#flexibility of not running generations one at a time... if 1 day polls do win i may just switch it to that and do all of the round 1s first | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

newstfionline · 4 years

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Thursday, November 12, 2020

Canada Is Relieved at Biden’s Win (NYT) On a snowy evening in December 2016, a month after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada held a rare farewell state dinner for the departing vice president, Joseph R. Biden Jr. It was like a tearful goodbye between two old friends. “We are more like family. That’s the way the vast majority of Americans feel about Canada and Canadians,” Mr. Biden said to a hall packed with politicians in Ottawa. “The friendship between us is absolutely critical to the United States.” He ended with a toast: “Vive le Canada. Because we need you very, very badly.” After four years of surprise tariffs, stinging insults and threats from President Trump, a giddy jubilation and sense of deep relief spread across Canada on Saturday, with the news that Mr. Biden had won the presidency. Many Canadians hope to return to the status of cherished sibling to the United States, and that the president-elect’s personal connection to Canada, and that of his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, will help heal the wounds.

States cite smooth election (AP) The 2020 election unfolded smoothly across the country and without any widespread irregularities, according to state officials and election experts, a stark contrast to the baseless claims of fraud being leveled by President Donald Trump following his defeat. Election experts said the large increase in advance voting—107 million people voting early in person and by mail—helped take pressure off Election Day operations. There were also no incidents of violence at the polls or voter intimidation. “The 2020 general election was one of the smoothest and most well-run elections that we have ever seen, and that is remarkable considering all the challenges,” said Ben Hovland, a Democrat appointed by Trump to serve on the Election Assistance Commission, which works closely with officials on election administration. Following Democrat Joe Biden’s victory, Trump has sought to discredit the integrity of the election and argued without evidence that the results will be overturned. Republican lawmakers have said the president should be allowed to launch legal challenges, though many of those lawsuits have already been turned away by judges and those that remain do not include evidence of problems that would change the outcome of the race.

Future of business travel unclear as virus upends work life (AP) For the lucrative business travel industry, Brian Contreras represents its worst fears. A partner account executive at a U.S. tech firm, Contreras was used to traveling frequently for his company. But nine months into the pandemic, he and thousands of others are working from home and dialing into video conferences instead of boarding planes. Contreras manages his North American accounts from Sacramento, California and doesn’t expect to travel for work until the middle of next year. Even then, he’s not sure how much he will need to. “Maybe it’s just the acceptance of the new normal. I have all of the resources necessary to be on the calls, all of the communicative devices to make sure I can do my job,” he said. “There’s an element of face-to-face that’s necessary, but I would be OK without it.” That trend could spell big trouble for hotels, airlines, convention centers and other industries that rely so heavily on business travelers like Contreras. Work travel represented 21% of the $8.9 trillion spent on global travel and tourism in 2019, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. Amazon, which told it employees to stop traveling in March, says it has saved nearly $1 billion in travel expenses so far this year. The online shopping giant, with more than 1.1 million employees, is the second-largest employer in the U.S. At Southwest Airlines, CEO Gary Kelly said while overall passenger revenue is down 70%, business travel—normally more than one-third of Southwest’s traffic—is off 90%. U.S. hotels relied on business travel for around half their revenue in 2019, or closer to 60% in big cities like Washington, according to Cindy Estis Green, the CEO of hospitality data firm Kalibri Labs.

Final weeks of historic hurricane season bring new storms (AP) Just when you thought it should be safe to go back to the water, the record-setting tropics are going crazy. Again. Tropical Storm Eta is parked off the western coast of Cuba, dumping rain. When it finally moves again, computer models and human forecasters are befuddled about where it will go and how strong it will be. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Theta—which formed overnight and broke a record as the 29th named Atlantic storm of the season—is chugging east toward Europe on the cusp of hurricane status. The last time there were two named storms churning at the same time this late in the year was in December 1887, Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said. But wait there’s more. A tropical wave moving across the Atlantic somehow survived the mid-November winds that usually decapitate storms. The system now has a 70% chance of becoming the 30th named storm. That’s Iota on your already filled scorecard. If it forms, it is heading generally toward the same region of Central America that was hit by Eta. Never before have three named storms been twirling at the same time this late in the year, Klotzbach said. Hurricane records go back to 1851, but before the satellite era, some storms were likely missed.

Religious Persecution Is Worsening Worldwide (CT) Dictators are the worst persecutors of believers. This perhaps uncontroversial finding was verified for the first time in the Pew Research Center’s 11th annual study surveying restrictions on freedom of religion in 198 nations. The median level of government violations reached an all-time high in 2018, as 56 nations (28%) suffer “high” or “very high” levels of official restriction. The number of nations suffering “high” or “very high” levels of social hostilities toward religion dropped slightly to 53 (27%). Considered together, 40 percent of the world faces significant hindrance in worshiping God freely. And the trend continues to be negative. Since 2007, when Pew began its groundbreaking survey, the median level of government restrictions has risen 65 percent. The level for social hostilities has doubled.

Critics, protesters call removal of Peruvian president a legislative coup (Washington Post) The little-known head of Peru’s Congress took the helm of the South American nation Tuesday amid a public outcry over the surprise removal of the country’s popular president, Martín Vizcarra. Vizcarra’s ouster late Monday and the inauguration of interim president Manuel Merino amounted to a return of the political chaos that has long plagued Peru, where nearly every president since 1990 has resigned, been indicted or been jailed amid clouds of corruption. One former president killed himself. Yet at a time when the Andean nation is confronting one of the world’s most lethal coronavirus outbreaks, Vizcarra’s ouster, based on still-unproven bribery allegations, appeared to be fundamentally different. Critics called it a congressional coup staged by Machiavellian legislators desperate to halt his anti-corruption and political reform campaigns, which took aim at their pocketbooks and threatened to end many of their political careers. Under Vizcarra, Peru adopted laws that took on festering malfeasance within the 130-member legislature, where 68 lawmakers are now under investigation or indictment for alleged crimes ranging from money laundering to murder. Members of the current Congress have been prohibited from seeking reelection, and anyone with active charges is barred from running. Critics now fear that Merino—who previously sought to turn the military against Vizcarra and attempted an earlier removal on different grounds in September—will seek to lift those rules, allowing a compromised political class to preserve itself and setting up a new period of instability in this nation of 32 million.

Generation COVID (Foreign Policy) A report from the British school inspection agency found that children had suffered from being outside the regular school system during lockdown, with some younger children regressing from being potty-trained back to diapers and older children showing reduced reading stamina. The chief inspector for schools found that the children experiencing the worst effects were those whose parents’ employment did not allow for flexible or at-home working.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy tests positive for Covid-19 (AP) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced Monday that he has tested positive for coronavirus infection and will be working in self-isolation while being treated. “There are no lucky people in the world for whom Covid-19 does not pose a threat,” Zelenskiy said on Twitter. “However, I feel good. I promise to isolate myself and I continue to work.” Zelenskiy became president in 2019 as a political neophyte, previously known as an actor and comedian. He became popular in the country for a TV sitcom, “Servant of the People,” in which he played the role of a teacher who unexpectedly becomes president after making a rant about corruption that goes viral. He handily defeated incumbent Petro Poroshenko. Ukraine’s coronavirus infections began surging in late summer and have put the country’s underpaid doctors and underequipped hospitals under severe pressure.

Nagorno-Karabakh: Turkey wins the war? (Foreign Policy/Eurointelligence) Russia may have secured a peace deal to end a six-week conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, but Turkey has won the war. Ankara threw its political support behind Azerbaijan and employed Turkish cutting-edge drones and military expertise to allow Azerbaijan to roll over Armenian positions in the difficult mountain area under dispute. The conflict is not new, and occasional fighting has been going on there since 1994, but this time it is a decisive victory. This victory will boost Erdogan’s image as a strongman with geopolitical weight, and helps him put a foot into the South Caucasus. Hard power impresses former Soviet countries.

Hong Kong’s pro-democracy lawmakers resign en masse (AP) Hong Kong’s pro-democracy lawmakers said Wednesday that they were resigning en masse following a move by the semi-autonomous Chinese territory’s government to disqualify four of their fellow pro-democracy legislators. The 15 lawmakers announced the move in a news conference Wednesday, hours after the Hong Kong government said it was disqualifying the four legislators. The disqualifications came after China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee, which held meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, passed a resolution stating that those who support Hong Kong’s independence or refuse to acknowledge China’s sovereignty over the city, or threaten national security or ask external forces to interfere in the city’s affairs, should be disqualified. Beijing has in recent months moved to clamp down on opposition voices in Hong Kong with the imposition of a national security law, after months of anti-government protests last year rocked the city. A mass resignation by the pro-democracy camp would leave Hong Kong’s legislature with only pro-Beijing lawmakers. The pro-Beijing camp already makes up a majority of the city’s legislature.

Iran sanctions continue (Foreign Policy) The Trump administration doesn’t intend to give up its “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran just because it lost an election. On Tuesday, the U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions on six companies and four people accused of supplying components to Iran Communication Industries, a company run by the Iranian military that is already under U.S. and EU sanctions. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said the United States would continue to take action against those that support Iran’s “militarization and proliferation efforts.”

Frantic search after medicines vanish from Lebanon shelves (AP) She is a nurse at a Beirut hospital, and still Rita Harb can’t find her grandfather’s heart drugs. She has searched pharmacies up and down Lebanon, called friends abroad. Not even her connections with doctors could secure the drugs. Unlike many amid Lebanon’s financial crash, she can afford them—they just aren’t there. To get by, her 85-year-old grandfather is substituting his medicine with more pills of a smaller concentration to reach his dosage. That too could run out soon. Drugs for everything from diabetes and blood pressure to anti-depressants and fever pills used in COVID-19 treatment have disappeared from shelves around Lebanon. Officials and pharmacists say the shortage was exacerbated by panic buying and hoarding after the Central Bank governor said that with foreign reserves running low, the government won’t be able to keep up subsidies, including on drugs. That announcement “caused a storm, an earthquake,” said Ghassan al-Amin, head of the pharmacist syndicate. Lebanese now scour the country and beyond for crucial medications. The elderly ask around religious charities and aid groups. Family members plead on social media or travel to neighboring Syria. Expats are sending in donations. It’s the newest stage in the economic collapse of this country of 5 million, once a regional hub for banking, real estate and medical services. More than half the population has been pushed into poverty and people’s savings have lost value. Public debt is crippling, and the local currency plunged, losing nearly 80% of its value. The health sector is buckling under the financial strain and coronavirus pandemic.

‘Countdown to catastrophe’ in Yemen as U.N. warns of famine—again (Reuters) Millions of men, women and children in war-torn Yemen are facing famine—again, top United Nations officials warned on Wednesday as they appealed for more money to prevent it—again. “We are on a countdown right now to a catastrophe,” U.N. food chief David Beasley told the U.N. Security Council. “We have been here before ... We did almost the same dog-and-pony show. We sounded the alarm then.” The United Nations describes Yemen as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with 80% of the people in need of help. “If we choose to look away, there’s no doubt in my mind Yemen will be plunged into a devastating famine within a few short months,” Beasley told the 15-member council. In late 2017, U.N. aid chief Mark Lowcock warned that Yemen was then facing “the largest famine the world has seen for many decades with millions of victims”. “We prevented famine two years ago,” Lowcock told the Security Council on Wednesday. “More money for the aid operation is the quickest and most efficient way to support famine prevention efforts right now.”

#headlines #news

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theliberaltony · 6 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to a new weekly collaboration between FiveThirtyEight and ABC News. With 5,000 people seemingly thinking about challenging President Trump in 2020 — Democrats and even some Republicans — we’re keeping tabs on the field as it develops. Each week, we’ll run through what the potential candidates are up to — who’s getting closer to officially jumping in the ring and who’s getting further away.

There were no new entrants into the Democratic primary field this week, but several potential 2020 hopefuls stepped into the spotlight to criticize President Trump’s proposed border wall and to call for votes on funding bills that would end the partial government shutdown that is now in its 21st day.

Democratic leaders advocated for an end to the impasse as quickly as possible, arguing that the border wall was an expensive and unnecessary solution to an exaggerated problem and one that could be negotiated at a later time without paralyzing the government. Most of the public, meanwhile, placed responsibility for the shutdown on Trump’s shoulders, according to recent polls, providing fodder for eventual stump speeches.

