nothing to hide — join.

Show the world who’s hiding bodies, bribes, and buried bank accounts.

Force the GOP to explain why they’d rather protect a war criminal than sign a treaty.

And while you’re at it, publicly invite ICC observers into U.S. borders.

Make this administration explain — on camera — why they’re terrified of international oversight.

⸻

3. Fund state-level resistance infrastructure.

Don’t just send postcards. Send resources.

Channel DNC funds into rapid-response teams, legal defense coalitions, sanctuary networks, and digital security training.

If the federal government is hijacked, build power underneath it.

If the laws become tools of oppression, help people resist them legally, locally, and boldly.

This is not campaign season — this is an authoritarian purge.

Stop campaigning.

Act like this is the end of democracy, because it is.

We WILL REMEMBER the warriors come primaries.

Fighting this regime should be your marketing strategy.

And let’s be clear:

The reason the other side always seems three steps ahead is because they ARE.

They prepared for this.

They infiltrated school boards, courts, local legislatures, and police unions.

They built a machine while you wrote press releases.

We’re reacting — they’ve been executing a plan for years.

It’s time to shift from panic to blueprint.

You should already be working with strategists and military minds on PROJECT 2029 —

a coordinated, long-term plan to rebuild this country when the smoke clears.

You should be publicly laying out:

• The laws and amendments you’ll pass to ensure this never happens again

• The systems you’ll tear down and the safeguards you’ll enshrine

• The plan to hold perpetrators of human atrocities accountable

• The urgent commitment to immediately bring home those sold into slavery in El Salvador

You say you’re the party of the people?

Then show the people the plan.

⸻

4. Use your platform to educate the public on rights and resistance tactics.

If they’re going to strip us of rights and lie about it — arm the people with truth.

Text campaigns. Mass trainings. Downloadable “Know Your Rights” kits. Multilingual legal guides. Encrypted phone trees.

Give people tools, not soundbites.

We don’t need more slogans.

We need survival manuals.

⸻

5. Leverage international media and watchdogs.

Stop hoping U.S. cable news will wake up.

They’re too busy playing both sides of fascism.

Feed the real stories to BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Reuters, Der Spiegel — hell, leak them to anonymous dropboxes if you have to.

Make what’s happening in America a global scandal.

And stop relying on platforms that are actively suppressing truth.

Start leveraging Substack. Use Bluesky.

That’s where the resistance is migrating. That’s where censorship hasn’t caught up.

If the mainstream won’t carry the truth — outflank them.

Get creative. Go underground. Go global.

If our democracy is being dismantled in broad daylight, make sure the whole world sees it — and make sure we’re still able to say it.

⸻

6. Create a digital safe haven for whistleblowers and defectors.

Not everyone inside this regime is loyal.

Some are scared. Some want out.

Build the channels.

Encrypted. Anonymous. Protected.

Make it easy for the cracks in the system to become gaping holes.

And while you’re at it?

Stop ostracizing MAGA defectors.

Everyone makes mistakes — even glaring, critical ones.

We are not the bullies.

We are not the ones filled with hate.

And it is not your job to shame people who finally saw the fire and chose to step out of it.

They will have to deal with that internal struggle — the guilt of putting a very dangerous and callous regime in power.

But they’re already outnumbered. Don’t push them back into the crowd.

We don’t need purity.

We need numbers.

We need people willing to burn their red hats and testify against the machine they helped build.

⸻

7. Study the collapse—and the comeback.

You should be learning from South Korea and how they managed their brief rule under dictatorship.

They didn’t waste time chasing the one man with absolute immunity.

They went after the structure.

The aides. The enforcers. The loyalists. The architects.

They knocked out the foundation one pillar at a time —

until the “strongman” had no one left to stand on.

And his power crumbled beneath him.

You should be independently investigating every author of Project 2025,

every aide who defies court orders,

every communications director repeating lies,

every policy writer enabling cruelty,

every water boy who keeps this engine running.

You can’t stop a regime by asking the king to sit down.

You dismantle the throne he’s standing on — one coward at a time.

⸻

Stop being scared to fight dirty when the other side is fighting to erase the damn Constitution.

They are threatening to disappear AMERICANS.

A M E R I C A N S.

And your biggest move can’t be another strongly worded email.

We don’t want your urgently fundraising subject lines.

We want backbone.

We want action.

We want to know you’ll stand up before we’re all ordered to sit down — permanently.

We are watching.

And I don’t just mean your base.

I mean millions of us who see exactly what’s happening.

I’ve only got 6,000 followers — but the groups I’m in? The networks I touch? Over a quarter million.

Often when I speak, it echoes.

But when we ALL

speak, it ROARS with pressure that will cause change.

We need to be deafening.

You still have a chance to do something historic.

To be remembered for courage, not caution.

To go down as the party that didn’t just watch the fall — but fought the hell back with everything they had.

But the clock is ticking.

And the deportation buses are idling.

[thatfeministkilljoy]

This September 20 to 27, we rise up in peaceful, non-violent rebellion with a single message: ACT NOW on the climate and ecological crisis! This week of climate action is in solidarity with and in  support of Halifax Youth  for Climate Action/School Strike 4 Climate HFX. We strive to work in solidarity with Mi'kmaw Water Protectors in Mi'kma'ki and all Indigenous peoples facing continued threats to their rights and sovereignty. Throughout the week, rebels will support youth strikers as we demand a livable future. Youth strike leaders have asked XR not to plan our own NVDA (non-violent direct actions) in HRM during the week. However, there will be plenty of events, marches, talks, trainings, street fairs, parties, and other actions! XR international has called for a wave of NVDA on October 7th, so we will ask Rebels to postponed NVDA until then. SCHEDULE OF EVENTS: FRIDAY SEPT 20: --2 EVENTS!- Interfaith Gathering and CLIMATE CHANGE RALLY - to honour the victims of climate change 12 noon, Grand Parade Square on Barrington. organized by concerned citizens of Halifax - see event info here: https://www.facebook.com/events/757366544721018/ and then the YOUTH NATIONAL DIE-IN: (Friday Sept 20)  meeting at 3:30 pm at Mumford Bus Terminal. (then going together to the secret Die-in location.) The Die-in will happen simultaneously by youth activists across Canada. ----------------------------------------------------------- SATURDAY SEPT 21: ART-BUILD at Quinfest, 11-3pm on Quinpool Road - info here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2883491621724951/ ALSO: Community WATER WALK in Tatamagouche - meet at 9am at the Snowmobile Club on Warwick Mtn Rd in Tatamagouche. email flowingtogethernovascotia@gmail.com for more info. https://www.facebook.com/events/509054906558892/ Also SATURDAY SEPT 21: XR talk: 'Heading for extinction and what to do about it'. 3:30 to 5pm, Halifax North Memorial Library on Gottingen Street. https://www.facebook.com/events/2527129914043648/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- SUNDAY SEPT 22: COMMUNITY GUERRILLA GARDENING - building a vision for the future- we will grow what we want to see in our city. 10am and on - location TBA bring tools and prepare to help! event: https://www.facebook.com/events/400851284162650/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- MONDAY SEPT 23: XR talk: 'Heading for extinction and what to do about it'. Halifax Central Library: Lindsay Children's Room, 3-4:30pm https://www.facebook.com/events/393807141516263/ Also MONDAY SEPT 23: OPEN MIC HOUSE CONCERT: 7pm: 2539 Agricola St. fundraiser for STOP ALTON GAS legal fund https://www.facebook.com/events/647018249123691/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TUESDAY SEPT 24: BAKE SALE! fundraiser for Water Protectors, Stop Alton Gas legal fund 11-4pm Dalhousie Campus - McCain building lobby organized by Our-Time and The Loaded Ladle https://www.facebook.com/events/309870626524761/ ALSO on Tuesday: David Suzuki and Stephen Lewis -Climate First Tour, in support of youth strikers across the country - They will ask people to come to the rally on the 27th! 7pm Dalhousie Arts Centre - $14 to $26 tickets at: https://www.climatefirsttour.ca/ ------------------------------------------------------------- WEDNESDAY SEPT 25: PAINT THE TOWN! 3:30pm, meet at Halifax Central Library the youth want to create messages and art about the need for climate action - should be fun! ALSO 6pm FILM SCREENING: Standing Rock Parts 1 and 2" "Sacred Water" and "Red Power" directed by Michelle Latimer, 2017, 110 minutes) at the Khyber Centre for the Arts. Part of the Radical Imagination Film and Discussion Series: https://www.facebook.com/events/2388849514688109/?active_tab=about ----------------------------------------------------------- THURSDAY SEPT 26: PARTY FOR THE PLANET! Concerts, poster making, and Sustainable Market all day - 9am to 9pm Granville Mall - Duke and Granville St https://www.facebook.com/events/376133056655045/ ALSO: Whose Water Is it, Anyway? Book launch and public Talk with Maude Barlow, Council of Canadians - Maude will ask people to come to the big rally on the 27th! 7pm, Maritime Museum of the Atlantic https://www.facebook.com/events/2125092891119826/ --------------------------------------------------------- THE BIG BIG DAY: FRIDAY SEPT 27: GENERAL STRIKE - EVERYONE NEEDED! IF YOU CAN ONLY ATTEND ONE EVENT, THIS IS THE ONE! 11am meet at Victoria Park (Spring Garden and South Park St) The marching route will cover some distance, so bring your signs, your voices and your walking shoes! Most of all, bring your neighbours, your friends and your family. PLEASE COME!! HELP THE YOUTH DEMAND CLIMATE ACTION NOW!! WE NEED YOU. WE NEED YOU. are we getting the point across? STRIKE FROM WORK/TAKE THE DAY OFF - PLEASE COME!! ALSO ON SEPT 27: Non-Violent Direct Action training Halifax Central Library, BMO room https://www.facebook.com/events/457763944833521/ ----------------------------------------------------------- Sunday Sept 28 and Monday 29: and a cherry on top of the week: The Deanery Project offers solutions: NATURAL BUILDING EAST ECOLOGICAL BUILDING DESIGN CONFERENCE: funding may be available - please ask them if needed. https://www.facebook.com/events/371864056695348/ ------------------------------------------------------------ NOTE: More events are welcome! Send a message to this page, or register your climate action event on the http://novastrike.earth/# website and we'll add your event to the list! Please try to choose a date/time that will compliment the current schedule. The more action the better. Thank you! This date has been chosen by Greta Thunberg, Climate Strike Canada, School Strike 4 Climate Halifax, 350 .org, Earth Strike and many international climate movements. Contact the youth organizers at: https://www.instagram.com/schoolstrike4climatehfx/ schoolstrike4climatehfx@gmail.com twitter @ss4cHFX If you've been waiting for the right time to come together with hundreds or thousands of fellow humans to pull us all away from the brink of senseless destruction and back towards a future where we care for this planet and each other, where decision-makers prioritize life over greed, this is it! We need all hands on deck! If you're young and want a future, if you're old and want to do your duty, if you're an organizer, lawyer, artist, musician, builder, crafter, speaker, caregiver…anyone and everyone else - this is our time to stand together with love in our hearts for this world, and rage against its senseless destruction. Be sure to join this event, share it widely, invite your friends, talk to the groups that you are involved in - your church, your union, your clubs - if we all stand together, we can win the future we deserve! Governments must ACT NOW to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025. Time is running out. At this point in history we have three choices: to die, to survive or to thrive. Glaciers are melting, permafrost is thawing, sea levels are rising, and hundreds of thousands of people are losing their homes because of climate breakdown. In the midst of the sixth mass extinction, the collapse of civiliZation is a distinct possibility. We are in the face of unprecedented flooding, wildfires, thawing, species deaths and harsh consequences for marginalized communities in Canada, and widespread heatwaves, water shortages and resource-related conflicts in the wider world, especially the Global South. BUSINESS AS USUAL Our Federal Parliament, HRM council and dozens of municipalities have declared a climate emergency, but the decision-makers are not taking the decisive actions required by the crisis. The current plan to ramp up fossil fuel infrastructure and burn carbon past 2050 is an alarmingly insufficient response for halting climate breakdown and biodiversity loss. By then it will be too late. Our current economic system rewards the exploitation of people and planet. Our house is on fire, and politicians are ignoring the science as they encourage new pipelines, airports, fracking and oil-sands extraction, with billions in taxpayer money flowing into fossil fuels, all while trampling Indigenous rights. Meanwhile, politicians in power continue to refuse solutions, like a green new deal for a fair and rapid transition to safe, responsible energy. It is only by adopting meaningful measures to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2025, protecting biodiversity, upholding UNDRIP, and making ecocide law that the government can show itself to be on the right side of history - in the pursuit of Climate Justice. In line with the urgency of reports from the IPCC and IPBES, we remind the government of the need to ACT NOW. In the past, Canada has been a leader and trendsetter to other major democracies. If we can show leadership now, the resulting chain reaction across the world will be crucial for securing the future. LEARN MORE EXTINCTION REBELLION Extinction Rebellion is a non-violent, international movement that aims to achieve radical change to minimize the risk of human and animal extinction and ecological collapse. We invite everyone, and every part of everyone, to join us for this week of beautiful, decentralized rebellion. Visit https://Rebellion.Earth to learn more about our demands, who we are and our theory of change. Sign up to XRNS here: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/join-extinction-rebellion-nova-scotia This event takes place on UNCEDED, and UNSURRENDERED Territory of the Mi’kmaw People. We are all Treaty People and have responsibilities to each other and this land. More info on the Peace and Friendship Treaties: http://mikmaqrights.com/negotiations/treaties Follow the School Strike 4 Climate HFX school strikers here: https://www.instagram.com/schoolstrike4climatehfx/?hl=en or email the Youth Strikers here: schoolstrike4climatehfx@gmail.com

