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rajpersaud · 4 years

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Associate Professor at Suicide Research Unit discusses Meghan Markle Interview

You can also listen to this interview on a free app on iTunes and Google Play Store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links. Don't forget to check out the bonus content button on the app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud

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Thomas Niederkrotenthaler is associate professor at the Suicide Research Unit at the Institute of Social Medicine, Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna. He is the co-chair of the International Association for Suicide Prevention's Media and Suicide Special Interest Group.

Reacting to suicidal revelations - is Piers Morgan right?

Research on suicide reporting suggests a surprising effect of Meghan's interview

by Dr Raj Persaud

Piers Morgan, a controversial TV host, has now left his national broadcasting position after expressing strong disbelief over Meghan’s confessions of suicidal thinking in her interview with Oprah Winfrey.

BBC News reports that Piers Morgan continues to stand by his criticism of the Duchess of Sussex. Ofcom, a regulator of broadcasting in the UK, is investigating his comments after receiving 41,000 complaints from the British public.

The duchess apparently formally complained to ITV about Morgan's remarks. It is reported that she raised concerns about how Piers Morgan's sentiments affect the issue of mental health, and what it might do to others contemplating suicide.

Is Meghan correct in her reported analysis? Or is Piers Morgan right to stand by his comments?

Or, in discussing suicide during an Oprah Winfrey interview, did she in fact make it more likely that others will self-harm?

Media reporting of suicidal behaviour has been found to contribute to an increase in suicidal thinking and actual suicides in the population. At this point Piers Morgan may argue the duchess is wrong to criticise him, and has only herself to blame, if there is a spike in suicides following the interview.

Recent research found that Google searches for “How to kill yourself” significantly increased after the release of ‘13 Reasons Why’, a popular Netflix American teen drama on the aftermath of high school student's suicide. The study calculated there were 900 000 to 1.5 million more searches than expected, for that time of year, in just over two weeks following the release of the series.

Another study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry in February 2020, estimated there were 195 additional suicide deaths among 10- to 17-year-old youths between April 1 and December 31, 2017, following the series’ release.

One of the first studies to investigate this effect, analysed 34 newspaper stories that reported on suicides, and found a 2.51% increase in suicide during the month of the publicity.

More worrying still, about the possible repercussions of the extensive reporting of Meghan’s suicidal thinking worldwide, is that, research by Professor Steven Stack, an expert on the sociology of suicide, based at Wayne State University, USA, found that studies measuring the presence of an entertainment celebrity in a suicide press report, are over 5 times more likely to find a copycat effect, while studies focusing on female suicide, were almost 5 times more likely to report a copycat effect, than other research investigating the impact of suicide reporting in the press.

Another example reported by Steven Stack is that in the year of the publication of a book which focused on self-harm via a particular method, suicide by that specific recommended method, increased 313% in New York City. In almost one third of cases a copy of the book was found at the scene of the suicide.

On average, following the media reporting of a suicide, approximately one third of persons involved in subsequent suicidal behavior appear to have seen the reporting of that suicide and may be copycat suicides.

The suicide of actress Marilyn Monroe was associated with a 12% increase in suicide.

One theory as to why reporting of a celebrity killing themselves or feeling suicidal, according to Professor Steven Stack, is that the vulnerable suicidal person may reason, ‘If a Marilyn Monroe with all her fame and fortune cannot endure life, why should I?’

Copycat suicides following media reporting of self-harm has been termed the ‘Werther Effect’, following a notorious historical incident after the publication in 1774 of a popular novel in which the hero kills himself. Entitled, The Sorrows of Young Werther the book by Goethe was rumoured to be responsible for a subsequent epidemic of suicide in young people. European authorities were so worried about its impact, that the book was banned in Copenhagen, Italy and Leipzig.

Goethe is reported to have commented on the phenomenon; “My friends … thought that they must transform poetry into reality, imitate a novel like this in real life and, in any case, shoot themselves; and what occurred at first among a few took place later among the general public …”

However, now new research suggests that, in fact, Meghan Markle in talking about suicide, may have indeed performed a positive service in terms of suicide prevention.

The study entitled, ‘Role of media reports in completed and prevented suicide: Werther v. Papageno effects’, refers to a ‘Papageno Effect’, which the authors claim may be the opposite of the ‘Werther Effect’, and happens when suicide rates go down following a particular kind of self-harm publicity.

The ‘Papageno Effect’, the authors explain, is based on Papageno's overcoming of a suicidal crisis in Mozart's opera ‘The Magic Flute’. If media reporting has a suicide-protective impact this should now be referred to as the ‘Papageno Effect’ the authors argue. In Mozart's opera, Papageno becomes suicidal upon fearing the loss of his beloved Papagena; however, he refrains from suicide because of three boys who draw his attention to alternative coping strategies.

Thomas Niederkrotenthaler and Gernot Sonneck from the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, led a team who analysed all 497 suicide-related print media reports from the 11 largest Austrian nationwide newspapers, including the term suicide, between 1 January and 30 June 2005.

Reporting of individuals thinking about suicide (not accompanied by attempted or completed suicide) was associated with a decrease in national suicide rates. This study suggests that media items on suicidal thinking, perhaps as described by Meghan in her recent interview, formed a distinctive class of articles, which have a low probability of being potentially harmful.

The study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that in marked contrast, media stories attempting to dispel popular public myths about suicide, in other words articles that you would have thought would be helpful, and were intended to be helpful as regards suicide, were associated with increases in suicide rates.

Other articles associated with increases in suicide rates include stories where the main focus was on suicide research, items containing contact information for a public support service and also the reporting of expert opinions.

In other words, all the previous so-called expert opinion of how the media ought to report suicide was not actually linked to drops in suicide rates, but instead increases.

The authors conclude that the actual reporting of suicidal thinking may contribute to preventing suicide. Therefore, it follows that whatever Piers Morgan may think or believe about the Meghan interview, the latest scientific research suggests she may have performed a public service in drawing attention to suicidal thinking.

One theory as to why this might be the case include the suggestion that reporting someone thinking about suicide enhances identification with the reported individual, and thus highlights the reported outcome as ‘going on living’.

This research suggests a new public health strategy as regards suicide prevention. This may be most effective when articles are published on individuals who refrained from adopting suicidal plans, and instead adopted positive coping mechanisms, despite suffering adverse circumstances.

The authors refer to this kind of press story as ‘Mastery of Crisis’. One example they quote: ‘Before [Tom Jones] had his first hit, he thought about suicide… and wanted to jump in front of an Underground train in London… In 1965, before he made the charts with “It's not unusual”, he thought for a second: “If I just take a step to the right, then it'll all be over”.’

Whatever else you may think of her, or the interview, the key question becomes, did Meghan exhibit ‘Mastery Of Crisis’?

REFERENCES

Piers Morgan stands by Meghan criticism after Good Morning Britain exit https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56343768

Internet Searches for Suicide Following the Release of 13 Reasons Why. Ayers JW, Althouse BM, Leas EC, Dredze M, Allem J. JAMA Intern Med. 2017;177(10):1527–1529. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2017.3333

Association between the release of Netflix's 13 Reasons Why and suicide rates in the United States: an interrupted times series analysis. Bridge, J, Greenhouse, JB, Ruch, D, Stevens, J, Ackerman, J, Sheftall, A, et al. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2019; 28 Apr (doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2019.04.020).

Suicide in the Media: A Quantitative Review of Studies Based on Nonfictional Stories. Steven Stack. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 35(2) April 2005, 121-133

Role of media reports in completed and prevented suicide: Werther v. Papageno effects. Thomas Niederkrotenthaler, Martin Voracek, Arno Herberth, Benedikt Till, Markus Strauss, Elmar Etzersdorfer, Brigitte Eisenwort and Gernot Sonneck. British Journal of Psychiatry, 197(3), 234-243. doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.109.074633

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mskatman · 6 years

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BTS Comeback Date

Ok. So apparently the florist website with smereldos that was used last year to hint at the Love Yourself: Her album comeback date (and play with ARMY’s hearts) has come out of hibernation and has reposted the same article from last year, but has changed its opening date to “Late August.”

1. I think it’s highly likely that they will make a comeback on either August 17 or 24. They (along with many other artists) choose to release stuff on Friday’s because the timing gives the fans as much time as possible to stream/buy the music so that the newly released content can chart as high as possible on its first week. It would make more sense to me for them to comeback on the 17th so they have a week to promote on the music shows before they start their tour. (Although I’m personally hoping for the 24th because that’s my birthday!)

2. I know that many people have expressed concern that it’s a short turnaround period between albums; however I think they are trying to wrap up the Love Yourself era (maybe even faster than originally planned) due to the changing enlistment laws. Especially if you consider that most popular theories state that that the last album/minialbum/repackage for Love Yourself series will be Answer, with Jin singing the intro, titled Epiphany. Jin is the oldest, and the new enlistment laws affect him (and Suga); therefore, he needs to go ahead and release his Intro. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jin, Suga, and maybe Jhope or RM enlist once the tour is finished & we see more subunit activities until all members have finished their enlistment. I can only imagine that they would be modeling after BigBang or SJ in terms of ensuring longevity of the group despite military duty.

Also, on a side note, I know it was a big controversy that Jungkook only got the highlight reel for LY: Wonder, and a lot fans felt that he didn’t get proper spotlight. And while I don’t want to start a whole arguent on here, I do believe that BigHit had reasonings for this, and a lot of them had to do with the characters that the members play in their AU and their ages. (i.e. Jimin has a sweet voice, perfect for the lighthearted development phase of the story, V has the deepest, most somber voice, while Jin has all of the answers with all of his time traveling, and JK, being the youngest, has the most excitement and wonder) I also wish that LY had 4 albums and that each of the vocals got a whole intro to themselves. I even think that may have been part of the original plan, but in order to tell the story properly, JK’s intro only really works if it comes before Jin’s otherwise there’s no mystery left, and again BH may have needed to speed up the album release timeline for military enlistments. I trust that Jungkook will get his own intro very soon. Just wait a little longer and trust that BigHit has this planned out way more than most ARMYs could probably guess. :)

Ok sorry. I know I wrote to much. If you made it this far, thanks for reading. And let me know your thoughts!! :)

#bts #bangtan #rm #jin #suga #jhope #jimin #v #jungkook #namjoom #yoongi #hoseok #taehyung #bts theories #beyond the scene #love yourself

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statetalks · 3 years

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How Many Republicans Are In The Senate Currently

Filed Candidates By Political Party

Republicans on track to keep U.S. Senate majority

As of September 7, 2020, 519 candidates were filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for U.S. Senate in 2020. Of those, 402â199 Democrats and 203 Republicansâwere from one of the two major political parties. In 2018, 527 candidates filed with the FEC to run for U.S. Senate, including 137 Democrats and 240 Republicans.

The following chart shows the number of filed candidates by political party.

Easy Races Tough Races

In Arizona, Democrat Mark Kelly has held strong, sustained leads in the polls for months over Republican Sen. Martha McSally.;

He’s an astronaut and husband of former lawmaker Gabrielle;Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt in 2011 and became a gun-control activist.

In Maine, Trump has all but longtime incumbent Susan Collins. She appeared unbeatable until recently, winning;her last race, in 2014, by 37 points.

5 ways a Joe Biden presidency will affect Canada

She’s now trailing in the polls to the speaker of Maine’s legislature, Sara Gideon. Coleman said Collins is being pulled apart by the polarized politics of our time.

Collins frequently enrages Democrats and moderates by voting with Trump. Yet she also infuriates Trump allies; a research project by the news website Axios found that Collins is actually the No. 1 most likely of all congressional Republicans to condemn Trump in a controversy.;

“She’s really tried to walk the line of being a moderate in the Trump era. And that’s just very hard,” Coleman said.

Are Senators Chosen By Popular Vote

Beginning with the 1914 general election, all U.S. senators have been chosen by direct popular election. The Seventeenth Amendment also provided for the appointment of senators to fill vacancies. There have been many landmark contests, such as the election of Hiram Revels, the first African American senator, in 1870.

Recommended Reading: How Many Log Cabin Republicans Are There

List Of Current Members Of The Us Congress

Features of Congress Background United States House of Representatives elections, 2022 Analysis Lifetime voting records Net worth of United States Senators and Representatives Staff salaries of United States Senators and Representatives National Journal vote ratings

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the United States of America’s federal government. It consists of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives, with members chosen through direct election.

Congress has 535 voting members. The Senate has 100 voting officials, and the House has 435 voting officials, along with five delegates and one resident commissioner.

to find your representatives with Ballotpedia’s “Who represents me?” tool.

Us Senate Representation Is Deeply Undemocratic And Cannot Be Changed

Few, if any, other democracies have anything this undemocratic built into their systems.

The U.S. Senate, as you know, is currently divided 50-50 along party lines, thanks to the impressive double win in Georgia, and counting the two technically independent senators as Democrats, since they caucus with the Democrats.

But, according to the calculation of Ian Millhiser, writing for Vox, if you add up the population of states and assign half to each of their two senators, the Democratic half of the Senate represents 41,549,808 more people than the Republican half.

Millhisers piece is named after that fact: Americas anti-democratic Senate, in one number.

41.5 million. Thats a lot of people, more than 10 percent of the population . You might think that in a democracy, the party that held that much of an advantage might end up with a solid majority in the Senate, rather than have just barely eked out a 50-50 tie in a body that, taken together, represents the whole country.

Republicans have not won the majority of the votes cast in all Senate races in any election cycle for a long time. Nonetheless, Republicans held majority control of the Senate after the elections of 2014, and 2016 and 2018 and still, after the 2020 races, held 50 of the 100 seats.

GOP does better in lower population states

Works to the detriment of Democratic power

Its deeply undemocratic. Nothing can become federal law without passing the Senate.

Smaller states had to be reassured

Read Also: How Do Republicans Feel About Climate Change

List Of Current United States Senators By Age

This is a list of current U.S. Senators sorted by age. The United States Constitution requires Senators to be at least 30 years of age. Age does not determine seniority in the Senate.

As of August 29, 2021, 5 senators are in their 80s, 18 are in their 70s, 32 are in their 60s, 30 are in their 50s, 14 are in their 40s, and 1 is in his 30s.

The median age of currently serving Senators is 700921436488000000067;years, 339;days.

The median age of taking office for currently serving Senators is 51 years, 75 days.

The median length of their Senate terms to date is 700839925440000000012;years, 238;days.

Rank

United States Senate Elections 2020

U.S. Senate Elections by State U.S. House Elections

Elections to the U.S. Senate were held on . A total of 33 of the 100 seats were up for regular election.

Those elected to the U.S. Senate in the 33 regular elections on November 3, 2020, began their six-year terms on January 3, 2021.

Special elections were also held to fill vacancies that occurred in the 116th Congress, including 2020 special U.S. Senate elections in Arizona for the seat that John McCain won in 2016 and in Georgia for the seat that Johnny Isakson won in 2016.

Twelve seats held by Democrats and 23 seats held by Republicans were up for election in 2020. Heading into the election, Republicans had a majority with 53 seats. Democrats needed a net gain of four seats, or three in addition to winning the presidential election, to take control of the chamber. The vice president casts tie-breaking votes in the Senate.

On this page, you will find:

Information on historical wave elections

Don’t Miss: How Many Registered Republicans In Texas

How Is Senate Majority Chosen

The Senate Republican and Democratic floor leaders are elected by the members of their party in the Senate at the beginning of each Congress. Depending on which party is in power, one serves as majority leader and the other as minority leader. The leaders serve as spokespersons for their partys positions on issues.

