#its so interesting because theyre the first independent nation we see

[ms-all-sunday]

water 7 geopolitics.

water 7 is an independent citystate of the world government despite having a working contract with the world government they don't have to enforce their law because they're not under the world government

it's complicated, the laws are independent and the world government doesn't enforce their law 99% of the time because of the fact galley la could just stop making boats for them and that would be extremely bad

galley la is able to use the boat relationship as leverage politically to the detriment of the world government (this is why they got away with enies lobby no consequences style) as long as they keep making boats for them/in aid of the civil war on pirates.

water 7's political strategy protects their own independence while playing both sides in regards to the civil war on pirates, which you could argue is actively harming other nations independence of the world government (like wano)

[patriotsnet]

What Do Republicans Like About Trump

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-do-republicans-like-about-trump/

What Do Republicans Like About Trump

How Wyoming Voters Are Reacting To Rep Cheneys Leadership Battle

What should the Republican Party do about Trump?

Many Republicans, including McCarthy, have decided that the path to retake majority control of the House requires embracing Trump, which means either repeating his false assertions that the election was stolen or keeping quiet, neither of which Cheney has been willing to do.

McCarthy has long viewed Trump as important to helping him become the next House speaker and important to helping Republicans win the midterm elections said a House Republican aide who works for neither McCarthy or Cheney.

The aide described the leadership fight as “a s— show” and “something that should never really have happened,” expressing anger over its handling.

“I think it’s dumb when we always try to claim that we’re this big party that we’re pushing out someone who has a slightly different opinion,” the aide said, adding, “It’s just absurd to me.”

Another senior Republican congressional aide argued that Cheney was likely to be removed because she keeps publicly disagreeing with McCarthy, not because of her criticism of Trump.

“As conference chair, was spending more time bashing Republicans than Democrats” at the recent House retreat, the aide said, adding that McCarthy “was literally the only thing keeping her in leadership.”

Many Republicans have lamented that the squabble is distracting from anti-Biden messaging, which is what they say will actually help them in the midterms.

America Should Deport Illegal Immigrants

Republicans believe that illegal immigrants, no matter the reason they are in this country, should be forcibly removed from the U.S. Although illegal immigrants are often motivated to come to the U.S. by companies who hire them, Republicans generally believe that the focus of the law should be on the illegal immigrants and not on the corporations that hire them.

Democrats Think Many Republicans Sincere And Point To Policy

Democrats, however, were somewhat more generous in their answers.;;More than four in ten Democratic voters ; felt that most Republican voters had the countrys best interests at heart . ;And many tried their best to answer from the others perspective. A 45-year-old male voter from Ohio imagined that as a Republican, he was motivated by Republicans harsh stance on immigration; standing up for the 2nd Amendment; promised tax cuts.;;A 30-year-old woman from Colorado felt that Republican votes reflected the desires to stop abortion stop gay marriage from ruining our country and give us our coal jobs back.

Other Democrats felt that their opponents were mostly motivated by the GOPs opposition to Obamacare, lower taxes and to support a party that reduced unemployment.;

Don’t Miss: When Did Republicans And Democrats Switch Platforms

Religion And The Belief In God Is Vital To A Strong Nation

Republicans are generally accepting only of the Judeo-Christian belief system. For most Republicans, religion is absolutely vital in their political beliefs and the two cannot be separated. Therefore, separation of church and state is not that important to them. In fact, they believe that much of what is wrong has been caused by too much secularism.

Those are the four basic Republican tenets: small government, local control, the power of free markets, and Christian authority. Below are other things they believe that derive from those four ideas.

Republicans Cant Understand Democrats

Only one in four Republican voters felt that most or almost all Democratic voters sincerely believed they were;voting in the best interests of the country.;;Rather, many Republicans told us that Democratic voters were brainwashed by the propaganda of the mainstream media, or voting solely in their self-interest to preserve undeserved welfare and food stamp benefits.

We asked every Republican in the sample to do their best to imagine that they were a Democrat and sincerely believed that the Democratic Party was best for the country.;;We asked them to explain their support for the Democratic Party as an actual Democratic voter might.;;For example, a 64-year-old strong Republican man from Illinois surmised that Democrats want to help the poor, save Social Security, and tax the rich.;;;

But most had trouble looking at the world through Democratic eyes. Typical was a a 59-year-old Floridian who wrote I dont want to work and I want cradle to grave assistance. In other words, Mommy!;Indeed, roughly one in six Republican voters answered in the persona of a Democratic voter who is motivated free college, free health care, free welfare, and so on.;;They see Democrats as voting in order to get free stuff without having to work for it was extremely common roughly one in six Republican voters used the word free in the their answers, whereas no real Democratic voters in our sample answered this way.;

Don’t Miss: Have The Democrats Tried To Impeach Every Republican President Since Eisenhower

Emboldened ‘unchanged’ Trump Looks To Re

Across the party as a whole, an NBC News poll released late last month found, a majority of Republicans considered themselves supporters of the GOP, compared to just 44 percent who supported Trump above all, the first time that has been the case since July 2019.

But mild dissatisfaction with Trump isn’t the same as political courage. Most prominent Republicans have publicly aligned with Trump even as voter support erodes, and they’re buckled in for the long haul. That creates the opening for more traditional Republicans to toy with forming a new party but it’s a slim one.

Liz Cheney Of Wyoming

The most vocal House Republican to vote to impeach Mr. Trump, Ms. Cheney has borne the brunt of the former presidents wrath. Last week, in an attempt to narrow a crowded field, Mr. Trump endorsed Harriet Hageman, a former Republican National Committee member and a 2018 candidate for governor in Wyoming, in the primary against Ms. Cheney.

Former Trump aides have rushed to Ms. Hagemans side to prop up her nascent campaign and persuade other candidates to drop out of the race. Ms. Cheney has remained unwavering in her criticism of Mr. Trump, describing his unwillingness to accept the results of the 2020 election as a threat to democracy and defiantly daring Mr. Trump and his allies to bring it on.

If Harriet wants to cast her lot with those folks, Ms. Cheney told Wyoming reporters this month, I would note that theyre the same people who were involved in misleading millions of Americans about the election in 2020.

Also Check: How Did The Democrats And Republicans Switch

Republicans Almost Won In 2020

To torture this autopsy metaphor even more: Theres a good argument that the party is still very much alive.

Historically, parties have done more self-reflection and been more likely to change course when theyve hit electoral low points. In the 1988 presidential race, Democrats carried only 10 states and Washington, D.C., and that loss was their third consecutive failed bid for the White House. In 2008, Obama won the popular vote by 7 percentage points Republicans didnt even carry Indiana. So of course the parties were ready to rethink things after those defeats.

In contrast, Trump would have won reelection had he done only about 1 percentage point better in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and about 3 points better in Michigan. Republicans would still control the Senate had Republican David Perdue won about 60,000 more votes against Democrat Jon Ossoff in Georgias Senate runoff. A slew of court rulings that forced the redrawing of House district lines in less favorable ways to the GOP helped the Democrats win several seats otherwise, Republicans might have won back the House. Add all that up, and 2020 wasnt that far from resulting in a Republican trifecta.;

Also, Republicans did really well in state legislative races and gained ground among Black and Latino voters nationally .

related:What Did CPAC Tell Us About The Future Of The GOP? Read more. »

Trump Slams ‘wayward’ Republicans For Capitol Riot Vote

What Do Republicans Do if Trump Runs in 2024?

US Capitol riots

Former US president Donald Trump blasted “wayward Republicans” after lawmakers made a rare bipartisan push to investigate the Capitol riot.

With the support of 35 Republicans, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted 252-175 to look into the events of 6 January.

Party leaders had urged Republicans to oppose the bill, with Mr Trump labelling it a “Democrat trap”.

The bill appears to lack the Republican support it needs to pass in the Senate.

It seeks to create an independent inquiry modelled on the commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

The legislation establishes a 10-member body, evenly split between the two main parties, that would make recommendations by the end of the year on how to prevent any repeat of the Capitol invasion.

Trump supporters stormed Congress on 6 January in a failed bid to thwart certification of President Joe Biden’s victory in November’s election.

Wednesday’s vote was seen as a loyalty test to the former president for members of his party.

All 10 of the House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in the days after the Capitol riot for incitement of insurrection were among the 35 who voted for the commission.

In a statement after the vote, Mr Trump hit out at the “wayward” Republican group, saying, “they just can’t help themselves”.

“Sometimes there are consequences to being ineffective and weak,” Mr Trump added.

Don’t Miss: Who Is Right Republicans Or Democrats

A Ponderous Speech Poorly Delivered

In a ponderous, hour-long speech more akin to a State of the Union address than a nomination acceptance, Donald Trump alternated between ticking through his record as president and circling around, like a prize fighter, to launch strikes on his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.

It was a blunderbuss of attacks, of varying levels of validity, in the hope that some will draw blood – on trade, immigration, education, energy and foreign policy. But most of all, Mr Trump sought to paint Mr Biden as in league with the protesters on the streets and the more left-wing members of the Democratic party.

The setting of the speech was majestic – on the grounds of the White House and in view of the Washington monument.

The delivery from a president who thrives more on rousing rallies than rhetorical set-pieces, however, frequently landed with a thud.

How Things Got This Bad

6) The Republican turn against democracy begins with race

Support for authoritarian ideas in America is closely tied to the countrys long-running racial conflicts.

This chart, from a by Vanderbilt professor Larry Bartels, shows a statistical analysis of a survey of Republican voters, analyzing the link between respondents score on a measure of ethnic antagonism and their support for four anti-democratic statements .

The graphic shows a clear finding: The higher a voter scores on the ethnic antagonism scale, the more likely they are tosupport anti-democratic ideas. This held true even when Bartels used regression analyses to compare racial attitudes to other predictors, like support for Trump. The strongest predictor by far of these antidemocratic attitudes is ethnic antagonism, he writes.

For students of American history, this shouldnt be a surprise.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act cemented Democrats as the party of racial equality, causing racially resentful Democrats in the South and elsewhere to defect to the Republican Party. This sorting process, which took place over the next few decades, is the key reason America is so polarized.

7) Partisanship causes Republicans to justify anti-democratic behavior

This chart is a little hard to parse, but it illustrates a crucial finding from one of the best recent papers on anti-democratic sentiment in America: how decades of rising partisanship made an anti-democratic GOP possible.

Recommended Reading: How Many States Are Controlled By Republicans

How Americas Political System Creates Space For Republicans To Undermine Democracy

9) Republicans havean unpopular policy agenda

Let Them Eat Tweets

The Republican policy agenda is extremely unpopular. The chart here, taken from Jacob Hacker and Paul Piersons recent book Let Them Eat Tweets, compares the relative popularity of the two major legislative efforts of Trumps first term tax cuts and Obamacare repeal to similar high-priority bills in years past. The contrast is striking: The GOPs modern economic agenda is widely disliked even compared to unpopular bills of the past, a finding consistent with a lot of recent polling data.

Hacker and Pierson argue that this drives Republicans emphasis on culture war and anti-Democratic identity politics. This strategy, which they term plutocratic populism, allows the partys super-wealthy backers to get their tax cuts while the base gets the partisan street fight they crave.

The GOP can do this because Americas political system is profoundly unrepresentative. The coalition it can assemble overwhelmingly white Christian, heavily rural, and increasingly less educated is a shrinking minority that has lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential contests. But its voters are ideally positioned to give Republicans advantages in the Electoral College and the Senate, allowing the party to remain viable despite representing significantly fewer voters than the Democrats do.