Jan. 4-10, 2019

Michael Bennet (D)

The Colorado senator changed his Twitter handle from @BennetForCO to @MichaelBennet, renewing speculation that he was interested in seeking higher office. Sources close to Bennet previously told Colorado Public Radio that he was considering a run for president.

Joe Biden (D)

The former vice president is in the final stages of deciding whether to run for president, The New York Times reported Sunday. Biden, who led some of the first Democratic national and Iowa caucus polls, is “skeptical” that other Democrats considering a run can defeat Trump, according to the newspaper.

Biden’s political action committee outraised those of some of his potential rivals, bringing in over $2 million in 2018, Politico reported Tuesday.

Biden’s brother Frank told The Palm Beach Post that he has been encouraging his big brother to run and that he thinks he will. Frank Biden also said that his brother would have won several states that Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, including Pennsylvania. According to Frank Biden, a group of Biden family members there voted for Trump.

Michael Bloomberg (D)

According to a Bloomberg Philanthropies press release, Bloomberg will be in Texas on Friday for announcements in Austin and San Antonio related to his philanthropic “American Cities Climate Challenge.” The former mayor of New York City will be joined by the mayors of Austin and San Antonio for meetings and a press conference.

Cory Booker (D)

The New Jersey senator was part of a bipartisan group that announced this week that they would re-introduce legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. The bill seeks to prevent a sudden dismissal of the special counsel by providing for an expedited judicial review of a firing and ensuring that any such decision is made solely for legitimate reasons.

According to CNBC, Booker met recently with Wall Street donors, one of whom said anonymously that “the meetings aren’t officially about running, but of course they are about running in 2020.”

Sherrod Brown (D)

Brown’s wife, Connie Schultz, said a decision on a presidential campaign will come “within the next two months,” in an interview with CNN.

The Ohio senator responded to Trump’s Tuesday Oval Office address on the government shutdown, saying that the situation at the border was “not a national emergency” but one that Trump created himself.

Julian Castro (D)

On Saturday, Castro will formally announce his decision about a 2020 presidential campaign at an event in San Antonio, where he previously served as mayor.

In an appearance on ABC News’s “This Week” on Sunday, Castro criticized Trump’s leadership and defended Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s call for a top marginal tax rate of 70 percent, noting that it was once as high as 90 percent.

On Monday, Castro, who led the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Obama administration, traveled to Iowa, where he met with Democratic activists and outlined his vision for the future. On Tuesday, he stopped in Nevada to meet with Latino leaders.

John Delaney (D)

Delaney this weekend will open campaign offices in the Iowa cities of Cedar Rapids and Des Moines. After a weekend of traveling through the state, he is scheduled to meet with county-level Democratic officials and deliver a presentation in Davenport on future trends in trade, education, health care and climate change, among other issues.

Jeff Flake (R)

Flake on Monday tweeted a defense of his replacement, Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, after a national Republican committeeman referred to her as “Senator Madonna” in a Facebook post and said she was elected in part because of “dumb ass people.”

No, @kyrstensinema won because she ran a good race and had a message that resonated with Arizona's voters. The sooner we Republicans recognize this, the sooner we will we be in a position to win the next contest. https://t.co/iMNwvMWxKJ

— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) January 7, 2019

Jay Inslee (D)

On Saturday, the Washington governor will give the keynote address at the annual summit of the Nevada progressive advocacy organization Battle Born Progress.

Inslee signed the “No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge” on Tuesday, promising not to accept donations from the political action committees, executives or groups affiliated with the fossil fuel industry. “This is just one small statement that they should not continue to have undue influence over our decision-making over the existential threat against our nation,” he told HuffPost.

Inslee and fellow Washington Democrats announced legislation Tuesday that would give state residents a “public option” for health insurance, The Seattle Times reported.

Last Friday, Inslee began to solicit applications for clemency from Washingtonians convicted of marijuana possession misdemeanors in the years before it was legalized.

Tulsi Gabbard (D)

In a column in The Hill on Tuesday, the Hawaii congresswoman criticized Democrats for “weaponiz[ing] religion” in relation to the November questioning of judicial nominee Brian Buescher, who was asked by the Senate Judiciary Committee about his Catholicism and Knights of Columbus membership. “While I absolutely believe in the separation of church and state as a necessity to the health of our nation, no American should be asked to renounce his or her faith or membership in a faith-based, service organization in order to hold public office,” wrote Gabbard, who said she nevertheless opposed Buescher’s confirmation.

Kirsten Gillibrand (D)

Gillibrand has been reaching out to Wall Street executives to evaluate support for a potential presidential campaign but has been met with divided responses, CNBC reported.

Kamala Harris (D)

Harris released two books on Tuesday: a memoir, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey,” and a children’s book, “Superheroes Are Everywhere.”

In interviews with ABC News’s “Good Morning America” and “The View,” Harris said that she was not ready to announce whether she’d decided to enter the presidential contest but said that she thought the country was “absolutely” ready for a female president of color. The California senator criticized Trump over the shutdown, labeling his proposed border wall a “vanity project.”

John Kasich (R)

In response to Trump’s Oval Office address on the shutdown, Kasich issued a statement criticizing the president for not “putting the country ahead of his politics and being more flexible with his goals.” The former Ohio governor added that “the President and Democrats need to learn how to compromise and put the American people first.”

Amy Klobuchar (D)

The Minnesota senator made news Wednesday when she tweeted that her attempt to meet with attorney general nominee William Barr was denied because of the government shutdown.

I tried (as did Blumenthal) to get meeting w/AG nominee Barr and was told he couldn’t meet until AFTER the hearing. The reason given? The shutdown. Yet shutdown didn’t stop him from other mtgs. This is a 1st for me w/any nominee as a member of judiciary. #Uncool #BadSign

— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) January 10, 2019

The impasse appeared to be resolved Thursday morning, however:

Thanks everyone. My meeting is now set for this afternoon with AG nominee Barr. Coffee will be hot.

https://t.co/jUn2AONuQg

— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) January 10, 2019

Beto O’Rourke (D)

Beto O’Rourke grew a beard — one (unlike that of his former rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz) that received decidedly mixed reviews from the internet after he debuted it during a Facebook Live video on Tuesday.

Facial hair aside, O’Rourke’s Facebook Live video featured his thoughts on Trump’s proposed border wall. The former Texas congressman said such a barrier “would cost $30 billion and take private property and cause death and suffering as more asylum seekers are pushed to ever more hostile stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border” as he shared views of the border from El Paso.

According to The Wall Street Journal, O’Rourke’s aides are plotting a cross-country road trip for the Democrat as he continues to consider a presidential bid. The newspaper reported that such a trip would be made solo, without advisers or press, and avoid Iowa and other early-voting states.

Despite indications that O’Rourke is leaning toward a run, Politico noted that advisers to the former congressman are not returning the calls of prominent Democrats in New Hampshire and Iowa.

Richard Ojeda (D)

Ojeda, who is one of the few officially declared presidential candidates, plans to resign from his West Virginia state Senate seat next week to focus on his campaign.

“I cannot — I will not — allow myself to not be sitting in my seat and leave it empty,” the Democrat told West Virginia Public Broadcasting on Wednesday. “It needs to be filled with somebody who’s going to go in here and just going to do their best to help the state.”

Bernie Sanders (D)

Sanders held a press conference Thursday to introduce legislation focused on lowering prescription drug prices — an issue that was at the forefront of his 2016 presidential campaign. The three bills would peg U.S. prescription drug prices to median prices in five other major countries, allow the health and human services secretary to negotiate prices under Medicare Part D, and permit drug imports from abroad.

Politico reported Thursday that a former Sanders presidential campaign adviser made sexually charged comments to another staffer and forcibly kissed her at a gathering after the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in 2016. (The accused adviser denied the allegation in a statement to Politico.) The account was the latest in a string of stories alleging sexism and harassment within Sanders’s campaign.

Should Sanders run for president this cycle, his campaign will not be managed by Jeff Weaver, who held the position in 2016. Weaver told CNN that he would likely take the position of senior strategic adviser, a decision that came before the emergence of the allegations against the campaign, according to a CNN source.

Tom Steyer (D)

The billionaire Democratic activist announced Wednesday that he would not run for president “at this time” to instead focus on his effort calling for the impeachment of Trump. Although his words left the door open for a campaign at some point in the future, Steyer said that for now he intends to concentrate on pressuring Democratic leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi to launch impeachment proceedings in the House.

Elizabeth Warren (D)

After announcing her presidential exploratory committee last week, Warren spent a busy weekend in Iowa at several organizing events and roundtables. The Massachusetts senator’s stump speeches focused on her desire to combat income inequality, making health care more affordable and empowering women.

This weekend, Warren will attend an organizing event in Manchester, New Hampshire, during her first visit to the state since the launch of her exploratory committee.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Adam Kelsey

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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What Happens If Republicans Win The House

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-happens-if-republicans-win-the-house/

What Happens If Republicans Win The House

Gop Lawmakers Threaten To Punish Democrats If They Win Back Control Of Congress

Trump to decide on 2024 presidential run once Republicans ‘take back the House’

‘When we take the majority back in 2022, I’ll make sure consequences are doled out,’ said Rep. Madison Cawthorn.

Republicans are outraged that Democrats are governing by majority rule in the House. In retaliation, they are vowing to do the same things they now decry as unprecedented and wrong.

“Never in the history of our country has a Speaker acted like such an authoritarian,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted on Thursday.

He was upset that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had rejected his request to appoint Republican Reps. Jim Banks and Jim Jordan to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Both men voted to overturn the 2020 election results and pushed the lie that President Joe Biden only won because the election was stolen.

“Never in the history of Congress and the select committee I checked with the historian has this ever taken place, where the one party decides who’s all on the committee,” McCarthy told Fox News in a video he with his tweet. McCarthy in fact voted to give Republican then-Speaker John Boehner the exact same unilateral appointment power in 2014 for the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi.

But while House Republicans claim they are being mistreated because the majority won’t let them have their way, they are also promising to retaliate by turning the same actions they criticize now against Democrats in 2023.

TAGS

How Congress Counts The Votes

Congress will meet in a joint session around 1 p.m. Eastern time, meaning both the House and Senate are together. Pence will preside over the process. He could delegate the job to another senator, but we dont expect that.

They will go through the states alphabetically. For each state, clerks sitting below Pence will hand him the envelopes, tell him the votes, and he is supposed to read them out loud. Then they move on to the next state.

There will be precautions for coronavirus. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told lawmakers to stay in their offices during debate. The plan is for lawmakers to stream in to vote in small groups. And masks are required on the House floor.

Why Republicans Are Likely To Win The 2022 Mid

The public opinion in the United States may indeed be generally opposed to the Republican Party coming to power in the 2022 mid-term election, yet we should not close our eyes to the fact that the GOP is still well-positioned to take back the House and change the balance of power in its favor.

Taking a glance at what happened during recent months, it seems highly probable that the Republican party may have little to no chance to win the 2022 mid-term election. The first and the most noticeable incident that helps this idea prevail is that it was a Republican president who instead of leading the country towards peace in a time of crisis back in January, actually added fuel to the huge fire of division and riot in the U.S. and encouraged his extremist supporters to attack the Capitol Building, creating a national embarrassment that can hardly be erased from peoples memory.

To compound the puzzle, while no one can deny the destructive role the former president Donald Trump had in plotting for and leading the , in the battle of Trump against the truth, the members of the Republican party chose to opt for supporting the former at the cost of sacrificing the latter; It was on this Wednesday that Republican leaders in Congress expressed their opposition to a proposed bipartisan commission designed and created for investigating the Capitol riot that was carried out by Trumps supporters.

Recommended Reading: Should Republicans Vote In Democratic Primary

What Happens If The House Has To Decide The Next President

The unlikely scenario has been discussed by the president and Nancy Pelosi.

Election year 2020 by the numbers

A bitterly divided country deadlocked in a 269-269 Electoral College tie turns to the House of Representatives to select the next president.

The unusual constitutional scenario is considered so far-fetched — it hasn’t happened since 1824 — that it was written into the plot of the fifth season of HBO comedy series “Veep” and its send-up of the political class.

But in a year when coronavirus-related voting changes could have an unpredictable impact on an already competitive presidential race between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, it’s a potential, if remote, election outcome Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have openly acknowledged.

“I don’t want to end up in the Supreme Court and I don’t want to go back to Congress either, even though we have an advantage,” Trump said of the election at a Sept. 26 Pennsylvania rally.