Effect Of Republican Retirements

Republicans keep control of the House and Senate

Indeed, 2020 was actually a Democratic-leaning year, with Biden winning the national popular vote by 4.5 percentage points. So theres a good chance that states will be at least a bit redder in 2022 than they were in 2020.

That could make these retirements less of a blow to Republicans than they first appear. Whats more, by announcing their retirements so early, Burr, Toomey and Portman are giving the GOP as much time as possible to recruit potential candidates, shape the field of candidates in a strategic way in the invisible primary and raise more money for the open-seat campaign. And in Ohio specifically, Republicans still look like heavy favorites. Even in the Democratic-leaning environment of 2020, Trump won Ohio by 8 percentage points, implying that its true partisan lean is probably even more Republican-leaning. Ohio is simply not the quintessential swing state it once was; dating back to the 2014 election cycle, Democrats have won just one out of 14 statewide contests in Ohio and that was a popular incumbent running in a blue-wave election year .

Nathaniel Rakich and Geoffrey Skelley, FiveThirtyEight

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Many Republicans Mobilizing Against Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill

The bipartisan group of senators who crafted the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is preparing to take a victory lap as the Senate moves toward passing the bill in the coming days.

But a large number of Republicans are mobilizing against the bill that includes $1.2 trillion of spending and $550 billion in new spending on hard infrastructure projects, such as rail, ports, electric vehicle charging stations, and broadband.

Right after the group of bipartisan senators introduced the bills text on Sunday night, Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee gave a long floor speech in opposition to the legislation, arguing that the Constitution does not give Congress to go out and spend money on anything that we deem appropriate and that the price tag is too high.

Shame on us for making poor and middle-class Americans poorer so that we can bring praise and adulation to ourselves and more money to a small handful of wealthy, well-connected interests in America, Lee said.

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said that he would vote against the bill, sharing an article that called it an epic binge of green subsidies and more handouts for states and localities.

Several Republicans in the House are also stating their opposition to the bill.

No one should support something that will serve as a trojan horse for the Democrats reconciliation package, which the White House wants to use to pass massive amnesty, the RSC memo read.

Washington Examiner Videos

Join Govtracks Advisory Community

Were looking to learn more about who uses GovTrack and what features you find helpful or think could be improved. If you can, please take a few minutes to help us improve GovTrack for users like you.

Start by telling us more about yourself:

We hope to make GovTrack more useful to policy professionals like you. Please sign up for our advisory group to be a part of making GovTrack a better tool for what you do.

Young Americans have historically been the least involved in politics, despite the huge consequences policies can have on them. By joining our advisory group, you can help us make GovTrack more useful and engaging to young voters like you.

Our mission is to empower every American with the tools to understand and impact Congress. We hope that with your input we can make GovTrack more accessible to minority and disadvantaged communities who we may currently struggle to reach. Please join our advisory group to let us know what more we can do.

We love educating Americans about how their government works too! Please help us make GovTrack better address the needs of educators by joining our advisory group.

Would you like to join our advisory group to work with us on the future of GovTrack?

Email address where we can reach you:

Thank you for joining the GovTrack Advisory Community! Well be in touch.

Recommended Reading: What Percentage Of Republicans Support Trump

About The House Of Representatives

The United States is also divided into 435 congressional districts with a population of about 750,000 each. Each district elects a representative to the House of Representatives for a two-year term.

As in the Senate, the day-to-day activities of the House are controlled by the majority party. Here is a count of representatives by party:

Also Check: Why Did Democrats And Republicans Switch

Republicans Secure Half Of Total Us Senate Seats

WASHINGTON U.S. Republican Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska won reelection Wednesday, assuring Republicans of at least 50 seats in the 100-member Senate for the next two years, while leaving control of the chamber uncertain until two runoff elections are held in Georgia in early January.

After slow vote-counting in the northwestern-most state of the U.S. after the November 3 election, news media concluded that Sullivan had an insurmountable lead over Al Gross, an orthopedic surgeon who ran as an independent candidate with Democratic support. The contest was called with Sullivan, a conservative, ahead by 20 percentage points.

With Republicans assured of at least half the Senate seats, attention now turns to the two January 5 runoff elections in the southern state of Georgia.

Two conservative Republican lawmakers Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler now hold the two seats, but both failed in separate contests last week to win a majority, forcing them into the runoffs.

Perdue faces Democrat Jon Ossoff, an investigative journalist who narrowly lost a 2017 race for a seat in the House of Representatives before trying to oust Perdue from the Senate seat he has held since 2015.

Loeffler, who was appointed to her Senate seat in early 2020, is facing Raphael Warnock, a progressive Democrat who is senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

You May Like: How Many Seats Do The Republicans Control In The Senate

Govtrackus Is Taking A New Focus On Civic Education

Help us develop the tools to bring real-time legislative data into the classroom.

If youve visited a bill page on GovTrack.us recently, you may have noticed a new study guide tab located just below the bill title. This is part of a new project to develop better tools for bringing real-time legislative data into the classroom. We hope to enable educators to build lesson plans centered around any bill or vote in Congress, even those as recent as yesterday.

Were looking for feedback from educators about how GovTrack can be used and improved for your classroom. If you teach United States government and would like to speak with us about bringing legislative data into your classroom, please reach out!

Overlap With Other Forms Of Denial

Ultimately, the findings of this analysis show thatdespite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contraryclimate denial remains alive and well in the United States Congress, and its impacts are already costing lives. Furthermore, dangerous denial within Congress is not limited to climate change alone. By this analysis, 82 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and six U.S. senators are both climate deniers and members of the sedition caucusthose who denied the certified results of the 2020 general election and therefore supported President Trumps violent attempt to overturn these democratic results.*** There is also significant overlap between elected officials who deny climate science and elected officials who deny the reality of the pandemic that has sickened millions and claimed the lives of more than half a million Americans in the past year. In fact, as this analysis was being written, one congressman-elect and another congressman who had both cast doubt on the science around climate change died from COVID-19.

Members 1st: January 6, 2015 December 18, 20152nd: January 4, 2016; January 3, 2017

Read Also: Are There More Registered Republicans Or Democrats

Democrats Got Millions More Votes So How Did Republicans Win The Senate

Senate electoral process means although Democrats received more overall votes for the Senate than Republicans, that does not translate to more seats

Follow live updates on US politics

The 2018 midterm elections brought significant gains for Democrats, who retook the House of Representatives and snatched several governorships from the grip of Republicans.

But some were left questioning why Democrats suffered a series of setbacks that prevented the party from picking up even more seats and, perhaps most consequentially, left the US Senate in Republican hands.

Among the most eye-catching was a statistic showing Democrats led Republicans by more than 12 million votes in Senate races, and yet still suffered losses on the night and failed to win a majority of seats in the chamber.

Constitutional experts said the discrepancy between votes cast and seats won was the result of misplaced ire that ignored the Senate electoral process.

Because each state gets two senators, irrespective of population, states such as Wyoming have as many seats as California, despite the latter having more than 60 times the population. The smaller states also tend to be the more rural, and rural areas traditionally favor Republicans.

This year, because Democrats were defending more seats, including California, they received more overall votes for the Senate than Republicans, but that does not translate to more seats.

The rise of minority rule in America is now unmistakable

Senators Committees And Other Legislative Groups

Democrats win House, Republicans keep Senate

The Senates 63 members represent districts from across New York State. Senators belong to a single conference and one or more political parties.

Weve made it easy to filter senators by party, committee, and the other legislative groups in which they gather to consider the merits of proposed legislation and to better understand complex legislative issues.

Senator has new policy idea

Idea is drafted into a Bill

Bill undergoes committee process

Senate and Assembly pass bill

Bill is signed by Governor

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Arguments For Expanding The Number Of House Members

Advocates;for increasing the number of seats in the House say such a move would increase the quality of representation by reducing the number of constituents each lawmaker represents. Each House member now represents about 710,000 people.

The group ThirtyThousand.org argues that the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights never intended for the population of each congressional district to exceed 50,000 or 60,000. âThe principle of proportionally equitable representation has been abandoned,â the group argues.

Another argument for increasing the size of the House is that is would diminish the influence of lobbyists. That line of reasoning assumes that lawmakers would be more closely connected to their constituents and therefore less likely to listen to special interests.

Why Are There 438 House Of Representative Members

On this date, the House passed the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, fixing the number of Representatives at 435. The U.S. Constitution called for at least one Representative per state and that no more than one for every 30,000 persons. Thus, the size of a states House delegation depended on its population.

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Recommended Reading: Why Republicans Do Not Like Obamacare

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-are-in-the-senate-currently/

0 notes

patriotsnet · 3 years

Text

How Many Republicans Are In The Senate Currently

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-are-in-the-senate-currently/

How Many Republicans Are In The Senate Currently

Filed Candidates By Political Party

Republicans on track to keep U.S. Senate majority

The following chart shows the number of filed candidates by political party.

Easy Races Tough Races

In Arizona, Democrat Mark Kelly has held strong, sustained leads in the polls for months over Republican Sen. Martha McSally.;

He’s an astronaut and husband of former lawmaker Gabrielle;Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt in 2011 and became a gun-control activist.

In Maine, Trump has all but longtime incumbent Susan Collins. She appeared unbeatable until recently, winning;her last race, in 2014, by 37 points.

5 ways a Joe Biden presidency will affect Canada

She’s now trailing in the polls to the speaker of Maine’s legislature, Sara Gideon. Coleman said Collins is being pulled apart by the polarized politics of our time.

“She’s really tried to walk the line of being a moderate in the Trump era. And that’s just very hard,” Coleman said.

Are Senators Chosen By Popular Vote

Recommended Reading: How Many Log Cabin Republicans Are There

List Of Current Members Of The Us Congress

Congress has 535 voting members. The Senate has 100 voting officials, and the House has 435 voting officials, along with five delegates and one resident commissioner.

to find your representatives with Ballotpedia’s “Who represents me?” tool.

Us Senate Representation Is Deeply Undemocratic And Cannot Be Changed

Few, if any, other democracies have anything this undemocratic built into their systems.

Millhisers piece is named after that fact: Americas anti-democratic Senate, in one number.

GOP does better in lower population states

Works to the detriment of Democratic power

Its deeply undemocratic. Nothing can become federal law without passing the Senate.

Smaller states had to be reassured

Read Also: How Do Republicans Feel About Climate Change

List Of Current United States Senators By Age

This is a list of current U.S. Senators sorted by age. The United States Constitution requires Senators to be at least 30 years of age. Age does not determine seniority in the Senate.

As of August 29, 2021, 5 senators are in their 80s, 18 are in their 70s, 32 are in their 60s, 30 are in their 50s, 14 are in their 40s, and 1 is in his 30s.

The median age of currently serving Senators is 700921436488000000067;years, 339;days.

The median age of taking office for currently serving Senators is 51 years, 75 days.

The median length of their Senate terms to date is 700839925440000000012;years, 238;days.

Rank

United States Senate Elections 2020

U.S. Senate Elections by State U.S. House Elections

Elections to the U.S. Senate were held on . A total of 33 of the 100 seats were up for regular election.

Those elected to the U.S. Senate in the 33 regular elections on November 3, 2020, began their six-year terms on January 3, 2021.

On this page, you will find:

Information on historical wave elections

Don’t Miss: How Many Registered Republicans In Texas

How Is Senate Majority Chosen

Effect Of Republican Retirements

Republicans keep control of the House and Senate

Nathaniel Rakich and Geoffrey Skelley, FiveThirtyEight

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Many Republicans Mobilizing Against Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill

The bipartisan group of senators who crafted the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is preparing to take a victory lap as the Senate moves toward passing the bill in the coming days.

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said that he would vote against the bill, sharing an article that called it an epic binge of green subsidies and more handouts for states and localities.

Several Republicans in the House are also stating their opposition to the bill.

No one should support something that will serve as a trojan horse for the Democrats reconciliation package, which the White House wants to use to pass massive amnesty, the RSC memo read.

Washington Examiner Videos

Join Govtracks Advisory Community

Were looking to learn more about who uses GovTrack and what features you find helpful or think could be improved. If you can, please take a few minutes to help us improve GovTrack for users like you.

Start by telling us more about yourself:

We hope to make GovTrack more useful to policy professionals like you. Please sign up for our advisory group to be a part of making GovTrack a better tool for what you do.

We love educating Americans about how their government works too! Please help us make GovTrack better address the needs of educators by joining our advisory group.

Would you like to join our advisory group to work with us on the future of GovTrack?

Email address where we can reach you:

Thank you for joining the GovTrack Advisory Community! Well be in touch.

Recommended Reading: What Percentage Of Republicans Support Trump

About The House Of Representatives

The United States is also divided into 435 congressional districts with a population of about 750,000 each. Each district elects a representative to the House of Representatives for a two-year term.

As in the Senate, the day-to-day activities of the House are controlled by the majority party. Here is a count of representatives by party:

Also Check: Why Did Democrats And Republicans Switch

Republicans Secure Half Of Total Us Senate Seats

With Republicans assured of at least half the Senate seats, attention now turns to the two January 5 runoff elections in the southern state of Georgia.

Two conservative Republican lawmakers Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler now hold the two seats, but both failed in separate contests last week to win a majority, forcing them into the runoffs.

Loeffler, who was appointed to her Senate seat in early 2020, is facing Raphael Warnock, a progressive Democrat who is senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

You May Like: How Many Seats Do The Republicans Control In The Senate

Govtrackus Is Taking A New Focus On Civic Education

Help us develop the tools to bring real-time legislative data into the classroom.

Overlap With Other Forms Of Denial

Members 1st: January 6, 2015 December 18, 20152nd: January 4, 2016; January 3, 2017

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Democrats Got Millions More Votes So How Did Republicans Win The Senate

Senate electoral process means although Democrats received more overall votes for the Senate than Republicans, that does not translate to more seats

Follow live updates on US politics

The 2018 midterm elections brought significant gains for Democrats, who retook the House of Representatives and snatched several governorships from the grip of Republicans.

Constitutional experts said the discrepancy between votes cast and seats won was the result of misplaced ire that ignored the Senate electoral process.

This year, because Democrats were defending more seats, including California, they received more overall votes for the Senate than Republicans, but that does not translate to more seats.

The rise of minority rule in America is now unmistakable

Senators Committees And Other Legislative Groups

Democrats win House, Republicans keep Senate

The Senates 63 members represent districts from across New York State. Senators belong to a single conference and one or more political parties.

Senator has new policy idea

Idea is drafted into a Bill

Bill undergoes committee process

Senate and Assembly pass bill

Bill is signed by Governor

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Arguments For Expanding The Number Of House Members

Why Are There 438 House Of Representative Members

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supermusicstudent-blog1 · 7 years

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Selling out in the industry

In music the term selling out is thrown around a lot, but what does it mean? Selling out in music can mean anything from a band changing their style to their music being used in a commercial way. One band that was accused of selling out were Pop-Punk giants Blink-182. After the album Enema of the State was released long time fans of the band and genre claimed that the album started the decline of the Punk franchise. This caused such a stir in the punk community that Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten was asked to give his view on the band, to which he replied that “they should be a permanent feature on Saturday night Live” The rock legend also said they were a “bunch of silly boy” and that they were an imitation of a comedy act. When asked for his views on the subject Mike Dirnt of Green Day said “If there’s a formula to selling out, I think every band in the world would be doing it. The fact that you write good songs and you sell too many of them, if everybody in the world knew how to do that they’d do it. It’s not something we chose to do. Selling out is compromising your musical intentions and we don’t know how to do that.”