LINK TO FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE

@allthecanadianpolitics @nspoli

[logohipu-blog]

The One Thing to Do for Russia E-visa

https://es.ivisa.com/russia-e-visa

The Russian PM added all that is necessary from foreigners prepared to go to the region is to enter their data on a unique website in the web. Facebook, Twitter and other platforms have shut down the suspect accounts, but it's still feasible to retrieve lots of the posts and images as they were widely shared throughout the net. In some instances, the Russian groups took opposite stands on painful problems, including police shootings of black folks.

The area was initially settled around 1792. This branch includes the Cabinet, which is also called the Government. Each member might also have various inputs to offer in regards to zeroing in on the plan and the cut.

These awards were given at the decision of the tournament. Team USA won bronze this past year, and this also marks just the second time in the previous five years that it failed to get to the semis. Ivan thought for a minute.

Things You Won't Like About Russia E-visa and Things You Will

Now this city has another name-the world city'', because every calendar year, tourists from all around the world will come to see this little city and almost all them will get excited due to its wonderful scenes. Foreign Citizens visiting the country are expected to buy medical insurance that's valid in the Russian Territory for the whole period of stay. There's a street that is named Multinational Street, both sides of which have many bars with unique styles, you can delight in all kinds of bar products from throughout the world in these types of bars.

They are extremely proud of this, even though the wait between trains after midnight is frequently as much as one hour. Wherever you could be in the planet, you are certain to obtain a flight to Dabolim airport. He's a difficult guy, states Titovskii.

Choosing Good Russia E-visa

I've written and presented extensively on the topic both in the usa and abroad, and there's a wealth of other information that can be found from reliable journalistic and intelligence sources. Time-series data are a lot better for that. Evidence of this is a required requirement later in the practice.

Definitions of Russia E-visa

It is also feasible to have a whole ring custom made. Nonetheless, the Russian storm started to swirl again. You are able to observe that from the beginning of the puck drop.

The whole process involves a great deal of money which is the chief reason behind the price hike in this business. While the present situation holds no imminent threat, the coming a few years are likely to be crucial. To attain this, the government is going to have to develop an astute budgetary policy that does not depend on oil costs.

Applicants will merely require a dependable online connection as a way to finish the application from the comfort of their house. Unsurprisingly, the bedding-in process hasn't been smooth. Issued e-visas have to be printed out or saved in any form so they can be shown upon border-crossing control.

There are a number of ways to approach these difficulties. Our purpose is to acquire the documents collected and prepared by our federal agencies around these Russian attacks to be able to take concrete actions to stop this from happening again. In case the crisis intensifies, it can reach a threshold that may undermine the integrity of the entire system.

Finding a Russian visa takes several actions and a couple weeks to accomplish. In 2019, citizens from eligible countries who intend to come to Russia will have the ability to find an electronic entry visa by completing an internet application. Businessmen and tourists won't need to undergo the conventional process of Russian visas receipt, said Medvedev.

Migration cards have to be carried whatsoever times while in Russia. You need to have a present-day U.S. passport with the right visa. A conventional visa can't be renewed by obtaining an e-visa.

The New Angle On Russia E-visa Just Released

You'll be arrested if you put in a restricted area, so it's crucial that you include all destinations on your visa application. An arrangement of a company visa for Australian requires obtaining a business invitation from the Russian nation.  You should fill the shape and make the payment with a charge card.

The long-term aim of the usa is to see Russia become a constructive stakeholder in the worldwide community. If you've been to any European nations previously, then you presently have a simple idea on how much you're be spending while in St. Petersburg. Many States are deemed sure electoral victories so just a few could potentially swing either manner.

Clearly, it's a strategic adversary and ought to be treated as such. Every big country attempts to meddle in every other key country's elections, it's a truth of life. These 3 chief world powers are continuously in a game of odd-man-out.

[bountyofbeads]

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/wayne-barrett-donald-trump-rudy-giuliani-peas-pod-article-1.2776357?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true

REMINDER: Trump has relied on Rudy Giuliani as a "fixer" ever since Trump bribed Rudy to kill a mob-related money laundering investigation into him 30 years ago.

The late Wayne Barrett wrote about their corrupt 30-year relationship in 2016:

Peas in a pod: The long and twisted relationship between Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani

By WAYNE Barrett | Published SEP 04, 2016 5:00 AM ET | NEW YORK DAILY News | Posted September 25, 2019 |

Let's start with the fact that Donald Trump's top surrogate, Rudy Giuliani, is on the payroll. In January, he joined a law firm, Greenberg Traurig, that represents Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Last year, the firm handled Trump's suit against the Florida city of Doral so his golf course could override noise regulations that barred him from bulldozing before sunrise. More recently, it handled Kushner's $340-million acquisition of the Watchtower properties in downtown Brooklyn.

When Trump paid a $250,000 fine in 2000 for secretly funding a million-dollar lobbying campaign against an Indian casino in upstate New York, he was represented by Greenberg.

Giuliani brought Marc Mukasey, the stepson of ex-U.S. Attorney General and lifelong Giuliani friend Michael Mukasey, with him to Greenberg; Mukasey is now representing legendary leg man Roger Ailes. Mukasey launched into a tirade recently against New York Magazine reporter Gabriel Sherman, calling the Ailes biographer "a virus" willing to "use any woman" to Weinerize the Trump debate adviser. His dad, who once branded Trump a "peril" to national security, delivered a Republican Convention speech the night after Rudy's screed.

This intertwine may or may not have something to do with why the Greenberg firm lets Rudy, one of its newest partners, hired early this year ostensibly to run a cybersecurity unit, travel the country with Trump, introducing him at rallies and fundraisers, challenging Hillary Clinton's health based on stuff he finds in corners of the internet, declaring her Clinton Foundation troubles worse than Watergate, wearing a "Make Mexico Great Again Also" cap, and helping draft policy speeches diagnosing African Americans for white audiences.

I even watched Rudy on TV, before one joint trip to Ohio, loading suitcases into the back of a Trump SUV in front of Trump Tower, the only baggage that slows him down.

Rudy has actually been more visible in his buddy's campaign than he was at times in his own $50 million presidential attempt in 2008, when he managed to convert the months-long top ranking in the polls into a single delegate. The imperial 2016 candidate who hates losers, especially ones who wind up in Vietnamese prisons, has instead embraced an epic dud, his solitary act of empathy in a campaign of callousness. He could've trashed Rudy like he did John McCain: "I like people who weren't caught with their command center down."

But the onetime comb-over twins just had too much in common. Though bombs-away hawks today, they got multiple draft deferments during the Vietnam War, with athlete Donald citing bad feet as his excuse and Rudy using an ear defect to sidestep his ROTC obligations.

Trump is now warning of a rigged election, invoking the image of Philadelphia blacks cheating at the ballot box and calling for voter suppression squads to "monitor" suspect precincts. Rudy said the 1989 mayoral election he lost was stolen and spent millions on suppression squads, dispatching off-duty white cops and firefighters to minority districts, when he won in 1993.

The two amigos also spark similar antipathy in Mexico, their latest joint destination — Donald for a mantra of insults, and Rudy for a multi-million-dollar anti-crime contract his consulting company won in Mexico City that flopped so badly the police chief declared he was "no fan" of Giuliani's. Rudy even tried to lend credence to the Trumpian fantasy that "thousands" of Muslims in Jersey City celebrated 9/11, quibbling only with the number.

Then there's the wife trifecta. No one in American public life, other than perhaps their kindred spirit Newt Gingrich, has ever mastered the art of a bad divorce like Rudy and Donald, carrying on as if spousal humiliation was the point.

Ask the kids. When Trump married mistress Marla Maples nearly four years after he walked out on Ivana, the three convention stars, Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric, didn't show up. Andrew and Caroline Giuliani made strained appearances at Rudy's 2003 wedding to Judi Nathan, but in 2007, both distanced themselves from their father's presidential pursuit, with Caroline Facebooking her preference for Obama, as close to the ex-mayor's heart as she could plunge the dagger.

Rudy's wife Donna found out he wanted a divorce when he announced it on TV, just as Marla had a couple of years before. Rudy then chose Mother's Day to alert the press that he would be having dinner with his new love and led the cameras on a 10-block walk with her after dinner, kissing her goodbye while his wife and kids simmered. His divorce lawyer declared "we're going to have to pry her off the chandeliers to get her out of" Gracie Mansion. Even Donald Trump was offended, writing an open letter to New York Magazine and urging Donna and Rudy "to sit down with each other in a room, without your lawyer, and see if you can settle this."

But Rudy was only following in the divorce-as-spectacle footsteps of Donald, who'd used the New York Post as his personal hammer a decade before, relishing in Marla's "best sex I ever had" headlines even as they horrified young Ivanka and Don. Trump told Newsweek the scandal was "great for business," and pushed Marla to seize on the opportunities it presented, including half a million to pose in "No Excuses" jeans.