10) Some of the most consequential Republican attacks on democracy happen at the state level

Republicans Will Defend Their Caesar But New Revelations Show Trumps True Threat

The DoJ has dealt two blows and the 6 January committee is winding up for more. They know democracy is in danger

Sidney Blumenthal: What did Jim Jordan know and when?

On Friday, Donald Trump received two more unwelcome reminders he is no longer president. Much as he and his minions chant Lock her up about Hillary Clinton and other enemies, it is he who remains in legal jeopardy and political limbo.

Trumps allies on Capitol Hill will again be forced to defend the indefensible. That wont be a bother: QAnon is their creed, Trump is their Caesar and Gladiator remains the movie for our time.

But in other ways, the world has changed. The justice department is no longer an extension of Trumps West Wing. The levers of government are no longer at his disposal.

Next year, much as Trump helped deliver both Georgia Senate seats to the Democrats in January, on the eve of the insurrection, his antics may cost Republicans their chance to retake the Senate.

Documents that would probably not have seen the light of day had Trump succeeded in overturning the election are now open to scrutiny, be they contemporaneous accounts of his conversations about that dishonest aim or his tax returns.

Those who claim that the events of 6 January were something other than a failed coup attempt would do well to come up with a better line. Or a different alternate reality.

Prospective witnesses before the House select committee on the events of 6 January ought to start worrying

Don’t Miss: Did Trump Say Republicans Are Stupid

Poverty Must Solve Itself

Republicans believe that poor people are usually poor for a reason, be it laziness, choice or whatever. Unless we demand that people pull themselves up by the bootstraps and solve their own problems, people will not be motivated to do things. Therefore, the issue of poverty cannot be solved by the government. Charity should be the choice of individuals.

Opinion: Cmon Republicans Its Time To Do The Right Thing On Health Care

When they went home for the July 4th recess, Republican members of Congress did one of two things: Either they met with constituents and were pummeled with angry questions about their disastrous health-care bill, or they hid out, trying to avoid their constituents so that they wouldnt be pummeled with angry questions about their disastrous health-care bill. Predictably, support for the bill among Republican senators is slipping away, which is not surprising given that this is the most unpopular piece of legislation in the history of polling.

So the time has come for Republicans to cut their losses and do the right thing. It wont be easy, but there are no easy options left for them.

Republicans need to admit to themselves that there is no great victory to be had. There will be political fallout no matter what the 2018 elections are going to be brutal but their choice now is between passing nothing, passing a bill that is so dreadful that it wins them the undying rage of the public, or a compromise that actually helps solve some of the problems they profess to care about.

What Republicans need to do now is drop the idea of repealing the Affordable Care Act and join together with Democrats to fix the problems in the individual market. Its not what they hoped for, but its a lot better than the alternative for everyone.

Also Check: When Did Democrats And Republicans Switch Ideologies

Republicans And Their Declared Positions On Donald Trump

Elected officials’ positions on Donald Trump Federal:Republicans and their declared positions on Donald Trump Republicans supporting Donald Trump Republicans opposing Donald Trump State and local: Republican reactions to 2005 Trump tape

In a typical general election year, elected officials readily line up behind their party’s presidential nominee. In 2012, for example, The Hill reported that only four Republican members of Congress had declined to endorse Mitt Romney by mid-September of that year. “All other House and Senate Republicans” had already endorsed the Republican nominee.

But 2016 was not a typical general election year.

Controversial comments from the GOP’s 2016 nominee, Donald Trump, about women, Muslims, Hispanics, and veterans who were prisoners of war caused some Republican lawmakers to distance themselves from the businessman, while others outright denounced him.

This page tracked the stances of Republican lawmakers on Trump throughout the 2016 presidential election: Did they support him? Did they oppose him? Or were they somewhere in between? The focus of this page is on Republican members of Congress and Republican governors, but we also have included some information on influential Republicans who have served in Republican presidential administrations.

[grogblogging-follows]

so i went to see wonder woman – here are my thoughts, spoiler-free

first off: i know gal gadot is Super Not Great and i don’t want to touch that whole thing with a bargepole because it’s really not my place. i went to see this movie because it’s the first female superhero movie & that’s really important to me, but i totally understand not wanting to support it because of her.

but on to the actual movie.

i have super super mixed feelings, honestly. im so happy there’s finally a female superhero movie, about fuckin time honestly, & i got !! at several points in the movie bc its a lady!! doing what only men have done so far!! yes!! nothing that bothers me abt the movie remotely takes away from this fact; the bottom line is, thank fuck this movie has finally been made, and thank fuck it’s decent.

diana is amazing. she kicks ass & the movie shows us how powerful, badass, skilled, and just straight up determined she is. i can think of the number of female protagonists who are allowed to be just as kickass as she is on one hand. it’s also important to note that she’s not just the “sexy badass” trope; she’s allowed moments of real vulnerability and uncertainty too. her acting isn’t the greatest, unfortunately, and she’s kinda shown up by the rest of the cast who are all great characters brilliantly acted. in comparison, her character (and acting) can feel a little one-dimensional, which is unfortunate, but not bad enough to really affect the movie all that much.

the plot is a superhero plot. it’s tropey and predictable, the twists can be seen from literally miles away, there are conveninent plotholes & movie logic all over the place, and the final, climactic battle is the least interesting fight of the movie. some scenes go on a little too long, some jokes are set up for a while but fail to properly deliver; in general the script could do with a little tightening up. it holds the movie back from being truly great, which is a shame, but again it’s not something that ruins it at all.

this is a feminist movie, there’s no doubt about that. diana is independent and has no problem telling men to fuck off when they’re trying to decide what she should or shouldn’t do. but. and there is a but here. there are several things that detract from that.

first is the costume design. all the amazons are gorgeous and badass and their armour leaves little to the imagination. it doesn’t offer good protection remotely (there are even a couple of examples of the infamous boob cups), and it’s iffy whether they’re even practical to fight in (short skirts offer a good range of movement, sure, but heels, diana?). as a feminist im kinda disappointed; as a wlw i had an absolute blast. the only thing that did really bother me about these outfits is the camera work: the first shot we see of diana pans up from her heels, in a classic misogynistic reducing-a-woman-to-her-appearance shot (we see her body before we see her face); later, when we see the amazonians fighting, and its like theres there women doing amazing athletic leaps and oh look! the camera was perfectly positioned to see her butt. great.

neither of these are Massive Issues remotely; i wasn’t aware of either of them really beyond the first couple of scenes. the rest of diana’s fights we get to see a whole lot of upper thigh but again, im gay, and also it felt like the camera was more interested in her skill as a warrior than her sex appeal. i might be wrong, but that’s my take away. she is sexualised in dialogue, though, with several references to how attractive she is (i counted three, i think? so not terrible, but enough that i noticed it).

another potential issue is the romance. steve (chris pine) is no white knight; he can hold his own in a fight but he’s nothing like diana, and she comes to his rescue on multiple occasions. but i did feel he got a teensy tiny bit too much attention in the movie. he’s not the main character by any means, but he is in almost every scene after his first appearance (pretty darn early on), and he does get several important story/emotional beats, as well as shared credit for a lot of diana’s achievements. i’d also be interested whether he has more lines than diana; honestly it might be touch and go.

the final thing that i noticed, and the only thing that actually properly bothered me, was the way diana was characterised as the source of most of the movie’s comedy. remember that video that went around recently about the ‘born sexy yesterday’ trope? y e p. diana has no understanding of our world, needing basic things explaining to her, and, worst of all, is into the very first man she meets ever in her entire life. her faux pas in this world are amusing, theyre sweet, theyre honestly even really pure and lovely at points, but there’s too much of it. i’ve been trying to work out in my head how exactly it differs from thor’s inexperience of the world in his first movie, which was also played for laughs. i haven’t hit on exactly how it’s different – although i know it is – but i think the sex thing definitely plays a part. diana implies she’s not a virgin (also the only line that implies she and the other amazons aren’t straight), but she’s consistently shown to be unexperienced, using weird terms for sex and relationships, being confused by courtship tropes, and arguably being unaware of men’s attraction to her. it’s not awful, and it does provide some of the only comedy in the movie (which gets pretty fuckin dark in places, it’s ww1 and it’s not pretty). i do think it’s handled poorly, and at the very least overdone, which is a real shame.

honestly, in a plot twist that surprised everyone, diana and the whole feminism aspect of the movie weren’t what i liked best about it. i’d only seen a bit of one trailer and no other promotional material, so i don’t know whether i would’ve realised this if i had seen more, but i was so pleasantly surprised to see not only how diverse the supporting cast was, but unfraid the script was to get real about racial issues. a first nations man talks about the atrocities committed against aboriginal americans and gets taken seriously; a french-moroccan speaks candidly about racism. i don’t want to big this up too much – these are both single lines, not the focus of a scene or anything – but i did appreciate that these moments were included. this isn’t colourblind casting; it’s great that half the supporting cast are characters of colour, but even better that this isn’t just passed over without comment or made into a trope or charicature. the movie did really well in this regard, i think, and i am really pleased to see it.

all in all, a historic film, a decent movie, disappointing in a few places but very pleasantly surprising in others. it’s not my favourite movie ever, and i won’t be rushing out to see it again, but none of its faults could ever remotely detract from my excitement at there finally being a female superhero movie. about time, y’all.

[alienvirals]

Hillary Clinton’s UFO investigation plans unlikely to achieve liftoff, experts say

The Democratic frontrunner has said she would look into alleged spottings as president but there may not be much to investigate

Hillary Clinton is entering uncharted territory in this presidential election.

If she wins the White House, she would become the first female president, the first spouse of a former president to hold the office herself, and, possibly, the first president to have devoted time on the campaign trail to discussing UFOs.

There are enough stories out there that I dont think everybody is just sitting in their kitchen, making them up, Clinton said in a radio interview in April.

A month earlier, she had appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show, correcting Kimmels use of UFO to UAP unidentified aerial phenomena. When Kimmel reminded Clinton that her husband, Bill, had looked for information while president and found nothing, she was defiant.

Well, Im gonna do it again, Clinton said.

The pledges she also told the told the Conway Daily Sun that she would get to the bottom of whether the government has tucked away information on aliens are exciting UFO enthusiasts.

But they are puzzling some experts on the subject.

Im not quite sure what she thinks there is out there, said Nick Pope, an author and journalist who used to investigate UFOs for the British governments ministry of defence.

Pope ran the British governments UFO project from 1991 to 1994 (the investigation unit was wound up in 2009). But Americas own dedicated UFO research effort, called Project Blue Book, ended in 1969, Pope said.

Clintons embrace of the UFO discussion has been credited to her campaign chairman, John Podesta. The New York Times reported that he ran an X-Files fan club while he worked under Bill Clinton in the White House, and wrote in a foreword for a book on UFOs that it was time to pull back the curtain on the subject.

Podesta was a counsellor to Barack Obama until February 2015. Upon leaving the White House, he lamented that no new information on UFOs had been released.

Finally, my biggest failure of 2014: once again not securing the disclosure of the UFO files, Podesta tweeted.

But Pope said there werent actually any UFO files. Since Project Blue Book ended, the US has not had a formal unit investigating UFOs. And the files from Blue Book are already available in the national archives.

Podestas statements, like Clintons statements, he said, imply something like in the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie, some kind of government warehouse where theres something above and beyond the old Blue Book files.