Pelosi fired back in a letter to House Democrats two days later, encouraging members to support candidates in “key districts” across the country.

“If Trump can’t win at the ballot box, he wants the House to deliver him the presidency,” she wrote. “It’s sad we have to plan this way, but it’s what we must do to ensure the election is not stolen.”

Republicans hold advantage in the House

Pelosi ‘prepared’ for every election scenario

Reality Check #4: The Electoral College And The Senate Are Profoundly Undemocraticand Were Stuck With Them

Because the Constitution set up a state-by-state system for picking presidents, the massive Democratic majorities we now see in California and New York often mislead us about the partys national electoral prospects. In 2016, Hillary Clintons 3-million-vote plurality came entirely from California. In 2020, Bidens 7-million-vote edge came entirely from California and New York. These are largely what election experts call wasted votesDemocratic votes that dont, ultimately, help the Democrat to win. That imbalance explains why Trump won the Electoral College in 2016 and came within a handful of votes in three states from doing the same last November, despite his decisive popular-vote losses.

The response from aggrieved Democrats? Abolish the Electoral College! In practice, theyd need to get two-thirds of the House and Senate, and three-fourths of the state legislatures, to ditch the process that gives Republicans their only plausible chance these days to win the White House. Shortly after the 2016 election, Gallup found that Republican support for abolishing the electoral college had dropped to 19 percent. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a state-by-state scheme to effectively abolish the Electoral College without changing the Constitution, hasnt seen support from a single red or purple state.

Recommended Reading: Why Is The Media Against Republicans

Democratic Accomplishments Just Give Republicans Something To Undo

Yes, even if the Democratic trifecta is very likely to end next year, and even if Republicans win their own in 2024, theres no way around the fact that in an amazingly short period of time Biden and his party may wrack up a mini-New Deal that reverses many years of atavistic Republican and meh Democratic policies. That has to be an enduring blow to Republicans, right?

Maybe not so much any more. One of the benefits of being conquered by a free-spending protectionist and isolationist is that the GOP is now pretty flexible in terms of its old Reaganite core ideology. As Rand Paul just cheefully said, if Democrats raise taxes something that horrified old-school Republicans like the ugly face of sin itself theyll just lower them next time they have the power to do so! Bidens accomplishments give the opposition an agenda, which is useful at a time when it isnt exactly brimming with policy ideas. Republicans may very well embrace the most popular Biden initiatives while demonizing the ones that dont poll so well. Its an easier strategy than the one they followed in those more principled days when they lectured voters about the need for entitlement reform.

Redistricting Is The Next Step On A Path To One

The redistricting process kicked off this week in Washington. The Census Bureau released initial data from the 2020 census Monday afternoon, , which means that congressional district boundaries will soon be redrawn to account for changes in population.

These changes will probably tend to benefit the Republican Party, as conservative states will get more seats for instance, Texas will gain two seats, while New York, California, and Illinois will all lose one. Republicans are also certain to use the process to try to gerrymander themselves as many additional congressional seats as possible by leveraging their control of a majority of state legislatures. And that is just the opening tactic in a long-term strategy to abolish American democracy and set up one-party rule.

Today in Michigan, gerrymandering means Republicans enjoy a 3.4-point handicap in the state House and a 10.7-point handicap in the state Senate; in Pennsylvania, it’s a 3.1-point handicap in the House and a 5.9-point handicap in the Senate; and in Wisconsin, a 7.1-point handicap in the House and a 10.1-point handicap in the Senate.

It’s impossible to gerrymander the Senate, of course, but luckily for Republicans that chamber is inherently gerrymandered due to the large number of disproportionately white, low-population rural states that lean conservative. The swing seat in the Senate is biased something like 7 points to the right.

Read Also: Which Party Is Bigger Democrats Or Republicans

Republicans Will Likely Take Control Of The Senate By 2024

The usual midterm House losses by the White House party dont always extend to the Senate because only a third of that chamber is up for election every two years and the landscape sometimes strongly favors the presidential party . But there a still generally an out-party wave that can matter, which is why Republicans may have a better than average chance of winning in at least some of the many battleground states that will hold Senate elections next year . If they win four of the six youll probably be looking at a Republican Senate.

But its the 2024 Senate landscape that looks really promising for the GOP. Democrats will be defending 23 seats and Republicans just 10. Three Democratic seats, and all the Republican seats, are in states Trump carried twice. Four other Democratic seats are in states Trump won once. It should be a banner year for Senate Republicans.

What Happens If One Chamber Votes To Accept A Challenge To A States Electors

What will happen if Democrats take back Congress?

Now we are almost certainly getting out of the realm of possibility, given the numbers. But if the Senate decided to vote in favor of a challenge to a states electors, there are still many hurdles to overturning Bidens win.

The law requires both chambers of Congress to affirmatively vote to object to a states electors, which wont happen with a Democratic-controlled House.

Even if both chambers somehow agreed to accept the challenge, the tiebreaker would go to the governor of the state. And all governors in contested states have certified results that Biden won.

So even if we drift far into hypotheticals on this, there are numerous checks that would protect Bidens win.

Don’t Miss: What Are The Main Platform Ideas Of Republicans

The Future Could Actually Be Bright For Republicans

The most common political narrative outside MAGA-land is that the Republican Party is screwed, and richly deserves the ignominious future it faces.

Until recently the GOP was a reasonably normal and intermittently successful center-right political party, not wildly different from its counterparts in other countries with a two-party system, despite some racist and militarist habits that burst into view in times of stress. But then America elected a Black president, and Republicans went a little crazy, according to those outside their circles. First they abetted a destructively antediluvian Tea Party Movement and then lurched into the arms of an evil charlatan who somehow got elected president and spent four years trashing hallowed conservative principles and losing both Congress and the White House before his disgraceful and violence-inflected departure.

Worse yet, in the face of huge demographic challenges that beg for a new approach, the Republican Party has now lashed itself to a Trumpian mast going forward, following the most consistently unpopular president in American history in his bizarre crusade to deny he has ever lost anything. Meanwhile a shockingly united Democratic Party is whipping a few decades worth of liberal legislation through Congress as Republicans whine about cancel culture and try to sell the idea that Joe Biden is actually Che Guevara.

Hope For Biden’s Agenda

For two years, the Republican-controlled Senate bottled up virtually every piece of legislation coming out of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. With a Georgia victory, that blockage has been removed.

That’s good news for Biden’s rather extensive legislative agenda – on issues like healthcare, the environment, government reform and the economy – which should be able to survive the House and at least get an up-or-down vote in the Senate.

A 50-50 Senate tie won’t mean the Green New Deal or a public health-insurance option are coming any time soon, however. There’s still the filibuster, which mandates 60 votes to pass major legislation, to contend with, and even bills that can get by with a simple majority will have to satisfy Democratic centrists like Joe Manchin of West Virginia and the two senators from Arizona.

Another round of coronavirus relief seems probable, however, including larger per-person relief payments to all Americans. A simple congressional majority can also vote to rescind any regulations the Trump administration enacted in the final months of his presidency. That will, at the very least, get the Biden presidency off on the right foot.

Don’t Miss: Are Any Republicans In Favor Of Impeachment

The Plausible Solution: Just Win More

Whether the public sees Democratic demands for these structural changes as overdue or overreaching, the key point is that they are currently exercises in futility. The only plausible road to winning their major policy goals is to win by winning. This means politics, not re-engineering. They need to find ways to take down their opponents, and then be smarter about using that power while they have it.

They certainly have issues to campaign on. In the few weeks, we have learned that some of Americas wealthiest people have paid only minimal or no federal income tax at all. Even as the Wall Street Journal editorial writers were responding to a Code Red emergency , the jaw-dropping nature of the reportfollowed by a New York Times piece about the impotence of the IRS to deal with the tax evasions of private equity royaltyconfirmed the folk wisdom of countless bars, diners, and union halls: the wealthy get away with murder.

Of course this is a whole lot easier said than done. A political climate where inflation, crime and immigration are dominant issues has the potential to override good economic news. And 2020 already showed what can happen when a relative handful of voices calling for defunding the police can drown out the broader usage of economic fairness.

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Why This Could Stretch Well Into The Night Anyway

Trump lost about six swing states, and theyre spread out throughout the alphabet Arizona to Wisconsin. Republicans who question the election results have indicated they will try to challenge all of them. Each time theres a challenge supported by at least one member of each chamber, Congress has to split off and vote on it. Then they come back together and keep counting states. Voting will also take longer than normal because of coronavirus precautions to space lawmakers apart from each other.

What is a normally quick and easy process could get dragged into the wee hours.

You May Like: Which 4 Republicans Voted Yes Today

Reality Check 3: The Democrats Legislative Fix Will Never Happenand Doesnt Even Touch The Real Threats

Its understandable why Democrats have ascribed a life-or-death quality to S. 1, the For the People bill that would impose a wide range of requirements on state voting procedures. The dozensor hundredsof provisions enacted by Republican state legislatures and governors represent a determination to ensure that the GOP thumb will be on the scale at every step of the voting process. The proposed law would roll that back on a national level by imposing a raft of requirements on statesno excuse absentee voting, more days and hours to votebut would also include public financing of campaigns, independent redistricting commissions and compulsory release of presidential candidates’ tax returns.

There are all sorts of Constitutional questions posed by these ideas. But theres a more fundamental issue here: The Constitutional clause on which the Democrats are relyingArticle I, Section 4, Clause 1gives Congress significant power over Congressional elections, but none over elections for state offices or the choosing of Presidential electors.

How Challenges To States Electors Will Work

For a challenge to proceed, at least one lawmaker from each chamber must object to a states electors. More than two dozen House Republicans have said they will try to challenge results, and a dozen GOP senators will join them even though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has urged senators to stay away from this.

Lawmakers dont have to give a detailed explanation of why they object; they just object in writing, which Pence will read out loud.

If theres an objection to a states electors raised by both a House and Senate lawmaker, the chambers have to split up and vote on that objection. Most of this will be done silently, save for Pence reading out loud the objections.

They have up to two hours to debate each one. That means there will be simultaneous debates in the House and Senate. We expect congressional leaders in both chambers to move to put down the challenges as quickly as possible. In the House, Pelosi will let lawmakers from the states being challenged do the speaking on the Democratic side.

Read Also: How Many Republicans Won In Yesterday’s Elections

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memozing · 5 years

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#online learning

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dorothydelgadillo · 6 years

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The 5 Biggest Problems Sales Teams Face with the HubSpot CRM

When I started working for HubSpot as an inbound marketing consultant in 2012, the vast majority of our clients used Salesforce.com as their CRM. It was the industry standard-- though, not because it was universally loved-- so HubSpot’s Salesforce connector was one of the main value propositions the company had to offer. That was all fine and dandy until the Brian, Dharmesh, and the powers that be decided HubSpot had more to offer the world than marketing software. First, it was Signals which eventually became Sidekick and then eventually, HubSpot Sales. Central to that product growth trajectory was the HubSpot CRM.

A Star is Born: The HubSpot CRM

In the almost five years since INBOUND 2014 when the CRM was first launched, the product has come a long way. Thousands of businesses run on it. While the HubSpot CRM has won lots of business from CRM competitors like Salesforce.com, Zoho, and Sugar (IMPACT included), it’s not without its problems. After polling a wide array of audiences, here are the biggest problems people keep experiencing when using the platform:

1. Reporting

When I asked for feedback about problems they experience with the HubSpot CRM, the almost universal response I received was reporting. The feedback I kept coming back to was, “I’m not a data scientist.” Before we go any further, it’s important to call out some context: HubSpot started out as just a marketing platform. The average marketer was and still is expected to have a basic understanding of how to leverage data to optimize their performance, so understanding how to use the reporting tools in marketing hub wasn’t too tall an order. I don’t think anyone can make that claim for the average salesperson (or sales manager for that matter). As IMPACT’s lead HubSpot specialist, Carina Duffy, pointed out in her 2018 presentation at IMPACT Live, succeeding with HubSpot is often less dependent on your ability to leverage the software and more on your ability to formulate a winning strategy before you even log in. HubSpot gives you lots of options for structuring reports, but without a mid to high-level of sales operations experience or knowledge of how data is structured, it can be difficult to setup the CRM in a way that reports on valuable data trends for the long term. Without that level of knowledge around data and how to use it, most sales teams or sales leaders dive into using the tool only to figure out reporting as they go. While that’s a great way to get your hands dirty and learn, lots of teams’ sales processes evolve over time. What happens if you want to incorporate feedback that dictates a tactical shift in your process and you need to start collecting a new data point? All of the sudden your reporting is skewed from before you started collecting that info versus before. Extrapolating insights over time becomes that much more difficult. All that to say, mapping out your sales process, the data points you’ll need at each stage of the process, and then setting up the CRM accordingly will be the best way to avoid these data pitfalls. While the average sales team won’t know how to do all of that on their own, that’s where hiring an expert (either on a one-time project basis or ongoing) comes in. Before you say, “How can I afford a consultant to help me set all of this up?,” think about your sales team’s productivity. If your sales team’s close rate went up by 5%, what difference in revenue would that create? What about 10% or 20%? If those numbers are more than the cost of a consultant, it just might be worth the investment so you can leverage date to zero in on what’s keeping your team from hitting and exceeding their goals.