He'd brought his mistress to the same Atlantic City boxing matches he brought his wife to, aboard the same helicopter, just as he'd set up Marla in a sparkling suite on the Aspen slopes while he was vacationing with his family. Young Don told his father then "you just love your money," a line he did not revive in his convention script. Ivanka, shocked by headlines on newsstands during her walk to school, just wept.

Rudy and Donald first got together in the late 1980s shortly before Donald became a co-chair of Giuliani's first fundraiser for his 1989 mayoral campaign, sitting on the Waldorf dais and steering $41,000 to the campaign. A year earlier, Tony Lombardi, the federal agent closest to then-U.S. Attorney Giuliani, opened a probe of Trump's role in the suspect sale of two Trump Tower apartments to Robert Hopkins, the mob-connected head of the city's largest gambling ring.

Trump attended the closing himself and Hopkins arrived with a briefcase loaded with up to $200,000 in cash, a deposit the soon-to-felon counted at the table. Despite Hopkins' wholesale lack of verifiable income or assets, he got a loan from a Jersey bank that did business with Trump's casino. A Trump limo delivered the cash to the bank.

The government subsequently nailed Hopkins' mortgage broker, Frank LaMagra, on an unrelated charge and he offered to give up Donald, claiming Trump "participated" in the money-laundering — and volunteering to wear a wire on him.

Instead, Lombardi, who discussed the case with Giuliani personally (and with me for a 1993 Village Voice piece called "The Case of the Missing Case"), went straight to Donald for two hour-long interviews with him. Within weeks of the interviews, Donald announced he'd raise $2 million in a half hour if Rudy ran for mayor. Lamagra got no deal and was convicted, as was his mob associate, Louis (Louie HaHa) Attanasio, who was later also nailed for seven underworld murders. Hopkins was convicted of running his gambling operation partly out of the Trump Tower apartment, where he was arrested.

Lombardi — who expected a top appointment in a Giuliani mayoralty, conducted several other probes directly tied to Giuliani political opponents, and testified later that "every day I came to work I went to Mr. Giuliani to seek out what duties I needed to perform" — closed the Trump investigation without even giving it a case number. That meant that New Jersey gaming authorities would never know it existed.

It's hard to watch Giuliani invoke his 14-year history as a federal prosecutor when he calls for Clinton's prosecution and square it with the seedy launch of his own relationship with Trump.

When Rudy was mayor, Trump hired the lobbying firm that included name partner Ray Harding, the head of the state's Liberal Party, whose ballot line had provided the margin of difference in Giuliani's 1993 election. Harding's firm quickly went from three lobbying clients to 92, and it steered the controversial, 90-story Trump World Tower, the tallest residential tower in city history, through three levels of Giuliani administration approvals despite loud opposition from community groups led by Walter Cronkite.

Both Harding and his son, a top Giuliani official, wound up felons. His other son, Robert Harding, a Giuliani deputy mayor, has long been a lobbyist at Rudy's current employer, Greenberg.

The Giuliani administration also wrote a 1995 letter of support to HUD for $365 million in mortgage insurance for Trump's Riverside South project, affirming that the Westside Yards site was in a blighted neighborhood, a contention so ludicrous that Donald had to eventually withdraw the application. A board of Giuliani appointees, pushed by Harding's firm, also approved renovations at Trump's 100 Central Park South, where Eric Trump now lives.

Rudy wound up a friend, speaking at Fred Trump's 1999 funeral, doing a grope scene with Donald in a 2000 Inner Circle skit, inviting Donald and Melania to his Gracie Mansion wedding and attending Trump's 2005 Mar-A-Lago wedding.

As aligned as Trump and Rudy appear, there are enough stark differences to make the embrace uncomfortable, at least if the blank-slate broadcast interviewers would do a search or two. When Mitt Romney ran against Giuliani, he said Rudy made New York a "sanctuary city," based on Giuliani's urging undocumented people to settle in the city. PoliFact found the assertion "true."

As mayor, Giuliani was the top Republican champion of the assault-weapons ban, sued the gun industry and called for "uniform licensing" of all guns, contending that the free flow of firearms into the city from unregulated states was killing New Yorkers.

Rudy was also one of the only elected pro-choice Republicans who even supported partial birth abortion. He's recently begun to perform same-sex marriages. He is, in all of these respects, an anti-Trump surrogate.

Yet Trump has said he might name Rudy to chair an immigration commission or to head homeland security. Trump apparently forgets that Rudy already gave us one homeland security secretary, his business partner and former correction and police commissioner Bernie Kerik, who blew up like a land mine before he could take office and wound up sentenced to four years in federal prison, partly for lying to the White House.

[takeoffphilippines]

Spartan Race Philippines presents new roster of Ambassadors, Pro Team and Events for 2021 and 2022

Spartan is a global experiential sport and wellness brand with a 10 million+ strong community. We create transformational experiences, products, and content to help people, companies and teams tear down boundaries and expand what they believe to be possible. Spartan combines large scale global events with a vibrant digital content and community platform. With 250 events across more than 40 countries on six continents, Spartan is the world’s leading wellness and endurance brand. Visit spartan.com for more information and registration.

Spartan Race PH partners with the Pilipinas Obstacle Sports Federation

Spartan started in the Philippines in 2017 with the inaugural Spartan Sprint in Timberland, Rizal. This 2021, Spartan Philippines partnered with Batangas Lakelands to deliver an out of the ordinary race course by building a semi-permanent structure at the facility to cater to racing in the new normal. 

Spartan Race PH partners with Batangas Lakeside that delivers an out of the ordinary race course.

Aside from this we will also be launching new races for 2022 in the Philippines:

The first ever Asian-based qualifying race for La Ruta, the hardest mountain bike race in the world, traversing Costa Rica from coast to coast, from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, over a grueling three-day period.

Spartan Stadion is a 5K, 20 obstacle race through the world’s most famous pro sports stadiums. In this modern twist on an ancient Greek tradition, competitors will race through every inch of a landmark stadium in the Philippines.

DEKA™, the decathlon of functional fitness designed for all levels. This event emphasize training with a purpose, exercise gamification, and plenty of opportunities to celebrate personal fitness, combining ten functional training zones each proceeded by 500 meters of running (5k total).

The Spartan Ambassador Program

Spartan ambassadors are athletes who inspire others to get off their couches and race. Beyond that they are representative of the ideals and attitude of a Spartan, not only are they successful in sports and fitness but they also embody the Spartan spirit of community, commitment, and never giving up. Over the years Spartan Race Philippines has been fortunate to have a strong and solid roster of ambassadors and this year is no different.

Spartan Pro Team

The Spartan Pro Team was made to showcase that there are serious athletes who travel to compete all over the world nearly every weekend, chasing not just fire jumps but podium finishes as well. It furthers our dream to see “OCR in the Olympics” in the coming years. In fact, with the collaboration Spartan Philippines has with Pilipinas Obstacle Sports Federation through its president Atty. Al Agra, the pro team will be able to represent the country both for the Spartan Trifecta World Championships in Greece and the Spartan World Championship in Abu Dhabi this year.

The Spartan Philippines National Series

After the hiatus of the Spartan races in 2020, Spartan Race Philippines plans to go back in full swing this September to November 2021 at Batangas Lakelands in Balete, Batangas.

Venue: Batangas Lakelands, Balete, Batangas

Batangas Lakelands is an active lifestyle destination south of Metro Manila, teeming with natural resources and rich cultural heritage, this nature enclave composed of 8 active-lifestyle parks that features sports, leisure, and entertainment is offered to weekend warriors from Manila in a safe and secured area. 

Dates: Four Alternating Weekends of September and October:

September 25 and 26, 2021

October 9 and 10, 2021

October 23 and 24, 2021

November 6 and 7, 2021

Set-Up:

Spartan SPRINT Product, 5K, 20 Obstacles

Only Two Categories: Elite and Open

National Series Rules:

Best 3 out of 4 races for the Elite Athletes will be counted towards their series ranking.

All race levels are scored the same. Regardless of how many races you join, the total point will be considered for your series ranking.

There are no separate Age Group divisions or Master’s divisions within the Elite category.

Only the First Heat of the Saturday Race will count towards the series ranking, other races held that weekend do not count towards the series.

Due to the COVID-19 protocol, racers will be assigned to run in sets with a 5-second gap in between. Note that the first athlete to cross the finish line may not be the fastest due to the gap in start time and the final result will be based on the official timing chips.

For Runners:

Runners will be asked to present either one of the following before entry to venue:

Vaccine Card (Athletes will be grouped together on race heats depending on their vaccination status)

A negative RT-PCR Test or Laboratory Generated Antigen Test not more than 72 Hours before the race

Even with a negative result, racers must undergo triage prior to entering and must fill up the mandatory health declaration form and contact tracing.

Masks are mandatory during the registration, festival/awarding spot, start and finish line.

Spartan Race Philippines in the Now Normal

While people anxiously await the steady return of competitive racing amid the pandemic, its role and meaning continues to change during these trying times and moving forward. Racing is more than just an entertainment. It is more than just an escape from reality. Spartan Race, like most other races, is a platform for change. A platform to further the conversation. A platform to help, inspire, educate, and guide. With the help of our new roster of Ambassadors and Pro Team, we would like to be ready to open races in the Now Normal. The mentality to wait and expect things to go back to as it was before is over. 

We need to switch our gears and prepare a plan to bring back races and galvanize people, to give hope, and to continuously train to become better humans.

For questions and concerns you may direct it to our email at marc.celis@spartanrace.ph and/or beef@spartanrace.ph 

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[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

I joined Facebook in the spring of 2005 with the first email address I ever had. I still remember the photo I chose: me in a silver cocktail dress I spent too much of my summer lifeguarding money on. Facebook was a constant throughout college: There was the thrill of the new friend request, the agony of an unflattering tagged photo, the titillation of new-crush “Facebook stalking.” The site was a phone directory, a photo album and a way to invite people to parties. It was social ephemera — important, don’t get me wrong, but we all knew its place and form in our world.

Thirteen years later, I now know Facebook to be a shape-shifter. It appears to me one moment as a temptress, with ads for expensive dresses I’ve clicked on elsewhere (lifelong habit, I guess). The next it’s a sober scholar, lecturing me on the news. It remains a photo album, digitally pasted with old friends, dead relatives and past lives, but it’s shed that earnest, embryonic form of itself. My data, memories and digital habits fuel its everyday metamorphosis — there’s something unsettling in that. Maybe Facebook was never earnest, even in its most nascent form.

The advantages of that shape-shifting were plain to see while watching Mark Zuckerberg testify before Congress this week. The revelation that Cambridge Analytica mined 87 million Facebook users’ data without their knowledge seemed to drive lawmakers to the realization that governmental regulation of Facebook might be a necessity. At the heart of every question of regulation is a single idea: how to balance the rights of the individual with corporate and political interests. And the areas in which the government might regulate Facebook are numerous: privacy protection, monopolistic practices, political ads, free speech and racial discrimination, etc. But how do you regulate something that’s so hard to pin down?

Facebook can slip in and out of guises, wearing whichever one suits its purpose. “Is Facebook a media company?” Rep. Greg Walden asked. No, it’s a tech company, was Zuckerberg’s answer. But do purely tech companies find the need to engage legions of fact-checkers or nab the broadcast rights to 25 MLB games?