And as far as I know, he added, there isnt.

Pope said that there may have been ad hoc investigations done when pilots saw something unusual in the sky, but they were not part of a formally constituted research effort.

Ted Roe is the executive director of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (Narcap), an independent body that collects reports from pilots and radar operators on unidentified aerial phenomena, the term apparently preferred by Clinton. Roe suspects the government may not be telling us everything it knows.

Clinton told Jimmy Kimmel she would seek information on UAPs as president. Photograph: Randy Holmes/AP

He recalled that Leslie Kean, a journalist who concentrates on UFOs, made a freedom of information request to the government regarding an incident in Pennsylvania. The government refused, and a lawsuit ensued. The government lost and was ordered to provide the files and documents relating to the Pennsylvania incident.

Those documents were not forthcoming. She never did get them, Roe said. They claim theyre lost. So there may well be files that we dont know about.

But if there are questions over what Clinton expects to be able to release, there are also questions as to why she would be discussing UFOs at all.

I just cant understand what shes playing at, Pope said.

I cant see theres any votes in it. Its not as if theres some kind of swing vote middle ground thats desperately keen on this issue.

And its an absolute gift to Donald Trump, because you can almost see him up at that podium saying: Im committed to American jobs for American workers and reinvigorating the economy and my opponent seems to be more interested in space aliens.

Clintons interest in UFOs during an election cycle has raised the issue high enough that Barack Obamas press secretary had to field questions on Area 51, the secretive Nevada air base, on Wednesday. Josh Earnest said he was not aware of any plans the president has to make public any information about this.

Area 51 has become synonymous with UFOs and extraterrestrials among some enthusiasts. If there were UFO files, they would likely have information on anything stored in the base, and some conspiracy theories suggest the site contains parts of an alien vessel. Others suggest there could be actual alien remains.

Pope was not optimistic.

I would love there to be aliens, he said. The world would be a much more interesting place if we did have a spaceship in a hangar.

But A, without wanting to sound too arrogant, I hope that I would have heard about it through having security clearance and need to know.

And B, yes, I know we can keep some secrets but in these days of whistleblowers and Wikileaks and Snowden and Manning and Assange, all of that, youd think there would have been something tangible by now.

Roe, who has spent the last 16 years working with Narcap, patiently logging thousands of reports on unidentified aerial phenomena, is sceptical that any documents on alien life will be released any time soon. He said Clintons quest for information was likely doomed.

I dont know that a president is even in the need to know on certain aspects of security. This might be one of those subjects, he said. She may not ever know about this stuff or ever get the access to it.

And even if Clinton did come across evidence of extraterrestrial life, Roe warned that the knowledge would come with a heavy burden.

This is some serious, serious stuff and a lot of our best minds, like Stephen Hawking, have suggested that any exposure to an extraterrestrial civilisation would be catastrophic, he said.

It could be an extinction-level event.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

The post Hillary Clinton’s UFO investigation plans unlikely to achieve liftoff, experts say appeared first on AlienVirals.com - Latest Alien & UFO News.

from AlienVirals.com – Latest Alien & UFO News http://www.alienvirals.com/hillary-clintons-ufo-investigation-plans-unlikely-to-achieve-liftoff-experts-say-3/

[trendingnewsb]

Israels Ex-Prime Minister Ehud Barak Says Keep the Iran Nuclear Deal

TEL AVIVEhud BarakIsraels most decorated soldier, former army chief of staff, and former prime ministerwas in an introspective and relaxed mood one recent Friday.

Not surprising for a man, now 76 and sporting a late-age black beard, whose life began even before Israels creation and brought him to the states highest pinnacles of power. Also explaining the mood was the English-language memoir he has coming out this week in the U.S.titled My Country, My Life: Fighting for Israel, Searching for Peacea long and weighty effort, he said with relief, that interweaves his own personal and political journey with that of his nation.

A notoriously evasive interview subject, Baraks responses come out in torrents, like a university lecturer confident in both his own intellect and that of his audience. At various points during a long and expansive conversationabout Iran, Syria, Russia, the Palestinians, Benjamin Netanyahu, and morehe throws in references to Hume, Kant, Fukuyama and Jonathan Haidt, as well as the many Israeli and world leaders (Obama, Putin, Bill Clinton, Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, to name a few) he has worked with going back decades.

Hes not obfuscating necessarily, but rather patiently explaining, trying to convince, trying to make you see things his way. If hesitation creeps into his voiceif he feigns uncertaintythen its likely for a greater purpose. I do my best to open peoples eyes and make people aware of where this government is taking us, he said, jibing with his recent reemergence on the public stage as a fierce critic of the current Netanyahu government.

There are few in Israeli politics with the experience and gravitas to make a stronger case. Yet he himself has been out of politics for five years now, his last position as Netanyahus defense minister, a role his left-wing (Labor Party) base likely still hasnt forgiven. Its precisely this fact, though, combined with the reality that hes one of only three still-living prime ministers, that arguably gives him the most insight into the many fraught issues facing Israel today.

Take the perceived weightiest of them all: Iran. Barak, as defense minister from 2009 to 2013, was deeply involved in the run-up to the signing of the Iran nuclear agreement. Indeed, he, more than Netanyahu, was known to be a hardliner on the issue, even going so far as to ready Israel for a preemptive military strike against Irans nuclear facilities. For a variety of reasons it didnt happen, he told me. There was actually strong opposition from within the security establishment and also from the [Israeli] president and the media. A lot of opposition.

The Iranians are bad guys and they remain bad guys, but they have kept the letter of the agreement quite systematically [and] all in all it delays the new starting point or countdown towards a nuclear capability.

Ehud Barak

However, once U.S. President Barack Obama signed the nuclear deal with Iran, in 2015, Baraks thinking changeda point obviously relevant for the current moment. I think this deal was bad, I said it in real time, and other approaches should have been taken. But once it was signed its no longer a philosophical question, its a practical question. Is it smarter to tear it apart or keep it in place? he posited. And here there are many points of view on both sides. Theres a lot of logic in maintaining it in place.

The Iranians, according to Barak, are bad guys and they remain bad guys, but after the deal was signed and began to be implemented they kept the letter of the agreement quite systematically [and] all in all it delays the new starting point or countdown towards a nuclear capability.

Obama was an intelligent president, Barak went on, he understood that he took a certain gamble for the first half of the term of the agreement. Its clear that the Iranians would do nothing because they want to harvest all the benefits. But about the second half, its only a gamble.

If Barak had his way post-deal, Israel and the U.S.including under Obamawould have come together behind closed doors to hedge against the risk: bringing all their intelligence assets to bear on monitoring Irans behavior, finding agreement on what exactly would constitute a nuclear breakout, as well as clear guidelines for putting the military option back on the table. I thought we could do it, he said, but Bibias he repeatedly called Netanyahu, using his nicknamechose to do something else with the big speech [to the U.S. Congress in 2015] that I thought was a mistake. But thats all about the past.

This wasnt the only time during the conversation that Barak diverged from his former boss on Iran strategy (and many issues besides). Even Netanyahus public reveal last week of over a hundred thousand documents from Irans nuclear archive, allegedly obtained via a daring Mossad operation, failed to sway Baraks opinion.

As Barak put it, it was a truly remarkable intelligence achievement… and there was lots of material [there], but nothing thats new. Nothing substantive about what they did and didnt do that wasnt already known to intelligence for years now. Not one new item. In this respect, [Netanyahu] didnt bring what he should have brought, i.e. the smoking gun.

The best is always to be extremely calculated and perceived as totally unpredictable. In the real world thats not easy to execute.

Ehud Barak

Contra Netanyahus emphasis on Tehrans perfidiousness, Barak stressed that everyone knew the whole time that Iran is lying, and that was one of the reasons for all the arrangements in the nuclear agreement. Theres no proof that [Iran] continued doing things that arent permitted, he stated flatly.

Netanyahus performance, though, may have served a different purpose: to sway public opinion in general, and support Donald Trumps inclination to pull out of the nuclear deal on March 12 in particular. Barak assessed that this was almost a foregone conclusion, especially with John Bolton and Mike Pompeo now advising the U.S. president. For all that, he didnt think that the U.S. pulling out would necessarily spell the end of the nuclear deal (a multinational agreement, it should be remembered, between Iran and five additional world powers) nor that Iran itself would pull out and race ahead towards a bomb.

[The Iranians] arent backgammon players, theyre chess players, he said, using a clich that coming from someone elses mouth, with less direct experience battling Iran and its proxies, wouldve seemed trite. They are clever and self-controlled enough not to provide this excuse, especially to this wildcard U.S. administration. Irans real fear, he observed, was a direct military clash with the U.S. that would spell the end of the Islamic Republic; they would, at least in the early going, likely avoid giving Trump this pretext.

In the longer term, however, the U.S. leaving the agreement may provide Tehran diplomatic cover if it was caught violating the terms of the deal. The Americans started it, American behavior basically legitimized our own deviation, Barak said, channeling his inner Iranian official.

Barak freely admitted that this was all speculation: an assessment, to be sure, based on his time at the highest levels of global politics, but also a dangerous game. There was no guarantee that Netanyahu and Trumps wishesto apply renewed pressure on Iran, in the hope of getting a better dealwould work out. Wouldnt the chances of miscalculation and war increase?

The best is always to be extremely calculated and perceived as totally unpredictable. In the real world thats not easy to execute, he said.

Ive known Putin from his first day in the Kremlin, hes an extremely practical person, effective, with two feet well on the ground.

Ehud Barak

As with most Israeli officials who came up through the military, Barak maintains a remarkable equanimity regarding the prospects of potential future conflicts. He recalls, albeit as a young child, Israels first war, for its independence in 1947-48, and the American assessments that the fledgling Jewish community in the Holy Land wouldnt survive. Put in this light, the looming confrontation, for instance, between Israel and Iran over Syria and possibly Lebanon too isnt inevitable and nobody needs it, certainly not Israel, he said, but more to the point, were the strongest country in the region so if were compelled or coerced into a war well hit back very strongly.

The fact that this arena has come to the fore in recent months, with Tehran and Jerusalem now publicly trading threats and occasional direct fire, isnt helpfulhe wouldve much preferred to keep all of it out of the public eye and run through clandestine channels. Surprisingly, he had relatively positive words for the Russian role in Syria.

Ive known Putin from his first day in the Kremlin, hes an extremely practical person, effective, with two feet well on the ground, Barak said. Russian interests in Syria, supporting their client Bashar al-Assad, were complicated, he allowed, but that didnt mean that they were wholly in line with those of Iran or Hezbollah. I met with Putin more than once during the critical stages of the Syrian civil war we exchanged views very openly. We have to take the Russians as a fact, and a fact thats not necessarily unfriendly to Israel, he added. [So] Russia is not just part of the problemit could be part of the solution They could be a stabilizer if we find ourselves on the verge of deterioration or escalation.

Closer to home, Barak wasnt too alarmed, either, by the recent bloodshed on the Gaza border, or the prospects of increased violence in the wider Palestinian Territories come mid-May when the 70th anniversary of Israels independence and what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe, coincides with the move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

We should never underestimate anything, but we also shouldnt be alarmed by everything. You need to walk between those two lines, Barak said, like a man who had gone countless rounds in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Were in a tough neighborhood, but we have the tools to handle these types of things. Indeed, in line with most Israelis, Barak was grateful to Trump for his very important and positive decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem on May 14.