2. Customization is Limited

In our 2016 article, we pointed out one of the biggest problems with HubSpot, in general, is the trade-off its users need to make between usability and flexibility.

While users of the HubSpot CRM can be up and running in a few days seeing value, the ceiling they hit with that value might be lower than solutions like Salesforce.com or MS Dynamics.

This is because customization on the HubSpot CRM is extremely limited.

Onboarding to more comprehensive platforms are a big undertaking that almost always require a professional consultant to customize the toolset to your instance, but the range of options that come from that customization are robust.

If you’re willing to pay up front for a highly-customized solution, it will fit your sales process like a glove (at that moment in time), but you’ll likely always have to go back to that same consultant when you need to adjust your setup as per your evolving process.

Meanwhile, the trade off we referenced in 2016 is still true today when it comes to the HubSpot CRM.

What you gain in usability, you lose in flexibility. You simply can’t do as much as you can with other tools and it can be difficult to scale with it.

The people who struggle the most with this challenge are those that leave solutions like SFDC, MS Dynamics, or a custom built solution for HubSpot.

The best way to deal with this limitation is to play to HubSpot’s strengths.

Instead of following the system you used with your previous solution, embrace the fact that HubSpot doesn’t do what your old system did.

Perhaps HubSpot’s simplicity will help you streamline your process.

If nothing else, you have to weigh all of the pros of the HubSpot CRM (tie-ins with other HubSpot tools, sales enablement tools like snippets, templates and sequences, easy-to-use UX) against the cons (lack of customization, limited reporting capabilities).

3. It’s Immature Compared to Other Solutions On the Market

Salesforce.com was founded in 1999, Dynamics in 2001. So, HubSpot is relatively new to the CRM game and it still leaves a lot to be desired.

Given their CRM was an offshoot of their pre-existing marketing automation product, it’s reasonable to assume developing the product trajectory of their CRM hasn’t been their top priority as a company and given the addition of Service Hub at INBOUND 2017, it probably won’t be for some time.

While that might scare some people away from trusting HubSpot CRM as a solution for their business, as the HubSpot Growth Suite continues to develop as a product, the companies that lean into the interlocking features across the platform see the most benefit.

If you’re looking for a CRM that can keep up with your ever-evolving intricate sales process and fit like a glove over all the minutia you’ve built into your previous CRM solution, HubSpot may not be for you.

However, either way, the tool is slowly, but surely advancing and I’m excited to see where it goes in the future.

4. Revenue Tracking

One of the other big shortcomings people identified during my research was HubSpot’s inability to handle revenue projections.

Teams often have to keep spreadsheets up-to-date alongside the HubSpot CRM to project the long-term revenue implications of the deals they track in the CRM.

For instance at IMPACT, when we sign a new client to an ongoing retainer, we need to know how much revenue we’re collecting on an ongoing basis, not just the month we close the deal.

We can’t do that in HubSpot, so we have to map the data we’re inputting in HubSpot into a spreadsheet (as opposed to working out of one platform).

You may be thinking, “What’s the big deal? So you have to keep a spreadsheet up to date?”

HubSpot’s value proposition as an All-In-One solution is it’s most compelling message. That falls apart if it’s “All-In-One plus a spreadsheet.”

Plus it creates an additional liability--where do you go for the ultimate source of truth? HubSpot or the spreadsheet? Whose job is it to update where?

These are the issues HubSpot has managed to successfully solve on the marketing side of their platform, but the sales platform has some ground to cover.

More robust CRM solutions are more well-equipped to solve this issue natively, but not HubSpot. Fortunately, the HubSpot Connect Network is able to help this cause. One Connect Partner in particular, QuarterOne, seeks to solve this very issue.

5. Implementation - Expectations vs Reality

HubSpot does a fantastic job of marketing their CRM as an easy-to-use solution that will show value to your sales team right away.

While some of the sales enablement tools I mentioned above will definitely kick into gear right-off-the-bat and show an early ROI, getting the CRM up and running, customized to your team’s needs, and firing on all cylinders is not something that happens overnight.

When asked during the research for this article, members of the HubSpot Partner Agency community spoke to a recurring problem of their clients implementing the CRM and not being happy with their results because they haven’t accounted for the necessary customization, automation, and lead management planning it takes to implement the CRM successfully.

While one could make the argument that implementing any CRM requires that much planning, most CRM’s aren’t marketed in the same way as HubSpot.

Treat the HubSpot CRM like any--consult with a professional who’s done the job before and plan to dedicate enough internal resources to the implementation to make it work for you and your team.

We helped The Newport Group solve this very challenge. We helped them streamline their sales process while transferring knowledge and expertise with the CRM throughout the implementation process.

The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly

At IMPACT, we use the entire HubSpot Growth Suite, including HubSpot Sales Pro.

As a sales rep, it makes my life easier every day. I leverage the snippets, meetings, and templates tools on a daily basis.

If I ever got promoted to sales manager, however, I’d expect the HubSpot CRM’s limitations would start to rear their ugly head.

Every sales leader needs to make a choice here: do I roll up my sleeves (or consult a professional) to gain a deeper understanding of sales ops, data, and how to make the HubSpot CRM work for me, or do I revert back to the good ol’ spreadsheet days where the team has to work out of multiple systems, but I’ll ultimately have the most control over how the data is presented?

It’s often easier to invest in an alternative solution for team reporting and planning like a spreadsheet than it is to learn how to leverage the tools to accomplish your goals. Sometimes it’s best to invest in professional help, pay the price, and cry once.

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/biggest-problems-sales-teams-face-with-the-hubspot-crm

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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Voting rights are on the ballot on Tuesday.

In some cases directly, with voter ID ballot initiatives in Arkansas and North Carolina, and a ballot initiative in Florida regarding the voting rights of people with felony records.

But voting rights will also be on the ballot indirectly, particularly in elections that have been engulfed by voter suppression controversies. The race that has gotten the most attention in this sense is in Georgia, where the Republican candidate for governor has used his current powers as Georgia’s secretary of state to issue directives that could tilt the election in his favor.

But there are also other elections, from Nevada to North Dakota, in which Republicans have tried to restrict voting, especially by minority voters who lean Democrat, in an effort to maintain power not just in state governments but in Congress too.

People vote on the first day of early voting at the Meadows Mall, in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 20, 2018. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

If Republicans win these elections — and especially if they do so only by a close margin — that would validate their efforts to restrict access to the ballot box. It would demonstrate to them that their efforts, blatantly targeted at minority Americans and Democrats, worked.

This is as serious as it gets in a democracy. The only way our system works is if people can vote. If one party is systemically trying to keep people from voting just because of their race or political affiliation, then we’re talking about undermining the whole system of government we live under. But on Tuesday, voters could validate what Republicans are doing.

As someone who’s covered voting rights battles in recent elections, here’s what I’m keeping an eye on as results roll in on Election Day.

Several races on election night will help decide the future of voting rights in America.

The most prominent example, by far, is the Georgia race for governor. There, Brian Kemp has remained in his position as Georgia’s secretary of state — the office that oversees elections in Georgia — while running for governor against Democrat Stacey Abrams.

Kemp has carried out mass purges of the voter rolls — ostensibly to remove dead people and people who haven’t voted in recent elections from the records, but in such a sweeping way that Democrats fear it will keep voters, particularly minority voters, off the rolls.

Kemp’s office also put 53,000 voter registrations on hold, nearly 70 percent of which are for black voters, by using an error-prone “exact match” system, which stops voter registrations if there are any discrepancies, down to dropped hyphens, with other government records.

Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp walks with President Trump before a rally in in Macon, Georgia, on November 4, 2018. John Bazemore/AP

And most recently, Kemp accused Democrats, through the secretary of state’s website and with no evidence, of attempting to hack the state’s voter registration system. As elections law expert Richard Hasen wrote in Slate, this was “perhaps the most outrageous example of election administration partisanship in the modern era.”

These actions have gotten a lot of attention in the governor’s race. But if they weaken Democrats or strengthen Republicans in other races, they could also play a role in deciding control of the House of Representatives — with two Georgia seats considered a toss-up and only leaning Republican, respectively, according to the Cook Political Report.

Georgia, however, is not alone in these tactics; several states with key elections, including Nevada, Indiana, and Florida, have recently purged hundreds of thousands of voters from their rolls. If one party’s voters are disproportionately kept out of the ballot box as a result, it could help decide control of the House, Senate, or governors’ mansions.

In North Dakota’s Senate race, meanwhile, Republicans will see if their efforts to get Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) out of Congress have worked. After Heitkamp won one of North Dakota’s Senate seats with strong Native American support in 2012, Republicans began discussing new voter ID rules. That led to a new requirement that voters show they have a current residential address to vote.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) walks out of a room after reading the FBI’s report into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on October 4, 2018. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

The move could prevent thousands of Native Americans from voting since many of them live on reservations and, as a result, use PO boxes instead of residential addresses. While Native American groups are trying to get voters out to make up for any negative effect, it remains to be seen whether these efforts will work. And if they don’t, and the election is close, North Dakota Republicans’ new voting restrictions could cost Heitkamp the election — and perhaps Democrats the Senate.

In North Carolina, nearly 20 percent of early voting locations were closed this year. According to NPR, the closures are a result of a law passed by the Republican-controlled legislature that requires all early voting sites to stay open from 7 am to 7 pm during the week — which, at least in theory, should have increased early voting hours, but in practice forced some early voting sites to close because they couldn’t meet the requirement.

Since minority Americans are less likely to have flexible work hours or own cars, less access to early voting could disproportionately hurt them. As a swing state, North Carolina doesn’t have a Senate seat or governor’s mansion up for grabs this year, but four House races in the state are competitive, and could help decide if the House goes Democratic or Republican.

And in Missouri and New Hampshire, courts in the past few months ruled against newer requirements for voters to cast a ballot. These two states are still worth watching, though, because with these relatively last-minute changes, there can still be confusion at voting places about what the rules actually are. Some voters may be wrongly turned away despite meeting all the standards they have to meet just because poll workers don’t know that the laws have been reeled back.

Supporters of Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) wait for the senator to arrive for a campaign stop in St. Louis, Missouri, on November 5, 2018. Scott Olson/Getty Images

Finally, there will also be some ballot initiatives that are relevant to voting rights.

Florida’s Amendment 4 could potentially restore the right to vote for more than 1 million people previously convicted of felonies who have completed their sentences. (Florida is one of three states that doesn’t let people with felony records vote even after they finish their sentences.) This would amount to the biggest single expansion of voting rights since the women’s suffrage movement and Voting Rights Act of 1965 — and, by the way, the top opponents of Amendment 4 are Florida Republicans like Gov. Rick Scott and Rep. Ron DeSantis.

Arkansas and North Carolina are also voting on photo ID requirements to cast a ballot. The approval of these measures would perhaps be the most direct sign yet that voters are okay with the new Republican-backed restrictions on voting.

As I’ve written before, the research suggests that restrictions on voting, from photo IDs to early voting cuts, typically have a small effect — about 1 or 2 percentage points — on election turnout. The problem is many of these races are expected to be very close. If that’s the case, voting restrictions, however marginal the impact, could play a decisive role.

What’s more, consider this from the Republican perspective: If it turns out that new hurdles to voting let you squeak by with an electoral victory, and seemingly had little to no effect on voters’ approval of your party (given the win), why wouldn’t you try more voting restrictions in the future?

Republicans argue that their measures are not about stifling voters, but preventing voter fraud. That’s the main reason Republicans have used time and time again to enact new restrictions on voting in the past few years, particularly after a Supreme Court ruling in 2013, Shelby County v. Holder, that weakened the Voting Rights Act. And they’ve been very successful: Since 2011, 24 states — all but five via Republican-controlled governments — have passed new voting restrictions, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a public policy think tank.