When bands are starting out then they may get picked up by a corporate company to support an ad campaign or even a festival. This can often be the main source of income for that band. All sorts of brands can be sponsors for festivals such as Doritos, Monster Energy and Rockstar Energy drink. In 2011 All Time Low released the music video for I Feel Like Dancin , the video was sponsored by Rockstar Energy drink. The video features a lot of Rockstar banners and people wearing Rockstar merchandise. Warped Tour in america is footed by Vans and presented by Journeys. The list of sponsors for 2017 include: Riserecords, Skullcandy, Hard Rock, Fueled by Ramen, Fearless Records and Blackcraft.

Starting out in a band can be one of the most daunting things that you can do especially when it comes to financing gigs and possible EP releases. If you don’t get signed by someone straight away then chances are you will be self financing everything you do from just a small bar gig to releasing an album. I spoke to Andrew Procter, the Milestones Guitarist and Brad Garcia, Safe to Say vocalist and guitarist to find out what it is like starting out in a band and how much they have had to self-finance:

A: Everything in the first two years of Milestones was completely self funded from recording our debut EP, touring, shooting music videos, online promotion and printing merch. Luckily some of us were in university or had jobs so we just used the money from student finance/wages to pay for all of it.

B: Literally every tour we do is self funded and being in a smaller band that’s still growing you’ll find more often than not that it’s VERY hard to make money. We have self funded every album or EP except our most recent, We had label support but still ended up spending some of our own money to afford doing it the way we wanted.

Artists all over the world may have been told that they have to change their music style in order to sell more. Labels may often ask artists to change their style of music because it makes the label more money and not necessarily the band or artist that is being told they have to do this otherwise they might be dropped. I asked Andrew and Brad if they had ever been forced by a label to change their style of music:

A: Our label has never directly influenced our music, when new songs are finished they want to listen to the tracks and will give us feedback both musically and lyrically but the majority of the creative control is ours.

B: We’ve been lucky to sign to a label that lets us be as creative as we want even if it means selling less records for them (SideOneDummy records)

The internet has become the biggest platform in the world for people to release music on. Whether it’s YouTube or Spotify there are new artists being discovered everyday by all kinds of people. There are many artists that have started out on the internet and gone on to sign record deals, they may have started out doing covers of their favourite songs and artists and then progressed to writing their own music. A great example of someone who started out this way is Patty Walters of As It Is, Patty started out creating covers on his own in his bedroom at home. He would film himself stood in the room with his guitar and a microphone and just sing the song, these covers ranged from classic Pop Punk hits like This is Gospel by Panic! At The Disco to rock versions of Disney songs. Along with his friends Patty formed the band in 2012 and consists of Benjamin Biss - Guitar and Vocals, Patrick Foley - Drums, Andy Westhead - Guitar, Alistair Testo - Bass and backing vocals and Patty Walters - Lead Vocals and Acoustic Guitar. The group started by posting up songs that Patty had written and Released four EP’s. They were signed to Fearless Records on October 2nd 2014, Following this the band released their first album Never Happy Ever After the following year and then in 2017 they released Okay. I also asked Andrew and Brad for their views on how the internet has affected musicians:

A: I think the internet is definitely an enabler for musicians just starting out, with so many different platforms for them to upload their songs/music videos it is a lot easier for them to connect with people

B:The internet is the best tool for musicians because you don’t NEED a label anymore to gather your fans and share your music. If you’re able to do it and go 100% into it via YouTube or whatever else, you’ll be just fine. You just need the non-stop content.

For many artists mainstream chart pop and commercial music is their main and only source of income. Chart pop is a great way for artists to become very well known and a household name. Some artists will allow advertising companies to use their music and maybe their image in order to sell a product or service. This can cause the artist to become associated with that particular thing, the artist can earn more money by doing this. Sometimes a mainstream artist can receive backlash because of the nature of their music.This form of music can put very young people in the limelight and this can become very hard on them growing up. When asked about their views on commercial chart pop andrew and brad had this to say:

A: Personally i love pop music, it has definitely changed and influenced so many new and upcoming artists for the better.

B: There’s a lot of nonsense but for the most part i love it, People don’t realise that it’s actually way harder to write a top 40 pop song that is just seemingly a chorus over and over again. There’s a real science to it.

When it comes to music the more experimental genres get so much more backlash from the public because of their controversial messages and meanings. Bands like Radiohead have received a lot of hate from the public due to their style of music. People hate on Radiohead because to them their style of music, for most, is not what they expect music to be, they aren’t mainstream their style is very experimental. The band do not fit into a certain box with in the music scene and they are a band that demand to be listened to and a lot of people do not like that. People often view music as a background track to their life and for most Radiohead do not fit into their ideal. I asked Brad and Andrew for their views:

A: I’ve always found experimental bands fun to listen to, especially because there are no limits in that style of music with it not following typical pop structure. It makes great inspiration for songwriting.

B: There’s also a lot of nonsense here but i’m usually most inspired by artists that challenge themselves and push (or try to push) boundaries.

Note: This was written way before the news of Andy leaving AS IT IS surfaced hense why he is still in as a member of the band

#music technology #selling out

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deadcactuswalking · 5 years

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 28th April 2019 (Jonas Blue, Lil Dicky, Rita Ora)

Top 10

We have a couple new arrivals this week, but the biggest story is still how this song clings on to the top spot, as “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus still at number-one for a second week, and both the meme and constant discussion surrounding the song continue to spread to the point where it’s a cultural phenomenon.

The rest of the top 10 is incredibly less interesting. “Piece of Your Heart” by MEDUZA and Goodboys is up two spaces to number-two. It could make a play for the top.

Lewis Capaldi’s “Someone You Loved” is also down a spot to number-three.

Down one position from last week is Billie Eilish’s “bad guy” at number-four.

Tom Walker’s “Just You and I” isn’t moving at number-five.

Avicii’s posthumous hit “SOS” featuring vocals from Aloe Blacc has boosted up six spaces to number-six, becoming Avicii’s first ever posthumous Top 10, as well as his tenth Top 10 in general, and Aloe Blacc’s third.

Up a spot from last week is the Jonas Brothers with “Sucker” at number-seven.

Russ (Splash) and Tion Wayne’s “Keisha & Becky” stabilises its spot at number-eight, down a spot from last week.

Elevating a single space from recent controversy is “Here with Me” by Marshmello and CHVRCHES at number-nine.

At #10, to round off our top 10, is “Talk” by Khalid, up a space and returning to the top 10.

Climbers

Wiley’s “Boasty” featuring verses from Stefflon Don, Sean Paul and Idris freakin’ Elba is up five spaces to #12, whilst “All Day and Night” by EUROPA featuring Madison Beer enters the top 20 at #14, up eight spaces from last week, becoming the first top 20 hit for EUROPA as a group, as well as Jax Jones’ seventh, Martin Solveig’s third as well as Beer’s first ever (Congratulations). Other than that, “Pretty Shining People” by George Ezra is up nine spots to #25, and his other song “Shotgun” is up seven to #30, so there must have been some sort of boost to the album sales, but generally, that’s all we have.

Fallers

We have a few more of these, or at least it seems these songs are more notable. “Giant” by Calvin Harris and Rag ‘n’ Bone Man finally gets its streaming cuts due to dumb UK chart rules and is down 10 positions to #16, whilst “Boy with Luv” by BTS featuring Halsey collapses 16 spaces down to #29 as K-pop always does, “Disaster” by Dave featuring J Hus is down six spaces to #33, whilst “wish you were gay” by Billie Eilish as well as “MONOPOLY” by Ariana Grande and Victoria Monet seem prepared for a premature exit, down 11 and 10 spots respectively to #37 and #40.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

I’m going to assume YNW Melly has had his streaming cut as “Murder on My Mind” is completely out of the Top 75 after dropping out from #38. Speaking of, “Options” by NSG and Tion Wayne has very unfortunately dropped out from #23 due to this dumb chart rule, which directly affects certain genres, i.e. urban music like hip hop and R&B (as well as EDM, for that matter) that is boosted prominently from streaming, from never having any longevity and not becoming as big as hits on the year-end than they deserve. “Options” would have been locked if it weren’t for this rule, as I think it would have lasted many more weeks. The other drop-out is from Ariana Grande and it’s “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored” from #39.

NEW ARRIVALS

#39 – “Carry On” – Kygo and Rita Ora

Produced by Kygo and Afsheen – Peaked at #8 in Norway

Yes! I finally get to talk about Pokémon! I know what you’re thinking, what? Why? It’s just Rita Ora collaborating with some massive EDM producer like she always does, and while you’re right, it’s for the Detective Pikachu film, which isn’t currently out but I am going to see it at some point. I’m excited to hear this soundtrack as well, although I’m not exactly expecting Kygo and Rita Ora to deliver anything particularly good, or interesting, or Pokémon-related for that matter. Pokémon songs for the anime films have never directly related to the film plots, though, and usually were kind of boring, motivational songs with very vague lyrics, which is understandable as they had to be rushed out every single year. Anyway, this is Kygo’s seventh Top 40 hit and Rita Ora’s 21st, which is impressive, and is it any good? No. Of course it isn’t, and I’m mostly indifferent on this tasteless drivel that EDM producers put out in general with female pop singers where it sounds like the singers have been artificially sped-up, with mixing that’s overly-drowned in reverb and an instrumental as dry as clay years after it is first moulded. The piano melody here isn’t bad, but it isn’t unique and doesn’t carry Rita Ora’s incredibly weak hook, and in general her performance here sucks, like that random “Woo!” she adds in that pauses the song entirely just to halt his momentum, to add nothing at all! There’s barely a real drop here, so it just feels like a constant onslaught of nothingness and high-pitched vocal samples, which I somewhat like for its effort not to make a club banger but rather a tropical house ballad straight out of the dregs of 2016, and it’s not the last new arrival we have that does that here, but this is the only one I’ll talk about in this episode, more on that later. Anyways, this isn’t worth much analysis. It’s dreadfully boring but it’s not exactly long and doesn’t overstay its presence for THAT long, I suppose, it’s just disappointing for a soundtrack that is supposed to provide the music for what is looking out to be a film full of personality with actors oozing charisma. I’m looking out for the Sonic the Hedgehog film’s soundtrack a bit more now, albeit just for the novelty of a Dr. Robotnik cover of “Gangsta’s Paradise”. Next.

#27 – “No Diet” – Digga D

Produced by Ghosty

Digga D is a UK drill artist, as most of the rappers we see on the charts are in 2019. I’ve only vaguely heard of him before, so I think it’s safe to assume that the extreme marketing for the song involving a lot of different companies and individuals, including Mixtape Madness, is what landed this on the charts as Digga D’s first top 40 hit, as well as the video which is about trafficking crack cocaine in Coca-Cola cans... sure. Anyway, is the song itself any good? Well... the beat is incredibly minimalistic like most UK drill, with just an ominous piano line as the backing for a skittering hi-hat and bass-heavy trap beat – those 808s, by the way, are pretty insane. Digga D isn’t really saying anything of interest or anything different than the other guys, but the beat is good enough to carry him a lot of the time, and I love his weird sounds he uses for the ad-libs. It reminds me of a British Migos, where instead of repeating the line, he just makes unintelligible nonsense words and stutters. The singing on the second verse is pretty janky in relative to when it appears in the verse, and while Genius says this and the supposedly playful lyrics are what sets it apart, I don’t see the juxtaposition here, I just think it’s kind of surreal in how bipolar this song feels. There’s an ominous, eerie and menacing beat, violent and braggadocious lyrics from Digga, and then a bunch of silly, humorous ad-libs over it. This song has an identity crisis first and foremost, and while we’re at it...

#24 – “Earth” – Lil Dicky

Produced by benny blanco and Cas—

Nope. No, sorry, not touching this one. I appreciate what it’s doing for charity but I have a LOT to say about this song and trust me, it is not overwhelmingly positive, so, no, I’m not covering this one, at least not like this, and not right now. I might do a full-length review at some point but I think it’s much more likely that I talk about this at the end of the year, if you get the gist. For now, to replace an actual review, let me just list the guest stars, because technically, this is a song by Lil Dicky featuring Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Halsey, Zac Brown of his eponymous band, Brendan Urie of Panic! at the Disco, common fungus Hailee Steinfeld, Wiz Khalifa and Snoop Dogg, Kevin Hart as Kanye West, Adam Levine of Maroon 5, Shawn Mendes, Charlie Puth, Sia, Miley Cyrus, Lil Jon, Rita Ora, Miguel, Katy Perry, Lil Yachty as an STD, Ed Sheeran, Meghan Trainor, mother-father gentleman PSY, professional basketball player Joel Embiid, Tory Lanez, John Legend, Bad Bunny, Kris Wu, Leonardo DiCaprio and the entirety of the Backstreet Boys. Does that count as a review for Lil Dicky’s second UK Top 40 single? I don’t care, I’ll talk about in length when I want to. Trust me, I’m planning ahead.

#23 – “What I Like About You” – Jonas Blue and Theresa Rex

Produced by Jonas Blue – Peaked at #1 in Belgium

Oh, yeah, this, okay, well, Jonas Blue exists, I guess, and I’m supposed to review everything he puts out because everything this dude makes charts... and sucks. I don’t really have a problem with the dude, but nothing he makes is all that interesting, and he’s the epitome of carelessly generic EDM and dance-pop. This particular track features vocals from Theresa Rex, Danish pop singer who you won’t know by name and she doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, but you will know the voice of from “Solo Dance” years back, which she had uncredited vocals on (I’m glad they stopped not crediting the vocalists on EDM tracks, especially since, you know, they do all the heavy lifting in terms of singing). The production here is pretty tropical, I guess, with some handclaps and a weak synth drop that has a few orchestral stabs to replace any unique instrumentation. None of the vocal melodies catch on yet and I’d much prefer “Solo Dance” to this. What else am I supposed to say? I know I’ve taken the easy way out with these two songs, but honestly we’re at a standstill in the charts right now where it should really be more interesting than it is.

Conclusion

Even if I didn’t review it, I don’t care, Lil Dicky and friends still get Worst of the Week for “Earth”, with Dishonourable Mention going to Jonas Blue and Theresa Rex for “That’s What I Like About You”, or something to that effect. In fact, there’s no Best of the Week or Honourable Mention, the Dishonourable Mention is tied as Kygo and Rita Ora’s “Carry On” exemplifies the exact same problem. God, what a crappy week. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more pop music ramblings and Top 20 rankings, and I’ll see you next week!

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lifeofkj · 7 years

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Semi-regular political linkspam: So that happened

I'm sure no one really wants to think or talk about anything other than the House's narrow passage of the AHCA today, the bill that's intended to replace Obamacare and dismantle our entire healthcare system in the process. It's terrible, awful, and terrifying for a lot of people; I don't expect to be affected in the short term myself, but the ripple effects could be tremendous if this bill becomes law. It's hard to know what the odds of that happening are. The GOP got away with this in part by rushing the AHCA through before the CBO could prepare its report on how much the updated bill will cost, and how many people it will affect, and that report is expected to be ready before the Senate can vote. It's also commonly thought that the House bill is too draconian to pass the Senate as-is, but if the Senate softens it up too much, it might not survive another House vote. (Never forget: the GOP got this bill through the House by insuring fewer people. I think about that, and compare it to Obama's fruitless efforts in 2009 to win even one Republican vote for the ACA, and it makes me want to cry.) But never underestimate what this group of thugs, bullies, and fascists is willing to do. That said, if you are feeling defeated today, I recommend you to this Twitter thread, which I found a small beacon of hope on a dark day. Friends, we were dealt a setback today, maybe the worst one since January 20th; it's okay if you need a little time to rest and regroup. But I hope you come back refreshed and ready to fight another day. The marathon continues. Some other stuff that happened:

Lest we think the Democrats are perfect, in the last couple of weeks I feel like they've been ramping up their chase of the Great White Male vote, with everyone from Bernie Sanders (of course) to Nancy Pelosi (oh hell no) stating that lack of support for abortion rights ought not to be a disqualifying factor for Democrats to support a candidate for office. *rubs forehead* Look, I get that being loud and proud pro-choice isn't going to fly in every single district or community, and people can have whatever personal beliefs they want. But when it comes down to votes and proposing legislation, Democrats had better not get all wishy-washy. Single-issue anti-abortion voters left the Democratic party a generation ago; trying to lure them back is only going to alienate the current party base, which is women and people of color, particularly women of color. As I suggested above, I don't really expect anything better from Bernie right now, but from Nancy Pelosi it's like a knife in the heart. At least Tom Perez got with the program, recently stating that reproductive rights are a non-negotiable issue for the DNC (note, annoying auto-play Bernie video at that link) -- but only after a lot of pressure, mostly from women.