In truth, though, the only real issue that alarmed him was the Palestinian question, and the lack of any tangible moves towards, if not peace, then a separation or painful divorce. Unlike Iran, Barak was adamant on this point: the only existential risk facing Israel was the prospect of a one-state reality. Well end up either as a non-Jewish or a non-democratic entity, or probably both, with a lot violence or even a civil war. Something that has nothing to do with the Zionist vision or project.

Barak was adamant on this point: the only existential risk facing Israel was the prospect of a one-state reality.

The dilemma that began after the 1967 war, with the Israeli conquest of the West Bank and, subsequently, the massive settlement enterprise, had in Baraks telling now morphed into a debate about what to do with the isolated settlements. This is the entire heart of the argument, he said. At the end everyone in Israel agrees that eighty percent of the settlers that live in the settlement blocs and the [east] Jerusalem neighborhoodswhose entire territory is 5 percent [of the West Bank]would leave approximately 94 percent of the territory for the Palestinians.

The Right wants everything, and at the end itll clash with the world who will demand that therell be nothing, he continued. Theres no logic, because strategically and truthfully we just need the settlement blocs. This is the technical argument. But anyone who wants one-state has to continue with the isolated settlements because thats what helps him to undermine [the prospect of a two-state solution].

And yet, hadnt Barak been the one that seared in the Israeli consciousness the notion that there was no partner on the Palestinian side, coming out of the failed Camp David peace summit in July 2000 when he was prime minister? This is a bit of an urban legend, he replied forcefully. What I actually said was we dont have a partner in Arafat this moment its not no partner cosmically, universally it was just an objective description of what I found.

For nearly two decades this one statement had been processed and simplified and distortedinto something that matches the feeling of frustration in Israeli society, he continued.

What really happened when I came to power? he said. I looked at it as coming to a two-family home, us and the Palestinians. And a fire is about to break out on both sides. The leaders want to put the fire out, but the other guy [Arafat] already has a medal for being the best firefighterthe Nobel Peace Prizebut you cant know if in reality hes not a pyromaniac. And you cant know! Unless you go to Camp David and try to make a very generous [offer].

For Barak now this was all in the past. He stressed repeatedly that regardless of the leadership on the Palestinian side, Israel had to take certain steps in order to keep the option of two states alive. Its about us, our future, our identity, and our security.

Given the stakes, how did he explain the fact that others in Israel, especially the current government, viewed things so diametrically different?

There are cynical people in politics. Theyre intelligent people[so] its hard to assess that they dont see what I see… [but] with political people you have no choice but to judge them not on what you think they understand but on their actions in practice.

In this regard, his criticism of Netanyahu is unsparing, summing up years of disappointment with a man whom he has known since their days together in the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit. Bibi is serious, hes not a lightweight. Hes a thoughtful person, but he developed a mindset that is extremely pessimistic, passive, anxious and self-victimizing. This is a good recipe for politics and a bad recipe for statesmanship.

Netanyahu, in Baraks telling, understood the risks outlined above, as well as the opportunities involved in the Palestinian issueespecially as a necessary precondition for a full, public alliance with the moderate Sunni Arab states in the region. Its on the table, and Bibi talks about it, he said. But somehow deep in his heart hes rejecting it, he doesnt want to move.

It wasnt a coincidence, Barak said, that nearly all senior Israeli security officials, similar to him, who enter politics come out on the left side of the political spectrum. I call it the reality principle, stupid!

It wasnt a coincidence, Barak said, that nearly all senior Israeli security officials, similar to him, who enter politics come out on the left side of the political spectrum. I call it the reality principle, stupid! These people are dealing with life and death on a daily basis, protecting our people, so they make judgments on how to be most effective to protect the country to save lives. They dont think politically. And it ended up that their positions are on the center-left sideit means something about the reality, not about them.

For all that, though, the Israeli Right has been winning elections for most of the last 40 years (except for Barak and Yitzhak Rabins tenures in the 1990s). It seems that even with the Israeli security establishment firmly in favor of separating from the Palestinians, the Israeli public remains unconvinced. The power and political influence of the generals in Israeli society isnt what it once was, was it?

Barak agreed, and chalked it up to, essentially, Israel being a victim of its own success. After 1967, and certainly by the 1980s, there was no real existential security threat facing Israel. Wars became smaller and less conclusive, special forces operations less James Bond and more surgical. Couple this with a modernizing society and booming economy, and many other arenas were created, he said, from which people could distinguish themselves and reach high levels of public attention and recognitionhi-tech, academia, journalism, televisionmore than a general who does important things but you dont see him every day.

Barak, inevitably, wouldnt be drawn on whether he planned to re-enter politics. I hope not, he demurred, unconvincingly, but you can never say never in politics. Perhaps if there was an acute crisis he would feel compelled to come back, although he was at pains to stress that he hoped such a crisis wouldnt arise.

Despite Netanyahu and the Palestinian question, he was very optimistic about the Jewish States future, an optimism, he said, that was based on something concreteits up to us.

Sometimes the greatest risk is being unable to take one, he said. The entire history of Zionism was built on a well-calibrated judgement of reality and the readiness to take important steps to avoid a future calamity Im a big believer in the abilities and talents and the capacity to come to our senses in time. And to take the appropriate actions so that our worst predictions dont come true.

Barak had built his career, and life, on just such bold action, some would say for both good and illwhether as a commando, senior military officer, and statesman. As the interview came to a close, Baraks next guest was already waiting. Like Barak in his day, this individual was a recently retired army chief of staff who was now weighing entering politics, as the latest great white hope of the Israeli Left.

Are you two thinking of forming a party? this reporter asked, only half-in-jest. Barak deflected the question, saying only that his guest was a big fan of heavy motorcycles. Sure.

Perhaps Ehud Barak has one more ride left on his journey, and one last chapter to write.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/israels-ex-prime-minister-ehud-barak-says-keep-the-iran-nuclear-deal

from Viral News HQ https://ift.tt/2Gh6Ry3 via Viral News HQ

[isaacathom]

ok ive decided Kysroa is fine as a name because honestly, whatever. Kysro as a a word (and not the name of the Goddess) probably has some additional meaning, and its less about Kysro being the head of state and more about having her protection.

theres other stuff i need to deal with. like, for instance, are Divinitians actual native to the region or did they come from elsewhere?? ive sorta decided theres a group native to the south of the region (modern day Kysroa) who were big supporters of the independence movement and from whom the Revolutionary Leader came (she needs a name). but where did the Divinitians come from? how many southerners are there?? are they the majority in Kysroa?

i think probably? however they do have a sizable ethnic Divinitian population from before the civil war (somewhat diluted but many people would still identify with that label) and due to their trade with other former Divinitian states, there is a general diversity in the population. for instance, the western port would be incredibly diverse due to its nature as the sole way in and out of Kysro (due to the closed border with Divinice and the inability to cross the southern mountains without risking the spread of That Funky Darkness). itd lessen the further out you get from that point. the capital is likely diverse. Black River is almost certainly solely inhabited by the native population (call it a stubborn refusal to abandon a place theyve called home for centuries, even in the face of fucking dark god gargoyles. damn). which would mean theyd have greek influence since Thalia comes from the region buuut its not hard and fast by any means. its quite possible non-natives moved into the area in recent years in an effort to help the people living there, allowing for a spread of culture. plus there might be non-natives who had lived in the region prior to it becoming black? idk. i like having flexibility in terms of which culture acts as inspiration.

but again. where are the Divinitians from? the fact Divinice serves as the capital of the empire, and that the Empress (aka the embodiement of Ylais) stays on this peninsula implies theyve lived there for centuries. and it would explain why the southerners only started chafing as Divinitian demand for their resources started to outweigh the freedom of their people. but theres also the possibility, ad what i think would be interesting, is that the Divinitian empire initially started elsewhere, and they relocated in accordance with their beliefs?? if the idea is that eclipses are incredibly significant, then them moving to a location that lets them see it better makes sense. perhaps the intent wasnt initially to move the capital, but after settling the northern part of the peninsula, they went ‘hmm damn thisd be perfect’ and it just sorta gradually became a thing. or it ITSELF declared independence for a previously existing entity that had colonised the region, and then began the Divinitian Empire in direct contest to its original owner. with the native southerners going all ‘listen if we give you some jewels will you like........ leave us alone? cool’

cause the issue is that if Divinice was actually a colony, it wouldnt be the crux of the Empire - it’d simply be a member of it. it wouldnt be the Empire of Divinice, itd be the Constituency or State of Divinice within the larger Empire. so in order of Divinice to act as the center of an Empire (thus justifying the prescence of the Empress and her Temple Maidens) it has to either be a full on migration of a previous country (basically picking up and putting back down of a people group), a previously dependent nation that sought its own independence in goddamn antiquity, or they were always there.

the full on migration actually sounds interesting to me. perhaps they fled disaster, or war, and established themselves on this peninsula with the understanding blessing of the locals. after all, they share the same religion, albeit from a different perspective, so there is commonality (sorta like..... protestant and catholic?? i guess? the same foundation upon which a differing understanding is built. with the kysroans worshipping Kysro and the ylaitians worshipping ylais). theyre essentially sympathetic. they help this group of people settle and build homes where they can live, and in time even to establish whole cities for their people. meanwhile these religious kysroans (and etnic Whatever the hell their name is, boyo) are chilling out further south. the two groups are very close! everyones chill! then things start getting a little weird when perhaps the straight up leaders of their original homeland arrive and start running the place. they establish an Empress, which at this early stage is likely an actually hereditary, human held position. even at this stage, the Empress is still “the personification of Ylais”, but again. hereditary and good fun. the natives are a little perturbed, but since worship of Ylais is in theory wholly compatible with worship of Kysro, theres no broad conflict. and then when Maidens start existing (possibly as a direct result of Ylais following her “people” to the peninsula and being forced to interact with Kysro, thus brokering their short lived peace for the benefit of their people) things are still fine, and in fact get even better, just based on magic progression.

then, at some point, the peninsula is declared Divinice, with a variety of local southern leaders agreeing to the union on the basis that it will benefit the south in the long term, with the trade connections of the seafaring Divinitians. this doesnt really come to fruition, and infact the south is left worse off after the christening of Divinice, as the elite in the north seek to expand territory. many southerners are conscripted into their armies, ruining families and communities. worsip of Ylais is emphasised more and more. and then, of course, theres an eventual discovery of a huge ore deposit or something in the mines down south, which drives demand up and standards wayyyy the fuck down. everyones kinda fed up now. then they refuse to allow maidens to perform kysro-centric blessings on miners or anything related to mining (ie tools or what they gather) and thats when the south goes ‘yknow what. fuck you. what the fuck’ and thus the civil war begins.

i think i like this idea. with the northerners interested it what lies out on the horizon and the southerners more interested in the mysteries under their feet. both initially friendly and compassionate, but shit getting bad with more people coming in and deciding they had more power. and if the southerners had fought with exactly the same tools as the north, they wouldve been! except they didnt, because southerners went ‘whats the point of magic if i cant use it to kill a man’ and sent willing maidens into battle to absolutely demolish the Divinitians. get rocked. and the southerners could easily have laid claim to the entirety of the peninsula, based on the fact theyve lived there the whole damn time, but they actually decided that they were fine to stay north. also because the Maiden Empress at the time bent over BACKWARDS to appease them. full and immediate independence, land concessions,COMPLETE backwards to prevent the total removal of Divinitians from the peninsula. preventing what caused them to come to the peninsula in the first place from happening again.

actually on that REAL quick. the Divinitians (which is almost definitely not their ethnicity, just their nationality) probably came from the east. which then explains their subsequent expansion westwards after the establishment of the Empire of Divinice, if the whole point was that they were afraid of the eastern powers. it then explains why Kysroa is friendly with the western Divinitian states, because theyre in a similar boat. theyre chill.

anyway this tab has been open for like 3 hours so im gonna shut this down. uh tl;dr in the way distant past, a people group from the east of the peninsula were driven from their homeland by something or other (possibly for religious regions, possibly because their leaders were complete assholes, anything is possible) and found themselves on the northern shores of the peninsula. the inhabitants, sympathetic to their plight and sharing a religion, allowed the refugees to establish towns and homes in the north, provided they didnt do dick things. with time. they did dick things. they established the Empire of Divinice, which included the south (to a lot of confusion and vague aggression, but their general shared culture made it. fine??). Divinice expands further. magic occurs. shit gets whack. the south goes ‘actually no, fuck you??’ and bam. an independent Kysroan republic on the same peninsula as the capital of the Divinitian Empire. and THEN. that Kysroa is majority of the original peninsula ethnicity (whatever that might be), with more diversity the closer you to get to its sole port city in the west. Divinice is broadly speaking more diverse, but is definitely the hub for its ethnic group, originally from the east.

fun!