But basically everyone knows that Republicans’ justification for these voting restrictions is bullshit.

Voters enjoy a slice of donated pizza while waiting in line for up to two hours to early vote at the Cobb County West Park Government Center on October 18, 2018, in Marietta, Georgia. Jessica McGowan/Getty Images

For one, voter fraud is extremely rare. There is a lot of research backing this up, but, based on one investigation in 2012 by the News21 journalism project, there were 0.000003 alleged cases of fraud for every national general election vote cast between 2000 and part of 2012 — and as many as half of those alleged cases weren’t credible. Voter fraud is simply not a big deal in America’s electoral system.

In fact, Republicans have repeatedly admitted that their claims about voting restrictions are bullshit. As longtime North Carolina Republican consultant Carter Wrenn in 2016 told the Washington Post, “Look, if African Americans voted overwhelmingly Republican, they would have kept early voting right where it was.”

So Republicans are passing these restrictions to stop Democrats, and particularly minority voters who are likely to go Democrat, from voting. If they see that this worked — that it led Kemp to victory in Georgia and unseated Heitkamp in North Dakota — why wouldn’t they try again, or go even further?

Then, how do Democrats respond? If Democrats feel that the other party is not just trying to rig elections, but successfully rigging elections, will Democrats try the same strategies in an effort to keep things even?

Anti-Trump protesters demonstrate outside a rally for Republican Senate candidate Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) featuring President Trump, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on November 4, 2018. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Consider gerrymandering. Democrats have, over the decades, used gerrymandering, just like Republicans, to try to skew congressional and legislative maps in their favor. (Look at Maryland’s absurdly gerrymandered map.) This is inherently anti-democratic, effectively diluting certain people’s votes in a very targeted way. But gerrymandering is something that both parties have taken part in over the history of this country. (Although Republicans have done it much more successfully in recent elections by taking over state governments at just the right time.)

Once something anti-democratic is cooked into the system, both parties try to leverage the system as it exists to an advantage. So while Republicans target early voting or put photo ID requirements in place, Democrats may put other restriction on voting — like, say, new rules for mail-in ballots — that might disproportionately hurt Republican voters.

The result: a spiral as both parties compete to dilute the power of each others’ voters.

Over time, that could significantly weaken our democracy. And Tuesday night’s results could very well be the starting point of it all.

Original Source -> The right to vote is under siege in 2018

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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awesomeblockchain · 6 years

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A start-up company claims it can reduce public distrust in iGaming services through a blockchain system that generates -valid randomness" in games and makes them -provably fair."

Luckchemy, which is registered in Gibraltar, says its initial product is a daily lottery which uses a delegated Ethereum blockhash and a server seed to ensure the final result cannot be altered. Players can select five numbers from 1 to 47 and one number from 1 to 24, with a variety of prizes available depending on how many numbers are matched. Prize funds offered through Luckchemy and ticket purchases will be in Ethereum and a newly created cryptocurrency called LUK.

According to the company's white paper, the unique selling point of its lottery game is how 99 percent of the revenue generated through tickets is paid out again in prize money. The remaining 1 percent is split in half. While 0.5 percent is set aside for marketing and operations, the remaining 0.5 percent would be used for a monthly token holders' draw. Here, users would automatically be given a free entry for every LUK token they have in their account - meaning the greater their balance, the higher their chances of winning are.

At the end of April, Luckchemy launched a second game with scratch cards. The new game gives players the chance to get real tokens. For each winning virtual token in scratchers, users get a LUK-token after the ICO ends. Then they can either use it to play on the platform or to exchange for ETH.

-Stable, entertaining and engaging products"According to Luckchemy, distrust in the algorithms used by iGaming software - along with the legal and technical difficulties that come when claiming winnings - deter consumers. Research suggests that lotteries account for 31 percent of activity in the offline world, but online, this figure tumbles down to 13 percent.

Adam Krejcik, an adviser to Luckchemy, told Cointelegraph: -Operators need to quickly establish trust with online consumers while offering a stable, entertaining and engaging product, and customers need fast, secure payment solutions that never place them at risk of losing their money.

-The solution to this is transparency from the operators and modern flexible technology platforms that give customers more control of their funds and confidence in their gambling."

As part of Luckchemy's business model, indie developers would be given an opportunity to place their games on its platform. Through a -White Label" scheme, the company says famous brands would also have the chance to use Luckchemy games under their brands - helping the start-up develop a -strong and wide network" worldwide.

In April, a three-day audit of Luckchemy's smart contracts was carried out by New Alchemy, which was focused on identifying security flaws and discovering any problems that could affect their trustworthiness. The review did not uncover any issues of critical severity, but -various changes" were made to smart contracts based on New Alchemy's findings.

Plans for expansionLuckchemy aims to launch one to two games every quarter. In time, it hopes to incorporate online poker, slots, bingo, and other games into its offering.

The company acknowledges that it will face challenges because of the -fragmented regulatory landscape that exists in the Western world." In the six to 12 months after launch, it will mainly focus on growing its platform in Europe, southeast Asia, Latin America, Japan, Australia, and Turkey.

In addition to the monthly token holders draw, Luckchemy says that users with LUK in their account will be granted special kinds of voting rights in -feedback polls" - enabling them to express a preference for which games should be added moving forward.

A mobile free-to-play app is due to be released in the first quarter of 2019.

The company's pre-sale is taking place from April 30 until May 21. Luckchemy offers a 40 percent token discount for this stage. According to the company, at the beginning of the next stage, the discount will be reduced by half and the number of promotional tokens will be limited. A full crowdsale is going to begin the following day and will run until July 20.

Disclaimer. Cointelegraph does not endorse any content or product on this page. While we aim at providing you all important information that we could obtain, readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to the company and carry full responsibility for their decisions, nor this article can be considered as an investment advice.

https://ift.tt/2KeLiAG

#Ingentium #Inc. - Today

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dailycryptonews-blog · 6 years

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Crypto News - Platform Creates Blockchain System That Offers ‘Valid Randomness’ in iGaming

Platform Creates Blockchain System That Offers ‘Valid Randomness’ in iGaming sponsored A start-up iGaming company is using blockchain to create a lottery, scratchers, slots and other games which deliver “provably fair” results. A start-up company claims it can reduce public distrust in iGamin... You May Likes reading: Also Read: How to Buy Bitcoin With USD Dollar

Platform Creates Blockchain System That Offers ‘Valid Randomness’ in iGaming

sponsored

A start-up iGaming company is using blockchain to create a lottery, scratchers, slots and other games which deliver “provably fair” results.

A start-up company claims it can reduce public distrust in iGaming services through a blockchain system that generates “valid randomness” in games and makes them “provably fair.”

According to the company’s white paper, the unique selling point of its lottery game is how 99 percent of the revenue generated through tickets is paid out again in prize money. The remaining 1 percent is split in half. While 0.5 percent is set aside for marketing and operations, the remaining 0.5 percent would be used for a monthly token holders’ draw. Here, users would automatically be given a free entry for every LUK token they have in their account – meaning the greater their balance, the higher their chances of winning are.

“Stable, entertaining and engaging products”

According to Luckchemy, distrust in the algorithms used by iGaming software – along with the legal and technical difficulties that come when claiming winnings – deter consumers. Research suggests that lotteries account for 31 percent of activity in the offline world, but online, this figure tumbles down to 13 percent.

Adam Krejcik, an adviser to Luckchemy, told Cointelegraph: “Operators need to quickly establish trust with online consumers while offering a stable, entertaining and engaging product, and customers need fast, secure payment solutions that never place them at risk of losing their money.

“The solution to this is transparency from the operators and modern flexible technology platforms that give customers more control of their funds and confidence in their gambling.”

As part of Luckchemy’s business model, indie developers would be given an opportunity to place their games on its platform. Through a “White Label” scheme, the company says famous brands would also have the chance to use Luckchemy games under their brands – helping the start-up develop a “strong and wide network” worldwide.

In April, a three-day audit of Luckchemy’s smart contracts was carried out by New Alchemy, which was focused on identifying security flaws and discovering any problems that could affect their trustworthiness. The review did not uncover any issues of critical severity, but “various changes” were made to smart contracts based on New Alchemy’s findings.

Plans for expansion

Luckchemy aims to launch one to two games every quarter. In time, it hopes to incorporate online poker, slots, bingo, and other games into its offering.

The company acknowledges that it will face challenges because of the “fragmented regulatory landscape that exists in the Western world.” In the six to 12 months after launch, it will mainly focus on growing its platform in Europe, southeast Asia, Latin America, Japan, Australia, and Turkey.

In addition to the monthly token holders draw, Luckchemy says that users with LUK in their account will be granted special kinds of voting rights in “feedback polls” – enabling them to express a preference for which games should be added moving forward.

A mobile free-to-play app is due to be released in the first quarter of 2019.

The company’s pre-sale is taking place from April 30 until May 21. Luckchemy offers a 40 percent token discount for this stage. According to the company, at the beginning of the next stage, the discount will be reduced by half and the number of promotional tokens will be limited. A full crowdsale is going to begin the following day and will run until July 20.

Source #bitcoin #news #cryptonews #cryptocurrency #dailybitcoinnew #todaynews

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theliberaltony · 6 years

Link

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

How many Democrats are running for president? It’s not a trick question. And it’s not an easy question to answer.

Unfortunately, it’s also not a question we can really avoid. We’ll be writing about the Democratic primary for the next [checks notes] 16 months here at FiveThirtyEight, until the Democratic National Convention is held next July in Milwaukee. We’ll be making thousands of charts and graphics featuring these candidates, taping hundreds of podcast segments about them, and collecting heaps of data on their activities. While there’s some room for flexibility — I can mention Marianne Williamson’s name in passing without committing FiveThirtyEight to write a 2,000-word feature about her — we need to make a distinction between “major” candidates and everyone else for a lot of what we’re doing.

It would be nice to be extra inclusive, but that gets out of hand quickly. According to the Federal Election Commission, there were actually 209 (!) Democrats1 who had filed paperwork to run for president or form an exploratory committee as of last Friday afternoon, including luminaries such as Gidget Groendyk, Maayan Z. Zik, John Martini and Dakoda Foxx.

The Washington Post and New York Times have more modest lists of 15 Democratic candidates — but to be honest, their definition of who qualifies seems to be pretty arbitrary. For instance, Williamson, a self-help guru and best-selling author, is on both lists, but Wayne Messam — the mayor of Miramar, Florida, who this month formed a presidential exploratory committee — is not on either.

There are lots of other edge cases. What to do with entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who became Internet-famous and is now penetrating mainstream coverage of the 2020 race? What about Mike Gravel, who is an 88-year-old former U.S. senator and may be running for president — or who may just be helping some teenagers troll everybody? Then there is John Delaney, who is a former U.S. representative and has been languishing in obscurity despite having fairly traditional credentials for a presidential candidate.2 He’s been drawing a goose egg in most polls and failing to raise enough money to qualify for the debates despite having been running for president since July 2017.

For better or worse, we need a set of relatively objective standards to distinguish major from minor candidates. So we’ll be introducing one in this article and revealing which candidates do and do not qualify so far. The fact that the standards are objective doesn’t mean they’re beyond reproach — there’s subjective judgment involved in determining which objective measures to use. (The judgment comes primarily from me and Nathaniel Rakich; everyone else politely ignored us while we went through several iterations of the qualifications in FiveThirtyEight’s politics Slack channel.) But they’re at least something we can apply consistently to all the candidates.

In fact, candidates will have two paths — plus one shortcut, which I’ll explain in a moment — to qualify as major by FiveThirtyEight’s standards. (Candidates must be officially running or have formed an exploratory committee to qualify; Joe Biden may be major, but he isn’t a candidate yet.) The first path is to meet the Democratic National Committee’s standards to qualify for the presidential debates. According to the DNC’s rules, candidates can qualify via either of the following ways:

Receive at least 1 percent of the vote in national or early-state polls from at least three separate pollsters on a list prepared by the DNC.

Receive donations from at least 65,000 unique individuals, including at least 200 donors in each of 20 states.

There are a couple of complications here. One is that we don’t necessarily expect the DNC to declare which candidates have and have not qualified until we get closer to the debates, which begin in June. So we’ll be determining this for ourselves, using their standards. We’ll also be taking candidates at their word when they claim to have reached 65,000 donors, unless we have some strong reason to doubt them; the DNC will seek to vet and verify their claims, by contrast.