Some members of Congress have rightly been taken to task for not understanding the nuances of Facebook and failing to ask incisive follow-up questions. But even the ones who did know what they were talking about were largely ineffective in their sparring with Zuckerberg because they did so on multiple fronts. There were so many threads of questioning that they never quite knit together into a net. And so Zuckerberg, with his close-cropped schoolboy cut and new suit, slipped through Congress’s grasp.

Sens. Lindsey Graham and Dan Sullivan wanted to know if Facebook might have a monopoly on a particular method of communication that might stifle innovation and limit consumer choice. “When companies become big and powerful and accumulate a lot of wealth and power, what typically happens from this body is an instinct to either regulate or break up,” Sullivan said. Sen. Amy Klobuchar brought up legislation to regulate political ads on Facebook, something Zuckerberg has already announced his support for. Sen. Cory Booker and others brought up revelations from ProPublica that Facebook still allowed housing advertisements to target specific racial groups, bringing it in violation of Fair Housing Act provisions. Some, like Sen. Ben Sasse, tackled how Facebook might be stifling expressions of free speech.

But it was Congress’s concern about privacy issues that dominated regulation talk, perhaps natural given the ostensible reason for the hearings. Sen. Dick Durbin pressed Zuckerberg, saying, “I think that may be what this is all about. Your right to privacy. The limits of your right to privacy. And how much you give away in modern America, in the name of, quote, connecting people around the world.” Likewise, Sen. Maria Cantwell dug into Zuckerberg over a consent decree Facebook entered into with the Federal Trade Commission in 2011. The Washington Post wrote that the decree language “was written to require Facebook to identify and address emerging threats to user privacy as its business practices changed over the 20-year term of the consent decree.” Cantwell expressed skepticism that Zuckerberg and his company were adhering to the terms of that agreement. “When … I look at where you are from the 2011 consent decree and where you are today, I’m thinking, ‘Is this guy outfoxing the foxes, or is he going along with what is a major trend in an information age: to try to harvest information for political forces?’”

Throughout it all, Zuckerberg held on to the obtuse talking point that Facebook doesn’t own users’ data — users do. The company doesn’t sell data, was Zuckerberg’s constant refrain. The senators and representatives, though, seemed to see through that. “You clearly rent it,” Sen. John Cornyn said. “We might own our own data,” Rep. Doris Matsui pointed out, but “once it’s used in advertising, we lose control of it.”

Cornyn and Matsui’s points and Zuckerberg’s stonewalling get to the heart of the problem with Facebook: Shape-shifter that it is, it’s in the company’s interest not to acknowledge how fluidly it switches between personal data merchant, media monolith and tech platform. Congress’s categorization of Facebook has yet to happen: Tech company? Media company? Monopolistic enterprise? That categorization duty, and the attending responsibilities of regulation, will fall, in the coming months and years, to our nation’s politicians. Given this week’s hearings, that thought is far from comforting.

[ajax-b1ue]

Siiiigh... at the risk of inviting a mob to my door— how’s about everyone stops white-knighting for us poor little blue Texans, huh?

Let me just lead with, sorry this is coming off of your reblog— this isn’t specifically aimed at you, but rather a general trend I’m seeing. I hope this doesn’t feel like me coming at you personally, because that’s not the intention. That said...

Literally, the ONLY people I see posting this kind of ‘how dare you’ spiel right now are people who don’t live here. Weirdly enough, I’ve already seen this meme multiple times on facebook— from my friends who are also Texan. 

Look, we get it. Our state is gerrymandered to hell. We are the stereotypical ‘red state’, with red leadership, and red policies, and it’s frustrating as hell to live in, knowing that the people who actually live here are more and more blue every year. It’s infuriating when we’re seeing our communities, our neighbors, our friends, our families, suffering without water or food or heat because of that, when all of this was preventable. We are the ones living with it. 

Texas is also not as blue as everyone seems to think. Not yet. I think we’ll get there— I hope sooner, but it will probably be later, because, well, see above— but there is still a very large portion of our population that is incredibly conservative, die-hard Republican, and yes, are the types to gleefully try to run a campaign bus off a road, and feel totally justified doing so. Also the types to vehemently vote against federal regulation of our power grid, and against social support programs, despite the fact that they themselves might one day need them— or to keep voting in legislators who have proven, over and over, they don’t give a damn about them. And the sad thing is, the crap that’s happened this last week is not going to change many people’s perspectives. It doesn’t mean we want any of our fellow Texans to suffer or be hurt or die— rather the complete opposite, to be honest. It feels like constantly trying to chase down the dog who keeps trying to swallow plastic, yelling ‘stop doing that you’re going to choke you idiot’.

All of these things are true, and they’re not mutually exclusive. Nothing in that image up there is untrue. And no where does it say anything about Texans’ suffering being ‘deserved’, or ‘this is what we get’ or whatever. That is definitely not what I got out of it.

And, while I do, truly, genuinely, appreciate the sentiment... we don’t need people to be indignant on our behalf. That does a grand total of squat to help anybody here, long term or in the immediate sense. If people want to help, there are tangible ways to do so, like donating to mutual aid groups, animal shelters, or to support our seriously hurting homeless population. 

And if other people are exasperated because, oh my god seriously Texas are you choking on plastic again?? Y’know what, I don’t blame them. We’re exasperated too. 

(via 8pkpyoorzmi61.jpg (750×530))

[itsfinancethings]

New story in Business from Time: Many Companies Won’t Survive the Pandemic. Amazon Will Emerge Stronger Than Ever

The pandemic has upended businesses across the world, but it has been very good for Amazon. Every lockdown “click to purchase” nudged the company a little further toward utter domination of online shopping as total e-commerce sales nearly doubled in May. But if bigger was better for everyone, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos would not be appearing before Congress on Wednesday for an antitrust hearing.

Charlene Anderson, and sellers like her, are one reason why he’ll be there. Anderson is among the many merchants who sell goods on Amazon — and who together account for more than half of sales on the site. But they pay, too: Amazon charges Anderson a $39.99 monthly fee to post her knitting and craft supplies on its site, and it takes a cut of about 30 percent on each item she sells. Anderson’s seller experience has worsened during the pandemic as Amazon exercised the power of what she calls “dictatorship” over the vast internal marketplace it alone controls.

In mid-March, for example, Amazon notified sellers that during the pandemic, its warehouses would accept only household staples, medical supplies and “other high-demand products,“ but it failed to explain how it determined what it would accept. Anderson could still send some colors of knitting bags to Amazon warehouses, but not others; she could send one size of knitting needles, but not another. Some sellers saw their sales evaporate; others paid USPS or other services to ship orders to customers, while still paying Amazon’s monthly fees.

Even after Amazon lifted that order, boxes of goods that Anderson ships to a warehouse still sit on loading docks for weeks, she says, and when Amazon unpacks them, it miscounts the items, an error that takes Anderson days to remedy. The company sends customers the wrong items, then allows them to leave negative feedback on her seller page despite the error being Amazon’s, says Anderson, who is 63 and lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In the Facebook group she runs, Anderson says some sellers worry that the raft of problems will lower their internal scores on Amazon so much that the company will kick them off the site.

But where else can they go? “What are we going to do, protest and not sell on Amazon?” Anderson asks. “Right, I’m just going to kill my whole business. They have you and they know they have you—if you go, they’ll just find someone else to sell those products.”

Consumer spending on Amazon between May and July was up 60% from the same time frame last year, according to the financial data firm Facteus. The company’s extraordinary power — it has 38% of the e-commerce market, trailed by Walmart with 6% — was under scrutiny well before COVID-19. But the lockdown that boosted the company’s dominance also threw into higher relief its consequences for other businesses.

That’s increased interest in updating federal laws written more than a century ago to correct the distortions of monopolies on an economy. Bezos is appearing before a Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, part of an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee into online platforms and market power. The hearings are asking: in the age of Big Tech, how big is too big? New York University marketing professor Scott Galloway, a longtime critic of Amazon, says it’s helpful to think of Amazon’s Prime membership service as the kind of massive competitive advantage once enjoyed by railroad barons. With its extensive logistics and delivery network, Amazon not only has the eyeballs of millions of households, it is the company that ships, packs, and delivers what they buy.

“Amazon already owns the rails into 115 million households in America,” says Galloway. “Do we really want one company to be the arbiter of all commerce?”

Roy Davidson Charlene Anderson, who has sold items on Amazon for 20 years, says relations with the online giant have suffered as its power grows.

Economic crises have a way of creating winners and losers. Procter & Gamble thrived during the Great Depression by doubling down on advertising; Target expanded after the 2001 recession and saw profits grow 50%. Before the pandemic, Amazon represented around 4% of total U.S. retail sales. But with the new habits formed during the pandemic, UBS predicts that by 2025, e-commerce will make up one-quarter of total retail sales, up from 15% last year. The firm also estimates that 100,000 brick and mortar retail outlets will close in the next five years. “Consumers are increasingly shifting towards online shopping,” analysts wrote. “Many of these shoppers may not get back to in-store shopping when the current state is over.”

Amazon, which refused to make an executive available to comment on this article, casts itself as a friendly giant in its ubiquitous messages to consumers; it spent nearly $7 billion advertising itself in 2019 (more than double what Walmart spent). According to Ad Age, that made the company the biggest ad spender in the U.S. last year. But Amazon also sells advertising — $3.9 billion worth in the first quarter of 2020, up about 44% from a year earlier. The ads appear on Kindle, on Amazon Prime TV and on Amazon.com, some of them purchased by the same small sellers already paying to be listed on Amazon but afraid of getting lost on the site without additional promotion.

Because of the way e-commerce works, advertising on Amazon is essential for just about anyone selling on the site. According to marketing surveys, when online shoppers are thinking of buying an item, about half go straight to Amazon and search for the item, rather than Googling it or visiting another website. Most don’t scroll beyond the first page of results, so for sellers, it’s essential to be featured on that first page. They can hope that positive reviews lead Amazon’s algorithm to put them there, or they can buy ads.

Amazon is now the third-biggest digital ad seller in the United States, following Facebook and Google. And as it consolidates its grip on e-commerce, it can charge more for ads on its site. Buyers now compete with each other in an auction for keywords related to their products; the more people that are competing, the higher prices go. Revenues from advertising in the first three months of this year were up 43.8% from the previous year and 359% since 2017, according to company earnings reports.“It begins to feel like they’re playing chess, and they’re thinking three to four steps ahead,” says Andrew Lipsman, a retail analyst at market research firm eMarketer. “The more I think about Amazon, the more I marvel at it.”

So do investors, who saw its stock as a haven in a treacherous equity market. Amazon has gained half a trillion dollars in market value just this year, and shares should climb even higher when earnings are reported on July 30 if, as analysts at Goldman Sachs predicted, company revenues in North America show a jump of nearly 50% from the previous year. Bezos, already the richest person in the world with a net worth of $178 billion, could become the world’s first trillionaire by 2026.

That kind of concentrated wealth invites the stark comparisons embodied by people like Susan Bengel. One of the 175,000 employees Amazon hired during a pandemic that cost 40 million American jobs, Bengel, 62, had been living in her car before she started working at an Amazon warehouse in Pennsylvania in late March. She told me she recently got an offer from UPS, but she stayed with Amazon despite difficult conditions that include being on her feet for entire night shifts. UPS couldn’t match the pay or benefits she gets at Amazon, Bengel says. “It’s a monopoly, but they provide well,” she told me after one shift, in which each worker received a Chick-fil-A boxed dinner and bottle of hand sanitizer courtesy of Amazon. As stores close in her hometown of Wayne, Pa., she turned to Amazon to buy what she needs, including new shoes and back braces to get her through her shifts.