[samanthasroberts]

‘It was a nice idea, but …’ Europeans on what went wrong with the EU

On its 60th birthday, people from Sweden to Bulgaria with doubts about the EU speak their mind about whether the project is worth pursuing

A triple-A rating is more important than solidarity. Were digging our own grave

Constanze Clever. Photograph: Sddeutsche Zeitung

A few months ago, I was chatting with my husbands work colleague in a beer garden. It was about eastern Europe and the question of why those countries take so few refugees. The colleague came from Poland. He was of the view that in Europe we should first and foremost look after ourselves.

In particular, he didnt want Muslims to be allowed in. According to him, they are a threat to the Christian identity of Europe.

So of course we clashed about this Im a fan of open borders, and I find it unbelievable when people oppose open borders while personally benefiting from them. To be able to move freely is a basic right, and the essence of Europe.

In the conversation, it became clear to me: we are both Europeans, but we come from different worlds. For us in Germany, things have gone well materially in the past 10 years. In Poland, things are different. That is why it is important that we reduce the imbalance.

But were not doing that. Why must Greece pay such high interest rates on the capital market? Rich Germany pays virtually nothing. We Europeans are under the thumb of financial markets. A triple-A rating is more important than solidarity. So were digging our own grave. Unless justice quickly assumes precedence over the economy again, we wont have the EU much longer. That would be a nightmare.

Constanze Clever, 33, hairdresser, Germany

I hate the ever encroaching political union its a vanity project

Gerard Richardson. Photograph: Gerard Richardson

I dont think Europe as a group of countries has ever really been able to unite. Cultures, opinions, approaches to everything, from business to foreign relations, are so diverse.

Trade, on the other hand now thats a really good harmoniser. People can agree on that far, far more easily. So I liked the idea after the war of uniting around trade. It didnt have to be complicated, and at first it wasnt. But then we started down the road to political union.

Thats what I hate: ever encroaching political union. Europe has become a vanity exercise for politicians with too much ambition. The euro was vanity, not based on economic reality. Im not an isolationist, far from it, but I really, honestly do not believe good government can ever come from too large and diverse a group of politicians.

Look at the hopelessly divided approach to problems like Greece, or the migrant crisis. Its a disaster. The EU cant even agree on where to host its own parliament.

There are good parts: free movement, thats obviously a benefit. But its all so badly managed. And I dont believe the EU has prevented war; Nato did that. If they turned the clock back to the EEC being just a free market alone, then I would be more than happy to stay engaged. They should take the politics out of Europe. It worked as a trading bloc, but not as this.

Gerard Richardson, 55, fine wine merchant and coffee roaster, UK

It sows a mentality that theres always money but billions have disappeared

Graca Ramos. Photograph: Sddeutsche Zeitung

First of all, the EU has been a great thing for both my countries, Portugal and Spain. The other European countries brought us back to life (after decades of dictatorship). Thats why the vast majority of Spaniards and Portuguese tend to be pro-European. Europe has pumped a lot of money into our countries.

On the one hand the EU has brought positive economic developments, on the other hand there have been negative consequences. It sows a mentality that there is always money. We have lost sight of what it is to save. People havent been watching closely enough where all these billions have gone. The economies of both countries have slumped because there hasnt been effective control over the way this money has been spent.

As a Portuguese woman Im worried about a two speed Europe . Does that mean the small countries will be put aside and suspended? We feel as a small country both protected and accepted within the EU and I hope that that doesnt change. The Eurosceptic voices in other countries worry me a lot. We must all ask ourselves what we have done wrong.

Graa Ramos, 40, theatre administrator, Spain

Nations have no rights. The EU took over everything

Jozsefne Varadi. Photograph: La Stampa

The nations have no rights. The EU completely took over and everything has to happen here as they wish.

But the EU has a lot of advantages too. We entered to EU so we have to accept a lot of things, I admit, but they should give more independence to nations.

Every time the government wants to decrease utility costs or taxes, or create more workplaces to let us breathe a little bit easier, they have a problem with it. Im with the nation with all my heart. I do everything. I help campaign. Im a member of the Fidesz party since its foundation. I consider this government good and fair. Our prime minister needs a lot of bravery to stand up like this for the nation.

Did you see what happened here during the prime ministers speech? Did you see the people whistling? They think this is not a democracy, but if I had done the same when Ferenc Gyurcsany was prime minister, if I had used my whistle, they would have shot me.

Jozsefne Varadi, 87, pensioner, Hungary

Erasmus, the euro, are just sweets with a bitter aftertaste

Luca Carabetta. Photograph: Luca Carabetta/La Stampa

They draw lines on a map, take decisions from on high, and then, if they dont work, they use every economic excuse possible to justify them as necessary to maintain the unity and progress.

I am an energy engineer, a young entrepreneur from the Erasmus generation. I was born when Italy joined Schengen, in 1990, and you could leave your passport in the drawer to travel with family, or later to see friends in France, Germany, Denmark. Yet my Euroscepticism began when I was young, in my town of ButtiglieraAlta, near Turin. I saw the No-Tav movement (against high speed rail) grow in my valley, the Susa valley, I started studying and concluded that the projects tied to the European corridors were conceived in an office in Brussels, far away from local communities and their needs.

I believe Europe is an extreme concession of sovereignty, which flattens diversity and national identities built throughout history. I do not agree with the economic homogeneity that binds the EU together. Does that seem strange from a young person with foreign friends? Absolutely not. Beppe Grillos Five Star Movement has shown me a clear path for what I always thought, and thats why I vote for it.

In these years, Brussels has not been able to create a common welfare system, no citizens feel like Europe is closer, notwithstanding the sharing of pseudo-values and the currency. Erasmus, the euro, are sweets with a bitter aftertaste. Unitary economics, so far, has penalised us. Unitary politics, for me, does not represent us, the citizens.

Luca Carabetta, 27, tech CEO, Italy

Europe was a nice idea, but globalist politics and the euro have killed us

Luc Defrance. Photograph: Cyril Bitton

Im a wheat farmer from northern France. Thats to say Im one of those people said to be very rich, living off subsidies, smoking a big cigar. In reality, I started work at 16, have worked like a dog for 50 years and am now ruined. I realised we were finished so I sold my operation last June.

Europe was a nice idea, but its the globalist politics that has killed us that and the euro. In the rest of the world, other countries can devalue their currency and become competitive. With the euro, we are trapped. Marine Le Pen is right we should get out of it.

Europe is just all restrictions and rules. You have to keep records on crop treatments and be careful about employment rules. You are bothered on all fronts. And the slightest mistake could cost you 10,000 in CAP aid, and thats a catastrophe.

In any case, theyre reducing the aid. In 2010, I got 100,000 in basic grants; last year it was 52,000, and soon there wont be any more. Doing a job that depend on grants is not healthy. Europe would do better to create a safety net and fix prices rather than grants.

Luc Defrance, 66, farmer, France

Many Dutch people feel powerless and angry. It is time to rediscover our identity

Joost Niemller. Photograph: Katrien Mulder

As well as books I write a blog called De Nieuwe Realist (the new realist). Europe is a land endowed with a rich civilisation. It works because it is based on the nation states, and yet its goal is to dismantle nation states, which would signify the end of European democracy. That is why many Dutch people, possibly even a majority, would like to leave the EU.

People want to take back control and decide their own future. Mass immigration is a serious problem. Many Dutch people feel powerless and angry. It is time for the Netherlands to rediscover its identity.

Joost Niemller, 60, writer, the Netherlands

The Eurosceptics in my family are happy that Russia is stepping up strongly

Rozalina Laskova. Photograph: Zdravko Yonchev/Sddeutsche Zeitung

I cant imagine Europe without the EU and am in favour of more integration. But I sometimes forget that other Bulgarians do not think like that. I have Eurosceptics in my own family, like my mother and aunt, who are bigger supporters of Russian culture, like a lot of Bulgarians. They see and read the same Bulgarian media which speak of the supposed all-encompassing manipulation of our country by Brussels and Washington. My aunt Maria asked me mockingly whether I also get money from the Americans. They are happy that Russia is stepping up so strongly.

Rozalina Laskova, 34, cultural adviser, Bulgaria

I would like to do a Swexit just like in the UK

Andreas berg Photograph: Andreas berg

The EU started as something different. In the beginning it was a good thing, a peacekeeping operation. But it has grown into something else: a massive, undemocratic monster, lots of people doing nothing to benefit the voters in their respective countries.

It seems to me more than half of the laws in Sweden are not decided by the Swedish government but by the EU. We vote for the government but if it doesnt have the majority of the power, how can that be democratic?

We choose representatives for the EU parliament, but I dont believe thats democratic either the ones who really affect what happens are not democratically elected. I havent read all the EU laws, only some of them, and some may benefit Sweden but many dont.

I work in the construction industry and we have seen a shift towards what they have in the UK, where people from the poorer countries come to work for you, and they do it for lower wages.

The main problem with the EU is that it incorporates loads of countries, and they are so vastly different in every way: welfare, economics, everything. To correct this the EU will have to make the richer countries poorer. So I would like to do a Swexit have a referendum like in the UK, and leave.

Andreas berg, 52, construction worker, Sweden

Stories collected by the Guardians Jon Henley and David Crouch in Gothenberg, and correspondents for the Europa group of newspapers: Thomas Urban in Madrid, Sebastian Jannasch in Brussels, Christian Gschwendtner in Munich, Lucie Soullier and Jean-Pierre Stroobants

Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/10/20/it-was-a-nice-idea-but-europeans-on-what-went-wrong-with-the-eu/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/10/20/it-was-a-nice-idea-but-europeans-on-what-went-wrong-with-the-eu/

[topsolarpanels]

Inside the Online School That Could Radically Change How Kids Learn Everywhere

Emily Duggan, 16, expends most afternoons at a dance studio tucked behind a shopping plaza near her home in Exeter, New Hampshire. Blond and doe-eyed, Duggan has been dancing since she was two, everything from tap to ballet. She puts in about 12 hours a week at the studio, including class and rehearsals with the dance team for weekend competitors. Duggan also prides herself on get good grades in school. But two years ago, the stress of managing both dance and academics overwhelmed her.