Speaking of annoying auto-play Bernie, he has been everywhere lately, and I am tired of it. This article does a good job of summing up why.

It took awhile, but United Airlines finally made what feels to me like an adequate response to the incident in April when a passenger was forcibly removed from an airplane. New policies announced include changes to their rules for when flights can be overbooked, and last-minute changes to move crew, greater employee discretion in offering incentives, and an absolute ban on removing someone who has been seated on a plane unless there's a clear security issue. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better, as long as they follow through. (I still hope the guy sues for all he can get, though.)

Another day, another Trump appointee who wants to destroy the agency they've been tapped to run: Teresa Manning, who has been nominated to run the Department of Health and Human Services office that manages family planning, believes that contraception doesn't work. Perfect.

The House Oversight Committee finally started doing its job and is investigating Michael Flynn for real. In a statement released on April 25th, Jason Chaffetz said, "I see no data to support the notion that Gen. Flynn complied with the law." So-- that means he broke the law, then? As in, committed a crime? How about that.

Probably the stupidest "controversy" of the past few weeks is the handwringing over Barack and Michelle Obama getting paid to make speeches now that they are private citizens. Let me repeat that: as influential as they might be, they are PRIVATE CITIZENS. They don't hold public office, and Barack never will again (and I'd be surprised if Michelle went that route), so why the fuss? Oh right, because money is dirty, unless it's going to white dudes, in which case it's fine.

One recent bright spot was Bill O'Reilly losing his Fox News gig, due to advertiser pressure over the sexual harassment allegations that have dogged him for years. But I'd be surprised if that were be the end of it, and in fact Sean Hannity is facing new allegations already. Vox has a good video on Fox's culture of sexism that goes way beyond just O'Reilly and Roger Ailes.

Also good news: Morgantown, WV, recently swept a progressive city council into office. I also recommend this follow-up article on how they did it.

Here's a report on automatic voter registration in Oregon and how it dramatically increased turnout. A model for more states to follow.

The media has often tried to paint Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, as a moderating influence on the president, and this urge has only ramped up with the recent release of Ivanka's new book. Don't fall for it.

Today's fun link: The Sandwich Alignment Chart. "What is a Sandwich" is possibly my favorite low-stakes debate topic, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if we come back to this one.

x-posted from My Dreamwidth Journal | Feel free to reply here or comment there

#dw crosspost #politics #kj's political linkspam

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bluemoonpunch · 6 years

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I don't know if you saw but recently ikon's junhoe got into a controversy because he posted a photo of a gift from a Japanese director that is seen as anti-korea (similar to the guy who wrote the song for bts) and to make matters worse,when fans started telling him to delete he said he wouldn't and that people shouldn't tell him what to do. Anyways, he ended up deleting everything and posting two apology letters but I'm still worried about him since the comments from knets on this are pretty 1/2

bad. Could you do a mini-reading on how he's feeling and whether this event will have any long-term effects on ikon? They just started picking up steam this year and I would hate to see this ruined just because junhoe was trying to stand up for himself. 2/2

000

Well, in terms of how he’s looking at the situation, he doesn’t really care that much so I assume someone else, like a manager or something, told him he had to delete it. Like, he doesn’t see the issue, BUT he’s trying to and he’s trying to kind of take it as a bit a learning experience. Like, he gets he upset people, but he doesn't... understand why people are upset. It’s a perspective thing. That’s all what it’s in the top bit there in the middle.

In terms of how this is going to affect him, that’s all in the 9 of Swords, 4 of Swords, and The Fool, which to me basically felt like it’s just going to blow over. It’s going to seem really bad for a while, it might stress him out, but if he stays quiet about it, he’ll be forgiven completely and it won’t be a problem.

It’s affecting the group with that “stay quiet” thing with the reversed 8 of Wands and the 8 of Swords where they are all going to have a bit less freedom with social media and what they say, I guess. Like, that lady in the picture on the 8 of Wands is going to be them and they won’t be putting out stuff as much on social media for a while, I guess? Or at least it will be very closely monitored.

Overall, this boils down into the Page of Wands. It’s just sort of a mushed up bit of all the other sets. As long as they treat it as a learning experience it will blow over and no one will give a shit in like a month, lol. Although, he feels like he can be a bit snarky with his whole “Don’t tell me what to do” thing, lol. I assume he’s a Fire Sign or at least has some Fire in his chart in prominent places because, lol, that’s such a Fire energy thing to respond with. That kind of attitude could make him a bit defensive either publically or within the group/company, so he could get himself into more trouble. But as long as he just kind of chills and lets it blow over, he’ll be fine. :)

#minireading #junhoe #ikon #Anonymous

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kathleenseiber · 4 years

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Will COVID-19 force a rethink of America’s safety net?

If history is any indication, the economic fallout and increased political demands caused by the coronavirus could pressure government leaders into building a new safety net for lower income groups, new research suggests.

“However, the political possibilities that emerge from the current crisis will likely be colored by real world beliefs and prejudices about who is worthy of economic support and who is not,” says John Robinson, assistant professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis.

His research in the American Journal of Sociology reveals the contentious politics surrounding the federal initiatives of the 1960s and ’70s to broaden financial access for poor renters in communities of color, which unintentionally sparked the rise of state Housing Finance Agencies (HFAs).

The research focuses primarily on the Chicago metropolitan area from 1960-1975, but provides insight into how the current economic stimulus plan could unintentionally exacerbate racial and economic inequities.

Safety net progress and backlash

In the Chicago area and elsewhere, housing emerged as a core civil rights issue in the 1960s. The Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, passed in the immediate aftermath of riots surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., pledged $50 billion in credit to ramp up housing production for racial minorities and the poor.

The HUD Act created programs for racial minority homeowners and established the Section 236 program, which expanded credit for low-income rental housing. Both HFAs and Federally Insuring Offices (FIOs) played a key role in implementing the initiative: the former as direct lenders and the latter by subsidizing and insuring debt provided by private lenders.

Government leaders faced a challenging dilemma. They felt forced to expand housing production for poor, black renters to quell riots in American cities.

“While the policy made an immediate impact in terms of housing production, it also sparked intense outrage and backlash from white homeowners and local officials,” Robinson says.

“Feeding this sense of alarm was the common-sense assumption that rental properties occupied by blacks were financially worthless as collateral for mortgage debt and therefore only wasted public money. FIOs were accused instead of forcing taxpayers to absorb the financial losses of a broken and failing market, thereby transforming the federal government itself into the ‘slumlord of the future.'”

FIOs became the focal point of public scrutiny because they directly and visibly expanded government housing commitments without challenging the presumption that disinvested communities of color were financially worthless. Therefore, FIOs succeeded in broadening financial access for marginalized groups, but their efforts also “simultaneously reinforced beliefs that recipients were unfit for markets and therefore undeserving of economic citizenship in a market society, fueling backlash.”

Who benefits?

In contrast to FIOs’ highly visible and direct approach to policy, HFAs expanded credit in a way that relied more on smoke and mirrors: By using speculative financial engineering practices, HFAs encouraged the public to attribute the new housing production efforts to the financial markets rather than the state. These state-charted, private entities relied on the sale of asset-backed revenue bonds, similar to the infamous mortgage-backed securities that fueled the 2008 financial crisis, to fund low-income rental housing.

“Government leaders adopted these smoke-and-mirror tactics, rejecting other, more conventional ones, because they made housing transactions so convoluted and opaque that they became politically uncontroversial,” Robinson says.

“Many would-be opponents assumed these transactions to be economical and free of government interference. And they came to believe that this thriving new market benefited them more than it did poor, racial minorities.”

HFAs won out over the long run, largely avoiding controversy. But in doing so, HFAs missed an opportunity to push mainstream Americans to genuinely embrace racial and economic inclusion, Robinson’s study shows. Instead, these agencies framed policy in narrowly transactional terms that entitled whites to reap the rewards.

“Unlike FIOs, for instance, HFAs encouraged white and affluent bond buyers and suburbanites to see themselves as the policy’s true beneficiaries, which would trickle down to communities of color,” Robinson says.

His study concludes that smoke-and-mirror tactics “strain democratic oversight and public accountability, while disproportionately benefiting the white and affluent.”

Today’s crisis

“Ultimately, the rise of HFAs signaled a new policy context where government leaders increasingly use the market as a smoke-and-mirror screen for implementing policies that affect marginalized groups,” Robinson says. While his study eschews easy answers on policy solutions, it does shed light on the difficulties of making policies that effectively serve the most vulnerable populations in a society that heavily resents them.

“Compared to the 1960s, government leaders today face a crisis of much greater magnitude and must contemplate more far-reaching solutions: witness the recently enacted $2.2 trillion CARES Act relief package,” he says. “In the 1960s, government leaders decided that effectively managing policy tensions would require ceding power to the financial sector and convincing whites that they would be the new market’s true beneficiaries. Today, a similar race and class logic drives government leaders’ response to crisis via the historic CARES Act.”

Even though poor communities of color are hardest hit by the pandemic, their hospitals are disproportionately shut out of the bill’s health-care provisions, and their neighborhoods redlined by the big commercial retailers that supply testing, Robinson says.

People living in these communities are more prone to be deemed ineligible for a stimulus check because they make too little to file taxes or lack a Social Security number and—even when eligible—to having their checks seized by debt collectors or eaten up by predatory fees. And the big banks that issue credit under the CARES Act have passed over small businesses in these communities, favoring large, publicly traded corporations instead.

Progressive voices have proposed ideas about how to make policies more accountable to the communities that need them most. “Both in past crises and those today, advocates have pushed government leaders to revive existing safety net programs, like public housing, and also expand their use of new safety net tools that reshape private markets to better serve poor communities of color—for example, the National Housing Trust Fund,” Robinson says.

“But while these tactics are impactful and necessary, it is important to remember that they won’t address the baseline reality: Many people whose actions carry heavy political consequences for communities of color and the poor still view these groups as unworthy of American citizenship. And unfortunately, no policy can change that.”

Source: Washington University in St. Louis

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The Chase Files Daily Newscap 9/10/2019

Good Morning #realdreamchasers. Here is your daily news cap for Wednesday, October 9th, 2019. There is a lot to read and digest so take your time. Remember you can read full articles via Barbados Government Information Service (BGIS), Barbados Today (BT), or by purchasing a Mid-Week Nation Newspaper (MWN).

TIME OUT – A brief strike by Public Service Vehicle (PSV) drivers and conductors today prompted the Transport Authority to temporarily extend a controversial, five-minute waiting rule at the Constitution River Terminal. After the operators walked off the job over the “disrespectful” and “unreasonable” implementation of a rule, Transport Authority Chairman Ian Estwick announced an adjustment. The five-minute limit on operators to load their vehicles, will be doubled to ten minutes during the “slow period”, Estwick told Barbados TODAY. He said: “We have had some discussions and we have agreed that for the sake of continuity, the vehicles will be allowed to wait in the loading bay for up to ten minutes during the hours of 10 to 2:30 each day. But that is only for the off-peak periods.” The transit regulator’s decision came after a meeting with the Alliance Owners of Public Transport (AOPT) and the Association of Public Transport Operators (AOPT), the major bodies representing PSV permit holders, who all agreed that during rush-hour, the five-minute rule would stand. But Estwick stressed the temporary change would remain in effect until Sunday, when owners are set to hold talks with the Transport Authority at Solidarity House. Estwick said: “To the best of my knowledge, there is no problem with the five minute rule during the peak periods, so that’s where we are today and that will be in effect today. “The ‘ten-minute’ rule will be in effect until we have the meeting on Sunday at Solidarity House where it will be determined what will happen in the future.” The wildcat strike left dozens of customers stranded in the River Terminal, though it was not observed by all of their colleagues. Two Mondays ago, at meetings with the Transport Authority, APTO and AOPT, it was agreed that a final decision would be made on the controversial rule after the authority’s board meeting slated for Wednesday. According to reports, the strike occurred just after 11 when Smiley, a PSV operator, was asked to leave the terminal for challenging the rule. Smiley told Barbados TODAY he had been waiting in line at the terminal from 9:30 to nearly 12 and when he finally reached the loading bay was told that he had five minutes. With four people in the van, he refused to leave, arguing it was simply not practical and as a result, he was instructed to offload the van and leave the terminal. He said: “They called the police and told me to leave. I was going to leave and go to the back of the line, but the rest of men sympathised with me and said they aren’t working, because if it happened to me, it could happen to them as well.” William Darlington, an outspoken operator on route 12 said the “impractical” rule would affect the ability of PSV workers to pay their bills and even afford diesel. He told Barbados TODAY: “That is not good economics and I don’t think the country runs like that. “We walked off because of the disrespect to our colleague. He sat down in the yard for three and a half hours and you expect him to move with three people? That’s not fair. “We have bills to pay too. They have their job to do, but we have a business to run. This is no kindergarten thing.” Darlington stressed that the rule was most cumbersome in the off-peak hours. He said: “We understand the rules of the terminal and we are trying to follow the rules of the terminal, but everything is still going against us.” The route 12 driver said the state of affairs often leaves him feeling like a criminal. The strike resulted in long lines at the terminal and another line of commuters exiting to find alternative forms of transport, many of them confused and holding varying opinions on the strike. Tamika Wharton, who declared she is usually contented with the PSV service, told Barbados TODAY: “I don’t know what is going on but I guess they [operators] are doing what they have to do. “When I came down to town the vans were running, but now that I came back from the court, no vans were running. I have to get my hair done and I’m on my way to get to an appointment.” But another commuter described the strike as “madness”. “This is time for school children to be on the road, the buses will obviously be overloaded. So it will be hectic for people to get home, especially when you live far. This isn’t right,” he told Barbados TODAY. (BT)