Lindsey Wasson—Getty ImagesPeople wearing masks outside the Amazon campus in Seattle, Wash., on April 30, 2020.

For Amazon shoppers, there’s not much not to like, apart from the unease at feeding a behemoth that competitors say is gobbling up their customers. Amazon argues that it’s not a monopoly, since it competes with brick and mortar stores for sales. “There’s a single retail market of which online is one channel. People do not shop exclusively online,” an Amazon spokesman said in a statement. But stores without Amazon’s logistics network are finding it impossible to compete. While Amazon was hiring tens of thousands of new workers, Jeff Curtis was running around his Maine bookshop, Sherman’s, scrambling to fulfill online orders much as Bezos had done in the mid-90s during Amazon’s early days selling only books online. But Curtis was by himself, because his store was closed to comply with stay-at-home orders. He says the state denied his request for special dispensation to bring in workers to help, even as Amazon was allowed to have on-site employees fulfill its own rush of online orders. Curtis has already decided to permanently close one of six branches of his store and is worried he may have to close another. It is the way of the world Amazon has built. Kathy Gonzalez, who runs two retail stores in northwest Florida, says she’s tried to offer shipping for furniture and other items she sells, but the cost is so high that people turn to Amazon, where shipping is free.

“If you want to be able to reach customers online, you’re essentially compelled to be on Amazon’s platform, but Amazon’s platform is not a place that you can succeed,” says Stacy Mitchell, the co-director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “With this sudden surge in online shopping, all of that has been magnified.”

Its mammoth size gives Amazon advantages available only to itself: One of its companies, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is a cloud computing platform that lets companies rent space on a network of servers. Its $35 billion in sales in 2019 (up 36% from the previous year) provided a financial cushion that let Amazon subsidize grocery delivery, expand its network of warehouses, and dare to offer one-day shipping without worrying about huge losses. The company now has 1,223 buildings covering 278 million square feet in its global logistics network, up 82% since 2016, according to MWPVL International, a supply chain and logistics consulting firm, and it’s still expanding at an “unprecedented” pace,” says Marc Wulfraat, founder and president of MWPVL. It built or announced plans to build 49 million square feet of logistics space in the U.S. between March and July alone, he says.

Amazon’s deep pockets are also ensuring the company’s ability to operate during the coronavirus in a way no other company can. Bezos said in late April that Amazon was investing $4 billion in coronavirus-protection efforts, including personal protective equipment for workers, enhanced cleaning at facilities, and development of its own COVID-19 testing capabilities. Galloway calls this the first “vaccinated supply chain,” and says it will help Amazon further dominate competitors as more people choose to buy and sell products through a service that has invested in being virus-free.

Amazon also continues to invest in technologies that will further consolidate its grip on e-commerce. In June, the company said it would spend $1.2 billion to acquire Zoox, a startup that makes self-driving vehicles, which could help in its delivery services. Amazon is expanding its fleet of cargo planes as other airlines lease them for cheap, the better to lessen its reliance on FedEx and UPS. It invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Rivian, an electric car company, and ordered 100,000 electric vans from the startup. In July, Amazon said it would open more cashier-less Amazon Go stores.

“Some people—and I’m one of them—only buy something if it’s on Amazon” says Brandon Fishman, CEO of VitaCup, which sells vitamin-infused coffee and tea both in retail stores and online and which saw a 35% increase in its Amazon sales in March and April. Fishman says it’s cheaper for him to sell his products in brick and mortar stores than to sell them on Amazon, because of the cut Amazon takes for packing and shipping. But he doesn’t want to miss out on e-commerce customers, who are his most loyal. More than half the people who buy VitaCup products on Amazon return to the site to buy more.

“Third party sellers would say it’s a deal with the devil,” says Galloway, the NYU professor. “Amazon brings us a lot of revenue, and we become addicted to it, but every year our economics get worse.”

In April, the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon had been using data from third-party sellers to determine which items were selling well, then making private-label versions of the same products to compete with the sellers’ products. (Amazon said such a practice would violate its policies, and it vowed to investigate.) Other sellers have alleged that Amazon does not take down counterfeit versions of items sold on its site; they suspect that the company does not want to lose the fees it collects from both legitimate and non-legitimate sellers. (Amazon says it invests “heavily” in prohibiting the sale of counterfeit products, using automated systems to help ferret out counterfeits, and that 99.9% of all pages visited by customers did not receive a notice of potential counterfeit infringement.)

During the pandemic, sellers say, communication has worsened and Amazon has slowed its response to flagrant problems on the site. Charlene Anderson says she can’t sell a knitting gauge because the picture is inaccurate on Amazon’s catalog page; she has been trying the problem fixed for three months. In July, Anderson says, Amazon told sellers it was going to restrict how many products they could keep in warehouses based on a performance metric. The ups and downs of the pandemic have meant that while Anderson’s sales were down in the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, they’re up about 3% now. But some sellers in the Facebook group she runs report their sales are down more than 50%. Most frustrating for all of them is the inconsistency; they have no idea when Amazon will change the rules again. “We hate having to deal with all of this, but to build our business, we have to,” Anderson says.

Amazon says its platform allows anybody to make an income in an otherwise challenging pandemic economy, and that it is working to help sellers while meeting increased demand from consumers. “Our commitment to our selling partners has never been more steadfast,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. In the twelve months ending May 31, 2020, small and medium-sized businesses sold 3.4 billion products, up 25% from the same time the previous year, according to a report Amazon released July 21. Amazon says the average American small and medium-sized seller had more than $160,000 in sales during that time, though it did not provide averages for how much these sellers took home after expenses.

Amazon is now valued by the stock market at $1.5 trillion, a figure that dwarfs the GDP of Saudi Arabia. The very thing that has made it so successful during the pandemic—its size and the many layers of its businesses—is what has given it so much leverage over sellers, workers and governments. Existing antitrust laws are designed to protect the consumer from predatory pricing. That orientation has shielded Amazon, because the company in many cases saves consumers money, but it is being questioned by scholars, and now lawmakers.

Critics say that regulating or breaking up Amazon will be better for merchants on its site and also, in the long term, for the economy. The rate of start-up creation in the United States has been falling for years; there is some evidence that this is because big companies like Amazon use their size to force smaller competitors out of business, or prevent them from being created in the first place. If small manufacturers and retailers had a fighting chance in competing with Amazon, they might help reverse the decline in start-up creation. New businesses in America are much of what drives the country’s productivity and economic growth, raising its standard of living and spreading wealth and jobs.

Historically, antitrust enforcement has helped upstarts; Companies like Google arose in part because of government antitrust action against Microsoft in the 1990s; the breakup of AT&T in the 1980s helped launch a technology renaissance.

“A key component of our success as a society is this very basic notion of checks and balances,” says Galloway, of NYU. “We’ve tried to avoid dictatorships, we try to avoid monopolies. We don’t have a judge, we have a judge and jury. And we believe in the wisdom of crowds.”

Charlene Anderson agrees. She says she and other sellers don’t want Amazon to disappear. If that happened, they would lose their income source and their access to millions of shoppers. They just want better communication with Amazon, more democracy, less dictatorship. “Amazon is not transparent at all,” she says. “Amazon will not tell you anything.”

Wednesday’s hearing before the House subcommittee on antitrust law will test that allegation, and more, as Congress peaks behind the curtain of one of America’s most successful companies. The next question is whether it has the tools to do anything about what it sees.

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[verycleverboy]

Trump Goes Full Putin Over Mild Nudge From Twitter

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to order a review of a law that has long protected Twitter, Facebook and Alphabet’s Google from being responsible for the material posted by their users, according to a draft executive order and a source familiar with the situation.

News of the order comes after Trump threatened to shut down websites he accused of stifling conservative voices. It follows a dispute with Twitter after the company decided to tag Trump’s tweets about unsubstantiated claims of fraud in mail-in voting with a warning prompting readers to fact-check the posts.

The order, a draft copy of which was seen by Reuters, could change before it is finalized. On Wednesday, officials said Trump will sign an executive order on social media companies on Thursday. It was not, however, listed on Trump’s official schedule for Thursday released by the White House.

The White House, Facebook and Twitter declined comment. Google’s video service YouTube did not immediately comment.

Twitter’s shares were down over 4 percent in pre-market trade on Thursday. Facebook fell nearly 2 percent and Google was down 1 percent.

Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey said on the company’s website late Wednesday that the president’s tweets “may mislead people into thinking they don’t need to register to get a ballot. Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves.”

Steve DelBianco, president of NetChoice, a trade group that counts Twitter, Facebook and Google among its members, said “The president is trampling the first amendment by threatening the fundamental free speech rights of social media platforms.”

The administration’s move “emboldens foreign governments to control online expression,” he said in a statement on Thursday.

The context:

First things first. As of this morning, the COVID-19 death toll in America has cost over 102,000 lives. There were 2.1 million new unemployment claims, with major companies preparing for new round of layoffs due to the pandemic-related downturn.

Last night an American city went up in flames after protests over a man of color dying in police custody turned into full-fledged rioting.

As I began typing this, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is asking what a lot of us are asking: Where is the federal leadership right now? 

In at least one case, we know the answer. the 45th President of the United States is throwing a massive man-tantrum with possible legal consequences because Twitter flagged one of his lies as a lie.

Let’s view this with clear eyes. The threat is to shut down Twitter. Trump is addicted to Twitter. He wouldn’t be the president without it and he knows it. There’s a member of cabinet who manages his personal account as an official duty. To shut it down completely would be to slit his own throat. 

That’s why I don’t believe that’s his endgame with this nonsense. The goal is to convince the tech companies to kneel before the throne, because as we learned from Devin Nunez v Cow, a conservative politician calling for “fairness” is code  for “overwhelmingly preferential treatment by any means necessary”. When you line enough of these incidents up, and there are many of them, you begin to suspect that if Trump got pulled over for a busted tail light, he’d abandon Blue Lives Matter in a heartbeat.

At the same time, if you’re among the red-hat faithful, he’s knifing you in the back, too. What President Trump is proposing as retaliation against an imaginary slight is looking into a case-by-case revocation of the “safe harbor” provision of the Communications Decency Act over actions related to editing of content. Section 230 of the CDA is the legal framework which makes social media possible by protecting platform providers (and maybe even your ISP) against legal repercussions over things their users say.over their services. According to the EFF:

Section 230 says that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." This federal law preempts any state laws to the contrary: "[n]o cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section." The courts have repeatedly rejected attempts to limit the reach of Section 230 to "traditional" Internet service providers, instead treating many diverse entities as "interactive computer service providers."

If that protection is taken away and Twitter is legally liable as the author of every hate crime that’s passed through its servers, then “deplatforming” goes from an urban legend spread by hatemongers and conspiracy theorists to a legally required practice to stay in business. 

If Trump gets what he wants from this ill-advised hissy fit, his followers potentially lose everything. Even if it takes out many progressive voices as collateral damage, that type of maneuver has the potential to scrub the right-wing presence on social media down to the bare metal. I believe the kids call this type of maneuver a “self-own”.

That’s assuming a number of things fall into place, not the least of which is whether a content tag added to an otherwise unchanged message counts as “editing” of the message. A sensible person would say no, but those are in short supply at Pennsylvania Avenue right now. 