She was depleted and losing weight. Some nights, Duggan faced four hours of homework after a day of school and dancing that stretched into the evening, I would just break down crying and telling, I cant do this anymore! she recalled.

Her mothers concurred. In January 2015, Duggan enrolled in New Hampshires self-paced Virtual Learning Academy Charter School, joining about 200 full-time middle and high school students and about 10,000 part-timers from brick-and-mortar schools statewide who take online VLACS courses a la carte. There is no entrance exam, screening or application required to attend VLACS, which is free for any New Hampshire student.

A week afterward, theres a follow-up bellow. Thats when I ask students why theyre taking my course, and what their goals are, told Kent. Some students simply need the course credit, of course, but others have a fitness target, struggle with obesity or are athletes who want to increase their strength or overcome an injury.

Students do the bulk of their learning independently. They make their own route through online lessons, digital texts and multimedia, and follow links to extra, explanatory resources. They upload all their work. Yet the students and mothers interviewed for this story said that they have more one-on-one interactions with teachers than they did in traditional schools.

Kent opened her laptop to show the dashboard that tracks her students. She can sort them by grade or by the last time they logged into class, submitted work or checked in with her. If a student has been inactive for more than a week, Kent will reach out to see if everythings OK.

That level of educator communication was the biggest change A. J. Rando noticed when his daughter, Olivia, a secondary school student and a black belt in karate, are participating in VLACS to accommodate training and competition.

Theyre proactive about it. If youre not attaining contact every couple weeks, the emails start, telling, hey, we should talk, told Rando. His daughter added that having teachers reach out, makes it less intimidating to talk to them. That helps a lot if you need to ask a question.

VLACS middle school student Olivia Rando, 11, stands beside some of the trophies shes won as a black belt in karate.Chris Berdik

Students are also matched with a guidance counselor and an academic adviser who help them create and follow a C3( short for college, career and citizenship) readiness scheme. The guidance counselors also spot red flag that a student is struggling and offer support during the usual teenage drama. Finally, tutoring is available through four abilities coaches.

Like all VLACS teachers, Kent has office hours most days, when students can log in to her online classroom, a Skype-like interface, for one-on-one chats about assignments or feedback on a recent test.

If students genuinely need to reach Kent outside of office hours, including evenings and weekends, shell oblige. She also responds to student emails instantly, even if her teenaged students arent always so prompt.

Being ever present is paramount to building that working relationship, she told. Students need to know youre there, insuring what they do, and that you care about and support them.

VLACS physical education and wellness teacher Lisa Kent at home in Amherst, NH, appearing over an online dashboard of her current students.Chris Berdik

Competencies

On a bright, chilly March afternoon, VLACS English teacher Bette( pronounced Betty) Bramante settled into a black leather recliner for an interview at her home overlooking Great Bay on New Hampshires seacoast.

Over the years, Ive come to appreciate the capacity of every learner to excel when you let them approach a topic through their interests at a pace and style that suits them, told Bramante, who began her career in the 1970 s as a secondary school English teacher. After all, I live with a perfect example.

She was referring to her husband, Fred, who was a poor student and graduated 206 th out of 212 in his high school class. After clawing his route through college, however, he had a distinguished career in education first as a secondary school science educator( where he and Bette gratified ), then as a long-time member and chair of New Hampshires country board of education, and now as president of the nonprofit National Center for Competency-Based Learning.

‘ When you think about virtual education, its often more about efficiency and getting more students through than it is about relationships.’VLACS founder and CEO Steve Kossakoski

In 2008, during Freds tenure with the board of trustees of the education, New Hampshire became the first country to necessitate high schools to issue course credit for mastering competencies, rather than for fulfilling the requisite number of hours, days or weeks of instruction( aka seat time ). That same year, VLACS welcomed its first students.

Competencies are learning deconstructed. A single course, such as algebra, contains several competencies, which blend some core knowledge, such as understanding linear equations, with broader abilities like applied analysis or problem-solving. Instead of a C+ in algebra, for example, a competency-based report card could show that a student has mastered four algebra competencies but hasnt yet figured out quadratic functions or basic statistical analysis.

In a competency-based school, especially a virtual one, semesters “losing ones” shape. While VLACS has guidelines for course completion time and students use an online chart to track their progression, theres no bonus for mastering competencies faster than your peers or penalty for taking extra time.

During the interview, Bramante sat beside her laptop, awaiting an upcoming discussion-based appraisal with one of her students. Shorthanded as DBAs, these discussions are held for each competency. Regurgitating facts wont cut it in a DBA, during which teachers ask follow-up questions to probe students understanding and the reasoning behind their answers and decisions. Educators also ask students how they can apply that knowledge. If a student falterings, the educator will recommend that she go back and review certain course material before taking the written exam. At VLACS, the bar for mastery is a test score of 85 percentage or better.

English teacher Bette Bramante at home in Durham, NH.Chris Berdik

Performance Pays

Another big difference with VLACS is its funding source. Most virtual schools get country funding based on enrollment numbers. More students entail more revenue, and virtually three-quarters of full-time virtual students are in schools run by for-profit education management organizations.

By contrast, VLACS, a nonprofit, earns its funding based on the number of competencies mastered by its students. Heres how that breaks down, according to Kossakoski: New Hampshire allocates charter schools about $5,600 dollars a year for each full-time student, presuming the student completes six full credits. A one-credit course is one-sixth of that total, or about $933 dollars. If a student masters just half of the competencies that make up a course, for example, then VLACS earns half of the $933.

That calculation also applies to students at brick-and-mortar schools who enroll in a VLACS course to obtain competencies they are missing due to a previous incomplete or failed course, or to access advanced courses not offered at their home school. VLACSs courses are accepted for credit by every high school and many secondary school in New Hampshire.

Some outside experts question that pay-for-performance model due to the risk that teachers may thumb the scale to speed student progression.

Not merely does VLACS funding depend on competencies, so do teacher salaries, to a degree. They are based on an expectation of how many competencies their students will master over the course of a year. However, teachers can accrue bonuses by surpassing those expectations.

Some outside experts question that pay-for-performance model, either due to the risk that teachers may thumb the scale to speed student progression, or because such a system may not fully account for differences in students and subject matter.

When youre teaching high-ability students, a lot of these free market principles will bring you success, told Michael Barbour, an education professor at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, who examines online learning. But if Im teaching algebra to at-risk students, the majority of whom have already failed it two or three times, then Im going to have big problems with pay-for-performance. What kind of educator will you get to teach those children?

But Larry Miller, dean of the school of education at Florida SouthWestern state college and a co-author of the 2015 Center for Reinventing Public Education study, pointed out that VLACS teachers get their base pay whether they reached their targets or not, and most bonuses are a marginal incentive, in the single digits as a percentage of total salary.

Nevertheless, Miller did find a different cause for concern over VLACSs funding model. Specifically, when students at traditional schools take a VLACS course, the country pays VLACS without subtracting any funding from the brick-and-mortar schools.

The double funding has minimise rivalry and greased the wheels of partnership between VLACS and the states other school systems. Eventually, however, it could be a budget buster. Thats something theyll have to wrestle with as their impact grows, Miller told.

Virtual Gets Real

Two years ago, the John-Zensky family crisscrossed the eastern United States for two weeks in their minivan, hitting up cities and sites.

It was epic, told Danielle John-Zensky, standing in the kitchen of her Pittsfield, New Hampshire, home, flanked by two of her children, DJ, 14, and Delaney, 16.

Before DJ and Delaney became full-time VLACS students last year, they were home-schooled. We do a lot of road journeys, Danielle told. We like to travel when the rest of the kids are in school.

During a typical weekday morning, Delaney spreads out on the living room lounge with her laptop and DJ uses the desktop computer in the kitchen. They check out the online chart that shows how theyre progressing in each course.

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Online Education: Expanding and Personalizing Access

If Im falling somewhat behind in one course, Ill start with that, told Delaney. Then Ill work straight through my classes.

Some days the children finish by noon; other days they keep going until virtually dinner. When the schoolwork is done, the children take off in various directions. Delaney volunteers at the library, runs as a counselor in a nearby nature camp and teaches skiing all winter. DJ runs snowboarding or practices with the local secondary school baseball and soccer squads on which he plays.

When the kids arent engrossed in these extra-curricular activities, theyre helping to scheme the familys next road journey. DJ recently booked the plane tickets for a trip out west where they plan to visit seven national parks.

As VLACSs director of guidance services, Kyle Cote, put it, Theres an assumption that virtual school students are closed off, online all day and they dont ever meet anyone. Thats absolutely no truth to the rumors .”

The school tries to keep students connected to things beyond their computers. There are a few clubs, for example, in which students talk online about shared interests, such as books and movies. Students also must do ten hours of community service each year.

‘ Students need to know youre there, insuring what they do, and that you care about and support them.’Lisa Kent, VLACS physical education and wellness teacher.

VLACS now takes these real-world connects even further by pushing the boundaries of how its students can master competencies. In addition to regular course lesson schemes and written exams, VLACS students can demonstrate competencies through a number of projects related to different topics and tied to potential career routes. For instance, students in Lisa Kents physical education and wellness course can assume the role of a fitness teacher creating a new workout class for a health club that will meet certain fitness objectives( the class itself is hypothetical, but the student must do the workout for real ); students make a presentation and craft promotional material for the class.

In another example, a student of Bette Bramantes presumed the role of a museum curator. Utilizing historical research, the student created an exhibit to show how two local households from different social strata would have lived from day to day in the early 20 th century. The project was intended to demonstrate the competency of drawing evidence from texts and applying that evidence to a persuasive argument. The student created a list of artifacts toys, books and household goods and diagrammed their placement in a museum space that would allow visitors to follow the families narratives, which she wrote out on placards with citations for her sources.

Soon, students will have even more ways to earn competencies. In the autumn of 2013, the education nonprofit EDUCAUSE awarded VLACS a $450,000 grant to help develop learning through squads and learning through experiences, which will debut by this summer.

According to VLACSs website, Teams will feature collaborative projects in which students team up to study and solve real world problems in realms such as the health of woods and alternative energy.

In Experiences, students will be able to develop a competency through, tell, interning at a tech company, starting their own business or spending a summertime in China. Students will work with teachers and academic advisers to plot out relevant projects that demonstrate their competencies, such as programming an app during the tech internship or producing an online tour in Mandarin during the summer abroad.

Ultimately, the scheme is for VLACS students to compile a digital knapsack of competencies they have developed through whatever combination of coursework, projects, squads and experiences they opt. As Andy Calkins, deputy director for EDUCAUSEs next generation learning challenges program, which awarded the grant, pointed out, these choices will be available for full-time VLACS students as well as part-time students based in traditional schools.

In the next few years, as VLACS implements this new model, there will be two million-dollar questions, according to Calkins. First, will the school continue to succeed on traditional measures, such as standardized exams? And second, will it help students gain a strong define of so-called 21 st-century abilities such as analytical thinking and creative problem-solving?

Answering the second million-dollar topic will be tricky, Calkins told, because the development of measurements and assessments in these areas is still very new.

If these new blended approaches succeed, VLACS could be a national model for genuinely personalized, experiential learning, according to Julia Freeland Fisher, director of education research at the Clayton Christensen Institute, who wrote about VLACS in a 2014 report on competency-based education in New Hampshire.

