#like guys. i know funds are probably hard to come by in iowa in general and especially right now

[lynnorien]

grumbles

[hellomynameisbisexual]

Travis has had both boyfriends and girlfriends since high school. But when his coworkers discovered his dating history at a board game night, they told him he couldn’t be bisexual. “Bi men don’t exist,” they said. “You’re just a confused gay guy.” Travis, 34, had brought his girlfriend with him that night, but they started calling her his “roommate” after they found out he was bi.

Santiago got an even harsher reaction when he came out to his family. “‘Bisexual’ is just code for insincere gay man” is how he said one of his relatives reacted. “He didn’t use the term ‘gay man,’” 24-year-old Santiago told me, “but I won’t repeat slurs.”

In the past couple of months, I’ve heard dozens of stories like these from bisexual men who have had their sexual orientations invalidated by family members, friends, partners, and even strangers. Thomas was called a “fence-sitter” by a group of gay men at a bar. Shirodj was told that he was “just gay but not ready to come out of the closet.” Alexis had his bisexuality questioned by a lesbian teacher who he thought would be an ally. Many of these same men have been told that women are “all a little bi” or “secretly bi” but that men can only be gay or straight, nothing else.

In other words, bisexual men are like climate change: real but constantly denied.

A full 2% of men identified themselves as bisexual on a 2016 survey from the Centers for Disease Control, which means that there are at least three million bi guys in the United States alone—a number roughly equivalent to the population of Iowa. (On the same survey, 5.5% of women self-identified as bisexual, which comes out to roughly the same number of people as live in New Jersey.) The probability that an entire state’s worth of people would lie about being attracted to more than one gender is about as close to zero as you can get.

But the idea that only women can be bisexual is a persistent myth, one that has been decades in the making. And prejudice with such deep historical roots won’t disappear overnight.

👬👫👬👫

To understand why bisexual men are still being told that their sexual orientation doesn’t exist, we have to go back to the gay liberation movement of the late 1960s. That’s when Dr. H. Sharif “Herukhuti” Williams, a cultural studies scholar and co-editor of the anthology Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men, told me that male sexual fluidity got thrown under the bus in the name of gay rights—specifically white, upper-class gay rights.

“One of the byproducts of the gay liberation movement is this…solidifying of the [sexual] binary,” Herukhuti told me, citing the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s as a pre-Stonewall period of relatively unstigmatized sexual fluidity.

Four decades later, the gay liberation movement created a new type of man—the “modern gay man,” Herukhuti calls him—who was both “different from and similar to” the straight man. As Jillian Weiss, now the executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense Fund, wrote in a 2003 review of this same history, “gays and lesbians campaigned for acceptance by suggesting that they were ‘just like you,’ but with the single (but extremely significant exception) of [having] partners of the same sex.” Under this framework, attraction to a single gender was the unifying glue between gay men, lesbians, and straight people—bisexual people were just “confused.”

Bisexual people realized that they would have to form groups and coalitions of their own if they wanted cultural acceptance. But just as bisexual activism was gaining a foothold in the 1980s, the AIDS crisis hit, and everything changed—especially for bisexual men.

“AIDS forced certain bisexual men out [of the closet], it forced a lot of bisexual men back in, and then it killed off a number of them,” longtime bisexual activist and author Ron Suresha told me.Those deaths hindered the development of male bisexual activism at a particularly critical moment. “A number of men who would have been involved and were involved in the early years of the bi movement died—and they died early and they died quickly,” bisexual writer Mike Syzmanski recalled.

The AIDS crisis also gave rise to one of the most pernicious and persistent stereotypes about bisexual men, namely that they are the “bridge” for HIV transmission between gay men and heterosexual women. As Brian Dodge, a public health researcher at Indiana University, told me, this is a “warped notion” that has “never been substantiated by any real data.” The CDC, too, has debunked the same myth in the specific context of U.S. black communities: No, black men on the “down low” are not primarily responsible for high rates of HIV among black women.

For decades, bisexual men have been portrayed—even within the LGBT community—as secretly gay, sexually confused vectors of disease.

In 2016, bisexual men are still feeling the effects of the virus and the misperceptions around it.

“We’re still underrepresented on the boards of almost all of the national bisexual organizations,” Suresha told me, referring to the fact that women occupy most of the key leadership positions in bisexual activism. And in a new, nationally representative study of attitudes toward bisexual people, Dodge and his research team found that 43% of respondents agreed —at least somewhat—with the statement: “People should be afraid to have sex with bisexual men because of HIV/STD risks.”

For decades, bisexual men have been portrayed—even within the LGBT community—as secretly gay, sexually confused vectors of disease. Is it any wonder that they are still fighting to shed that false image today? It’s hard to convince people that you exist when they barely see you as human.

👬👫👬👫

It’s not that bisexual women have it easy. Both bisexual men and women are much less likely than gay men and lesbians to be out of the closet, with only 28% telling Pew that most of the important people in their life know about their orientation. Collectively, bisexual people also have some of the worst mental health outcomes in the LGBT community and their risk of intimate partner violence is disturbingly high. Bisexual people also face discrimination within the LGBT community while fending off accusations that their orientation excludes non-binary genders. (In response, bisexual educator Robyn Ochs defines “bisexuality” as attraction to “people of more than one sex and/or gender” rather than just to “men and women.”)

And on top of these general problems, bisexual women are routinely hypersexualized, stereotyped as “sluts,” dismissed as “experimenting,” and harassed on dating apps. Their bisexuality is reduced to a spectacle or waved away as a “phase.”