That’s also assuming that the tech sector doesn’t decide that America isn’t worth the trouble and abandons us for the Euro zone.  There’s already an invitation.

However, as we found out during the impeachment, the announcement of a threat is more important to this administration than actually carrying it out. This is more likely than not another case of sound and fury, signifying nothing, and a massive waste of time while more important things remain undone.

tl;dr: Thanks to his promised actions, the biggest threat to Trump supporters on social media is Trump himself. That he stumbled into the most tone-deaf time imaginable to force this fake issue is further proof of his unfit leadership.

[omgstupendousbouquetbasement]

Minnesota Mom Leads Protest Against Stay-at-home Order

Michele Even, a conservative political activist, Trump supporter and mother of a teenage son, was becoming increasingly frustrated with Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s stay-at-home order to fight the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.  

Walz imposed the first stay-at-home order on March 27, sidelining many small businesses, retail stores and about 20 percent of the work force deemed “nonessential.” He had already closed bars and in-house service at restaurants and schools statewide. Last week, he relaxed restrictions on landscaping work, golfing, fishing and other outdoor activities, but hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans are still unemployed, struggling to feed their families and pay mortgages and rent.  

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz provides an update on the state's response to COVID-19 during a news conference in St. Paul, Minn., April 20, 2020.

Even, a former health and wellness industry worker and the wife of a civil engineer, decided to take matters into her own hands to vent her outrage. 

“I woke up one morning and said, ‘I’m going to do this protest,’” Even told VOA over the weekend from her home in Credit River Township, a town of about 5,000 people on the outskirts of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. “I believe the messaging on TV is so much propaganda. The protest was for every citizen in the state, regardless of political affiliation, and all the businesses and the men and women who want to support small businesses.” 

She spent two weeks reaching out to friends, fellow activists and businesses and spread the word on Facebook, where she had more than 1,000 shares of her invitation to the protest. And she sent out media advisories and did an interview on a local Fox News affiliate. 

Last Friday, her planning helped turn out about 800 protesters, according to police estimates, in front of the governor’s residence in the heart of St. Paul. Even said there were 3,000. Even said she was “very pleased” with the turnout in traditionally liberal Minnesota. “It was a totally grassroots protest.” 

Dwindling patience from desperate workers 

The demonstration was peaceful although many protesters did not wear masks or observe social distancing guidelines. President Donald Trump tweeted, “Liberate Minnesota,” and delivered a similar message to protesters in Michigan and Virginia. 

The gatherings drew criticism on American social media, where users pointed out that the protesters are opposing health regulations aimed at protecting them and their families and are endangering themselves by not social distancing.  

Even is not bothered by the criticism. 

“We let everyone know in advance that you participate at your own risk,” she said. “We’re not responsible for your current health condition or what you may have 30 days from now or even a year from now. Participation is 100 percent optional.” 

FILE - A mock skeleton is attached to a fence outside Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz's official residence in St. Paul, Minn., the site of a protest against stay-at-home restrictions, April 17, 2020.

Walz and state health officials argued the restrictive measures were needed to slow the growth of COVID-19 cases and give the medical community time to provide enough resources, especially intensive care beds and equipment. They based their decisions on federal health guidelines and statistical modeling done by the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Department of Health. 

The governor’s actions have been supported by most Democrats and groups such as the Minnesota Hospital Association and the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce as well as some Republicans. Some Republican legislators, however, have urged a quicker end to the closure of small businesses. The steps Walz and health officials have taken seemed to be working so far, they said, with Minnesota having the fewest number of cases per 100,000 persons in the country, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

As of April 19, Minnesota had 2,356 cases; 134 deaths and 1,160 patients who have recovered.  

Recent U.S. polls show that the majority of voters supports continuing social distancing measures. At the same time, more than 450,000 Minnesotans have applied for unemployment benefits.  

“Media would have you believe this is a feel good time with all the messaging on TV like ‘We’re in this together,’ ‘One Minnesota’ [Walz’s campaign slogan] or ‘home alone’ or whatever their propaganda is,” Even said. “But media doesn’t cover the lives of people shattered by the shutdown. Small businesses are the backbone of the country … the messaging coming out of the governor’s mansion is stay at home. So much guilt and shame it’s unbelievable.” 

Even said her main motivation in organizing the rally was “to end the shutdown because it is economically destroying people … to let the governor and legislators know what you are doing is hurting us, not helping us.” But underneath the economic argument is also a political one about “freedom and liberty.” 

Golfers hit the driving range at Braemar Golf Course in Edina, Minn., April 20, 2020, following the weekend lifting of some stay-at-home order restrictions.

Limits of government 

“Government has no place to do this,” Even said.  

In that, she has support from Chris Holbrook, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Minnesota and a frequent candidate for political office. He attended the protest Friday. 

While Holbrook said he supports the CDC guidelines for social distancing, handwashing and wearing masks, he does not support the stay-at-home orders. 

“Not to give people the opportunity to make a living, pay for their house, put food on the table, is not right, not constitutional, and I will oppose it always,” he said in a telephone interview from his home in St. Paul. 

Holbrook, 49, is a salesman in the construction industry and works mostly from home now because of the pandemic. Business is off as is his income from rental properties because some tenants can’t pay after losing restaurant jobs. 

He cited a former Minnesota governor, Jesse Ventura, as saying that you cannot legislate against stupidity.  

“You can have a law that says no ice fishing on the lakes after April 30, but if there’s ice on the lake, somebody is going to walk out there and fall through,” Holbrook said.  

The shutdown, Holbrook maintained, is causing unintended consequences including anxiety, an increase in domestic abuse, more depression, more calls to suicide hotlines and relapses in substance abuse cases.  

He said many businesses could be opened, albeit with new arrangements and precautious. For example, he said, a 16-seat hair salon could open with four seats or restaurants could open at 50 percent capacity to account for social distancing.  

Holbrook acknowledges that Walz is in a tough spot.  

“Let people decide if they want to go to a business safely or not,” he said. “There just may be a solution to this entire lockdown that doesn’t require government force.” 

Both Even and Holbrook see the protest movement picking up steam if Walz continues restrictions past the current May 4 deadline and if he makes his decisions contingent on the actions of six other Midwestern states with whom Minnesota is working.  

“If it’s ‘One Minnesota’ and if he wants to keep running around with that tagline, then let’s keep it ‘One Minnesota,’” Even said. “He needs to focus on the citizens that live here. Get input from citizens here, not from other states.” 

Even hinted at another event coming soon but would not go into details. 

In the meantime, she urged small businesses to start opening despite the governor’s orders. 

“If you are clever enough to start a business, you are clever enough to modify it to accommodate employees and patrons and keep them safe,” she said.  

“Life back to normal means we all get to go out and make choices,” she added. “Do I want to leave my house, and the answer is yes. I am going to assume personal responsibility” whether that’s driving a car, going to the store, or going to a ball game.  

“I’m going to go about my life and if I want to have a big party in my backyard, I’m doing it,” she said, with a hint of defiance in her voice. 

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[everythingtimeless]

Historical Hour With Hilary: 1x05

Missed an installment? Want to read up on where the team has been before? Just bored? Catch up with previous Historical Hours here. Otherwise, come along and discover that you probably don’t actually remember the Alamo, on March 6, 1836, as our heroes find themselves trapped in the legendary mission on the eve of battle.

If there is one thing that American Southern folk mythology really enjoys, it’s a romantic “Lost Cause” about a small group of brave patriots fighting to the end against a much larger and morally bankrupt foe: their bodies may be broken, but their spirit prevails. I could be talking about the Civil War, the end of which the team visited in 1865 a few episodes ago, but I could also be talking about the Alamo and its context within the Texas Revolution, which began just thirty years previously. It was a very short war, lasting only from October 1835 to April 1836, and it resulted in Texas’ independence from Mexico and official entry into the United States, which...  may or may not count as winning, but never mind. The causes of the conflict are complex, but I’ll try to summarize quickly. In 1821, Mexico had achieved freedom from Spain and recognition as its own sovereign country, with the Mexican War of Independence, and the territory of Texas became a formal Mexican state, Tejas. Eight years later, in 1829, Mexico banned slavery, which um. Did not go down well:

The aversion toward the Mexican government felt by most American Texans (who objected to learning Spanish, abiding by Mexican law, becoming Roman Catholics, etc ) was further exacerbated by the 1829 abolition of slavery. [...] The overthrow of federalism in 1835 finally prompted the Texans to revolt, given that a centralist state would tighten the Mexicans' grip over the distant and increasingly U.S.-populated secessionist province with uniform laws and taxes. However, the fact that the imposition of a centralist state would result in the abolition of slavery in Texas remains one of the main, yet often downplayed, reasons why the Texans rose up in arms. (p. 162-63).

“Often downplayed.” Wow, who could have possibly seen that coming? In case it wasn’t clear, the Mexican government objected to so many Americans moving to Mexico, as the Americans then made no effort to integrate and behaved (shock, surprise) like they owned the place. For another tidbit to annoy your racist uncle on Facebook, how about this:

The Law of April 6, 1830, said to be the same type of stimulus to the Texas Revolution that the Stamp Act was to the American Revolution, was initiated by Lucas Alamán y Escalada, Mexican minister of foreign relations, and was designed to stop the flood of immigration from the United States to Texas.

This was an entirely symbolic law, given as it was completely impossible to enforce with 1830s-level bureaucracy and communication over vast stretches of the Southwest, but it reflected Mexico’s attempt to impose control over an unruly and secessionist state (I’m not gonna say anything here, I’m not gonna say anything) and cut immigration levels from troublesome Americans, spreading moral disorder and presumably stealing jobs. If you’re interested, you can read in more detail about Texas-Mexican politics and the influences on the revolution here (you will need an institutional login to access full text). Otherwise, you can probably see that by the time the uprising actually started in 1835, the causes of the Texians’ (as the Anglo-Texas settlers were called) discontent were, well, something less than noble.

Mind you, they weren’t entirely unjustified, as Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón, or “Damn, Son, Leave Some Names For the Rest of Us”, Mexico’s eleven-time president, general, and towering statesman of the period, made even his contemporaries uneasy. His cruelties and excesses during the Texas campaigns, including the slaughter at the Alamo and the Goliad massacre of March 27, 1836 (or the “Other Alamo”, which killed at least 350 men, nearly double the Alamo’s death toll of 182, and which Santa Anna ordered against the wishes of his subordinate, General José de Urrea), got him into hot political water upon his return home. Part of Mexico’s political reforms had been in an attempt to avoid a post-revolution Santa Anna dictatorship, which he certainly possessed the talent and temperament to try. However, as noted before Flynn mucks things up, he did not indiscriminately butcher the women, children, and slaves inside the Alamo. Instead, they were given a blanket, safe passage, and two dollars apiece (see page 39). Only the defenders were killed.