Also, the DNC says that it will limit at least the first couple of debates to 20 candidates; if more than 20 qualify, they’ll use some other (ambiguous) method to decide who actually gets a podium. We’ll consider candidates to be major even if the DNC runs out of room for them, however.3

To be honest, we think the DNC standards are pretty generous. Getting 65,000 people to donate to you isn’t that much — Beto O’Rourke received donations from twice that many people within his first 24 hours!4 It’s also not that hard to hit 1 percent — just 1 percent! — in a handful of polls.

Nonetheless, we also have a second path open. It requires candidates to meet at least six of the following 10 criteria:

How we’re defining “major” presidential primary candidates

Candidates must meet the DNC’s debate qualifications via fundraising or polling OR meet at least six of these 10 criteria …

How actively the candidate is running 1. Has formally begun a campaign (not merely formed an exploratory committee) 2. Is running to win (not merely to draw attention to an issue) 3. Has hired at least three full-time staffers (or equivalents) 4. Is routinely campaigning outside of their home state* What other people think of the candidate 5. Is included as a named option in at least half of polls* 6. Gets at least half as much media coverage as candidates who qualified for the debate* 7. Receives at least half as much Google search traffic as candidates who qualified for the debate* 8. Receives at least one endorsement from an endorser FiveThirtyEight is tracking The candidate’s credentials 9. Has held any public office (elected or appointed) 10. Has held a major public office (president, vice president, governor, U.S. Senate, U.S. House, mayor of a city of at least 300,000 people, member of a presidential Cabinet)

The criteria are applied to the trailing 30 days.

* “Routinely campaigning” means being on the road, hosting events open to the public, for at least two weeks out of the previous 30 days. Polls include all state and national polls over the previous 30 days as tracked by FiveThirtyEight; however, each polling firm is counted only once. (If a candidate is mentioned by name in any of that polling firm’s polls over the previous 30 days, he or she counts as having been included.) Media coverage is based on the number of articles at NewsLibrary.com. Google search traffic is based on topic searches — rather than verbatim search strings — in the United States.

These standards are also meant to be pretty generous. If we think of those criteria as a point system, in which candidates get a point for every one they fulfill, someone can get to 4 points just by doing the basic blocking-and-tackling of a campaign: formally launching their bid, going out on the campaign trail, hiring a few staffers and claiming (however implausibly) that they’re in it to win it rather than (as Gravel has said) merely to draw attention to a favorite cause.5 In addition, candidates who are actively running can get 1 or 2 additional points if they have been elected or appointed to public office, depending on the stature of the position. So, candidates such as Delaney, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper can qualify as major based on actively campaigning (4 points) and their credentials as elected officials (2 points) alone.

For other candidates — those who have held only minor public offices or none at all, or those who are only campaigning half-heartedly — there are four additional ways to gain points, based on whether they’re included in polls, how much media coverage they’re getting and how much they’re being searched on Google, and whether they’ve been endorsed by anyone whom FiveThirtyEight is tracking. It’s really not that hard to get to 6 points.

There’s also the shortcut I mentioned before. If we consider it almost certain that a candidate will eventually qualify under either the first or the second path, we reserve the right to designate them as major even if they haven’t technically qualified yet. For instance, if John Kerry or Stacey Abrams were to run, they might not qualify right away because it would take the various metrics some time to catch up to their (somewhat unexpected) announcements, but they would almost certainly reach them within a few weeks. So we’d consider them to be major candidates from the start.

Which candidates have qualified so far?

By our accounting, 12 people have qualified for the debates under the DNC’s rules, one of whom (Biden) isn’t actually running yet. They also qualify as major under FiveThirtyEight’s rules, therefore.

Which candidates have qualified for the debates?

Candidates who achieved at least 1 percent in three DNC-approved polls through March 24, 2019

Candidate CNN Monmouth U. Des Moines Register (Iowa) UNH (N.H.) Fox News Biden ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Sanders ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Harris ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ O’Rourke ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Warren ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Booker ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Klobuchar ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Castro ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Gillibrand ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Buttigieg ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Inslee ✓ ✓ ✓ Hickenlooper ✓ ✓ Bloomberg ✓ ✓ Brown ✓ ✓ de Blasio ✓ ✓ Yang ✓ ✓ Delaney ✓ ✓ Gabbard ✓ ✓ Kerry ✓ Bennet ✓ Holder ✓ Bullock ✓

Shaded candidates have qualified for the debates under FiveThirtyEight’s interpretation of DNC rules, including Yang, who qualified on the basis of fundraising. According to the DNC: “Qualifying polls will be limited to those sponsored by one or more of the following organizations/institutions: Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Des Moines Register, Fox News, Las Vegas Review Journal, Monmouth University, NBC News, New York Times, National Public Radio (NPR), Quinnipiac University, Reuters, University of New Hampshire, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Winthrop University. Any candidate’s three qualifying polls must be conducted by different organizations, or if by the same organization, must be in different geographical areas.”

Eleven of these candidates — Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, O’Rourke, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Julian Castro, Kirsten Gillibrand, Pete Buttigieg and Jay Inslee — have qualified on the basis of achieving at least 1 percent of the vote in three DNC-approved polls. A 12th candidate, Yang, has qualified by having at least 65,000 donors, according to his campaign. We reached out to various other campaigns that didn’t meet the DNC’s polling benchmark to ask whether their candidate had hit 65,000 donations, and none claimed to have done so.

However, three additional candidates qualify as major under FiveThirtyEight’s second path. Delaney, Gabbard and Hickenlooper are running full-fledged campaigns and currently or formerly held major elected offices, so they each have at least six points, enough to qualify. (They’re also been included in the majority of polls, and two of the three, Delaney and Hickenlooper, have at least one endorsement.)

Other candidates fall a little short, however:

Williamson gets four points for running a full-fledged campaign, including a busy travel schedule and a staff of 10 full-time people, but she has no points beyond that for now. She’s included in polls occasionally, but less than half the time; she has less than half the Google search traffic of most Democrats; she isn’t included in much media coverage about the campaign; and no one on our list has endorsed her yet. Nor has she held public office before. Some of these categories are close-ish, though, so it’s not a stretch to imagine her qualifying in the future, whether by meeting the DNC’s fundraising criteria or for other reasons.

Messam is not yet officially running — although he does have an exploratory committee. He also hasn’t been included in any polls and has drawn very little interest from the media (other than FiveThirtyEight!) or the public (as measured by Google searches). He has a fairly easy path to 5 points if and when he does launch a full-fledged campaign, however — including hiring a staff and traveling to events — since he gets 1 point for being an elected official (although not 2, since Miramar is not a large city). The 6th point is tricker, but getting pollsters to include him or someone to endorse him would do the trick.

It’s not clear how seriously Gravel is taking any of this, and even though he gets 2 points for being a former U.S. senator, that alone isn’t (nearly) enough. If he does decide to officially run and begins campaigning (for the time being, an exploratory committee was opened on his behalf), he’ll accumulate additional points quickly, although note that Gravel has said that he would be running to critique U.S. imperialism rather than to win, so he wouldn’t get the point that most other candidates get for being in the race to win.

Finally, for posterity’s sake, there’s the question of whether former West Virginia state Sen. Richard Ojeda counted as a major candidate back when he was running. (He has withdrawn his bid.) By our definition, the answer is “no,” as he usually wasn’t included in polls, didn’t draw a significant amount of search traffic or media coverage, and didn’t get any endorsements, meaning that he’d have had no more than 5 points.

So how many “major” Democrats are running for president? By our definition, there are 14 major candidates so far — not counting Biden, who is not running yet — with Williamson, Messam and Gravel having a shot to achieve major status later on. There are also several candidates who, like Biden, are still considering a bid and who would fairly easily qualify as “major” if they ran, so our guess is that the Democrats will eventually meet or surpass the record-setting 17-candidate field that the Republicans had in 2016.

Check out all the polls we’ve been collecting ahead of the 2020 elections.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Nate Silver

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technicolorday1 · 6 years

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7 people in 1 race? GOP nod for Congress may rely on who you recognize | Idaho Statesman

Early polls in the seven-way GOP race to succeed U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador had the two candidates with the highest name recognition – Meridian real estate broker Russ Fulcher and former Idaho Attorney General and Lt. Gov. David Leroy – leading the pack.

But the two polls that have been made public still showed large swaths of undecided voters in Idaho’s 1st Congressional District. That gives hope to the other five candidates in the Republican primary: former prosecutor and state Rep. Luke Malek of Coeur d’Alene; gun shop owner and state Rep. Christy Perry of Nampa; conservative author and blogger Michael Snyder of Bonners Ferry; Nick Henderson, an Army combat veteran and businessman from Post Falls; and Alex Gallegos, a retired Army lieutenant colonel from Nampa.

With 41 days left until the May 15 primary, the leaders are hoping to hold or grow their advantage while the others seek to catch fire.

[Related: What kind of polling captures Idaho’s closed Republican primary?]

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History suggests anywhere from 63,000 to 72,000 voters may participate in the closed Republican primary. If so, one of the candidates will need 15,000 to 20,000 votes to win. Republican Bill Sali garnered 18,985 votes, or 25.8 percent, in 2006, the last time there was an open field this crowded.

Sali’s advantage was an endorsement from the Club For Growth, which along with its supporters pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into his campaign – a relatively small sum to win a congressional seat nationwide.

This year, Fulcher has the Club for Growth endorsement. Not surprisingly, he’s the first to go on the air with television commercials and has led in overall fundraising. Leroy countered with an endorsement from the American Conservative Union, which organizes the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

Fulcher started out running for governor, following on his strong showing in the 2014 GOP primary against Gov. Butch Otter. In June, he pulled out after Labrador announced he would seek the governor’s post, and announced he would run for Labrador’s seat instead.

Labrador endorsed Fulcher, as has Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. But Fulcher has not endorsed Labrador. That has angered many of his supporters, said Henderson and Snyder, who both endorsed Labrador and hope his supporters come to them.

“I see it as a huge sign of disrespect after all Raul Labrador has done,” Snyder said.

Fulcher said he has worked closely with Labrador.

Snyder portrays himself as the most conservative candidate in a field where the collective views on issues like the Second Amendment, abortion and tax cuts are all pretty close. He said he would get rid of the Internal Revenue Service, the federal income tax, the Federal Reserve, and would close the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Bureau of Land Management.

His yard signs spread all over the Treasure Valley advertise him as pro-Trump, who pundits say is the most popular politician among Idaho Republicans. Both Leroy and Fulcher embrace Trump in their own ways.

“I think Trump is a change agent,” Leroy said. “If we put conservative legislation in front of him, he’ll sign it.”

Leroy is counting on most of the electorate in the GOP primary to be old enough to remember when he was attorney general, lieutenant governor and even acting governor for 254 days.

“This is a time when experience and aptitude is at a great premium,” Leroy said. “These are problematic, sophisticated, complicated times.”

Fulcher, who traveled the world with Micron and did business with the likes of Apple’s Steve Jobs, sees Trump as the businessman in the same mold.

“They don’t look at the world the way we do,” he said. “That see it as cost centers and profit centers.”

Fulcher said he can talk to Trump and help him get his agenda through Congress, even if the Democrats take control of the House.

“I’m going to advance the ball,” Fulcher said. “If I can get three yards, I’ll take it.”

Malek takes that approach even further. He said he was “the point of the spear” to create Idaho’s state-run health insurance exchange, replacing the federal option with one that is more efficient, user-friendly and has lower costs. At a recent Ada County GOP Central Committee candidate forum, Malek was the only one who said he would vote for the omnibus spending bill that among Idaho’s delegation, only Rep. Mike Simpson backed.

Malek picked up the endorsement of former U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, who said Malek has a record of getting things done.

“To me this job is not worth doing if I’m not a problem-solver,” Malek said. “I’m a conservative guy, but there’s a job to be done back there.”

Often this legislative session, Malek found himself opposite Perry on issues like the health care package aimed at helping 35,000 Idahoans without insurance afford coverage. In the end, the House refused to vote on the issue Perry helped carry to the floor, with Malek among the opposition.

“I’m willing to buck leadership and the system for what I think the people wanted,” Perry said. “I think that sets me apart from the others.”

Perry hopes to appeal to women because of her record on family issues and health. But she also expects to pull votes away from Fulcher because of her conservative values, such as her call to eliminate the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and turn its authority over to the states.