But it is still bisexual men who seem to have their very existence questioned more often.

Suresha pointed me to a 2005 New York Times article with the headline “Straight, Gay, Or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited,” the fallout of which he saw as “a disaster for bi people.” The article reported on a new study “cast[ing] doubt on whether true bisexuality exists, at least in men.” The study in question measured the genital arousal of a small sample of men and found, as the Times summarized, that “three-quarters of the [bisexual male] group had arousal patterns identical to those of gay men; the rest were indistinguishable from heterosexuals.”

“It got repeated and repeated in all sorts of media,” Suresha recalled. “People reported it in news briefs on the radio, in print, in magazines, all over the place.”

As the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force noted in its response to the article, the original study had some clear methodological limitations—only 33 self-identified bisexual men were included and participants were recruited through “gay-oriented magazines”—but the Times went ahead and reported that the research “lends support to those who have long been skeptical that bisexuality is a distinct and stable sexual orientation.”

“Show me the quest for scientific proof that heterosexuality exists. It begins and ends with even just one person saying, ‘I’m straight.’” — Amy Andre, Huffington Post

The article fueled the devious narrative that male bisexuality was just homosexuality in disguise. The lived experiences of bisexual men don’t support that narrative—and neither does science—but its power comes from prejudice, not from solid evidence.

And unsurprisingly, the 2005 study’s conclusions did not survive the test of time. In fact, one of the co-authors of that study went on to co-author a 2011 study which found that “bisexual patterns of both subjective and genital arousal” did indeed occur among men. The New York Times Magazine later devoted a feature to the push for the 2011 study, briefly acknowledging the paper’s previous poor coverage. But many in the bisexual community were unimpressed that the scientific community was still being positioned as the authority on the existence of bisexual men.

“Show me the quest for scientific proof that heterosexuality exists,” Amy Andre wrote on the Huffington Post in response to the feature. “It begins and ends with even just one person saying, ‘I’m straight.’”

👬👫👬👫

One of the most tragic things about society’s refusal to accept bisexual men is that we don’t even know why it is still so vehement. Dodge believes that his new study offers some hints—the persistent and widespread endorsement of the HIV “bridge” myth is alarming—but he told me that he would need “more qualitative and more focused research” before he could definitively state that HIV stigma is the primary factor driving negative attitudes toward bisexual men. (Research in this area is indeed sorely lacking. The last major study on the subject prior to the survey Dodge’s team conducted was published in 2002.)

In the meantime, bisexual advocates have developed plenty of compelling theories, many of them focused on the dominance of traditional masculinity. For example, Herukhuti explained that “we live in a society in which boundaries between men are policed because of patriarchy and sexism.” Men are expected to be “kings of their kingdom”—not to share their domain.

“For men to bridge those boundaries with each other—the only way that we can conceive of that is in the sense that these are ‘non-men,’” Herukhuti told me, adding that, in a patriarchal society, gay men are indeed seen as “non-men.” The refusal to accept that men can be bisexual, then, is partly a refusal to accept that someone who is bisexual can even be a man.

Many of the bisexual men I interviewed endorsed this same hypothesis. Kevin, 25, told me that “it’s seen as really unmanly to be attracted to men.” Another Kevin, 26, added that “the core concept of masculinity doesn’t leave room for anything besides extremes.” Justin, in his mid 20s, said that “men are one way and gay men are another way [but] bisexual men are this weird middle ground.”

Our society doesn’t seem to do well with more than two—especially when so many still believe that there’s only one right way to be a man.

And Michael, 28, added that bisexual men are “symbolically dangerous”—a “big interior threat to hetero masculinity” because of a shared attraction to women. It’s easy for a straight guy to differentiate himself from the modern gay man, but how can he reassure himself that he is nothing like his bisexual counterpart?

The answer is obvious: He can equate male bisexuality with homosexuality.

The logic needed to balance that equation, Herukhuti explained to me, is disturbingly close to the racist, Jim Crow-era “one-drop rule,” which designated anyone with the slightest bit of African ancestry as black for legal purposes.

“For a male to have had any kind of same-sex sexual experience, they are automatically designated as gay, based on that one-drop rule,” Herukhuti said. “And that taints them.”

To see that logic at work, look no further than the state of HIV research, much of which still groups gay and bisexual men together as MSM, or men who have sex with men. Dodge, who specializes in the area of HIV/AIDS, explained that “when a man reports sexual activity with another man, that becomes the recorded mode of transmission and there’s no data reporting about female or other partners.” Bisexual men have their identities erased—literally—from the resulting data.

“A really easy way to fix this,” Dodge added, “would be to just create a separate surveillance category.”

But when it comes to categories, our society doesn’t seem to do well with more than two—especially when so many still believe that there’s only one right way to be a man.

👬👫👬👫

The situation of bisexual men is not hopeless. Slowly but surely, they are expanding the horizons of masculinity. The silver lining in Dodge’s study, for example, is that there has been a decided “‘shift’ in attitudes toward bisexual men and women from negative to more neutral in the general population” over the last decade or so, although negative attitudes toward bisexual men were still “significantly greater” than the negativity directed at their female peers.

“Put the champagne on the ice,” Dodge joked. “We’re no longer at the very bottom of the barrel but we’ve still got a ways to go.”