GET BACK TO WORK – Public Service Vehicle (PSV) owners’ associations distanced themselves from Tuesday’s spontaneous strike by drivers and conductors at the Constitution River Terminal. The strike occurred amid talks between the Alliance Owners of Public Transport (AOPT), the Association of Public Transport Operators (APTO) and the Transport Authority about a controversial five-minute rule, which sparked yesterday’s agitation. APTO’s chairman, Kenneth Best, told Barbados TODAY: “For sure APTO did not support the action taken. “We have already communicated that to some of them but some have already said their spirits are gone and they are finished working.” Best said his association believes negotiations are the best form of solving problems and PSV workers should have been more patient. The APTO chairman explained: “As Mr Estwick said, we met them with counterproposals because you were only hearing that the rule can’t work without any alternatives being proposed to the Transport Authority and I believe we have to wait and see what is the board’s position. “We observed in the peak times, the five-minutes can work because you can look and see vans loading within two or three minutes. “One recognises the only problem is with the off peak where operators are of the view that they should not leave the stand unless they have a full load because they said the waiting period within the line is sometimes an hour or an hour and a half.” But he cautioned operators to be mindful that the new terminal was small, requiring vehicles to move continuously. Echoing Best’s group, AOPT’s attorney Shadia Simpson said the alliance, was hoping to forge a compromise for all amid discussions with the Transport Authority. As a result, she stressed the AOPT did not “in any way support the position of the operators”. Simpson added: “We are asking that the status quo remain and we are asking them to continue carrying out their functions until we are able to reach a compromise in this matter. “We understand there are some concerns in terms of the time period in which they are allowed to wait. “We have heard them and asked them to just bear with us until we are able to determine the way forward.” Simpson stressed that dialogue over a number of proposals currently on the table should chart the way forward and expressed hope the Transport Authority would move swiftly. Officials also discussed the busmen’s complaints that Transport Authority officials have refused to address their concerns directly and disregarded their day-to-day concerns, forcing them to take matters into their own hands. In response, Chairman Ian Estwick said the authority’s responsibility was to PSV owners, who held the permit. He said: “I could see how they would come to that conclusion but our responsibility at the Transport Authority is twofold. “We have a responsibility to commuters and we have a responsibility to the permit holders. We do not employ drivers or conductors, so we cannot negotiate anything with them directly. “We cannot go to them to make any decisions to the detriment of the owners, who are our permit holders.” While APTO’s spokesperson indicated the operators had their own association to represent their interests, AOPT’s Deputy Chairman Mark Griffith said their association would welcome an operator on its board. Said Griffith: We believe if the workers’ concerns are properly aired and vented, then the dialogue will be more meaningful. “The Transport Authority and the associations will have more information and be able to come to a better solution. “We would be quite willing to have a workers’ representative meet with us and sit with us and be present at meetings if necessary to put the position of the workers and lead to the best possible solution.” (BT)

GOVERNMENT GETS THUMBS UP FOR SANDALS STANCE – Minister of Maritime Affairs and the Blue Economy Kirk Humphrey is in full support of Government’s decision not to bow to the demands of Sandals Resorts International (SRI). Work on the $800 million Beaches property in Heywood’s, St Peter has ground to a halt, as Government and STI have failed to reach agreement on the concessions that had been offered to the hotel chain by the former administration. At the root of the deadlock is a claim by Government that late last year Sandals asked for assurances that its original deal, signed with the former Freundel Stuart administration in 2013, would not be changed by any future Government. However, Minister of Tourism Kerrie Symmonds made it clear that no such concession would be granted. Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday as he opened debate on the Shipping Incentives (Amendment) Bill, Humphrey, in clear reference to that matter, said he was in total agreement with Government. “There has been some conversation around concessions and how much concessions people want and how much they should receive. I understand the need to have concessions but we have to be careful because you can’t give away everything. My mother used to tell me that if you give away all you got you have to buy all that you want,” he said. “We know that we can’t give away all that we have, but we offer a balance in terms of the concessions that we offer to invite people to do business, but not in a way that will hurt this country. And that is why I am very proud of the stance that the Government has taken – the one that the Minister of Tourism has also taken in relation to how we engage. “Yes, we want your business, but at the same time it cannot be at the cost of ordinary Barbadians and I am very proud of the stance we have taken in relation to that other matter,” he added. In relation to the Bill, Humphrey said the amendments would reduce the length of time for carrying forward losses for the purpose of the assessment of income tax – from nine years to seven years – and for reducing the rate applicable to the deductions that can be claimed in respect to the income tax – from 150 per cent to 100 per cent. Humphrey said the “small” amendments would not affect Barbados�� ability to offer an attractive tourism and shipping sector. “Considering that this Bill first came in 1982 under a [Barbados] Labour Party Government, we are still keeping faith with that which the Labour Party had always intended, which is to allow us to open up our tourism sector to invite a diversified tourism product and to be offering cutting edge services in the tourism sphere,” he said. (BT)

TIME TO REGULATE BANK CHARGES – A Government Minister has called on fellow lawmakers to review fees charged by commercial banks in Barbados and put a policy in place to regulate them. Minister of Transport Dr William Duguid gave the hint on Tuesday as he joined debate on the Shipping Incentives Amendment Bill, which was later passed. Without naming the individual or the bank, Duguid said he received a message on Tuesday morning from a concerned resident “that a particular bank in this country is now changing how they charge [small businesses]”. Duguid said: “In the past when a company goes to make a deposit they used to charge you a service fee of $10, but there is now a particular bank in this country that wants to change that and say ‘we are not going to charge you a flat rate of $10, but we are going to charge you a per cent on what you deposit’. But that can’t be fair Mr Speaker. It can’t be fair.” He complained that as Government tried to support the growth of small businesses so they could “do the right thing”, employ people and invest in the country, the banks were “clawing away” at them. He said: “So the banking system in this country we need to look at it, it cannot continue like that. “I hope that the banks are listening, and I hope they rescind that position and come with something better because it cannot be wherever you go they are going to grind and grind small businesses in this country. “We cannot allow it and it is something we have to look at because this Government is here for the people of this country, and if we have to protect them against the banks we should be doing that.” He argued that the “banks have done well in Barbados, all of them have done well; if they weren’t doing well they wouldn’t be here, they would be gone. So if they have done well here they have to do well by us too”. The Central Bank is the regulator of commercial banks in Barbados. Highlighting the meagre interest rates that commercial banks were offering on deposits, Duguid insisted that charging a percentage on the deposits made by businesses meant that the small business owners were losing out while the banks were benefiting all around. He declared: “You are paying them to hold your money, you are paying them to take the money that you are paying them to hold, and you are paying them every day on top of it for having the account. “Well, soon you are not going to have any money to give them, you are better off keeping the money under your bed.” (BT)

TIGHT LINES – Government will soon demand pleasure cruise owners to provide more security and fortify their boats to a higher standard, Minister of Maritime Affairs and the Blue Economy Kirk Humphrey today revealed. In a bid to ensuring the safety of patrons, Humphrey said that as part of the Shipping Incentives Amendment Bill will also require crew members to seek higher training. He said: “I have been having meetings with persons who operate some of our pleasure boats because they fall under shipping too. “I have been saying to them that we have to improve the security on some of these ships, we have to improve the quality of some of these boats. “Would you believe that you can captain a ship, but what qualifications do you need? “What are the formal qualifications you need to go and work on some of these ships? “You take young Barbadians who want to go and party on these pleasure crafts, you and your family go on these pleasure crafts and there is a need now to improve the skills of the persons who work on those ships.” Humphrey said greater assurances also needed to be provided by pleasure craft owners as it related to the safety of their vessels. He said: “We need to make sure that those ships are safe. “Every time that they leave the harbour we have to know that they are safe and that there is security in place to make sure that people are safe, because there is an increasing level of violence in this country.” Pointing to the shooting which took place in Sheraton Centre earlier this year the Minister declared: “If it can happen in Sheraton Mall it can happen anywhere.” While he admitted that Government would not be able to prevent incidences entirely from occurring, he said it was important those incidences were limited. Humphrey maintained that the lives of all Barbadians mattered. He said: “We are putting in place enough both in terms of guaranteeing the safety on the ships, but to put in place enough overall to make it tough and the penalties harsh and the system quicker to deal with people who do it. “That is what we have control over and that is what the Attorney General is now working on and that is what we are working on in maritime to ensure that when you get on a ship your life is not at risk… and it has to be done. “We have to make sure that these things are safe, subject to regular inspection, subject to consistent and persistent and proper training to make sure that the maintenance is done and there is a schedule and that if you want to continue to have your license you have to submit a schedule to the ministry because the lives of Barbadians matter. (BT)

PINE RESIDENTS CHI NHC – Three months after 17-year-old Kyrique Boyce fell 100 feet to his death when the cover of a well collapsed under him, a stone’s throw away from his Pine, St Michael home, residents are still not satisfied with National Housing Corporation (NHC) efforts to address the issue of potentially dangerous manholes in the state-owned housing scheme. They complained this morning that promises of follow-up checks on other wells had not been fulfilled, and even after rebuilding the concrete cover of the well into which Boyce fell, the NHC had not delivered on its undertaking to fence around it to prevent children playing on it. During the Barbados TODAY team’s visit to the area, it appeared the initial work on that fencing had started, with a pole placed at each corner of the well. One male resident said that the area where Boyce had died is now avoided by those in the community, but they still wanted the fence installed. “Before Kyrique died, I used to bring out some chairs and the TV and we used to lime right out here, but that does not happen anymore. So I can’t say that children are in danger or anything so, but we would like them to put the fence around it as they promised, because that well is 100 feet deep. “I was living here for [many] years and I didn’t know that it had such a deep hole behind there. My [two children] were playing on that same well the day before Kyrique fall in. They [NHC] come and build back the cover, they put down the four posts, and this is months now that they can’t come back and fence it,” he lamented. “It is not that they didn’t do a good job covering the well, but we just don’t feel comfortable with it open like that, especially since the fear is still there,” he added. Other residents told Barbados TODAY that NHC officials had promised to return to check on other well covers that were showing cracks and other evidence of structural fatigue, but that has also not been done. “There are two wells right now . . . where you could see the cover cracking up. They promised to fix those too. People need to remember that the same well that boy fell in, was an area that people used to walk on for years and nothing ever happen before – until it happened,” said a female resident, who also did not want to be identified. Boyce, a former student of the Daryl Jordan Secondary School, was on his way to purchase a roti on July 4 when the unthinkable happened. After the fatal fall, residents claimed they had been calling the NHC for over a year to repair the damaged well, and they lamented that it took the teenager’s death for the Government agency to respond. Barbados TODAY made several attempts to reach Minister of Housing George Payne as well as Minister in the Ministry of Housing Charles Griffith but to no avail. (BT)

CATCH THEM –Pollinea Gibson Toppin is praying that whoever killed her 24-year-old tattoo artist son Shaquille Toppin is caught and be made to feel the full weight of the law. Gibson-Toppin, who spent the past nine months struggling to come to grips with the loss of her son whom she described as an ambitious role model in his community, said that not knowing who killed her son or why, has delayed her healing process. Gibson-Toppin told Barbados TODAY: “Nobody has been found but I have confidence most of all in God, because when God say yes no one can say no. And I have confidence in God that the police are doing their best and that they are trying very hard. They call me and if I call they answer. “They do not ignore me and sometimes they pass to make sure that I am okay. I applaud them because they take time to listen to me and they tell me they haven’t found anybody yet but they are working. “So it may seem long to me or it may seem long to other people. But it ain’t long to God because God says what is done in the dark will be brought to light and I know one of these days they will reap what they did. I pray and ask God to forgive them, but they will answer for the wrong they did whether it is 15 years from now.” Around 9:55, on January 8, Toppin was gunned down just a stone’s throw away from his Danesbury, Retreat Road, Black Rock, home. This evening, as she reflected on his life, Gibson-Toppin said she would never forget the sound of the gunshots that riddled her last-born child’s body. She said: “I stayed in this house and hear all of those shots going in my child. I didn’t know it was my child until my daughter said to me ‘mummy, Shaquille now gone outside’. “I saw him when he came inside just before that happened. I believe that God brought him in for me to see him alive for that last time. “My son was a good boy, a loving boy, who died in the streets like an animal because of wickedness and wicked people. “Those guys planned, executed and killed my child, cold bloodedly, without any feeling. Ask them why and they don’t know. If it was because of jealousy, hatred or girls, whatever, it ain’t worth it.” Noting that grieving over the loss of her child has been one of the most difficult moments of her life, Gibson-Toppin said she is comforted by the fact that not a day goes by that she does not hear someone say something positive about him. She said: “It is always something good to hear about him. People would say he was so humble, and he was so nice. “People would say he was so handsome and he had a beautiful smile that would light up the whole place. Even men talk about that smile. Everybody say to me he was so kind.” As she sat on her patio wearing one of Toppin’s hats and embracing a framed picture of his face which looks a lot like hers, the mother spoke about how proud she was of his accomplishments. She spoke about how her son who loved to draw got involved in the tattoo business, and eventually built his own parlour with money out of his pockets. She said it was the many customers that visited Shaquille’s parlour, that taught her how much young people love tattoos. The mother said she held her son in high regard for his willingness to work hard and long hours to earn an honest dollar. She said he often brought a smile to her face, whenever he encouraged other young people who seemed to be travelling down the wrong path in life, to make the right turn. She said: “I always knew God, but I know him now for sure because there comes a time in your life when you have to really know God. We does play the fool but there comes a time that God put you on your knees that you have to humble yourself and look to Him. “This is my time and I wouldn’t like this for my worst enemy. We hear people children get kill and we say he is a bad boy. But that’s somebody child that you kill and God didn’t tell you to kill people. Vengeance is God’s, not yours. “Don’t care how bad a child is, you don’t have the right to take his life. Nobody knows how it feels like a mother. Even if that child is a bad boy, he is a good boy to his mother because she born him. “When I use to hear… children get kill, I use to say ‘Lord have mercy’. But now it hit home, I know how it is, and I wouldn’t like it for my worst enemy. “I don’t know why they kill him, only them and God knows why. But one of these days everybody will know why.” (BT)

SEX INDUSTRY EXEC WORRIES ABOUT ‘CHILD SEX TOURISM’ – Barbados is in real danger of becoming the number one sex tourism destination in the Caribbean for paedophiles, a veteran adult industry official has warned. The head of the Adult Industry Association (AIA) Charlie Spice also cautioned the Mia Mottley administration that Barbados was on target to be infamous as the country with the highest rate of underage sex in schools. He also revealed that child prostitution and sex trafficking were growing exponentially across the country. Spice noted that over the past two to three years, countless numbers of videos have been circulating via WhatsApp and other social media platforms, depicting school girls in Barbados performing sexual acts. “What is even more alarming is that some of these kids are having sex in their school uniforms, which is highly disgraceful and disrespectful to their schools, their teachers and their parents,” he said. Spice told Barbados TODAY that he knows more than most people about the level of sexual activities among children and other young people because they confide in him as head of the adult industry thinking he would condone their behaviour. “It really upsets me what is going on in this country. So many of these videos are coming to me. “I probably get to see more…perhaps all of these videos and a lot more than most people because people seem to think because I am in the adult industry, I condone this sort of behaviour. “I delete them right away because I more so than anyone else know it is illegal to store child pornography and it is also illegal to transmit it to other people,” he told Barbados TODAY. Spice also revealed: “I am inundated with young girls in the streets in Bridgetown and wherever I go, bragging to me that they were having sex and bragging to me that they are involved in the commercial sex activities. “So I know more than people about what is going on with this situation.” Spice declared he is tired of school teachers and parents brushing the situation under the carpet because it is not their child or student in the video. “Or perhaps it is just one kid from a school and the headmaster or headmistress will deal with that as an isolated case not realizing the gravitas of the situation,” the adult industry leader declared. But Spice told Barbados TODAY that going public is just the beginning of seeking to bring awareness to this “alarming” situation and hoping for measures to address it. “I will be writing the relevant authorities directly and see if I can get some dialogue going. I would love to have some town hall meetings and attend some parent teacher association meetings because I am very concerned about this situation. “What upsets me more is that people think I would condone this type of behavior because I am in the adult industry,” an adamant Spice said. The adult industry official said the sex videos are not only circulated within Barbados, but are also shared worldwide, “thus bringing Barbados to the attention of paedophiles and child sex traffickers who are always looking for new destinations to exploit children. The last thing Barbados tourism needs is to become synonymous with this type of negative activity. Once acquired, a country can never rid itself of this reputation,” he warned. He stressed that for years, minors in Barbados have been sexually exploited by local men with impunity, as very few have been prosecuted for the heinous acts. He said: “With these videos of child pornography floating around social media, it wouldn’t be long before a global demand is created for little Bajan boys and girls.” He said this scourge gives rise to a number of questions such as “are the videos we get to see only a fraction of the number of school kids having sex; why have the morals, values and self respect of our children in Barbadian society deteriorated so low that they not only have sex in schools, but deliberately allow videos of these acts to be produced and posted on social media; are parents doing enough to stem this problem; and is the Government and the school administrators doing enough?” Spice said it is time for Barbadians to stop burying their heads in the sand and recognize that this problem is not isolated to a handful of children who happen to get caught via videos on social media. “Sexual activity among minors in Barbados is an island-wide problem within secondary schools and to a lesser extent, primary schools. “The impact is no longer just the spread of STI’s [sexually transmitted infections] and teenage pregnancies. Child prostitution and sex trafficking are now a reality and continue to grow exponentially on the island. “Barbados needs to take onboard the lessons learned by countries like Vietnam, Brazil, Romania, Philippines and India where these problems have existed for years to varying degrees,” he added. He appealed to the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Tourism, the Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF), Immigration Department, Child Care Board and other relevant organizations to develop and implement realistic interventions and sustainable solutions to address these issues. “The management of AIA is happy to offer assistance as required,” he promised. “This is also a warning to parents who brush this issue under the carpet because their children are not the ones seen in the videos. Are you sure your child is not having sex at school or elsewhere?” he asked. (BT)