To do competency-based education at scale you need to use technology, she told. Imagine 30 students in a class genuinely moving at an individual pace and then having to test them all at different times in different ways.

Fisher said that while early online schools were all about access to courses unavailable at a students home school or for students unable to attend traditional schools, VLACS is doubling down on pedagogical invention. Thats incredibly powerful.

The real power, according to Danielle John-Zensky, is what happens when you put students in charge of their own education. Summing up what thats done for her children, she told, Theyve learned to enjoy learning.

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and invention in education. Read more about Blended Learning .

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The Movement Resisting Donald Trump Has A Name: The (Local) Democratic Party

Local Democratic parties are confronting a problem in the Trump era that is as confounding as it is unexpected: space.

All across the country, party meetings that had once been sleepy affairs, dominated by Roberts Rules of Order and a handful of graying activists, have become standing room only. The overflowing crowds have sent stunned party regulars scrambling to find new venues, while the surge in interest, and the coinciding fundraising boost, is enabling local chapters to hire staff and build infrastructure in previously unthinkable ways.On the national level, Democratic politicians have been rushing to respond to the sudden outpouring.

Im as busy this year as I was at any time last year in the heat of a huge election, said Mark Fraley, chairman of the Monroe County Democratic Party in Indiana.

Fraley said he received 65 emails in a single weekend from people requesting to become precinct chairs, a thankless job that normally requires begging and pleading to get someone to fill. The county party has restructured and added five deputy chairs to channel all the energy, and created six new committees.

Whats very different is that its made the party younger. Young people never really wanted to have as much of a meaningful part in the Democratic Party infrastructure. Now that doesnt seem true anymore, he said.

The resistance to President Donald Trump has taken a variety of forms, all of them well chronicled by the media. The Womens March, which saw some 5 million people take to the streets in a single day, helped fuel the growth of Indivisible chapters around the country, and has itself continued organizing meetings and protests since. The groups Swing Left, Flippable and Sister Sister are routing people to swing districts in an effort to flip the House, and groups are forming to challenge Democrats in primaries. Amid it all, observers and participants alike have wondered what the name is for this nascent movement. The Resistance? The Opposition?

But if the swelling ranks of county-level meetings are an indication of things to come, the grassroots movement underway already has a name. Its called the Democratic Party.

Interviews with activists in 24 states red, blue and purple reveal a strikingly similar pattern: Shocked by the outcome of the election and fearful for the future of the country, people of all ages, some of them Democrats, some independents, some Greens, found the time and location of a local party meeting and showed up. Here are a few of their stories:

COLORADO

Andy Cross/Getty Images

Protesters showed up at Denver International Airport on Jan. 28, to protest President Donald Trump’s ban on refugees and travelers from a number of predominantly Muslim countries.

Carol Cure had been an active member of the Democratic Party more than two decades ago in Arizona even running unsuccessfully for Congress but she thought those days were behind her. Shes now back in the game.

Just recently, Cure found her way to the local La Plata County Democratic Party organizational meeting and was named a bonus member of the Colorado House District 59 committee.

I really thought, until now, that I had done my part and was content to enjoy my retirement and all of the great activities available to us here in Southwest Colorado, she said. Many new people are getting in the game, many of them young, recent college graduates. We just had our two-year reorganizational meeting last Saturday, and two recent graduates were elected to the County Executive Committee. Now that the Dems are fired up and involved, it has become apparent that many of us are Progressives and may have been when no one noticed.

GEORGIA

Ilene Johnson, a veteran party member, said a recent meeting in Greensboro was standing room only. And at a breakfast meeting there, 70 people showed up. Fulton County, Cobb County and Dekalb County Democratic meetings are packed. But Dekalb and Fulton are majority Dem. [Greensboro is] not, neither is Cobb. My mailbox is full. I have more volunteers. Im swamped, she said.

ILLINOIS

Oak Park Democrats usually get maybe 80 people at a meeting. But at their most recent gathering, they had more than 120.

Our meetings are bursting at the seams these days, Oak Park Democratic Party Executive Director Karen Fischer said. We literally couldnt get them in the door. There were people out on the street who actually couldnt get in.

Fischer emphasized that so far, the party hasnt yet increased its advertising in the new year; all these new folks are finding their way on their own. People are walking in off the street every day and asking how to get involved.

Were planning to [step up outreach], in part because organizations are popping up all over the place, she said. Were kind of looking at it and going, Wait a minute! Were here! You dont need to invent the wheel!

INDIANA

At the last meeting of the womens caucus of the Monroe County Democratic Party normally a sparsely attended affair people spilled out the door onto the street. For the partys upcoming reorganization meeting, county chairman Mark Fraley said theyre looking for a new venue, because the courthouse room that had always been more than sufficient is now too small. If they cant find a new room, he said, theyll put speakers outside the door so the spillover crowd can still hear. Democrats here have seen such an outpouring of new members, theyre on track to raise enough money to hire an executive director for the first time.

Right after the election, we were just inundated with emails [asking], What can I do? said Fraley, 37, who works at Indiana Bloomington University.

Fraley said the county party has restructured and added five deputy chairs and created six new committees. The influx of new people is making the party younger, he said:About two-thirds of them came through Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) campaign, many of them encouraged by his organization Our Revolution to do so.

If we can maintain 30 percent of this energy, thats a huge increase in our local Democratic capacity, he added, arguing that Republican House seats that were 9-point wins in the past could soon become competitive.

IOWA

The Winneshiek County Democratic Party had its largest central committee meeting ever in January, with a third of the 40 attendees being people who had never attended a meeting, according to the county correspondence secretary.

Polk County, which includes Des Moines, is bursting too. Tamyra Harrison, the county partys executive director, said that over the last decade, around 50-60 people have shown up for central committee meetings. On Nov. 14, however, they had 177. The committee has 359 elected positions and at this time two years ago had 120 open seats. That number will soon be 80, now a record low, and is falling fast.

Every post-election meeting I have attended has been crowded and humid, Thomas Henderson, the partys county chair, said.

Down in Page County, in rural Southwest Iowa, party member Christine Adcock said that four times the normal crowd showed up to the first county meeting after the election a whopping 20 people!! Adcock followed up a week later with an update: The February meeting drew 30.

MARYLAND

In Montgomery County, a standing-room-only crowd showed up to hear freshman Rep. Jamie Raskin talk about threats to democracy in the Trump era.

Just since this past election, a number of friends have quite suddenly expressed interest in becoming more involved in the party many of them have been activists with local environmental groups and in some cases the Green Party, said Sylvia Tognetti.

Raskin told HuffPost there were some 900 people at the Trump event. It was one of eight events he did that day and all of them, he said, were bursting.

MASSACHUSETTS

A group affiliated with Sanders Our Revolution ran a slate of eight people to be delegates to the June state party convention, and all eight won, said Jordan Weinstein, one of the eight. Several are also moving to become members of the town Democratic Party committee in Arlington. Weinstein said hes running for a seat on the town council, known as the Arlington Town Meeting. The ages range from 30s to 60s, he said.

Most of us have been registered Democrats forever but just so we could vote in the primaries. Since Trump, we all see the need to get involved with the goal of trying to move the Dems toward more progressive positions, he said.

Alice Trexler, a veteran member of the Arlington Town Democratic Committee, witnessed the same bursting attendance at the convention meeting, but did so with the perspective of somebody whos been to many of them.

It was roughly triple the size of the past three to four I have attended. There were many new folks who were, on balance, younger than many of us on the Town Committee, she said, adding that a later Indivisible meeting downstairs was overfilled with people backed up in the hallway and into the lobby.

Our town is hopping with resistance. I know, its Massachusetts, but its still extraordinary to see the number of young parents and those new to protest and to politics, she added. Believe me, I havent seen this before.

MICHIGAN

Rachel Woolf/Getty Images

In January, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) joined with members of the Michigan congressional delegation and local elected officials for a rally at Macomb Community College in Warren to save Obamacare.

The spring conventions of the Michigan Democratic Party dont usually attract too much notice, described by the Detroit Free Press as sleepy affairs filled with party regulars giving speeches and calls to action.

This year, however, was different.

Nearly 5,000 people came to the convention, with longtime attendees saying they had never seen anything like it.

That blew the doors off previous conventions, especially considering its an off-year, said Herb Helzer, a member of the Northville Democratic Club. Sure, plenty of people showed up for the midterms in 2014 or 2012. … But this is winter 2017 after the biggest trouncing weve gotten.

Helzer said the meeting of the progressive caucus was especially popular at the convention, with about 600 people showing up.

Chris Savage, chair of the Washtenaw County Democrats, said he usually gets about 50-60 people at a meeting, if hes lucky. But at their last meeting, on Super Bowl Sunday, 225 people showed up.

I could not believe it, he said. Our email list since Election Day has grown by about 20 percent, and Im getting new people signing up every day.

People are particularly interested in pushing their legislators on policy. He used to have a legislative programs team, which mostly consisted of one staffer from a congressional office who would help be a liaison between the party and government officials. Now, that team has 120 people who signed up to do twice-weekly phone banks and engage people in other counties.

OHIO

Martha Viehmann, of Anderson Township near Cincinnati, said the state, after falling badly to Trump, has come alive. Sen. Sherrod Brown, one of the stronger progressives in the Senate, faces a critical re-election bid in 2018.

The January meeting had a phenomenal turnout, said Viehmann, a precinct executive in Anderson. The resurgence of the Democratic Party is very clear here in my eastern suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. Lots of new people are not only turning out to protests. They are also learning about our local and state elections and swamping our elected officials in D.C. with postcards and phone calls.

One of those is Aileen Peters, 72, who joined a Dayton Democratic club in the wake of the election.

I have always voted, but not been active politically with the party, she said. I was a fellow in Hillarys campaign. Volunteered in the local office, phone banks, etc. Now Im a member of the South of Dayton Democratic Club, Im organizing a No Hate group, I have a group I email to keep them informed of opportunities to be involved. The first thing I do every morning is send emails to Congressmen and make phone calls to [Sen. Rob] Portman and [Rep. Mike] Turner.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Greenville is the reddest part of a very red state, according to Kate Howard Franch, the chair of the local Democratic Party. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who led the Benghazi committee, is their congressman, if that gives any indication of the areas leanings.

Franch usually gets about 20 people at her monthly meetings 40 on a good day. But at the end of January, she had 120.

Franch said that in her nine years there, shes never seen this sort of engagement. They had a gathering at Furman University after the Womens March to build upon the momentum and figure out next steps. Even though the meeting took place on Super Bowl Sunday, there were about 1,000 people in the audience.

Over in Charleston, the local party had 130 people show up at its January meeting, a big jump from the 20 or so they usually see. Chair Brady Quirk-Garvan said theyve also tripled the number of monthly donors to the party.

TENNESSEE

The Davidson County Democratic Party in Tennessee maybe gets 10 people at its executive committee meetings. But in January, it had nearly 200 people show up, and 180 people filled out forms to start volunteering.

We had so many people we had to leave the conference room that we were supposed to be in and move out to the lobby of the building because there was no room to fit everybody, said Whitney Pastorek, a member of the executive committee.

Theyre self-identifying and self-gathering, Pastorek added, stressing that all this energy is organic. Theyre not waiting for the Democratic Party to tell them what to do. Theyre doing it themselves, and its great.

TEXAS

Typically after an election, Carisa Lopez notices that people just want to take a deep breath and relax before mobilizing again. But not this time.