As the team encounter, these defenders included some of the most colorful figures of later American folklore, including Davy Crockett and James Bowie, and William Barret Travis’ famous letter, which Lucy ends up having to write, is commonly cited as an enduring legacy of patriotism and “victory or death.” (It’s now a standard part of the history curriculum for Texas schoolchildren, which does not surprise me.) Of course, the participation of actual Tejanos in the events has been obscured and understudied, and almost immediately after the battle, it began to be memorialized in sentimental (and racist) novels. The supposed villainy and racial inferiority of the Mexicans was highlighted and made a key part of remembrance of the Alamo, especially as it was easy to take that view from the winning side. On April 21, 1836, General Sam Houston defeated Santa Anna in the Battle of San Jacinto, which lasted just eighteen minutes, and won the war (and independence) for Texas. As mid-19th-century Southern generals go, Houston is actually not that bad: he was very close with the Cherokee Indians, including being an honorary citizen and having an Indian wife at one point. He also fiercely opposed slavery and secessionism (or: Texas, having joined America, immediately wanted to leave it again) in the run-up to the Civil War, and was the only governor of a Southern state to refuse an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy, which caused him to be removed from office. Davy Crockett also hated the daylights out of President Andrew Jackson and his heinous Indian Removal Act, so hey. They’ve got that going for them.

Overall, I feel as if this is one episode where Timeless could have pushed a little harder at this history in places, but hey, that’s what I am here for. I therefore have to make the point explicit that yes, of course it was about race and slavery in the American South just a few decades before the Civil War, and yes, Texas has always been like that. It also flips our modern ideas about “illegal immigration” on their heads, and invites us to think more cautiously and critically about our fondness for “Lost Cause” patriotic mythology, because frankly, the Alamo wasn’t a Lost Cause. Yes, the soldiers died, but Texas won its independence less than two months later, which allowed the story of the Alamo to serve exceptionally well as a tragic tale and propagandist memory, and which was deliberately constructed as an important event in a way that far outstripped its actual historical significance. The Goliad massacre was arguably more significant in terms of the number of soldiers killed and the point of “no return” for the rebel cause, but nobody particularly remembers that today, which demonstrates the way in which the mythologizing of the Alamo stretches beyond its real impact. The Texas Revolutions’ origins were also less about a valorous desire for liberation from Mexican tyranny, and more about the Texians wanting to do things their way, especially if it involved their right to go on holding slaves and ignoring the laws, language, and customs of the country they had moved to. So yes, Wyatt, every kid in Texas might know the story, but I’m not sure how much anyone -- individually or collectively -- actually cares to remember.

Next week: An insane president, scandal in the White House, the threat of domestic terrorism and nuclear war, plane hijackings, and more? Are we staying in 2017? Nope. It’s 1972.

[marco42james]

5 Ways to Improve Relevance in Our Classrooms Now

Denis Sheeran on episode 590

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Part of being remarkable is that students believe your class and content applies to their life. On the 10 Minute Teacher, we want to help you be a more remarkable educator, so today, Denis Sheeran, author of  Instant Relevance, Using Today’s Experiences to Teach Tomorrow’s Lessons, shares five ways we can become more relevant in our classrooms today.

Students need to feel like what they do relates to their daily lives. Here’s how to relate!

Sponsor: The U.S. Toyota Dream Car Art Contest invites youth, ages 4-15, to submit their original hand-drawn artworks that answer the question, “If you could design a car to make the world a better place, what would it look like?” Artwork submissions for this free youth art contest are accepted this year from November 1, 2019, through January 31, 2020. Teachers can download a FREE K-12 standards-aligned lesson plan on car design that includes STEM concepts and art. Go to www.ToyotaDreamCarUSA.com/CoolCat to download artwork guidelines, an entry form, official rules, and the lesson plan today. Encourage your students to create Toyota Dream Car artworks today.

Listen to Denis Sheeran share how you can be more relevant in your classroom

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

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Denis Sheeran – Bio As Submitted

Denis Sheeran the author of two books for teachers, Instant Relevance, Using Today’s Experiences to Teach Tomorrow’s Lessons, and Hacking Mathematics: 10 Problems That Need Solving. He travels across the country delivering keynotes, full-day workshops, and small group professional development to teachers and administrators.

Denis has a Masters Degree in Educational Leadership and a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics Education with a minor in Music and is pursuing his doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction. Denis taught high school math, from Algebra to Advanced Placement, for thirteen years at Lake Forest High School in Lake Forest, Illinois and supervised the mathematics programs in Sparta, Edison, and Chatham NJ. Denis lives in Sparta, NJ with his wife, four children and his litter box trained dog, Scout.

Blog: denissheeran.com

Twitter: @mathdenisnj

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Instagram: @mathdenisnj

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[rickhorrow]

10 To Watch : Mayor’s Edition 111819

 RICK HORROW’S TOP 10 SPORTS/BIZ/TECH/PHILANTHROPY ISSUES FOR THE WEEK OF NOVEMBER 18 : MAYOR’S EDITION

with Jacob Aere

 A draft agreement between Miami-Dade County and the Dolphins would "pay the team at least" $2.5 million a year for bringing a F1 race to Miami Gardens. According to the Miami Herald, the subsidy is "tied to an existing agreement" from 2014 that pays Hard Rock Stadium up to $5.75 million annually for big events. The drafted F1 agreement would "boost that cap" to $7 million, a 20% increase. However, Miami-Dade Deputy Mayor Jennifer Moon affirmed the Dolphins "dropped the request for the higher cap." Even without the higher cap, the proposed F1 agreement would make the 2014 agreement a "more reliable source of county revenue" for Dolphins Owner Stephen Ross. The Dolphins "already are allowed" a $1 million payment for the Miami Open tennis tournament. International soccer matches “qualify for a $750,000 payment, while a college football championship brings in $3 million. An annual F1 race would let Ross lock in another $2.5 million more for the yearly allocation allowed under the 2014 agreement.

In a new poll commissioned by the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, 77% of voters are for keeping the A's. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, building a privately financed ballpark at the Port of Oakland's Howard Terminal "got the support of 68% of the voters, even if it means setting up a special tax district to pay for infrastructure." The poll also shows that 44% of voters believe the city should “drop its lawsuit over the Coliseum land sale,” compared with 28% who support the lawsuit and 28% with no opinion on the matter." Analytics firm FM3 took a poll of 601 registered voters October 29-November 1 as part of the chamber's annual Pulse of Oakland survey. The poll, "which has a margin of error of plus or minus 4%, came as the clock ticked down" on the deadline Major League Baseball set for the city to "drop the suit or risk the A's relocating to another city.” Since the city has lost the Warriors and soon, the Raiders, it’s not surprising that a majority of voters would back keeping its one remaining pro sports team.

 EverFi chants “Let’s Go Lightning.” Last Friday, the Tampa Bay Lightning invited 5,000 middle schoolers from the area to practice as part of their partnership with the Future Goals program from EverFi. The NHL and NHLPA are sponsoring the program that brings hockey into the classroom to explore STEM topics through sports. Future Goals features computer modules aimed at students in third through eighth grades on various topics. “We actually tried to use math and science in our ball hockey stuff,” Vice President of Community Hockey Development Jay Feaster shared with the Tampa Bay Times. “We show angles. If you pass off the boards here, or the different angles in the openings around a goalie.” While some of the students attending the Friday practice were hockey players, EverFi‘s NHL partnership recognizes that even those who don’t play the game have a better time absorbing STEM information through the lens of the sport.

 Black News Channel, the brainchild of former football and political star J.C. Watts, has moved its launch date from November 15 to January 6. The Tallahassee, FL-based network co-founded by former Oklahoma congressman J.C. Watts and TV exec Bob Brillante made the date change to take advantage of new distribution platforms. “If we have the opportunity to include the largest African American audience possible from day one, then that should be our top priority,” said Watts. The network, which offers 24/7 news serving African American viewers, has carriage deals set with Comcast, Charter, and Dish Network, and will be available in TV markets including New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. Watts entered the national conversation as a star quarterback for the University of Oklahoma in 1979 and later made a name for himself on Capitol Hill both as a congressman and a lobbyist backing diversity and economic issues still resonating in sports — and elsewhere — today.

WWE and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy have announced that WrestleMania 35 generated $165.4 million in economic impact for the New York/New Jersey region last April, according to a study conducted by the Enigma Research Corporation. This marks a more than 60 percent increase from the $101.2 million generated for WrestleMania 29 in New York and New Jersey and the eighth consecutive year that WrestleMania generated more than $100 million in economic impact for its host region. Over the past 13 years, WrestleMania has now generated more than $1.3 billion in cumulative economic impact for the cities that have hosted the event. WrestleMania 35 also generated approximately $27.1 million in federal, state, and local taxes. A sold-out crowd of 82,265 fans from all 50 states and 68 countries attended WWE’s pop-culture extravaganza this past April, making it the highest-grossing entertainment event in the history of MetLife Stadium. Next year, WrestleMania 36 will take place Sunday, April 5, from Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay and looks to positively impact a hurting sports industry in Tampa Bay.

The National Women’s Hockey League announced that it had closed a new round of equity funding that ensures continued growth for the league for many years to come. According to Cynopsis, the financing was led by insurance and IT entrepreneur Andy Scurto, who now joins a group of more than 20 NWHL investors. The funding round is another boost for a league whose existence was in doubt after a tumultuous summer. According to Sports Business, the five-team, U.S. based NWHL is continuing to operate despite the fact that more than 200 of the world’s top female ice hockey players pledged to not compete in North America this season in an attempt to gain better pay and working conditions. The NWHL also recently signed a partnership with athlete marketing platform Opendorse in an attempt to increase its players’ presence and engagement on social media. If the players can have their salary wishes met, this league has a chance to become equally prominent to the NHL in 10 years’ time.

The shift is here: more fans are streaming sports than paying for TV packages. According to SportsPro, fans are watching more live sport on their smartphones and connected devices than they do on TV, despite the majority of sports media rights being held by linear broadcasters, according to new research by cloud video specialists Grabyo. While more than 50% of fans watch sport via a satellite or pay-TV subscription, Grabyo’s OTT Video Trends Report claims that more than 60% view sports content via either an OTT or premium social media service. Overall, Grabyo’s research found that the global market penetration of OTT services has hit 38%, with DAZN and Kayo Sports cited as the most popular dedicated sports streaming platforms used by fans. Furthermore, Grabyo links a growth in short-form video, real-time highlights, and viral video consumption with the widespread adoption of social media use on smartphones as social media platforms such as Facebook Watch, Twitter, and YouTube TV capitalize on a growing demand for streaming options.

The NHL’s Washington Capitals owners launch Caps Gaming Brand. Monumental Sports and Entertainment (MSE), the owners of the Washington Capitals NHL franchise, has launched an esports division called Caps Gaming, which will host a 32-team EA Sports NHL 20 competition. The Caps Gaming Showcase, a six-versus-six ice hockey esports tournament, which will launch on Xbox One, will feature an eight-week regular-season beginning in early December, with the top 16 teams advancing to a postseason stage held in late February, competing for a $15,000 prize pool. As part of Monumental’s gaming expansion, the esports division has also signed up professional NHL gamer John Casagranda, who is also known as “JohnWayne” and joins the Caps Gaming organization as an official streamer on the Caps Gaming Twitch channel until the end of June. In addition to being 2018 NHL Stanley Cup champions, Monumental owns and operates pro sports franchises based in the U.S. capital, including the NBA’s Washington Wizards and the WNBA champion Washington Mystics. By investing heavily in esports, MSE and the Capitals have kept themselves at the forefront of innovation across the NHL and are primed to cash-in on the rise of esports.