That distance will likely be shortened by a rising generation that is far more tolerant of sexual fluidity than their predecessors. Respondents to Dodge’s survey who were under age 25 had more positive attitudes toward bisexuality, perhaps because so many of them openly identify as LGBTQ themselves—some as bisexual, some as pansexual, and some refusing labels altogether.

That growing acceptance is starting to be reflected in movies and on television, once forms of media that were, and still often are, notoriously hostile to bisexual men. A character named Darryl came out as bisexual with a myth-busting song on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and, as GLAAD recently noted, other shows like Shadowhunters and Black Sails are starting to do bi male representation right. The HBO comedy Insecure even made biphobia into a powerful storyline when one straight female character, Molly, shunned her love interest when he told her that he once had oral sex with a guy in a college. But other shows, like House of Cards, are still using a male character’s bisexuality as a way to accentuate his villainy.

Ultimately, bisexual men themselves will continue to be the most powerful force for changing hearts and minds. I asked each bisexual man I interviewed what he would want the world to know about his sexual orientation. Some wanted to clear up specific misconceptions but so many of them simply wanted people to acknowledge that male bisexuality is not fake.

“It’s important that bisexuality be acknowledged as real,” said Martyn, 30, adding that “there’s only so long someone can hold on to a part of themselves that seems invisible before it starts to make them doubt their own sense of self.”

“I am happy being bisexual and I’m not looking for an answer,” said Dan, 19. “I’m not trying things out, I’m not using this as a placeholder to discover my identity. This is who I am. And I love it.”

Samantha Allen is a reporter for Fusion’s Sex+Life vertical. She has a PhD in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Emory University and was the 2013 John Money Fellow at the Kinsey Institute. Before joining Fusion, she was a tech and health reporter for The Daily Beast.

[myfriendpokey]

zine thoughts pt 2

where do you sell videogames? zine fairs, children's book stores, used record marts, from the trunk of a car like rudy ray moore, on etsy or on craiglist, with flyers on the wall of the local chip shop or library. through awkwardly hammered-together handmade electronic systems or the reverse, turning your game into a jumbled set of paper text and graphical fragments which can be sold in boardgame stores as some kind of reconstruct-the-narrative puzzle. you could make one-off bespoke games or game simulacra for movies that want to depict some kind of videogame being played onscreen without having to go through the licensing rights. you could ghost-develop games for wealthy people to put their names on ("american mcgee presents my life with princess diana by donald duck"). you could develop training games for the military-industrial complex, ha ha ha ha. you could get funded by the CIA to ensure the medium of videogames remains sufficiently arty and rehabilitated to function as propaganda for capitalism... i mean we already know they were involved with the paris review and iowa writer's workshop and all that jazz so they gotta have least a couple people on the payroll already, right, and we will all be treated to some very entertaining revelations following the inevitable freedom of information act request 15 years down the line. you could try connecting with the little self-contained fan communities for things like touhou, fnaf, undertale, m-minecraft, like those renaissance artists who had to drop their patron's face in the background of some religious scene except in this case it would be one of the homestuck guys. you could make "trainers" for more popular games, or demos that could show how they "feel" without a $60 investment. you could sell small games as assets for larger ones that want to have some kind of in-universe  playable arcade system without having to invent a whole new game from scratch. you could just make extremely specific forms of pornography, maybe not the worst option even, just make sure the very artistic sequences of the protagonist remembering his dead wife are broken up every now and then with scenes of him unhinging his jaw to swallow and slowly digest another, smaller sad games protagonist whole (with rumble function for controllers!!!). you could make games for all the people who are still on windows xp or earlier or have some kind of arcane video card setup that prevents them playing anything other than that one preinstalled pinball game. you could try selling them at street vendors. you could try learning another language and making games for non-anglophones that don't sound like an english-written game that was localised without much thought after the fact.   you could make games for kids in the hopes that they sexually imprint on them enough to support your erotic oil paintings of the characters 10 years later, just like nintendo. you could make an extremely interesting and thoughtful videogame and then offer not to release it if the donation threshold is met, thus sparing people the emotional obligation of having yet another thing on their should-play-this-eventually list. you could develop games with some bewildering system of in-game and real-world currency interactions and then sell it to the mob as a way to launder money. you could make videogames that robots record themselves playing to upload en masse which are then watched by other robots as part of some weird, ungraspably abstract SEO economy, or better yet make robots to make the videogames as well. you could make virtual cemetary plots either private (downloadable exe) or public (hosted on the server) with their own customisable mood-themes and weather settings (dark, stormy, remember-you-will-die; sunny, quiet, circle-of-life etc). you could make prosperity orbs. you could make games for office workers or call center staff which resemble excel documents or phone system frontends from a distance. you could make games which really ARE excel files, some dense collection of interlocking hidden formulas that change to display text and ascii characters as you tab your way through. you could probably talk your way into "adapting" any of those old IPs that still float around long after anyone stopped having any particular thought or feeling about them at all, like the flintstones or ziggy or something, maybe do like those 1960s superhero cartoons where they just filmed panels from the comics - just break a 2d flintstones cartoon into constituent elements and have them hover around in a little cutout diorama that you fly thru, possibly explained in-universe as representing the 4-d vision of the great gazoo. you could make games that play themselves, for the depressed. you could become a ghastly serial m**derer where after each crime you upload a new game to itchio which will reveal the  name of your next victim, and costs only $9.99, and of course everyone buys and plays it because the police have put up a reward for solving the crime because they can't get past the dinosaur on level three, and all seems lost until some plucky young computer student who found the game on a friend's hard drive manages to solve the riddle hidden within the game's structure, following the clues, to an old castle, she knocks on the door, it's opened by, yes, it's will wright, wearing a wizard outfit, who tells her that by dint of solving all the puzzles she is now invited to join that mysterious organization known as "The Elect" which is assembled from the finest minds in all game design with a view to secretly controlling the world economy (via "werewolf blood", somehow), that she need only complete the ceremony by sacrificing one untutored soul, he holds out an ornate knife, she hesitates........