I’M SORRY –Leross Burnett, who caused a pile up on the Barrow section of the ABC Highway last month, today told motorists he was sorry for his actions. But neither his apology nor his explanation was enough to convince a magistrate not to impose fines on him or strip him of his licence for half a year. According to evidence presented by police in the District ‘A’ Traffic Court today, Burnett, a resident of No. 114 Wanstead Gardens, St Michael, had damaged several vehicles while reversing his car in an attempt to evade capture by police on September 20. “I would like to apologise to the motorists on the road that morning, seeing that it was a dangerous matter [not only] for other motorists but myself as well, pedestrians, and more so the persons that were injured,” the traffic offender said before he was slapped with $1,600 in fines and disqualified from driving for the next six months. The 30-year-old’s apology came after Traffic Magistrate Granveney Bannister told him that his version of what occurred on that day did “not add up”. In fact, he described Burnett’s testimony as “a concoction” after hearing evidence from him and Sergeant Ian Maynard who was one of the lawmen on the scene that day. Maynard said officers were on patrol around 10 a.m., in a marked police vehicle, when they received information that the driver of a silver BMW was wanted in connection with several matters under investigation. The vehicle was travelling along the ABC Highway going in the direction of Hothersal at the time. On reaching the roundabout in Hothersal, police exited their vehicle and approached the car which was in the right lane. However, the driver reversed and collided with three motorcars behind his vehicle. Sergeant Burnett said the car then moved to the left lane, in which a small white truck, towing a trailer carrying a concrete mixer, was also travelling. “The white truck swerved to the left to avoid collision with the BMW. However, the right front of the white truck struck the motorcar. The BMW stopped about 15 feet away in the middle of the two lanes facing Warrens. The driver started to climb through the front right window and he was arrested,” the officer said. However, Burnett maintained that he was not trying to evade police that day. He said he was driving on the highway at about 60 kilometres per hour and had just engaged the cruise control when he saw a white Suzuki Vitara and felt an impact which caused him to turn around. However, he said, the brakes would not work as he had engaged the cruise control. It was at that time, he said, that he realised a car was chasing him. Burnett, who was represented by attorney-at-law Shadia Simpson, went on to say that it was only after he was taken to the police station that he became aware he had damaged three vehicles and that two people were injured. He admitted, however, during cross-examination by prosecutor Sergeant Kevin Forde that the damage to the other vehicles was caused because he was driving in the wrong direction. “I do not believe anything that the accused has said to this court. The accused is not a truthful witness in my opinion. He is economical with the truth,” Magistrate Bannister said as he handed down his ruling on Burnett who had previously pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention; driving in a manner dangerous to the public; and driving without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road. “There is nothing to disturb the guilty pleas as far as I am concerned. I am of the view that what the accused said is a concoction. You are telling me that you struck three vehicles on a highway and you do not know that you struck three vehicles.” Burnett was sentenced after mitigation by his attorney. He was slapped with a $700 forthwith fine or 70 days at Dodds in default, for driving in a manner dangerous to the public. He was also disqualified from driving all types of vehicles. If he breaches the order he will spend three months in prison. Burnett was also ordered to hand over his driver’s licence to the court by tomorrow. On the charge of driving without due care and attention, he was fined $450 forthwith or 45 days in prison to run concurrently. That same sentence was also imposed on him for the offence of driving without reasonable consideration for other roads users. By the end of the day’s sitting no one had come forward to pay the fines on Burnett’s behalf and he was taken to Her Majesty’s Prison Dodds. (BT)

MONEY THIEF REMANDED PENDING SENTENCING – A 45-year-old man who admitted to stealing Barbadian and United States currency from a woman earlier this week, is now at Dodds awaiting his fate. Richard George Walcott, of Block 3 C Fernihurst, Deacons Road, St Michael, pleaded guilty before Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant today to the theft of BDS$150 and US$130 belonging to Wendy Coleen Deny, between October 7 and 8. After prosecutor Victoria Taitt gave the details of his crime, Walcott told the court he spent some of the stolen money at the supermarket and gave some to his girlfriend. However, he still requested that his accuser be summoned to the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court since she did not see him “take up” the money.The convicted thief returns to court on November 5 for sentencing. (BT)

MAJOR MEDAL FOR BAJAN LIFEGUARD – For the second time since the award’s inception in 1951, a Barbadian has been awarded the Mountbatten Medal. National Conservation Commission (NCC) lifeguard, Terrance Hinds, who was designated the award in 2017, was officially presented with his medal by Governor General Dame Sandra Mason at Government House yesterday morning. The 44-year-old Hinds, who has been a lifeguard for almost 21 years, was overjoyed at being honoured. “I feel very proud. [It’s the] best moment of my life and I greatly appreciate it,” he said. (BGIS)

There are 84 days left in the year Shalom! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram for your daily news. #thechasefiles #dailynewscaps #bajannewscaps #newsinanutshell

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mysteriouslyzealouspandalov-blog · 6 years

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The Respectful Relationships Program Could Start by Respecting Parents.

New Post has been published on https://relationshipguideto.com/trending/the-respectful-relationships-program-could-start-by-respecting-parents/

The Respectful Relationships Program Could Start by Respecting Parents.

It would seem that the only relationship that isn’t respected by those rolling out the Trojan horse program Respectful Relationships into our schools, is the relationship between parents and their own children.

Once Christmas ends, the first billboards from Officeworks are up, reminding parents that it’s back to school in only four weeks time! Four weeks? Seems like four months!

And parents are responsible for everything when the lists come out. Uniforms, shoes, books, iPads. Helping their older children determine what courses they should do. Parents need to be informed about everything if they’re going to help their children.

Everything except when it comes to sex in the classroom, or the teaching of it, it would appear.

For the State Government of Western Australia, led by Premier Mark McGowan, has given the green light for nineteen schools to utilise various aspects of the Respectful Relationships program, all without any parental consultation.

It’s the same program that the far more (self-declared) progressive Victorian Andrews Government has been promoting in that state’s schools already. And more schools are to follow in Western Australia in semester two of 2019.

Yet all of this has begun without the involvement of the most crucial relationship in the mix, in terms of schooling, the one between parents and children.

McGowan is staying mum (can I even say that?) on which schools, and which aspects of the program are being rolled out. Which seems curious when there have been such controversies around the blatantly sexualised nature of the content being delivered through such programs, all in the name of respect, I might add (whatever that term means these days).

You would think the Premier, who, I’m led to believe, does not send his own children to a government school, much less one where this program is going to be taught, would seek to include all stakeholders when it comes to material that has such a blatant sexual and gender ideologies inbuilt, if not simply to allay any fears.

After all, such lack of foresight has blown up in the faces of other state governments in the past couple of years, with dubious links to dodgy sites being discovered, and a clear hard Sexular Culture agenda attached to seemingly innocent material being shown up for what it is.

But the quieter the government is about it, the more questions, and concerns it will raise. So how about it Premier McGowan? How about some conversations with all stakeholders when it comes to education?.

The stated aim of the Respectful Relationships program is lofty of course. The stated aims of such programs always are. It’s about breaking the pattern of domestic violence, and who could be against that after all?

Yet what does the Respectful Relationships program focus on? Here’s how local media in Perth reported the move to challenge “gender inequality”:

A business case for the program states that violence against women was partly driven by “beliefs and behaviours that reflect disrespect for women, low support for gender equality and adherence to rigid or stereotypical gender roles”.

The Education Department memo on the program stated:

“By challenging these drivers, we can break the cycle of violence,”

“Partly” is an interesting word isn’t it? Does “partly” mean 10 percent of violence towards women is attributable to stereotypical gender roles? 15 percent? 80 percent? And what are the other drivers? What percentage do they make up? We shall never know. When you’ve got an agenda, actual stats are not always that helpful.

And it’s completely ideological agenda purporting, much in the way the discredited Safe Schools program did, to be about safety first and foremost. And in this culture of all things safe, and bulldozer parenting, what’s not to like about safe?

Unfortunately domestic violence comes in all shapes and sizes and affects all sorts of families. My wife, with twenty years clinical psychological experience, has seen more than her fair share of cases. It’s traumatic, tragic and crosses all social boundaries.

And all sexual boundaries. For the sneaky, unreported, and underreported, truth, though reported to me by a former gay activist is that domestic violence among male gay partners is off the charts. In fact statistically, the percentage of domestic violence among gay couples is higher in heterosexual relationships, as this 2014 BBC report reveals.

Nothing particularly stereotypical about that.

Now it’s got to be said that the government has not yet decided which parts of the program are going to be utilised. Indeed the details are buried within a state government report. But the Year 3 material includes the following:

Provide a range of dress ups and toys to allow children to explore different roles and ethnic dress; put up pictures of women and men taking on different household tasks and gender roles in a range of ethnic groups. Read books that open up the possibilities about what girls and boys can be or do.

You can read the full report by Joshua Zimmerman here.

Let’s get it straight. A man doesn’t beat a woman – the women he lives with – because he is the primary bread winner in a traditional family who likes manly pursuits, wears checked shirts and jeans and boots, and doesn’t do enough work around the house, but will, after enough whinging, at least put the bins out on Wednesday night.

A man beats a woman because he’s a bully who likes power and desires to dominate someone, and he gets some sort of emotional release from his own fractured psyche through using his unrestrained anger to crush a readily available person within arm – and fist’s – reach.

And quite frankly it’s an insult to the thousands of working dads (and mums) who, in Perth, do live traditional roles in their marriages, yet who never lift a finger to their spouses, gay, straight or other.

And on the flipside. My wife went to work today, to a meaningful, fairly well paid job that has a high level of job satisfaction.

And me? I cooked the breakfast (it was a cooked breakfast), vacuumed the house, put out the rubbish, did the washing, went and did some of the grocery shopping. Oh and all with enough time left over to slap her around the face before waving her goodbye as she drove off.

Of course I did all of the above, except for that last part.

But here’s the point: In an irony of cruel ironies, there are many celebrated cases coming to the surface of domestic violence and sexual abuse among the most “woke” of our day who champion the breaking of those so called stereotypes, both within the church and without.

I could provide a long list, but let’s start with the Bill Hybels case from Willow Creek – a church at the forefront of breaking down gender barriers -, yet sexual control was at its epicentre.

And then there’s the even more dismal case, of New York’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, who proved, despite being a long term voice against sexual misconduct, not to be your friendly neighbourhood Schneiderman at all.

Schneiderman, a vocal opponent against Harvey Weinstein, was outed himself as an abusive sexual bully who pre-determined that his string of girlfriends liked to be punched and slapped, without him being polite enough to ask their permission to bruise their faces prior to indulging himself.

Which is not to say violence against women is not happening in traditional settings, for it surely is. But it is to say that is is completely simplistic, and insulting, to equate domestic violence with traditional gender roles.

Perhaps the WA Government, indeed perhaps the Premier himself, would like to address this matter across the more traditional migrant communities – and religious communities – in Perth and admit it is far more complex than the material purports.

But let me go on. The Year 9 material includes the following:

Write a range of the following words on the whiteboard: Massage; Cuddling; Kissing; Sexting; Holding hands; Vaginal intercourse; Oral sex; Masturbation; Touching genitals; Rubbing nipples; Anal sex; Pornography. Have students form small groups and categorise each into either “sex” or “not sex”.

“Excuse me miss, will this be in the exam?”

For a start, this completely misreads how conversations around these topics operate in a less than safe setting such as a school. For whoever determined that schools were safe? Such material completely negates the reality of the classroom, in which many students do not trust those within their own peer group with that sort of conversation, never mind their teachers.

So the young, late developing fifteen year old boy, who is shy and reserved, has to determine with the class jock, who already boasts about the blow jobs he’s had from girls in the school, whether or not oral sex is actually sex? Where’s the safety or respect in any of that?

And then it goes on:

Discuss with students the different types of sexual relationships, such as “going out together”, “hooking up”, “bootie call”, “friends with benefits” and “one night stand”. Have students write down an estimate of what percentage of their peer group they think have experienced some form of sex.

That’s a seriously impressive list of sexual relationships right there, although it admittedly does miss out on that rather minor sexual relationship that’s been doing the rounds in our culture for some time; marriage.

But I guess if you’re the stats girl in the class you might enjoy compiling that information as a percentage list, if you can brush off the catcalls from the class tool to put actual names beside each of them.

All this is to say two things: On what planet are teachers, who are not trained sex counsellors or psychologists, any better placed to led these conversations than parents? Not saying those are easy conversations to have as parents, but at which point do teachers assume the role of primary sexual overseer of students?

There’s something “woke” about our Education Departments these days, filled as they are with high level Boomers whose own sexual freedoms back in the sixties and seventies led us to exactly the toxic place we are today. They seem almost grimly determined to ensure that the next couple of generations are as screwed up as they were.

Once again it simply proves that progressive ideologies and governments either despise – or ignore – mediating institutions such as families. Rusty Reno, in his book Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society, points out that progressive statism constantly seeks ways to infiltrate and subvert the “mini-governments” in our culture that keep statism at bay; “mini-governments” such as family units and religious communities.

And in a year in which we’re going to see a double pressure on such mini-governments by the overreaching statist big-government. First there is the pressure of such programs being rolled out at a state level that will circumvent parental acquiescence, and secondly, there is the pressure of a likely incoming federal Labor government in Australia that is almost gleeful in its desire clamp down on religious educational institutions in terms what sexual ethics are permissible among their faith communities.

Above all else, statism reverses the relationship between governments and their people. The government is to be held accountable to the people, not the other way around. Big government loves to first loosen, and then reverse, the accountability structure.

Big government determines that stakeholders – such as parents or other groups of voters – would, if let loose, be uncontrollable, violence-inducing, uneducated types who don’t know better, and who need to be circumvented if any progress is to be made. Yet the sad fact is, in this country and throughout the West at the moment, the reality is the other way around.

It’s time for our governments to start showing some respect themselves.

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The Respectful Relationships Program Could Start by Respecting Parents.

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ramialkarmi · 7 years

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Inside BuzzFeed UK's 'brutal' jobs cull, where almost a third of staff were laid off after the site overreached

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti admits the company "invested more than we should have earlier than we should have" in the UK.

The NBCUniversal-backed firm made 39 British staff redundant in January, 23 of whom worked in the newsroom. A further 60 lost their jobs in the US.

The job cuts were quick and clean, as staff left with what a source described as "extremely generous" redundancy packages.