We put together an event that was kind of an open mic type of event, less than two weeks after the election, Lopez, executive director of the Travis County Democratic Party, said. We had about 400 people in attendance, and that was right before Thanksgiving. So even around the holidays, when … people usually arent paying attention, they definitely were.

Her organization also had a training in early February that they expected about 100 people to attend. But they ended up having nearly 500 people and had to change venues three times just to keep up with the demand. They also streamed it on Facebook Live because there was so much extra interest.

UTAH

The state party is hosting a candidate training in March. When officials opened up registration, they sold out 50 tickets in the first day. A week later, the party expanded it to 200 spots and again immediately sold out.

VIRGINIA

Democrats have already won two special elections in Virginia since November, and the state House and governors mansion will be up for grabs this fall. (More on that below.) Mike Freeland, co-chair of the local Democratic party in Manassas and Manassas Park, said the party is being flooded with new members.

We had our largest attendance ever at our regular monthly meeting last week, he said. We are averaging 4-5 signups per week on our website and are having events like new member breakfasts in an attempt to capture the momentum and find a place for these new folks to help out.

The same, he added, is true for other local officials hes talked to recently.

WASHINGTON

Alison Dennis, 30, just started going to her local Democratic Party meetings in Wenatchee. At her first meeting last month, the hosts were overwhelmed, with about 85 people overflowing the room that was supposed to hold only 53 people.

Folks consider the area Im in to be a deeply red area, but I think its more purple than folks give it credit. I think theres a lot of potential here, but we need to ramp up the leadership quickly, she said.

David Turnoy has been involved with the San Juan County Democratic Party for the last five years and was recently elected chair. He said turnout was huge for their meeting in December, and their email list has grown significantly.

People are energized in ways that they have never been before, he said. And our Democrats group normally only meets once a quarter, but we have been meeting monthly since December and look to continue that for the foreseeable future.

SHIFTING TO THE BALLOT BOX

Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters

None of it means anything if the energy doesnt become power, if it doesnt translate into electoral success. One major test of how potent the new movement is will come on Saturday, when Delaware holds a special election for a vacated state Senate seat. Whichever party wins will control the state Senate. The district leans slightly Democratic, but special elections with low turnouts are often the partys Achilles heel, just as midterms are. But if the grassroots energy is real, turnout wont be a problem.

Sonia Sloan, 88, has been a First State Democratic activist all her life and said she hasnt seen this much excitement in a race since Eugene McCarthy, whose presidential bid she chaired in Delaware in 1968. This year, shes co-hosting a fundraiser for the Democrat in the race, environmental attorney Stephanie Hansen.

Our field operation is off the charts, as is volunteer activity. Organizers and volunteers have already knocked on over 30,000 doors, and theyve made over 28,000 phone calls as of Wednesday, said Carolyn Fiddler of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, adding that theyd knock on another 30,000 doors before the campaign is over.

With only about 31,000 registered voters in the district, that means theyll be hitting voters repeatedly.

The Republican in the race, a retired cop, John Marino, is running as a Trump-esque candidate. We deserve to be First again, he says.

If special elections are a sign of things to come and they may or may not be signs are good for Democrats so far. In two specials in Iowa, in December and January, on the eastern border in Davenport, Democrats won by larger-than-expected margins. Iowa allows absentee balloting, which allows organizers to go door to door to make sure those ballots are being filled out and mailed in. In the state Senate race in December, Democrats collected 2,163 ballots. On Election Day, the Democrat won only 1,640 votes, meaning more people voted absentee than in person, suggesting an extraordinarily high level of organization and energy on the ground. The same pattern held for the House race.

Iowa

More Democrats voted absentee than on Election Day.

In mid February, Republicans won their only special election since November in a district outside Minneapolis. But Trump had carried it by a 61-32 margin, DailyKos reported, and the Republican winning by just 6 points was a huge collapse.

The question, then, is whether the momentum can carry into 2018. Along the way will be the November 2017 elections in Virginia and New Jersey. The Garden State should be easy to pick off for Democrats, given their statewide advantage and the cellar-level popularity of Gov. Chris Christie (R).

But Virginia will be interesting to watch. If populist-progressive Tom Perriello can channel the new grassroots energy into his candidacy, theres every reason to believe he can knock off the establishment candidate, Ralph Northam, who is lieutenant governor and was Gov. Terry McAuliffes (D) hand-picked successor. If Perriello can get past Northam in the June primary, hell likely face GOP lobbyist and operative Ed Gillespie, who is perfectly ill-suited for the moment particularly with Trump regularly attacking federal workers, who make up a significant chunk of the Virginia electorate. Democratic committee meetings in Virginia, Perriello told HuffPost, are absolutely bursting out of the room in the hallways with crowds.

Governor and state House races like the one in Virginia are more critical than ever because the redistricting process follows the 2020 Census. If Democrats can ride a new wave into power, the gerrymandering of 2010 can be rolled back.

Local officials nationwide say theyre focused on creating a positive vision and a constant stream of activities to keep these new activists engaged.

If we stop giving them things to do, Im worried that people will get apathetic, said Lopez, the executive director of the Travis County Democratic Party in Texas. Its only February, but typically after an election, this is the time when people are apathetic.

Savage, who runs the Washtenaw County Democratic Party in Michigan, said hes been making a point of reaching out not only to his new members, but to many of the people in the outside activist groups, to let them know that the party has resources that can help them organize.

Were going to be here whether theyre here or not, he said. But if we can activate them, help them have some successes youve got to have a success now and then, otherwise it becomes too demoralizing.

Next year is key for Michigan as well; every state legislator and every single statewide office holder is up for re-election.

Even without a to-do list from local party leaders, Trump is managing to be liberals greatest organizer, with one extraordinary move after another drawing public outrage. With his Muslim ban on hold, his popularity plummeting, national security adviser Mike Flynn fired, Obamacare repeal looking less and less likely and Labor Department nominee Andy Puzder defeated, Democrats can start to point to wins that keep newly engaged activists fighting.

And theyre hoping to pick up one more in Delaware this week. Even if they dont, Republican John Marino, making a bid for the seat, appears to have his finger on the new public pulse. Theresa Kudlick, a district voter, said Marino came by her neighbors house and she was left with the impression he was the Democrat in the race. None of his material mentioned what is becoming an inconvenient fact: Hes a Republican.

Want more updates from Amanda Terkel? Sign up for her newsletter, Piping Hot Truth, here.

Take a survey: should Democrats in Washington oppose Trump across the board or look for ways to work with him?

Read more: http://ift.tt/2kZcxCw

from The Movement Resisting Donald Trump Has A Name: The (Local) Democratic Party

[alienvirals]

Hillary Clinton’s UFO investigation plans unlikely to achieve liftoff, experts say

The Democratic frontrunner has said she would look into alleged spottings as president but there may not be much to investigate

Hillary Clinton is entering uncharted territory in this presidential election.

If she wins the White House, she would become the first female president, the first spouse of a former president to hold the office herself, and, possibly, the first president to have devoted time on the campaign trail to discussing UFOs.

There are enough stories out there that I dont think everybody is just sitting in their kitchen, making them up, Clinton said in a radio interview in April.

A month earlier, she had appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show, correcting Kimmels use of UFO to UAP unidentified aerial phenomena. When Kimmel reminded Clinton that her husband, Bill, had looked for information while president and found nothing, she was defiant.

Well, Im gonna do it again, Clinton said.

The pledges she also told the told the Conway Daily Sun that she would get to the bottom of whether the government has tucked away information on aliens are exciting UFO enthusiasts.

But they are puzzling some experts on the subject.

Im not quite sure what she thinks there is out there, said Nick Pope, an author and journalist who used to investigate UFOs for the British governments ministry of defence.

Pope ran the British governments UFO project from 1991 to 1994 (the investigation unit was wound up in 2009). But Americas own dedicated UFO research effort, called Project Blue Book, ended in 1969, Pope said.

Clintons embrace of the UFO discussion has been credited to her campaign chairman, John Podesta. The New York Times reported that he ran an X-Files fan club while he worked under Bill Clinton in the White House, and wrote in a foreword for a book on UFOs that it was time to pull back the curtain on the subject.

Podesta was a counsellor to Barack Obama until February 2015. Upon leaving the White House, he lamented that no new information on UFOs had been released.

Finally, my biggest failure of 2014: once again not securing the disclosure of the UFO files, Podesta tweeted.

But Pope said there werent actually any UFO files. Since Project Blue Book ended, the US has not had a formal unit investigating UFOs. And the files from Blue Book are already available in the national archives.

Podestas statements, like Clintons statements, he said, imply something like in the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie, some kind of government warehouse where theres something above and beyond the old Blue Book files.

And as far as I know, he added, there isnt.

Pope said that there may have been ad hoc investigations done when pilots saw something unusual in the sky, but they were not part of a formally constituted research effort.

Ted Roe is the executive director of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (Narcap), an independent body that collects reports from pilots and radar operators on unidentified aerial phenomena, the term apparently preferred by Clinton. Roe suspects the government may not be telling us everything it knows.

Clinton told Jimmy Kimmel she would seek information on UAPs as president. Photograph: Randy Holmes/AP

He recalled that Leslie Kean, a journalist who concentrates on UFOs, made a freedom of information request to the government regarding an incident in Pennsylvania. The government refused, and a lawsuit ensued. The government lost and was ordered to provide the files and documents relating to the Pennsylvania incident.

Those documents were not forthcoming. She never did get them, Roe said. They claim theyre lost. So there may well be files that we dont know about.

But if there are questions over what Clinton expects to be able to release, there are also questions as to why she would be discussing UFOs at all.

I just cant understand what shes playing at, Pope said.

I cant see theres any votes in it. Its not as if theres some kind of swing vote middle ground thats desperately keen on this issue.

And its an absolute gift to Donald Trump, because you can almost see him up at that podium saying: Im committed to American jobs for American workers and reinvigorating the economy and my opponent seems to be more interested in space aliens.

Clintons interest in UFOs during an election cycle has raised the issue high enough that Barack Obamas press secretary had to field questions on Area 51, the secretive Nevada air base, on Wednesday. Josh Earnest said he was not aware of any plans the president has to make public any information about this.

Area 51 has become synonymous with UFOs and extraterrestrials among some enthusiasts. If there were UFO files, they would likely have information on anything stored in the base, and some conspiracy theories suggest the site contains parts of an alien vessel. Others suggest there could be actual alien remains.

Pope was not optimistic.

I would love there to be aliens, he said. The world would be a much more interesting place if we did have a spaceship in a hangar.

But A, without wanting to sound too arrogant, I hope that I would have heard about it through having security clearance and need to know.

And B, yes, I know we can keep some secrets but in these days of whistleblowers and Wikileaks and Snowden and Manning and Assange, all of that, youd think there would have been something tangible by now.

Roe, who has spent the last 16 years working with Narcap, patiently logging thousands of reports on unidentified aerial phenomena, is sceptical that any documents on alien life will be released any time soon. He said Clintons quest for information was likely doomed.

I dont know that a president is even in the need to know on certain aspects of security. This might be one of those subjects, he said. She may not ever know about this stuff or ever get the access to it.

And even if Clinton did come across evidence of extraterrestrial life, Roe warned that the knowledge would come with a heavy burden.

This is some serious, serious stuff and a lot of our best minds, like Stephen Hawking, have suggested that any exposure to an extraterrestrial civilisation would be catastrophic, he said.

It could be an extinction-level event.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

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