the question is where to sell videogames rather than how because for the most part we already know how - there are a million more or less instructive articles out there about hitting up conventions or talking to the press, and it's not that they're wrong, exactly, more that they expect to be applied in an environment that no longer exists. but what should preface and qualify the idea of sheer volume swamping the indie games market is that, outside of a few small pockets, there never really was an "indie games market" to begin with - indie games drew and mostly still draw on the existing videogames market, rather than constituting a new one. it's telling that the glory days of indie games were just the ones where they were able to draw upon some of the same privileges larger titles already had in the ability to access that same audience - being frontpaged by steam, say, or making it onto a comparatively closed console platform, or generating earnest thinkpieces... you could say that they were tapping into structures the industry had already built but had not yet occupied to full capacity.

of course there are exceptions and various efforts to set up new economies for small weird interactive things (like patreon, or game bundles), and some efforts to reach outside the existing games audience likely were successful - but when we think of indie games "functioning" economically, whether that means supporting a small team, a single person, or just hitting minimum wage per hours spent, i believe we're mostly still talking about ones which are built around the existing games economy. which is fine, but i think it's also intrinsically precarious in ways which maybe get glossed over in discussions of the "indiepocalypse" - are all those new steam releases really causing a problem or are they just exacerbating a structural limitation which was already always there, a reliance within the indie game economy on a certain lucky-few-ism which just became grossly more noticeable the more disproportionate it got?

of course it's easier to be dismissive after the fact, and my fantasy about "where" to sell videogames is partly a fantasy of them having a location to begin with - of attaining something of the grounded and immutable appearance of the non-digital, as though brick and mortar stores  don't have a relationship to the likes of amazon as basically precarious as any online storefront. and there are also real and obvious reasons why the various videogame audiences all tend to clump together - similarities in terms of the hardware required, the inputs allowed, of visual and cultural reference points, to say nothing of the personal / professional histories of the people involved in each. we are all contained within "the medium"...

so maybe it's also a fantasy of starting to pick apart that conception of the medium. i think small game developers already have more in common with artists or musicians working on the fringes of their respective industries than they do with even moderately successful teams within the same format, and use similar language, engage in similar forms of practice - particularly as near everything  comes increasingly mediated by the digital these days. i think they already ARE working in similar spaces to some extent, whether it's social media sites or digital storefronts or meatspace stores pushed by necessity not to specialise. and without wanting to be paranoid (or moreso than the CIA thing, at least) i think we should be cautious of the way a certain focus on mediumicity can obscure these overlaps.  a "new medium" is one which inherently pushes against the image of one as grouded ahistorically in some eternal human verity or other (where each medium supposedly embodies some different mode of perception / medieval humour / ninja turtle etc) - it is to see firsthand the way in which supposedly eternal, neutral qualities are materially constructed, which includes seeing forms of social organisation and usage become mystified into extrahuman conditions.  and given their basis in technology that includes drawing from wider trends in the use of that technology as a whole - which specifically, in tech circles, can mean more and more tightly interlocking systems of proprietary knowledge and speculative capital, as well as "new mediums" constructed so as to be inseperable from some storefront, website or monitoring technology. i don't think anybody will necessarily break even taking their games to a zine fair (not that they're breaking even now). but i do feel like trying to build networks across those medium boundaries could be more valuable in the effort to build some sustainable environment for these things than any amount of reform within the house that tech built.

[PS: it occurs to me that you could plausibly argue that the very bagginess of medium-centric formulations is what makes them valuable, in forcing many different groups to butt against each other on one platform rather than just disperse into echo chambers. but i think exactly the reverse is the case: nobody really engages with each other's work in artgames because the stakes are simultaneously too small and too large. they're too small in that however much i might be picky about another person's work - and i think it's this vague pickiness or sense of not-quite-right-ness that drives the most searching critiques - it still feels pointless to pursue that instead of the glaring, omnipresent faults of the big AAA players, which means more complaining about far cry for all eternity. and they're too large in that most small game development is so precarious that it's not really worth the risk of knocking someone out of the circle over penny-ante shit. only with both economic security and broad similarity of outlook can a truly vital,  human culture of spiteful cattiness begin... our day will come]

(image credits: Eco Fighter, World Heroes 2 ,The Space Adventure, Nancy)

[xtruss]

Argument

America Needs to Prosecute Its Presidents

Pardoning Trump, like Nixon before him, would be a disaster.

— September 29, 2020 | Foreign Policy | Paul Musgrave

Electoral defeat for Donald Trump, even if the transition of power goes smoothly, will not be the end of the country’s political crisis. It would instead be the beginning of the next test of the American political system: confronting the record of wrongdoing left by the Trump administration, both the crimes committed in office and crimes overlooked due to his power.

Grappling with the Trump post-presidency will include delicate questions about how to investigate potential criminal and civil wrongdoing committed by the president, his associates, and his family. And there is a chance the country may not be up to this task.