The upheaval is not over, however, and Business Insider understands that the company is looking to vacate its swanky London offices because they are too expensive.

Despite the difficulties, BuzzFeed's reporting has still set the agenda in January.

Late last week, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti admitted that his company overreached in its mission to figure out the future of journalism in the UK. To an extent, he was acknowledging the obvious.

BuzzFeed UK had just laid off 39 of its 140 employees when he told the Columbia Journalism Review that "we invested more than we should have earlier than we should have" during a "tough business climate" in Britain.

Sources in the company speaking to Business Insider fleshed out the situation, describing a bleak process which saw almost a third of the company shown the door in a few weeks.

Peretti's admission comes against a backdrop of missed revenue targets last year — BuzzFeed fell 15-20% short of its $350 million (£247 million) goal — and declining traffic.

ComScore figures show BuzzFeed UK hovering at just over 10 million unique users towards the end of 2017, down 20% since January 2015 (see chart below). BuzzFeed does, however, consider itself a multiplatform publisher and its website traffic is not its only measure of success.

Business Insider has spoken to a number of BuzzFeed UK insiders coming to terms with the unexpected severity of the cuts after Editor-in-Chief Janine Gibson once said there's a "genuine sense that we might just be ﬁguring out the future of journalism over here."

The redundancies were part of a global cull of 100 jobs, and the full scale of the impact on the UK was made clear in early December. US Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith originally said around 20 people would be affected in Britain, but this figure was revised up to 40 when the London newsroom was brought up to speed a week later. The Christmas party was also swiftly cancelled. Insiders were floored by the news.

Thirty-nine of 140 UK staff left, 23 of whom worked in the newsroom. Business Insider compiled this list of those willing to go public with their departure. By the middle of January, there was a flurry of "last day at BuzzFeed" tweets, as journalists publicly said their farewells.

In most cases, it was quick and clean (although not as brusque as in the US where staff were shown the door on the same day as the cuts were announced). BuzzFeed dished out "extremely generous" redundancy packages, according to one source, in exchange for silence from those involved with non-disclosure agreements. This kind of arrangement is not unusual in Britain if golden goodbyes exceed statutory requirements.

BuzzFeed targeted some obvious areas. Gone are its full-time staff in Scotland, while the website’s British science desk has been shut down. A layer of what an insider called "ceremonial" management was also stripped out, with founding editor-in-chief and Head of European Growth, Luke Lewis, the highest-profile departure.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) was on hand to assist members (there were around 44 at the company prior to the cuts) with legal advice, but said the redundancy programme was "brutal," and carried out without "any meaningful consultation."

Staff are still fighting for union recognition at BuzzFeed UK and the case is currently with the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), which will help define the terms of a group bargaining unit.

Two of the most prominent voices in the campaign for union recognition, Science Editor Kelly Oakes and news journalist Francis Whittaker, were made redundant this month.

They publicly disagreed with BuzzFeed's vision for union recognition, openly questioning management's characterisation of the way staff are organised and rewarded. You can read a summary their testimony here. Oakes and Whittaker declined to comment.

A BuzzFeed UK spokeswoman made clear that the redundancy programme was not linked to the ongoing wrangle over unionisation. She said: "BuzzFeed UK's restructure was driven by internal business needs. The timing of the restructure was unrelated to the CAC proceedings, which have been going on for more than a year. The restructure was part of a global company change."

One insider reflected that it was "weird and ridiculous" to wave goodbye to so many colleagues. "I am just gutted. So many talented people — couldn’t be prouder of the work we do," they said. It was a sentiment shared by others. Head of Celebrity and Entertainment Kimberley Dadds tweeted:

A lot of my very good friends and extremely talented colleagues are leaving BuzzFeed this week 😢 Which means you could be lucky enough to snap them up! Please do, you won't regret it.

— Kimberley Dadds (@KimberleyDadds) January 18, 2018

And the upheaval is not yet over. BuzzFeed UK will likely have to move out of its swanky central London offices, located practically next door to Oxford Circus station. Some insiders said the lease has become too expensive, but others pointed out that the space simply doesn't make sense with a smaller team.

There is also speculation over more job cuts in the future. "That should be the end of that, at least until some sort of round two," said one source.

BuzzFeed UK has still set the agenda in January

Some remaining staff were keen to move on from the narrative of cuts. It is noticeable that the majority of its highest-profile journalists remain in place. The London investigations team, for example, was kept intact under former Sunday Times journalist Heidi Blake. Politics was also left largely untouched.

The impact of its reporting has remained high in January too. Notably, BuzzFeed first reported TV news presenter Carrie Gracie's bombshell letter about the BBC's "secretive and illegal pay culture," which has reinvigorated the controversy around the gender pay gap at the British broadcaster.

And if evidence were needed that BuzzFeed is now a firm part of the British media illuminati, then it came only this week. Senior Political Correspondent Emily Ashton was elected chair of the parliamentary lobby, a prestigious position, which means she poses and fields daily press questions to Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman.

As Political Editor Jim Waterson noted, only four years ago, BuzzFeed was refused a lobby pass "because the parliamentary authorities didn't think it was worth having us in there."

And as Peretti pointed out to the Columbia Journalism Review, BuzzFeed is still a growth story. "We had another year of growth in 2017, but we’re always trying to grow more and faster. I would say we had a good year but not a great year," he said.

SEE ALSO: BuzzFeed is about to make a third of its UK staff redundant

Join the conversation about this story »

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bitcoinegoldrush · 7 years

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Cryptocurrency Influencers Accused of Aiding Pump and Dumps

Markets and Prices

Social media influencers are marketing manna, coveted for their highly engaged audience who hang on their every word. Sites such as Tomoson and Meltwater link brands with influencers who are eager to spread the word – for a fee. In the cryptocurrency space, however, where influential figures can send coins soaring via a single tweet, the practice is controversial. A number of prominent individuals now stand accused of promoting pump and dumps.

Also read: Investors Call Foul Play as Coinbase Parries Insider Trading Accusations

The Price of a Tweet

Cryptocurrency traders, who dispense advice which newcomers gratefully lap up, don’t give away their skills for free. They earn something in return, from buying their recommended picks before these tips are shared, and also via referral links to exchanges. These practices are at least transparent, and few would take issue with a cryptocurrency influencer profiting from their own knowledge. But what about influencers who do little more than shill a coin before sitting back and watching the carnage unfold?

One figure whose name regularly crops up when pump and dumps are mentioned is John McAfee. The maverick programmer and playboy has been a vocal entrant to the world of cryptocurrency and he’s been quick to spot its potential. Specifically, he’s been swift to spot its potential for lining his pockets. With a Twitter audience of over half a million hanging on his every word, he’s taken to pumping altcoins with aplomb. Telegram trading groups now encourage followers to activate McAfee tweet alerts so they’re ready to pile into the next coin he recommends.

The Dark Art of Social Marketing

Social media influencers are meant to disclose when they’re being paid to promote a product or service; numerous celebrities have run into trouble after failing to do so. The cryptocurrency world is murkier, however, exacerbated by its village-like feel, in which everyone seems to know everyone, and exchanging favors are all part of doing business. With influencers taking payment in cryptocurrency, transparency is all but impossible. Many thought leaders are happy to enter into such arrangements, but a handful have demurred, claiming to have turned down offers of $10,000 or more to shill tokens and ICOs.

Computer security expert John McAfee alleges his account was hacked.

Most influencers aren’t as brazen as McAfee, whose huge follower count and exhortations to buy trigger frenzies that cause small coins to soar before slumping almost as fast. Things reached farcical levels on Wednesday when the anti-virus software tycoon’s “Coin of the week” tweet was replaced by a flurry of tweets in as many minutes shilling various coins, all of which experienced flash pumps.

The last on the list, before McAfee regained control of his allegedly hacked account, was ripple, accompanied by the promise that it would soon be coming to Coinbase. It is presumably no coincidence that ripple then rose 8%, overtaking bitcoin cash to become the third largest cryptocurrency, with 24-hour trading volume exceeding ethereum.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Even when they’re not trying to manipulate markets, cryptocurrency influencers can unwittingly cause prices to fluctuate. This is especially true with coins that are synonymous with a single developer, such as litecoin and ethereum. Both projects’ leads, Vitalik Buterin and Charlie Lee, carry great weight on Twitter. Even a passing recommendation, such as Buterin mentioning Omisego or Lee praising Decred, has a significant short-term impact on prices. Morbidly, the untimely death of either figure would dramatically affect the markets. In fact, fake news of Vitalik Buterin’s death fleetingly did just that earlier this year.

Vitalik Buterin.

If influencers such as John McAfee are to be taken at their word, they are simply trying to raise awareness of promising cryptocurrencies. But even so, their actions inspire copycat scammers. McAfee has had to distance himself from numerous fake accounts ran by scammers seeking as much as 25 BTC to shill a coin. In the intertwined world of cryptocurrency, eliminating conflicts of interest and the power of personalities seems an impossible ask. Thanks to its market share and decentralized nature, bitcoin is largely immune from pump and dumps. For every other cryptocurrency, however, it’s open season, and there’s no shortage of influencers lining up to take aim.

Do you think it’s wrong for cryptocurrency influencers to shill coins? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Coincodex.

Need to know the price of bitcoin? Check this chart.

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The post Cryptocurrency Influencers Accused of Aiding Pump and Dumps appeared first on Bitcoin E-Gold Rush.

#Bitcoin #Bitcoin news

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nicholemhearn · 7 years

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How Regulation is Preventing Adults with Autism to Get The Care They Need

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been tracking the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) since 2000. As the chart shows, the identified prevalence of ASD among American children – especially boys – has been rising steadily. No one seems to know how much of the increase is due to greater prevalence of the disorder itself, or greater awareness and better diagnosis. It probably is a little of both. In any case, the number of people who were diagnosed with ASD in childhood and who now are entering adulthood is rising and will continue to increase.

Unfortunately, too many of those now entering adulthood with ASD are running into regulatory barriers that prevent them from getting the kind of care they need. This post explains the nature of those barriers and outlines changes that would help ensure appropriate care for all adults with ASD.

Origins: Deinstitutionalization

The widespread deinstitutionalization of people with mental illnesses has been one of the most dramatic changes in social policy in the United States since World War II. According to Dominic Sisti, Ph.D., an assistant professor of medical ethics and human policy at the University of Pennsylvania, the number of patients in state psychiatric facilities decreased from 560,000 in 1955 to just 45,000 in 2014, a 95 percent decrease in the per-capita institutionalization rate. (The linked article by Sisti and colleagues is behind a paywall, but a summary is available here.)

The deinstitutionalization movement was driven, in part, by new therapies that could be delivered outside an institutional setting and also by well-publicized abuse in mental institutions. There is no doubt that many people benefited, but for others, deinstitutionalization brought unintended consequences. For some, it resulted in “transinstitutionalization” to prisons, homeless shelters, and emergency rooms. For others, it has meant living on the street.

Needless to say, appropriate treatment is unavailable in most such situations, leading observers such as Sisti to argue for bringing back asylums. He uses the term in its original meaning as a place that is a safe sanctuary – facilities not simply for confinement but for the delivery of effective modern therapies. However, others, including Renée Binder, past president of the American Psychiatric Association, vehemently disagree – seeing care in settings that are closely integrated into communities as the only appropriate alternative.

The situation of people with ASD is somewhat different, because their transition typically begins not from an institution, but from their families. Still, as we will see, they, together with their parents and guardians, find the same challenges in finding an appropriate community or institutional setting for treatment. Understanding why will require a brief discursion into the law of mental health care.

The Olmstead decision and its divergent interpretations

In 1990, after the process of deinstitutionalization was well under way, Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which recognized routine institutionalization as an impermissible form of discrimination. In 1995, two women tested the ADA, Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson, who sued the state of Georgia for release from the state-run Georgia Regional Hospital. After the women were voluntarily admitted for a period to be treated for mental illness and developmental disabilities, mental health professionals had judged the women ready to move to a community-based program. However, they remained confined in the institution for several years.

The case eventually made it to the Supreme Court. In 1999, in Olmstead v. L.C., 527 U.S. 581, the Court ruled in favor the two women, holding that Title II of the ADA prohibits the unjustified segregation of individuals with disabilities. The court explained that “institutional placement of persons who can handle and benefit from community settings perpetuates unwarranted assumptions that persons so isolated are incapable or unworthy of participating in community life,” and that “confinement in an institution severely diminishes the everyday life activities of individuals, including family relations, social contacts, work options, economic independence, educational advancement, and cultural enrichment.”

That was all well and good as far as Curtis and Elaine were concerned, and Olmstead was liberating for thousands of others as well. From that date, institutional care would no longer be the one-size-fits all solution for the care of people with intellectual disabilities. In the years since, however, the federal government – acting through the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and the National Council on Disability – has interpreted Olmstead in a way that many think has turned the decision on its head.

More specifically, the controversy concerns the balance between treatment in settings that are fully integrated into the community and settings that are more asylum-like, in the benign sense of that term. DOJ, which places the headline “Community Integration for Everyone” on its page explaining Olmstead, explicitly refers to its policy as an integration mandate, not an integration option. The integration mandate is spelled out by the CMS in detailed regulatory language in Final Rule 2249-F and 2296-F, issued in 2014. The rules allow for a five-year transition period to full compliance, ending in 2019.

But the Supreme Court never intended to mandate community integration, as an analysis of the Olmstead case by VOR – a national advocacy group for people with ASD and other intellectual disabilities – makes clear. In particular, the decision specifies that institutional treatment is unjustified only when

[a] the State’s treatment professionals have determined that community placement is appropriate, [b] the transfer from institutional care to a less restrictive setting is not opposed by the affected individual, and [c] the placement can be reasonably accommodated, taking into account the resources available to the State and the needs of others with mental disabilities. (Olmstead, 527 U.S. at 587.)

The decision goes on to state:

We emphasize that nothing in the ADA or its implementing regulations condones termination of institutional settings for persons unable to handle or benefit from community settings. . . Nor is there any federal requirement that community-based treatment be imposed on patients who do not desire it. (Olmstead at 601-602).

Finally, it says:

Unjustified isolation, we hold, is properly regarded as discrimination based on disability. But we recognize, as well, the States’ need to maintain a range of facilities for the care and treatment of persons with diverse mental disabilities, and the States’ obligation to administer services with an even hand (Olmstead at 597).

In a concurring opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy was even more explicit:

It would be unreasonable, it would be a tragic event, then, were the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) to be interpreted so that States had some incentive, for fear of litigation, to drive those in need of medical care and treatment out of appropriate care and into settings with too little assistance and supervision. … In light of these concerns, if the principle of liability announced by the Court is not applied with caution and circumspection, States may be pressured into attempting compliance on the cheap, placing marginal patients into integrated settings devoid of the services and attention necessary for their condition.” (Olmstead at 610).

The trouble with ‘integration for everyone’

The trouble with “community integration for everyone” is that the autism spectrum – the “S” in ASD – is a very broad one. Some adults with ASD live normal lives in their communities with no ongoing supervision at all. Others thrive in the atmosphere of small group homes where four or five people live together, often working at suitable jobs, with the aid of one supporting staff member. But, there are more difficult cases. Here are some examples, taken from comments regarding the integration mandate submitted to the DOJ by VOR:

A profoundly intellectually disabled young man in a wheelchair who has no concept of hazards cannot maneuver his wheelchair independently in the community, but can [do so] on his own in a large intermediate care facility (ICF) with long, wide hallways, no stairs to fall down, lots of areas to visit, and plenty of caregivers, visiting family members, and volunteers to keep a watchful eye on him. In a small community setting, this young man would find himself bumping into walls and furniture with his wheelchair.