And, Perry is appealing to sportsmen, just as Henderson hopes to bring veterans to the polls as a supporter of more flexibility for veterans’ health care.

“I’m all for Veterans Choice because I’ve benefited from it,” Henderson said, referencing a program that allows veterans to see a local health provider if they meet certain conditions, such as lengthy VA appointment delays or long driving distances to a VA hospital.

Gallegos was the last to join the race, in February, and was not at the Ada County forum last week. He said in his announcement press release that he would push to control debt, improve combat readiness and work on veterans’ issues.

“I feel compelled to run because the dysfunction in Washington, D.C., is a threat to our children and grandchildren’s future,” he said in the release.

Reliable polling is scarce in this spring’s election. An Idaho Politics Weekly poll in November, compiled through live phone calls to residents of the congressional district, found 54 percent still undecided — though that included residents of all political persuasions. A March 12-13 automated phone poll of Republicans by Magellan Strategies, released by Leroy, had 40 percent of voters undecided.

To leap ahead, Snyder, Malek, Perry, Henderson or Gallegos will need huge influxes of money or field volunteers, or a collapse by the better-known Fulcher and Leroy, said Justin Vaughn, Boise State University associate professor of political science.

“If you’re a voter and you recognize some of the names down the list but you don’t know a lot about them, you’re going to go with the one you know,” Vaughn said.

Rocky Barker: 208-377-6484, @RockyBarker

Am I in the 1st District?

The 1st District begins on its southeast corner with a third of Boise and most of its suburbs, and runs west to Oregon and Washington, and north to the Canadian border. In addition to Ada County, it includes Adams, Benewah, Boise, Bonner, Boundary, Canyon, Clearwater, Gem, Idaho, Kootenai, Latah, Lewis, Nez Perce, Owyhee, Payette, Shoshone, Valley, and Washington.

What about the Democrats?

Three have filed for the 1st District seat: real estate agent Cristina McNeil, of Boise; retired sheriff’s deputy James Vandermaas, of Eagle; and veteran Michael W. Smith, of Post Falls. Watch for coverage of the Democratic primary in a future edition of the Statesman.

Source Article

The post 7 people in 1 race? GOP nod for Congress may rely on who you recognize | Idaho Statesman appeared first on TECHNICOLORDAY.

Learn More: http://www.technicolorday.com/7-people-in-1-race-gop-nod-for-congress-may-rely-on-who-you-recognize-idaho-statesman/

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sualkmedeiors · 7 years

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5 Ways to Increase Event Engagement

Over the last decade, marketers’ opinions of events have gone up and down. To some, events can be a monumental waste of money. But to many others, there’s an increasing sense of value in running expos and conferences. They bring your best customers together and attract a wider audience from your target market.

It’s what happens at the event that matters. In fact, according to Event Manager Blog, 91% of event organizers and marketers believe that increasing engagement is an important priority during events.

In this blog, I’ll outline five strategies to boost event engagement. Each technique uses technology and event marketing trends to keep attendees engaged, boost social proof, and improve the content around your event.

1. Engage With Influencers

Influencer marketing is a hot topic across many marketing channels. Your event marketing strategy is no exception. By engaging with thought leaders across content marketing and social channels, ticket sales can receive an unprecedented increase.

The approach you choose will depend on your objectives:

Content & awareness: Collaborating with influencers to create content before and after your event. This approach adds an element of social proof and helps tap into a wider audience.

Advocacy: This long-term goal means working exclusively with influencers to create content, letting them tell their story about your brand.

Start by listing out the target influencers you wish to collaborate with on content. There are different kinds of influencers that range in difficulty to reach.

For example, micro-influencers usually have a follower size of 1,000 to 100,000 but have a highly engaged audience. Then there are those who can be considered “celebrities,” with follower numbers in the millions. These are sought-after by brands who wish to boost brand awareness. Paid influencer platforms, such as NeoReach and HYPR, can help you identify and connect with relevant influencers. They use algorithms that pool data from all social networks, which makes finding the right influencers easy. Manual outreach is also effective, as you’re building a relationship directly with your target influencers. Do this by engaging with them on social media first. Contribute to the content they create, and help them share it.

You can also take advantage of the media buzz and borrow social proof with publications. WebEngage does this on the front page of their website:

Get your influencers involved in the entire event organization and promotion process. Thanks to the open nature of social media, this is now easier than ever before.

2. Gamification & Contests

People love to test their luck. Contests are a creative way of leveraging this desire, offering relevant prizes to get attendees to interact and contribute to your event. Giving away free Apple products used to be exciting and engaging. But this form of incentive has suffered the same fate as banner blindness. People are simply no longer excited by fancy gadgets.

The best prizes, therefore, are relevant to your event topic or value proposition. Work with exhibitors and speakers, encouraging them to contribute prizes. These could include:

Free access to software for three to six months

Consultation with experts on a specific topic (such as a “30-minute call to analyze your content marketing strategy”)

Tickets for next year’s event

The question then comes down to using this to inspire engagement. One of the best ways to do this is to ask for submissions in the form of tweets or Instagram posts. There are many benefits to this. First, you create a ton of buzz around the event on third-party channels, which builds upon your credibility. Social proof is imperative for securing attendees, sponsors, and exhibitors for future events. Furthermore, you now have a host of user-generated content (UGC) to use in future marketing collateral. Again, this helps build social proof for your brand while adding visual and multimedia formats to your content.

T-Mobile ran a contest like this on social media, offering to pay the cancellation fees of their current provider. Entrants were encouraged to write a breakup letter to their provider for the chance to win:

Image source

The result? Over 80,000 “letters” were submitted. A huge amount of buzz was generated on social media while attracting new customers at the same time.

Look for creative ways to encourage the creation of UGC while adding value to your attendees. Social media and media buzz are two event promotion channels that will benefit as a result.

3. Use Live Polls

Asking for a show of hands or doing a manual headcount can turn people off. It’s also an ineffective way to get a dynamic depth of opinions.

This is where live polling comes in. It lets your audience engage with keynotes and speeches as they happen. It turns a one-way stream of content into a conversation, which is key for engagement on a wide scale and makes your presentations more memorable.

Ask thought-provoking questions to get your attendees opinions on a topic. For example, speakers can poll attendees, providing the rest of the audience with insights into the challenges of their peers.

While this adds a social aspect to your event, the real value is in the feedback. Using the answers from this poll, speakers can direct their content accordingly. The feedback can be used to direct sessions towards topics the audience finds most interesting.

Polls can even provide insight and value for marketers after the event is over. The feedback it generates is a great source of content, giving you insights on blog topics and ideas for long-form content, such as ebooks. Of course, you can then use this to inform the content of future events.

Simon Puleo used live polling when training HP’s sales teams on presenting new products to clients. This involves attending large sales conferences all over the world with up to 800 attendees each. To keep sales professionals engaged, he encouraged individuals to come on stage and give their best pitch. Other attendees voted which they thought was most effective, adding a competitive element to the event.

When trying this yourself, run a poll at the beginning of your sessions. This approach will get the audience comfortable with the way voting works and the system itself. Keep it fun, so it’s easy to participate. From here, use it to generate feedback, direct the flow of the session and collect metrics for optimization of future events.

4. Create a Mobile App

The entire event engagement process, from your website to registration, can feel disjointed. Even the collateral that your attendees pick up on the day can be a little clunky. What if you could house your entire event marketing funnel under one roof? With mobile apps, you can.

What you include in our app depends on the nature of the event. Here are some typical features that most event apps include:

Rich media: A steady stream of relevant content, often in the form of an activity stream

Push notifications: Keeping attendees updated with relevant information

Social media: Integrate with your social campaigns (perfect when accompanied by the UGC technique explained earlier)

Interactive maps: Allows attendees to create a schedule that suits them

One of the most powerful features your app provides is analytics. Optimize your future events by providing the right insights.

South by Southwest (SXSW) created SXSW GO, an app that helped festival attendees navigate the huge annual event in Austin. Their objective was to improve the overall experience and eliminate friction when registering and networking during the event.

Image source

Using iBeacons, introduced in 2014, attendees can see users that were around them to facilitate a richer networking experience. This technology allows attendees to reach out and arrange meetups during the event, providing flexible and targeted networking opportunities.

This level of integration also generated a huge amount of data. Attendee behavior, popular sessions, and content engagement are all insights that can optimize future events.

5. Virtual Event Bags

How much money do you and your sponsors spend on event swag each year? More importantly, do you know the ROI and where all those tote bags, booklets, pens, and badges end up?

There’s a lot of potential for waste. Not only that, this physical collateral is very hard to measure, which is why marketers and event organizers are moving over to “virtual event bags.”

These online goody bags help deliver measurable results while removing the clunky process of managing digital assets. With the right platform, it can be a collaborative process that gives your sponsors complete control over what they include.

Consumer Expo used virtual event bags to showcase sponsors, drive downloads to their event app and offer discounts:

The layout is simple but effective. Everything is laid out in an easy-to-use format. Friction is minimal, and attendees aren’t overwhelmed with the amount of “stuff” filling up their desks the next day. Furthermore, organizers can see which offers work better than others. This will let them prove their worth to sponsors when selling future events, while also optimizing copy and creative for higher conversions.

The possibilities for improving your event engagement are endless—and exciting! What methods are you currently employing to engage with your event attendees? Join the conversation in the comments section below.

The post 5 Ways to Increase Event Engagement appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/modernb2bmarketing/~3/P_etxE29qow/5-ways-increase-event-engagement.html

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maxslogic25 · 7 years

Text

5 Ways to Increase Event Engagement

1. Engage With Influencers

The approach you choose will depend on your objectives:

Content & awareness: Collaborating with influencers to create content before and after your event. This approach adds an element of social proof and helps tap into a wider audience.

Advocacy: This long-term goal means working exclusively with influencers to create content, letting them tell their story about your brand.

Start by listing out the target influencers you wish to collaborate with on content. There are different kinds of influencers that range in difficulty to reach.

You can also take advantage of the media buzz and borrow social proof with publications. WebEngage does this on the front page of their website:

Get your influencers involved in the entire event organization and promotion process. Thanks to the open nature of social media, this is now easier than ever before.

2. Gamification & Contests

The best prizes, therefore, are relevant to your event topic or value proposition. Work with exhibitors and speakers, encouraging them to contribute prizes. These could include:

Free access to software for three to six months

Consultation with experts on a specific topic (such as a “30-minute call to analyze your content marketing strategy”)

Tickets for next year’s event

Image source

The result? Over 80,000 “letters” were submitted. A huge amount of buzz was generated on social media while attracting new customers at the same time.

Look for creative ways to encourage the creation of UGC while adding value to your attendees. Social media and media buzz are two event promotion channels that will benefit as a result.

3. Use Live Polls

Asking for a show of hands or doing a manual headcount can turn people off. It’s also an ineffective way to get a dynamic depth of opinions.

4. Create a Mobile App

What you include in our app depends on the nature of the event. Here are some typical features that most event apps include:

Rich media: A steady stream of relevant content, often in the form of an activity stream

Push notifications: Keeping attendees updated with relevant information

Social media: Integrate with your social campaigns (perfect when accompanied by the UGC technique explained earlier)

Interactive maps: Allows attendees to create a schedule that suits them

One of the most powerful features your app provides is analytics. Optimize your future events by providing the right insights.

Image source

This level of integration also generated a huge amount of data. Attendee behavior, popular sessions, and content engagement are all insights that can optimize future events.

5. Virtual Event Bags

How much money do you and your sponsors spend on event swag each year? More importantly, do you know the ROI and where all those tote bags, booklets, pens, and badges end up?

There’s a lot of potential for waste. Not only that, this physical collateral is very hard to measure, which is why marketers and event organizers are moving over to “virtual event bags.”

Consumer Expo used virtual event bags to showcase sponsors, drive downloads to their event app and offer discounts:

The post 5 Ways to Increase Event Engagement appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://blog.marketo.com/2018/02/5-ways-increase-event-engagement.html

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archiebwoollard · 7 years

Text

5 Ways to Increase Event Engagement

1. Engage With Influencers

The approach you choose will depend on your objectives:

Content & awareness: Collaborating with influencers to create content before and after your event. This approach adds an element of social proof and helps tap into a wider audience.

Advocacy: This long-term goal means working exclusively with influencers to create content, letting them tell their story about your brand.

Start by listing out the target influencers you wish to collaborate with on content. There are different kinds of influencers that range in difficulty to reach.