There’s one clear precedent for worrying: President Gerald Ford’s pardon of his criminal predecessor (and tax cheat) Richard Nixon, and the subsequent elite embrace of that pardon. That means it’s important to lay out the case for why a potential President Biden should not pardon Trump for offenses committed against the United States.

To be sure, Biden has pledged not to do so. Yet there have been signs that he may be going wobbly. Whereas in 2019, Biden emphasized that Trump’s actions merited scrutiny (“This guy does all these things that put us in jeopardy and he gets off?” he said to Radio Iowa), in an August NPR interview he emphasized instead that pursuing criminal charges against a former president would be “a very, very unusual thing” and “probably not very—how can I say it?—good for democracy.”

These shifting stances may just be an attempt to calm nervous voters. But the direction of that shift is also what we would expect from a candidate attuned to the conventional wisdom of U.S. elites: that pardons of even criminal ex-presidents can heal the country.

The American political system has no tradition of official disgrace or damnatio memoriae. All presidents are honored, even those who were awful or, in the case of President John Tyler, disloyal. Tyler, the tenth president, not only ran a disastrous administration but ended his public life as a congressman in a brief-lived treasonous slave power. And yet even Tyler receives official remembrances, including a presidential dollar coin featuring his image.

That coin illustrates the natural arc of American political culture: institutional ignoring of the misdeeds of the powerful in the name of “healing.” Yet this norm does not heal; it harms. It makes a mockery of Americans’ belief that they have a government of laws, not of men, if those laws do not apply to the men who enforce the laws. It constitutes a denial of justice and an amnesty granted only to the powerful. Left unchallenged, this norm will protect Trump from the reckoning that the country needs.

Consider how the system dealt with Nixon.

Time has so effaced the details of Nixon’s malfeasance that he has regained a patina of statesmanship. Thus, Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, could recently tweet a favorable comparison between Nixon and Trump, arguing that that “Nixon, for all his flaws, was a conservative who abided by norms.”

Haass’s viral tweet reflects an irony that, in death, Nixon has finally been accepted by the sort of institution whose rejections kindled in him a lifelong resentment of the Eastern Establishment he tried to join. In doing so, it reflects a general amnesia about why Watergate was so bad that illustrates how far elite culture will go to forgive the crimes of the powerful.

The signature moment of Watergate is the June 17, 1972, break-in, when a team of burglars were caught in the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Reporting and investigations soon uncovered ties to the White House. But that was just the tip of a very dirty iceberg. Subsequent prosecutorial and congressional investigations broke apart not just the Nixon administration’s frantic, illegal cover-up of its ties to the burglary but uncovered an entire panoply of what Attorney General John Mitchell called the “White House horrors.”

These included use and the attempted use of government agencies like the IRS to go after the president’s political enemies. The administration sought to persecute its enemies, leading to abuses like an attempt to steal the files of dissident Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. The president directed his aides to retrieve classified papers from the Brookings Institution by any means necessary, including stealing them or firebombing the think tank. Even the Watergate break-in turned out to be the second one—the first, on May 28, 1972, had been undetected.

And Nixon was not above using his position to enrich himself. He used government agencies to improve his private residences. And he evaded taxes, including by improperly claiming deductions related to his gift of his vice-presidential papers to the government. Far from abiding by norms, he broke them with abandon.

None of this should have come as a surprise given Nixon’s pre-presidential career, including his use of campaign funds for personal expenses (sanitized as his so-called Checkers speech), his attempt to win the 1968 election by sabotaging Vietnam peace talks, and his ties to various underworlds.

Nixon’s wrongdoing extended far beyond the break-in and coverup. His administration displayed a consistent pattern of abuse of powers matching or exceeding that of Trump.

And yet somehow minimizing that pattern of abuse has become the literal textbook version of history. In Alan Brinkley’s widely assigned high school history textbook The Unfinished Nation (1992), for example, Watergate receives two and a half pages, without mentioning any specific crime other than the break-in.

This revisionist history may explain why, in a 2014 CNN survey, only 51 percent of Americans reported considering Watergate a “very serious matter” that revealed unusual corruption in the Nixon White House, while 46 percent reported that the scandal was “just politics–the kind of thing both parties engage in.”

Brinkley’s textbook later blandly mentions that President Gerald Ford, Nixon’s successor, suffered political consequences from his decision to offer Nixon a blanket pardon for wrongdoing while in office.

Pointedly, Ford had rejected pardoning Nixon during his confirmation hearings as vice president. Once in office, though, a chorus of voices lobbied him to change his mind, claiming that neither the country nor Nixon himself might survive the trial.

Ford’s pardoning of Nixon was unpopular at the time, with 53 percent of Americans rejecting it. It has since become conventional wisdom among America’s institutional elite that Ford’s act was merciful and correct. In 2001, a panel of eminences recruited by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation honored Ford’s pardon of Nixon by giving him its Profiles in Courage Award.

At the awards dinner, Senator Ted Kennedy praised the wisdom of Ford’s decision. “I was one of those who spoke out against his action then,” Kennedy said. “But time has a way of clarifying past events, and now we see that President Ford was right. His courage and dedication to our country made it possible for us to begin the process of healing and put the tragedy of Watergate behind us.”

It’s hard to find dissenters from this view in D.C. power circles. Yet there are those who view Kennedy’s argument as dangerously wrong-headed. One of those was Elizabeth Holtzman, who in 1974 was a firebrand first-term liberal representative from New York City who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during its impeachment hearings.