A severely autistic man prone to violent behaviors and elopement may be a danger to himself and others in a small setting. But he may find more freedom and independence in a large facility with more staff on hand to support his behaviors, more places to visit and activities to engage in, and in many cases, large grounds on which to take recreation where he cannot harm others.

A severely intellectually disabled woman with quadriplegia and a ventilator likely will not have sufficient staff to take her on outings if she lives in a four-person group home with the typical 1:4 staffing ratio. She requires 1:1 supervision in the community and possibly nursing support.

A severely autistic young lady with maladaptive behaviors may find a full work-day of supported employment daily in a sheltered workshop. She might be too costly to employ in a community business and her behaviors too hazardous to herself and others, which may severely limit the number of hours she is employable in the private sector.

The ICFs to which VOR’s comments refer are much larger and better-staffed than the community-based group homes favored by CMS regulations. Group homes typically house four or five residents in an ordinary residential home with one staff member on duty. ICFs are larger, campus-like facilities in urban or rural settings. Several such facilities are described in detail in this article from The Atlantic.

Unfortunately, CMS final rules establish “mandatory requirements for the qualities of home and community-based settings” that explicitly classify “intermediate care facility for individuals with intellectual disabilities” as “settings that are NOT community based” (caps in original). Theoretically, states can petition the CMS for exceptions if they can prove that specific ICFs “do not have the qualities of an institution,” but such requests are subject to a degree of “heightened scrutiny” that approaches outright prohibition.

As a result, it is increasingly difficult for providers to establish ICFs and for patients to obtain the Medicaid waivers to pay for them. Many ICFs have long waiting lists, and some states have no such facilities at all. Some supporters fear that existing ICFs will be forced to close as the 2019 deadline for full compliance with the CMS rules approaches.

If it were a close call as to whether community-based group homes or ICFs were the better treatment option, feelings might not run so high. Unfortunately, small group homes are completely unsuitable for some adults with ASD, especially for those with severe physical as well as intellectual disabilities and for those with tendencies to aggressive or self-destructive behaviors.

What actually happens to such people, as adults, under the integration mandate? Sorry to say, they all do not live happily ever after, bagging groceries during the day, watching TV at night, and visiting the zoo with their group-home pals on the weekend. In reality, they often cannot find small group homes that will admit them. If they do get admitted, they risk being thrown out due to inappropriate and sometimes violent behavior, or because of the inability of staff to see to their needs while also keeping up with those of other residents under a 1:4 staffing ratio.

Where then? Some cost-conscious government agencies think autistic adults should live at home with parents. However, in the words of Jill Escher, founder of the Escher Fund for Autism, “sitting in your room at home doing nothing or in your own apartment without on-site staff” is not real “community integration.”

And what happens if Mom can’t deal with the frustrated and angry outbursts of 180-pound, 20-year-old Jimmy as easily as she did when he was a toddler? What if she is injured while trying to do so? What if Jimmy accidentally hurts a stranger while he and Mom are out shopping? Situations like that trigger 911 calls. Those, in turn, as Escher points out, often degenerate into a cycle of emergency room visits due to aggressive outbursts, hospitalizations under restraint or sedation, incarceration, crisis care placement, and nursing homes. Such measures can cost much more than appropriately staffed intermediate care options and do nothing to improve the patient’s welfare.

Broadening the coalition

As the number of adults with ASD rises and the 2019 deadline for full compliance with CMS rules approaches, advocates for a broader range of treatment options, such as the Escher Fund and VOR, are increasingly frustrated, as are thousands of parents of children with severe forms of ASD. If these advocates are to be heard, they need to broaden their coalition.

It should not be hard to do so. After all, adult autism care is not an inherently partisan issue. ASD strikes without regard to parents’ political views. But drawing attention to the problems posed by regulators’ narrow interpretations of Olmstead may require changing the narrative.

Backers of current policy have seized the rhetorical high ground with their slogan of “community integration for all.” Liberals are drawn in by the words “community” and “integration,” while (as Justice Kennedy warned) conservatives are easily sold on small group homes and parental custody as ways of providing care “on the cheap.” But there are other ways to frame the policy debate.

Liberals need to see that “community integration for all” is a false promise, which, in practice, means care for those ASD adults who can thrive in small-group homes but neglect for those who cannot. Those who really want care for all might do better to shift the rhetorical focus to appropriate care and diversity of options. The goal should be to make it clear, to people who do not have close personal experience with ASD, that the breadth of the autism spectrum defies a one-size-fits-all solution.

At the same time, there should be a natural conservative constituency for a broader range of adult ASD care options. Surely, given all the conservative flame-throwing that has been directed at the individual and employer mandates of the Affordable Care Act, some of the heat could be directed toward the DOJ/CMS integration mandate.

Equally, conservatives who champion school choice (a policy that the parents of some ASD children have been able to use to their advantage) should readily embrace choice in care options for those same children when they reach adulthood. Finally, conservatives who advocate the elimination of costly and ineffective federal regulations in other areas of the economy should easily see the sense of lifting counterproductive restrictions on the allowable range of adult autism care.

Above all, the campaign for appropriate care and diverse options for adults with ASD should emphasize that such is the law, now. ASD advocates are not asking Congress to pass new legislation. They are not asking the Supreme Court to issue new interpretations of existing law. The Olmstead decision already explicitly recognizes the “need to maintain a range of facilities for the care and treatment of persons from nicholemhearn digest https://niskanencenter.org/blog/regulation-preventing-adults-autism-get-care-need/

#nicholemhearn digest

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gritgirl · 7 years

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HOW BTS & RICH CHIGGA RECONTEXTUALIZE ASIAN MASCULINITY IN AMERICAN AFTER “GANGNAM STYLE”

Until earlier this year, PSY’s “Gangnam Style” had held the position of most viewed video on YouTube for almost five years.Today, it has 2.96 billion views. It was the first Asian song to successfully cross-over to the American market, making it to #2 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart and even being featured on numerous talk shows and even the NFL. However, without the polished glamour and sex appeal of other pop songs, PSY’s success begs to answer the question: Why did so many Americans watch “Gangnam Style”?

While most people would attribute the song’s success to its comedic absurdity, others believe that there are more negative and nuanced reasons for an Asian entertainer to skyrocket to the top of the charts. Michael K. Park suggests that one reason for PSY’s popularity is rooted in how his performance reinforces the emasculated Asian male discourse in American media. In “Gangnam Style”, the men are unattractive and clownish (PSY, Yoo Jae Suk, and Noh Hong-chul are all professional comedians) while the women are hyper sexualized (e.g. 4Minute’s Hyuna, the women doing yoga, and female dancers in tight outfits.) According to Park, this juxtaposition emphasizes how Asian men are not only sexless but how that lack of masculinity is supposed to be funny. In addition, when PSY was featured on mainstream American television (The Ellen Show, SNL, and the Today Show), he was often not given the opportunity to introduce himself as an entertainer, and usually delegated to performing his comical horse dance repeatedly. Like how minstrel shows would entertain at the expense of African Americans in the early 19thcentury, Park argues that PSY joins William Hung, The Green Hornet’s Kato, and The Hangover’s Mr. Chow as Asian characters that are laughed at for who they are more than anything else.

Despite Park’s scathing analysis of America’s perception of Asian male entertainers, there are two Asian male musical acts that are gaining traction in the American music market: K-pop boy group BTS and even more recently, the teenage rapper Rich Chigga.

A hip-hop/R&B idol group originally marketed to Korean teen girls, BTS has exceeded expectations by becoming popular internationally and breaking numerous records for a K-pop group in Asia and the Western music market. Some of their greatest accomplishments have been: the Mnet’s Asian Music Awards (MAMA) 2016 Artist of the Year, Korean Consumer Forum’s Brand of the Year Award’s Artist of the Year and most recently, having 1 million copies of their new album “Her” pre-ordered. In the American music market, they won Billboard’s 2017 Top Social Artist award and sold-out their five-stop US tour earlier this year. The New York Times even published an infographic based on Youtube views from January 2016 to April 2017, that places BTS as the 44th largest music fandom in America. The fact that BTS sold tens of thousands of tickets from New York to Chicago in a matter of minutes shows that the group is certainly popular—but for a different reason than their Asian-American predecessors and PSY.

As a fan of BTS myself, I attest their popularity in America to the same reasons that K-pop idol groups flourish in South Korea. People enjoy listening to their music, admire their performances and learn more about their personalities through variety show and livestream appearances. In an industry saturated with company produced love songs, BTS distinguished themselves by being able to pull off the norm, but by also championing their self-composed songs about more controversial topics that affect young adults. The song “No More Dream” encourages their young audience to follow their true dreams, rather than those of their parents and society. Member Suga’s self-produced mixtape “AgustD” addresses his own experiences with depression and social anxiety. Their music video for “I Need U” depicts the members dealing with mental illness, violence and loneliness, as well as the joys of being in the moment, reckless behavior and friendship. Another music video, “Dope“, brags about how hard the boys have worked to get to their position as top artists and has reached 221 million views as of today.

Apart from the topics they sing and rap about, BTS have also differentiated themselves from the electronic pop songs that dominated the late 2000s (e.g. SHINee’s “Replay”, BIGBANG’s “Lollipop”, Super Junior’s “Sorry Sorry”, etc.) with their musical style by debuting as a hip-hop/R&B group. Hip-hop originated from minority-dominated American neighborhoods in the South Bronx rife with poverty. Since the 1980s-1990s, rap music has been associated with gangsters, crime, and violence–– qualities that are also associated with black masculinity. By crafting rap as their own, BTS highlights their own manliness and rough qualities in a similar fashion. Though their lyrics do not focus on the same topics, some of the imagery associated with American hip-hop has been adopted by the group: The chorus of “We are Bulletproof part.2” features the members singing “click click/bang bang” while they perform choreography that mimics pointing guns at the audience. BTS’s musical style is not only reflected in their music but also in their stage outfits. In their first performances, the group wore black shirts with gold chains, bandanas underneath snapbacks and basketball shoes (though still wearing eyeliner and stage makeup.) A performance trailer shows the members marching in formation, wearing military uniforms and dancing to heavy metal music with gunshots in the background. Even their marketing includes masculine imagery: “BTS” stands for the romanization of their Korean name, which translates to “Bulletproof boy scouts”, their official fan club name is A.R.M.Y., and their light stick is in the form of a bomb.

However, BTS (like many K-pop groups) usually changes their concept for every comeback; in terms of message, musical genre, styling–– and because it’s the topic of this post, even their masculinity. They appeal to multiple audiences for not only embracing their tough hip-hop image, but by also fitting typical beauty standards and boyish qualities expected of idols. Their fan club name A.R.M.Y. actually stands for “Adorable Representative M.C for Youth”. They partake in what some would categorize as effeminate: they wear makeup, sport brightly colored contacts and hair, and have performed in choker necklaces and scarves. And despite how this may clash with their rough, hip-hop image, their looks matter. This is because idols’ appearances and their objective attractiveness to their fans is an intrinsic part of K-pop: it is typical for a group to a have a designated member(s) who are “in charge of visuals”– the conventionally good-looking members of the group. It is expected of idol groups to perform cute actions called aegyo, sexy dances or even have their shoulders measured for broadness to appeal to fans. Commenters on YouTube videos of K-pop performances and online forums such as Reddit and NAVER mention the song quality and dancing just as frequently as they do on how idols look. In fact, when BTS attended the May 2017 American Billboard music awards, one of their “visual” members, Jin, grabbed attention for his good looks: viewers unfamiliar with the group labeled him as “the third member from the left”, which became a trending topic on Twitter. The group’s ability to straddle the lines of gender norms is a shift from the strict views that Americans have towards masculinity, mainly because in the K-pop industry these expectations are absent. What’s more is that fans from all around the world are loving it: Amazon and a Sony subsidiary have allowed pre-ordered or stocked BTS’s new album, their most recent single “DNA” has reached the #67 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week of Oct. 14. as well as other success on the World Album and World Digital Song Sales charts.

BTS’s rise to popularity in America, while record-breaking for a K-pop act, was based on grueling pratice and promotion since the members were teenage trainees. This is completely different from another Asian male musician to recently break into the mainstream market: an eighteen-year-old Indonesian rapper named “Rich Chigga.” His song “Dat Stick” has 69 million views on YouTube since its debut in early February 2016, went on to sell at least 500,000 units and lead to a nation-wide tour.

Though “Dat Stick” is a legitimate rap song, the track was originally only “half-serious.” Brian Imanuel, Rich Chigga’s real name, had been posting comedic videos on Vine and Twitter starting from age eleven and still wants to purse comedy as his long-term goal. In the music video, Imanuel wears a pink polo shirt and a fanny pack and is surrounded by three friends as they drive around, show off alcohol and hang out. In a reaction video that helped “Dat Stick” become viral, rappers (including popular artists such as Desiigner and Ghostface Killah) comment on the juxtaposition between the tough rap song and the fanny pack; presumably because a fanny pack is more often associated with someone’s middle-aged father, rather than an up-and-coming hip-hop artist. One reactor, 21Savage, comments “[The song]’s aight. Yeah. The music don’t match him, though.” Another rapper named Cam’ron says “This kid’s like 16. His voice is mad deep, he don’t look nothing like he sounds. It was dope though.” Despite Imanuel’s appearance, the rappers unanimously end up positively reviewing the song.

As it became a viral hit through Facebook newsfeeds and YouTube, “Dat Stick” gave Rich Chigga the achievement of being the first good Asian rapper to break into mainstream American music market. And though Rich Chigga was “verified” by other rappers, it can’t be said that the popularity of “Dat Stick” is solely due to his rapping abilities. First off, his name “Rich Chigga” immediately brings attention to race: not only his Asian heritage (even though he is Indonesian) and but also because it references the n-word. Many of the YouTube comments on “Dat Stick” are racist jokes that poke fun at how Rich Chigga differs from the Asian stereotype.

A big factor in “Dat Stick”’s appeal is the irony that Imanuel doesn’t look or act like the typical American rapper: but to determine whether or not his popularity is due to his race being used as a spectacle or his skills as a rapper are taken seriously is difficult to say. Could audiences enjoy “Dat Stick” because they think it’s funny to see what they perceive to be an emasculated Asian man spit hyper-masculinized rap? It’s possible. But it certainly isn’t as strong of a case for neo-minstrelsy like PSY in “Gangnam Style.” While Rich Chigga’s deep voice and lyrics are hyper masculine, this masculinity isn’t emphasized visually. But he isn’t emasculated either (unless you count wearing a pink shirt): there are no over-sexualized women and none of the boys do anything outwardly funny. Rich Chigga’s subsequent releases have followed this trend, with “Glow Like Dat” and very recently, “Chaos” having 25 and 5 million views respectively. It will be the success of these and future songs that will give more insight about what Rich Chigga symbolizes to his audience.

Unlike other Asian performers in the American entertainment industry, such as JabbaWockeeZ and Far East Movement, who have distanced themselves from their Asian identities by using sunglasses or masks, neither BTS and Rich Chigga attempt such precautions. Perhaps this is since they are from different countries where Asians make up most the population and did not grow up with the nuances of racism understood by Asian-Americans.

Neither Rich Chigga or BTS have reached the astronomical success of PSY, but they also do not match the emasculated Asian male stereotype as much as he does. BTS frequently highlights their masculinity in their performances, while Rich Chigga’s raps continues to attract millions of views. The popularity of both musicians could imply a changing American perspective about Asian masculinity for the better. “Gangnam Style” was released only five years ago, and these younger male artists’ entire careers have been made in even less time—if times are changing because of a new generation that challenges stereotypes, it could happen sooner than we think.

#k-pop #bts #asian masculinity

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