You can also take advantage of the media buzz and borrow social proof with publications. WebEngage does this on the front page of their website:

Get your influencers involved in the entire event organization and promotion process. Thanks to the open nature of social media, this is now easier than ever before.

2. Gamification & Contests

The best prizes, therefore, are relevant to your event topic or value proposition. Work with exhibitors and speakers, encouraging them to contribute prizes. These could include:

Free access to software for three to six months

Consultation with experts on a specific topic (such as a “30-minute call to analyze your content marketing strategy”)

Tickets for next year’s event

Image source

The result? Over 80,000 “letters” were submitted. A huge amount of buzz was generated on social media while attracting new customers at the same time.

Look for creative ways to encourage the creation of UGC while adding value to your attendees. Social media and media buzz are two event promotion channels that will benefit as a result.

3. Use Live Polls

Asking for a show of hands or doing a manual headcount can turn people off. It’s also an ineffective way to get a dynamic depth of opinions.

4. Create a Mobile App

What you include in our app depends on the nature of the event. Here are some typical features that most event apps include:

Rich media: A steady stream of relevant content, often in the form of an activity stream

Push notifications: Keeping attendees updated with relevant information

Social media: Integrate with your social campaigns (perfect when accompanied by the UGC technique explained earlier)

Interactive maps: Allows attendees to create a schedule that suits them

One of the most powerful features your app provides is analytics. Optimize your future events by providing the right insights.

Image source

This level of integration also generated a huge amount of data. Attendee behavior, popular sessions, and content engagement are all insights that can optimize future events.

5. Virtual Event Bags

How much money do you and your sponsors spend on event swag each year? More importantly, do you know the ROI and where all those tote bags, booklets, pens, and badges end up?

There’s a lot of potential for waste. Not only that, this physical collateral is very hard to measure, which is why marketers and event organizers are moving over to “virtual event bags.”

Consumer Expo used virtual event bags to showcase sponsors, drive downloads to their event app and offer discounts:

The post 5 Ways to Increase Event Engagement appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://blog.marketo.com/2018/02/5-ways-increase-event-engagement.html

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racheltgibsau · 7 years

Text

5 Ways to Increase Event Engagement

1. Engage With Influencers

The approach you choose will depend on your objectives:

Content & awareness: Collaborating with influencers to create content before and after your event. This approach adds an element of social proof and helps tap into a wider audience.

Advocacy: This long-term goal means working exclusively with influencers to create content, letting them tell their story about your brand.

Start by listing out the target influencers you wish to collaborate with on content. There are different kinds of influencers that range in difficulty to reach.

You can also take advantage of the media buzz and borrow social proof with publications. WebEngage does this on the front page of their website:

Get your influencers involved in the entire event organization and promotion process. Thanks to the open nature of social media, this is now easier than ever before.

2. Gamification & Contests

The best prizes, therefore, are relevant to your event topic or value proposition. Work with exhibitors and speakers, encouraging them to contribute prizes. These could include:

Free access to software for three to six months

Consultation with experts on a specific topic (such as a “30-minute call to analyze your content marketing strategy”)

Tickets for next year’s event

Image source

The result? Over 80,000 “letters” were submitted. A huge amount of buzz was generated on social media while attracting new customers at the same time.

Look for creative ways to encourage the creation of UGC while adding value to your attendees. Social media and media buzz are two event promotion channels that will benefit as a result.

3. Use Live Polls

Asking for a show of hands or doing a manual headcount can turn people off. It’s also an ineffective way to get a dynamic depth of opinions.

4. Create a Mobile App

What you include in our app depends on the nature of the event. Here are some typical features that most event apps include:

Rich media: A steady stream of relevant content, often in the form of an activity stream

Push notifications: Keeping attendees updated with relevant information

Social media: Integrate with your social campaigns (perfect when accompanied by the UGC technique explained earlier)

Interactive maps: Allows attendees to create a schedule that suits them

One of the most powerful features your app provides is analytics. Optimize your future events by providing the right insights.

Image source

This level of integration also generated a huge amount of data. Attendee behavior, popular sessions, and content engagement are all insights that can optimize future events.

5. Virtual Event Bags

How much money do you and your sponsors spend on event swag each year? More importantly, do you know the ROI and where all those tote bags, booklets, pens, and badges end up?

There’s a lot of potential for waste. Not only that, this physical collateral is very hard to measure, which is why marketers and event organizers are moving over to “virtual event bags.”

Consumer Expo used virtual event bags to showcase sponsors, drive downloads to their event app and offer discounts:

The post 5 Ways to Increase Event Engagement appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://blog.marketo.com/2018/02/5-ways-increase-event-engagement.html

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flauntpage · 7 years

Text

The Big Baller Brand Doesn't Need Lonzo Ball to Be Good

Quinn Velazquez is sitting courtside at the Thomas and Mack Center for a summer league matchup between the Los Angeles Lakers and his favorite team, the Sacramento Kings. All around him, his fellow Kings fans are roasting Lonzo Ball for supposedly ducking their own rookie point guard, De'Aaron Fox. The twenty-something Velazquez is wearing, of all things, a Big Baller Brand T-shirt.

"It's fun to be on the ground floor of something big," he says. "Or it could be the most expensive thrift store shirt I've ever bought."

Big Baller Brand (BBB), an apparel and footwear company founded last year by the Ball family, is putting out its own products, and taking on shoe giants like Nike and Adidas. If everything goes as planned, the brand could occupy the same space that Kanye West's Yeezy fashion line filled: exclusive, expensive (BBB ZO2's start at $495 a pair), and yet undeniably anti-establishment. The brand could easily become a cautionary tale. Or it could upend the sneaker business entirely.

"There's always an outlier," says Sonny Vaccaro, former footwear executive, subject of an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, and the man who famously signed Michael Jordan to Nike. "And LaVar Ball became that outlier."

But you, along with the rest of America, already know this.

"No press is bad press," says Velasquez courtside, of Lavar Ball. "I respect that. How he carries himself, I don't necessarily know if I agree with." At the time, LaVar was fresh off a WWE appearance. Since then, he has made news for any number of things, from having a female referee ejected from a game to opting to home-school his youngest son, LaMelo. The list is ever-growing.

"I don't necessarily associate BBB with Lonzo. I associate it more with LaVar."

You can hardly blame him. Lonzo's debut drew 17,000 fans, selling out the Thomas and Mack Center for the first time in Summer League history, yet it was LaVar Ball crowded by fans, angling for a mere glimpse, an opportunity to touch him. Prior to his preseason debut, the stairway leading to LaVar's lower-bowl seats was packed to the brim with autograph-seekers. In the offseason, ESPN commissioned a poll, asking whether LaVar or Lonzo would be a bigger storyline this season. OddsShark just released presidential odds for 2020, including LaVar on the list.

I've heard casual fans mix their names up. Hell, I've mixed their names up.

This is, in part, a manifestation of their personalities, and it serves them well. Every time LaVar opens his mouth, his son, by way of tacit contrast, looks better: the quiet assassin who'd rather, as he has put it many times, do his talking on the court.

It's also good business. There are a legion of fans, like Velazquez, who are willing to bet on BBB merely because the Ball family has bet on themselves. The ethic supersedes the antics, and the athlete. And Darren Moore, Lonzo's manager, knows it. "We're trying to build a narrative of: You can believe in yourself, and not even feel like you have to roll the dice because you know what you're worth."

The personification of that attitude is not Lonzo. It's his hypeman, the boisterous, no-holds-barred LaVar.

Lavar Ball is already turning his family's popularity into income. Photo: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports.

Even if Lonzo had an opinion about this, it would be hard to find out what it is. The Ball family is now charging $15,000 for interviews that extend past Ball's media obligations as a member of the Lakers. The very fact of that absurd fee reveals more than Lonzo, with his piercing stare and cliche-ridden answers ever would—it reveals the ethic that they insist we understand: no stone un-monetized.

And why wouldn't Lonzo charge for his time. The equation that governs PR, that celebrities must exchange their internal lives for coverage, doesn't apply to him. He could tie his shoelaces a different way, and we would cover it judiciously. In fact, we did.

Ball wore Nike's at his third summer league game and posted a triple-double. He then toggled to Adidas and UnderArmour, raising questions about whether his footwear decisions would be registered as an indictment on the quality of his own ZO2's. It turned out to be just another day of Lonzo being a trending topic across America.

Now, ask yourself this: does any casual fan know which shoe brand Markelle Fultz, the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft, signed with?

"This is a singular situation," says Vaccaro. " Everywhere in history, in the shoe industry, was dictated by the individual being able to perform. They cut past everything. His team didn't win the championship. He got beat in the second round. He got his ass kicked by [De'Aaron] Fox. There was nothing monumental about his college career."

"They did more in five minutes," says Vaccaro, "than anyone on a shoe contract's done since LeBron James."

Individual NBA stars wield increasing power. As we saw this offseason, they can force trades to a preset list of attractive teams. If they're flexible about the size of their paychecks, they can form super-teams. LeBron James is basically a multi-national corporation. But even the most talented rookies have been exempt. They have lacked leverage. Until now.

In 2014, Andrew Wiggins was the No. 1 pick in the draft, and he was being shuffled away from autograph signings at the risk of a reporter asking what he thought of the idea he could be traded to the Timberwolves. This season, Boston traded the No. 1 pick, essentially the rights to Markelle Fultz, to Philadelphia. His botched Instagram post, wherein some long-forgotten social media manager forgot to replace "(city)" and "(team name)" with Philadelphia and the Sixers before posting a picture of him on draft night, was oddly poignant. He was somebody else's for the taking.

Could you imagine, on the other hand, a universe where Lonzo's Instagram drafts have such a structure? Was there ever a doubt that he was going to the Lakers? We are bearing witness to the first rookie who doesn't seem like a pawn in somebody else's game.

Lonzo cut his teeth in Chino Hills, on the crooked driveway in the backyard of their home, honing the janky jump-shot that's the source of so much existential dread. It will haunt the rest of the NBA, or it will haunt the Lakers. L.A. is home, but it's also where the family imagines its wildest dreams coming true.

"If the Lakers make the playoffs, he sells a million shoes," Vaccaro says. "What does that mean? That means this is what innovation is."

Name recognition is one thing. Turning that popularity into cash is another. Their reality TV show, Ball in the Family, has been picked up for a second season. Lonzo, who has dabbled in rapping since his youth, just released a track. Just this week, Big Baller Brand released an Emoji app, in case anybody thought this all wasn't already feeling a smidge too modern.

And this is where the true genius of the Big Baller Brand comes to bear. Even if (when) Lonzo struggles to run an intricate NBA offense and a not-so-talented team, Lavar will still be there to push the family name. His adherents will still be loyal.

And, in the unlikely worst case scenario that Lonzo is not good, after a short career of being paid on potential, of taking a flier here and there, one can easily envision a scenario where he transitions smoothly into the most lucrative business in Hollywood—the one his dad is already in—celebrity for its own sake.

"He's got interest from people who don't give a damn, personally" says Vaccaro. "Lavar created a marketplace. He put a Tiffany's in a place where a store like Tiffany's never would have existed before. He created space where there was no space before, for his son."

Given the stronghold the Ball family has in Los Angeles, and the growing potency of the Big Baller Brand name, Lonzo Ball doesn't even have to live up to the hype. There are failsafes in place. There's LaMelo (and to hear them tell it, LiAngelo, who is not nearly as touted a prospect as his brothers).

They are going to be a part of our lives, for a long time.

But there's a difference between making the bet pay off and making so much money that it fundamentally changes the shoe industry, just as there's a difference between a rookie shoe deal and the 9-figure deals that follow them.

For generations," says Moore, Lonzo's business manager, "a lot of players fall into the mold of signing with Nike, Adidas, Under Armour. The way the basketball world is ran, you don't have anybody that's gonna tell you [BBB] is an option. It's an option that players always have that I think they should look at."

Tonight, a one-man million dollar industry will take the floor, lanky and nineteen, for the most glamorous franchise in the NBA. Everything he does out there for the Lakers will connect the man to the myth. We have awaited his arrival with bated breath, and we will watch dutifully because we think what Lonzo does will give us clarity about his family, about the Lakers, about the Big Baller Brand.

Through it all, the most pertinent question will continue to linger. What matters more: what we're watching, or that we're watching?

The Big Baller Brand Doesn't Need Lonzo Ball to Be Good published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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