In an oral history with the federal Nixon Presidential Library, Holtzman called the “healing” argument “nonsense”. “In my mind, the impeachment process brought the country together, because whether you had voted for Nixon, whether you’re Republican or Independent or Democrat or unaffiliated, you felt that the rule of law had finally been carried out,” she said. “We reconnected to our commitment to the rule of law and then we had President Ford come in and [shatter] that.”

By downplaying the seriousness of Nixon’s crimes, and stopping further consequences, the pardon made it possible to reduce Watergate from the White House horrors to the break-in. It also enabled Nixon’s rehabilitation.

When Nixon died, President Bill Clinton ordered the closing of government offices “as a mark of respect for Richard Milhous Nixon.” In a cloying eulogy delivered “on behalf of a grateful nation,” Clinton praised Nixon’s legacy in domestic and foreign policy, without a single reference to Watergate or abuse of power other than the banal acknowledgment that “He made mistakes.”

The healing myth has become part of a bipartisan catechism even though its central premise—that the pardon healed the country—is unsupportable. In the long run, as Holtzman said, “the Nixon pardon has had terrible ramifications.” It set the stage for later pardons related to executive self-interest, including George H.W. Bush’s pardons of many figures involved in the Iran-Contra scandal.

If U.S. political culture can congratulate itself for rehabilitating Nixon, then the temptations for a Biden administration to do the same for Trump will be powerful. Doing so will let the administration move on to other priorities, sensible centrists will argue. And the next election is only two years away—do you really want to have Trump still in the news by then?

Advocates of a pardon or other forms of clemency will point to other factors as well. They will argue that, in a polarized country, the specter of politicized prosecutions will raise the possibility that vengeful Republicans will retaliate later. And indeed, it would be disastrous for democracy were each administration to misuse prosecution against its political enemies.

Yet given what we already know about the president’s finances and conduct in office, an investigation of the Trump administration is unlikely to be politicized in any meaningful sense. It is only a refusal to prosecute that could be politicized, in the sense of being guided by political calculation rather than a commitment to the rule of law. (That would apply doubly to the idea that a pardon could help ease Trump out of the White House without strife.)

More sophisticated observers might caution that even potentially justifiable prosecutions could have deleterious effects on U.S. politics and the country’s standing in the world. The prosecutions of Brazil’s most recent presidents—Lula, Dilma, and Michel Temer—did much to clear the way for the election of the country’s disastrous current president, Jair Bolsonaro. Similar concerns have been raised about other prosecutions elsewhere, like Ecuador’s conviction of former president Rafael Correa, which barred him from a return to politics.

But it’s strange to argue that democracy depends on not prosecuting those who commit crimes. In France, even a prime minister caught misusing public funds may now go to jail rather than retire to a villa. And although some have criticized South Korea for prosecuting its ex-presidents (over half of whom are now in prison), measures like the Varieties of Democracy index show that Seoul’s record on liberal democracy is stronger than that of the United States.

It should not be surprising that democracy and prosecutions of former officials can go together. That is, after all, the entire point of the rule of law. Holding officials to account forms a critical part of strengthening democratic institutions. And the ballot box is only one way to do that.

That is why Biden must not waver. If a former president has never been prosecuted in American history, that’s because the last time the country had a chance to do so it was denied that opportunity. Far from being bad for democracy, a sober, lengthy, and deliberative investigation would be good for establishing a record of the rot in the Trump administration. And it would be a major boost for liberal democracy and anti-corruption efforts by demonstrating that in mature democracies, officials face consequences.

Having a president who committed crimes is not unprecedented in American history. What would be unprecedented would be to end this long national nightmare by letting them face the same justice that any other American should.

[richmeganews]

Millennial Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg Has Actual Ideas for Solving the Student Loan Crisis

Pete Buttigieg is a millennial who wants to become the most powerful man on the planet. But the 37-year-old isn’t that delusional guy at your office who thinks his idea for a start-up is going to spare him the monotony of working for a living. The two-term mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Afghanistan veteran is exploring a run for president, and although he’s very much a long-shot candidate, the Democrat’s campaign just said he cleared a fundraising threshold to qualify for June’s first official DNC primary debate. That means even if he doesn’t make any noise in the Iowa caucus or New Hampshire primary, Americans may soon be hearing a lot more from a young person who entered the prime of his professional life in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

With that in mind, Buttigieg called me up from South Bend last week to talk about one specific issue: the student debt crisis. We chatted about how he might work to revamp the system if elected, including where he stood on everything from the relatively radical idea of debt cancellation to the need for states to step up and fund public education like they did in the past. What follows is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

VICE: I wanted to start talking a little bit about your personal experience with student debt before we get into some of my more policy-related questions. I know you mentioned in an interview at South by Southwest that your husband is pretty underwater. Pete Buttigieg: Chasten is a teacher, so that involved getting a master’s degree, and between the teacher training programs he was in as well as his bachelor’s and master’s, it’s left us with a lot of debt. I had the great fortune of getting the Rhodes scholarship and was able to come through Harvard without a lot of debt. But between the two of us, we’re going to have to deal with a lot of debt.