John Cena confronts veteran suicide through charity.  Cena has partnered with the FitOps Foundation, a nonprofit committed to training and certifying veterans as personal trainers as the suicide rate among U.S. veterans continues to increase. According to Sports Illustrated, FitOps runs camps for its training sessions, providing a recognizable feeling for the veterans who attend. In addition to raising awareness about the needs of vets, Cena is also raising funds to expand the FitOps program. A number that really jumped out to Cena to inspire change was that roughly 20 veterans a day commit suicide. In a fundraising effort for FitOps, Cena pledged to match all donations up to $1 million through Veterans Day, as well as offer a VIP meet-and-greet with Cena to one lucky donor. Fittingly, on Veterans Day, the project crossed the $1 million threshold. An integral part of FitOps is rebuilding the sense of community and purpose that many veterans lose when returning to civilian life. While Cena has always showed his appreciation for the military, his current actions have him involved directly. 

All-electric racing series Formula E sees BBC extension to include two races on FTA television. According to SportsPro, the Marrakesh ePrix on February 29 and the Rome ePrix on April 4 are the two races that have been chosen for the BBC’s television coverage, although it is not yet confirmed which channels will air the events. The extension will also see the BBC continue to show every Formula E race across its online platforms, including the BBC iPlayer and its website. Coverage of select races will also be available via the BBC red button. The expanded deal comes ahead of Formula E’s return to the UK, with a double-header race through London’s ExCel exhibition center and along the waterfront on the streets of the Royal Docks set to close the 2019/20 season on July 25-26. Formula E, which debuted on the BBC last season, will also be broadcast in the UK this season on Discovery-owned channel Eurosport, with select events also being shown live on free-to-air network Quest. This is an eco-friendly racing league that allows for the same excitement as non-electric racing with the benefit of no negative carbon emissions and could set an example for NASCAR in the U.S.

[stellatex]

Nine Questions I Need Teresa Giudice to Answer

Originally published February 9, 2016.

Today’s the day. Christmas all over again for Real Housewives of New Jersey fans. Teresa Giudice, who has mostly been laying low since her release from federal prison on December 23, is set to make the media rounds to promote her new book, starting tonight with what is undoubtedly a contractually-obligated appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Bravo’s resident trash-TV obsessed Machiavellian puppet master Andy Cohen. Tomorrow morning, she will appear on Good Morning America with actual journalist Amy Robach.

The Housewives conceit–catty women posing as wealthy, fighting over petty drama, a trope from the heady days of 80s prime time soaps that quite obviously influences Cohen’s work, and one which Gloria Steinem recently called “a minstrel show for women”–may be of waning interest now, ten years on from the premiere of the Real Housewives of Orange County. Certainly, RHONJ has taken a dark turn, first with the introduction of Teresa’s family members (without her prior knowledge), then with the failed Giudice bankruptcy and subsequent criminal investigation, trial, and conviction. It feels like the Housewives have run their course. Certainly, the newest installment, Real Housewives of Potomac, feels like a Potemkin village of a Potemkin village, complete with early 90s fiberboard kitchen cabinets.

I’ve been watching the Real Housewives of New Jersey since it premiered on May 12, 2009. I have seen every episode multiple times. I have watched every web exclusive available on Hulu and every behind-the-scenes video on the Bravo web site. I’ve watched every RHONJ cast appearance on Watch What Happens live. I’ve read all of Richard Lawson’s uhmazeing recaps on Gawker. I’ve followed Vicki Hyman’s meticulous reporting on the Giudices’ legal woes (she is truly doing God’s work covering this shitshow; reward her by giving a listen to her TV Hangover podcast). I’ve read all the forums (here’s one) and all the shady gossip blogs (but I’m not linking to them; you’re on your own). I have all of Teresa’s books, and even Melissa’s. I have corresponded privately with one of Teresa’s ghostwriters. I follow all of the RHONJ cast members, former cast members, friends of Housewives, and tangential friends and family on social media. I have a RHONJ Twitter list [now defunct, sorry]. I started and am admin for a Real Housewives Feminist Discussion Group on Facebook (invitation only, sorry).

I’m in deep.

I know as much about RHONJ as any viewer could possibly know. Sadly, I am somehow an expert on this show. The reasons I am obsessed with this show are personal and academic; cultural and escapist. That’s a whole other post. Or dissertation.

Point is, despite my better judgment, I love this show. I love it. I can’t fully explain it. I even love Teresa. I think she was the one who was “set up” in previous seasons, with producers and other cast members acting in unison to take advantage of her as a narcissistic simpleton, to amp up the drama. But that’s all for another post, too, and in the past at this point. The fact is Teresa–along with her four beautiful dorters–is and always has been the star of this show. People watched because she was good TV. She and Joe exhibited character flaws on the scale of a Greek tragedy, sure; but they were also hilarious. Hilariously inept, if caricaturishly stereotypical. Somehow strangely lovable, even though they were also criminally delusional. From the first episode, Teresa was flashing those hundred dollar bills, buying that gaudy furniture in cash, and we, the viewers, knew Something Was Up. It’s been a long, unspooling tale from then to now. In hindsight, viewers know that Joe and Teresa had already been living on fraudulently obtained money for years. Their crimes, according to court records, date back to at least 2004, five years before they appeared on America’s television screens.

To date, Teresa’s line has been that she was misled into “signing some papers” that she either didn’t read or didn’t understand (her story varies), either by Joe or by her accountants (!) or her lawyers (!). She’s played the role of innocent, “old school” Italian wife–the same role she’s played on RHONJ. Joe tried to take the fall for her in court and failed. Due to the Giudices’ decision to continue hiding assets right up until the sentencing, Judge Esther Salas rethought her original impulse of possibly giving Teresa only house arrest or probation, and instead sentenced her to 15 months in prison.

Teresa’s complicity in the crimes is not a matter of debate, though the extent of her participation is. Teresa pled guilty. She expressed remorse in court, presumably in an attempt to receive a lesser–or no–prison sentence. It is my opinion that she really believed the judge would take pity on her as a traditional mother of four beautiful dorters. The Giudices’ financial scams had been working for years, after all. She was famous. People loved her. She deserved and was well accustomed to her McMansion lifestyle. She was obviously not very financially astute. She was a good Italian wife who deferred to her husband. She was a good girl.

She thought wrong.

We can all read the indictment and draw our own conclusions. Now, Teresa is trying to make a comeback. According to Teresa [link lost], the Giudices have paid their court-ordered restitution and their mortgage is current. No mention is made of the $551,563 still owed to the IRS for unpaid taxes, nor the the creditors listed in their 2010 bankruptcy filing, totaling $13.4 million.

Based on the teaser clips already released by GMA, Teresa is continuing, in her obviously memorized, stilted, eye-blinking way, to hold on tight to her claims that she had no idea what she was doing, or signing. It has been my contention all along that this is probably what we would see from post-prison Teresa. I almost admire her dedication. The sheer hubris. The chutzpah. Too bad she hasn’t yet channeled all that white-knuckle stubbornness into anything more productive than unflinching denial of her multiple felonies, holding grudges against her own family members, and a devotion to flawless 24/7 drag queen makeup.

But I think she’s placed her bets on the wrong horse and fundamentally misunderstands her fame.

Despite everything, there are still viewers–myself included–who love watching Teresa. Who want her to come good. Who want to see some Goddamn Character Development. It seems like she’s going to keep pretending everything is okay, even though it very obviously is not, and that she will continue to deny her culpability in obtaining the millions of dollars of fraudulent loans that financed her over-the-top leopard-print lifestyle, the craven bankruptcy filing intended to wipe the slate clean, and the way she and her husband have financially ruined the many local business and small contractors whom they stiffed in the process.

So far, there has been zero accountability.

What Teresa doesn’t get here–and Teresa, as we know, doesn’t get a lot of things–is that the only remaining way to endear herself to the viewing, cookbook-buying public is through showing genuine remorse. She is being presented with yet another golden opportunity that she doesn’t really deserve in the form of this press tour for her perfectly timed, hastily-released biography. I don’t think she realizes that, without performing–convincingly–this type of epiphany for her ever-dwindling audience, her “career” as a Bravolebrity is over after this final fifteen minutes. It seems that I’m not the only one who thinks so; even her former co-writer, Heather MacLean, tried to explain this to her, to no avail.

Teresa needs chart a course that will keep her on TV and thus allow her to continue making the type of money she needs support herself and her children, especially in light of the fact that her husband is about to “go away” for at least three and a half years. Unlike others, I don’t blame her for capitalizing on her moment in the spotlight, and the prurient interest of the public, to hawk an autobiography and book a bunch of paid appearances. It’s the only legitimate way she has to earn an income, and certainly the only way to earn the type of money she needs to continue paying down those back taxes and massive debt (and I expect some lawsuits will be forthcoming from her many creditors).

But to make good, she needs to provide some real answers to some hard questions. No doubt Cohen will only lob only softball questions and make schoolboy jokes at her expense. He may ask a few tough questions tonight in the guise of “viewer Marge in Omaha on Twitter,” but his interest is in coddling his “star” and presenting a coherent narrative for RHONJ. In another timely moved that surprised no one (who was paying attention), Bravo announced yesterday that a seventh season of RHONJ will be on our screens “later this year.” Perhaps GMA’s Amy Robach will ask her some tougher questions. We’ll have to wait and see.

To my mind, there are certain things Teresa must address if she expects to return from federal prison and jump back into her role as Housewife.

So, in the spirit of Brian Moylan’s 98 Questions I Had During Last Night’s Interview With Joe and Teresa Giudice, here are the questions that I need Teresa Giudice to answer, presented in advance:

1. You said in your statement to the judge during sentencing that you “fully take responsibility” for your actions. You said, “It’s time for me to wake up… I will make this right no matter what it takes.” Why, immediately afterward, in your interview on Watch What Happens Live, did you backtrack and try to deflect blame to your husband while insisting things were just put before you to sign?

2. You claim to be “business savvy,” telling your husband on an episode of RHONJ, “Like, you know, that’s what I do now. I’m a businesswoman, so I’m thinking business.” You’ve touted your online businesses, your Fabellini drink line, your Milania hair care line, your success as a “New York Time [sic] best-selling author.” So how is it that you are also simultaneously claiming to be a clueless housewife who knows nothing of her own finances, including the assets from said businesses that you tried to hide during both your fraudulent bankruptcy and your sentencing?

3. If you are blaming your husband Joe for your ten-plus-years of financial fraud and the year you spent unjustly incarcerated in a federal prison, why are you still with him?

4. What would you say to the creditors, banks, and, most importantly, small business owners of New Jersey whom you and your husband fleeced to the tune of millions of dollars? Do you feel any obligation to repay these debts?

5. Explain this.

6. Why are you and your husband suing your bankruptcy attorney? Furthermore, do you not realize that, in doing so, you will be giving up your attorney-client privilege and opening yourselves up to a new investigation of your finances during the discovery process?

7. What are you going to do when Joe is deported?

8. You talk constantly about your love, love, love for your four beautiful dorters. Why did you put them in this position?

9. Why should viewers overlook your felonious criminal past and continue to support you by watching RHONJ or buying your books or products?

She’s taken to calling herself Teresa 2.0, and insisting that her time in the slammer transformed her into a zen-like superwoman who has her priorities straight. But we, the viewers, will be the judge and jury. Based on what we have seen to date, it appears that Teresa hasn’t learned a damn thing. I wish she would prove me wrong, but I don’t think she has it in her.

All images from the amazing T-Kyle.