I’m curious as to how you think you’d compare yourself to somebody like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren who, as you know, have relatively progressive stances on education and student debt even though they haven’t directly experienced the modern incarnations. They belong to a generation that went to college at a time when America as a country and, even more significantly, our states, really did their parts to manage the cost of higher education. Not that it was easy for anybody, but I think maybe it was just more of a norm. Education was more something that, if you could qualify and were able to work, it would be priced reasonably. But I think we come at the issue in a pretty similar way. It’s just still a little more personal for me. My grandfather decided that I should never have to pay for college, and so he did what you would do then, which is you got a savings bonds, for, I believe, $1,000. And the intent was that that would mature to a level that would cover my college expenses, which was a reasonable thing to believe in the 70s or 80s, for sure. Obviously, it just doesn’t work that way now.

A lot of people in Congress still seem to think that you can pay for college doing part-time work over the summer and don’t understand that the rules of the game have changed. But how do you convince people that your age is a boon rather that a disqualification when it comes to to tackling some of these entrenched problems? Well, the way I look at it is you just have a different standing to talk about these issues when they’re personal for you. It’s one of the reasons why I often try to paint a picture of what the world would look like in 2054, because it’s the year I get to the current age of the current president. And you know, I think everybody in this race cares about it, but I just think it’s a little different when you’re personally preparing for it.

Ours is a generation that was merged into the labor market at the time of the Great Recession, and I think it’s just been shaped by that. And every generation makes its mark based on its experience. You go back to JFK, his inaugural address, he said something about how the torch had been passed to a new generation born in this century, which had been tempered by war and disciplined by a hard and bitter peace. So I don’t mean to claim some unique personal authority, or that I’m the only one that gets these things, but I do think that when they’re personal, you come at them with a different sense of urgency, for sure.

I’m anxious to see whether the other Democratic candidates in 2020 are mostly going to focus on people who already have debt or on those who haven’t taken it on yet. Which is a priority for you, and how you kind of distinguish between the two as a politician given that they essentially affect different constituencies? I think you probably are going to have two different lines of effort. If we target debt and not college costs alone, then it benefits everybody. So, for example, improving accessibility to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF), expanding the cap on how much debt is forgiven to the Teacher Loan Forgiveness program—these are the things that stand to help those of us who’ve already graduated, and it could be a big difference maker for people going to school now, or even people, you know, sadly, [who] may be weighing whether going to school is a good move.

But I don’t think we should choose one. What will we have to do is make sure that we start moving these debt loads in the right direction. And when you have folks with these six-figure debt loads, whether we talk about creating refinancing options or whether we talk about paths to loan forgiveness, or even just adjusting how income-based repayment works, we can make a move there that’s somewhat retroactive as well as making it easier for the next folks who come along.

How do you feel about straight-up student debt cancellation, or if that’s too extreme, how you feel about at least allowing people to declare bankruptcy on their student loans? I think there should be a comprehensive strategy, and I’m not wedded to an individual element of that. So there may be trade-offs between how generous we want to make different forgiveness programs and what we do around bankruptcy, for example. But I think it should be considered. I mean we consider it in other credit markets, right? As long as it doesn’t harm access to credit for a future generation of students. Wiping it away strikes me as a little bit harder to take on for a couple of reasons. Obviously, cost.

To backtrack for a second, I’m sure—given that your husband is a teacher—you have more thoughts on the complete failure of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. I think it’s okay to have student loan forgiveness attached to certain things. And that’s why the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program for example, is so attractive. Right? It’s sort-of an exchange of value. What I think we should be cautious about is—you know, it’s not the same if you’re going into a very high-income profession. And again, this might be partly my perspective as somebody who married a teacher, but you know, teachers get paid roughly 60 percent of what people with a comparable education in other fields [make].

But the whole logic of the current student loan subsidy system, especially the fact that that graduate student loans are more expensive or graduate student debt tends to be more expensive than undergrad, is based on the idea that the folks coming out of grad school are going to go be doctors and lawyers and among the wealthiest people in our society. And unfortunately that means you’re doubly punished for doing something very honorable, like making the choice to become a teacher. And that’s why I think it makes sense, if we’re going to move in the direction of forgiveness, to have it be tied to income and not just some kind of blanket thing that makes no distinction between folks who are going to be just fine and are on their way to being in the 1 percent, and people who are struggling in the middle class and almost being punished for the fact that they got an education and used it to benefit others.

Totally. I think that’s an important distinction. I’m curious as to how you think you can maybe incentivize a state school to lower their costs besides putting a cap on the amount of loans one can take out that are backed by the federal government? A good place to begin is to make some federal support to states conditional on the level of support they’re prepared to provide to students. So for example, we could tie these students’ share of college costs to either an income metric or an affordability metric and then make some federal aid to states in the field of education contingent on them offering that up. Because what we’ve seen as a pattern is a lot of state schools have gone from being state-sponsored to state-subsidized to state-related—just providing less and less of that share. Now, the federal government could also pick up some of that slack. For example, if we reset the percentage of total cost of attendance that we think Pell Grants ought to be able to cover and properly funded that, it would take the edge off. But I still think that there needs to be a little more harmony among the states in terms of what they’re willing to do to keep costs under control.

It constantly blows my mind that this isn’t one of the biggest issues for almost all politicians. No one in an entire generation is going be able to buy houses, or in some cases even basic consumer goods. This seems poised to completely tank the economy. This is somebody else’s problem. They want to do the right thing, but in terms of where it falls among priorities, in the end, it’s not quite the same as one that they can relate to directly.

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

The post Millennial Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg Has Actual Ideas for Solving the Student Loan Crisis appeared first on .

The post Millennial Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg Has Actual Ideas for Solving the Student Loan Crisis appeared first on .

from WordPress http://www.richmeganews.com/millennial-presidential-candidate-pete-buttigieg-has-actual-ideas-for-solving-the-student-loan-crisis/

[gdmli]

Capital Core – Downtown Development                       Thursday, December 6, 2018

Being in a class in the recently renovated Downtown YMCA, was an appropriate venue for a class which was focused on the state of, accomplishments and challenges with the downtown core and surrounding neighborhoods.  Des Moines has been well documented for being a fabulous community in all kinds of rankings.  What we don’t hear about very often are all of the challenges and shortfalls which we face.  This class celebrated our successes but also brought many of those challenges to light……

Presentation #1- Downtown DSM Retail 2030 with Nikki Syverson

Nikki was pouring up some knowledge for a thirsty crowd eager to learn about more about the state of retail in Des Moines.

Our downtown residents have grown substantially in the past decade.  This has been good for retail.  The HyVee grocery store has made a huge impact in making downtown a sustainable place for people to live without fleeing to the suburbs for routine shopping requirements such as groceries.

The rest of the retail scene is more nuanced as is all traditional “brick & mortar” retail establishments in our ever-expanding online world.  It’s a precarious retail landscape these days to say the least but the East Village is managing it well by presenting a nice mix of national retailers along with local flavors.  Wonderful examples include West Elm (national) and Kitchen Collage (local).

The East Village has developed nicely into a user-friendly environment of destinations such as Zombie Burger and Raygun.  As the onslaught of online retail continues to march ahead, I feel good about our ability to create spaces and places where people want to visit, hang out and hopefully part with a few hard-earned dollars.  

Presentation #2- Affordable Housing with Eric Burmeister, Polk County Housing Trust Fund

and Matt Hauge, Community Housing Initiatives

Be prepared to be depressed.  Be prepared to feel guilty if you live in a moderately nice home.  Be prepared to be indicted if you’ve never stood up for Affordable Housing and for those that call it home.

Eric Burmeister delivered the facts.  Matt Hauge delivered an emotional knockout punch.  Let’s start with Eric.  Just the facts, ma’am.

We have 15,440 Extremely Low Income households (or “ELI” defined as 30% of AMI or Area Median Income) but we only have 8,237 units to house these families.  You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that we have a problem; an imbalance in supply and demand.  So what’s an ELI to do?  They have to pay more of their already sparse income on housing.  The average ELI spending 68% of their income while 30% is the general rule of thumb.  It may not be politically correct but the poor get poorer…….

This situation most likely contributes to the ELI’s inability to own a vehicle which means they disproportionately rely on public transportation or pedestrian-power.  That’s not the end of the world but with their major employment centers being Jordan Creek Mall and the Outlets of Des Moines in Altoona where low-wage retail jobs exist; this isn’t exactly convenient.  This commute is significant and utilizing public transportation, although reliable and cost-effective, is not as fast as private transportation.

It didn’t take long for all of us to understand that being low income and “house-poor” is a dreadful problem.  So why don’t we just build more affordable housing?  More on that later…….

Now that we’ve digested some numbers let’s switch gears and view the situation through the eyes of an affordable housing operator such as Matt Hauge of Community Housing Initiatives (or CHI).  Matt works directly with low-income families every day.  Even the term “low-income” is loaded by the way.  To some it has a negative connation so they prefer terms like “work force housing”.  As you can see, even how we talk about the issue it is problematic.  But people like Eric and Matt are talking about it to everyone that will listen.  They’re talking a lot and their raising awareness while affecting change.  I’m convinced that there will be a special place in Heaven for those guys and I’ll probably be doing their laundry up there.

Matt reminded me of the Grim Reaper.  “You never know if we might meet someday…….” he said trying to help us to understand that many of CHI’s residents didn’t plan to be there.  Many of them lived a “normal” life once which included holding down jobs, having a home and raising families.  But then something happened; a medical emergency, a lost job, a family crisis.  Something happened that could happen to any one of us God willing.

Matt shared heart-breaking stories of families “chasing housing” all over the country and asked us to think about the effect that would have on the children of these families that are uprooting every 12-18 months just to find an affordable place to sleep.  How do these kids find stability?  How do they feel connected to friends, teachers or a community?  They don’t.  They are isolated and broken from one move to the next.

Gunnar Olson challenged all of us to drop our “NIMBY-ism” ways and to encourage our local city councils to clear the roadblocks to develop affordable housing in our own neighborhoods.  “Studies show” [Blogger’s Note: I swear I’ve heard this but I didn’t verify] that intermingling affordable housing (in limited numbers) into market rate neighborhoods is a more sustainable than concentrating “projects” in large numbers but the economies of affordable housing development doesn’t lend itself to that approach.  More on that later………or next actually.

Presentation #3- Downtown Development Panel with:

Angie Pfannkuch, Christensen Development Vice President

Erin Olson-Douglas, City of Des Moines Urban Designer

Kameron Middlebrooks, Iowa State University Extension & Outreach Minority Business Coordinator

 This was a really good panel because up to this point I think many people in the room thought the problem of not having enough affordable housing could be solved by creating more supply (ie. building more units) but of course nothing is that simple.  Angie Pfannkuch explained the financial constraints created by land costs, soft costs (such as design) and construction costs which creates an environment of overall building costs that far outweighs what “ELI” residents can afford to pay for a unit.  It’s simple economics.

We all want to do good but doing good isn’t always economically feasible.  Speaking of doing good; is gentrification good or bad?  Kameron Middlebrooks largely viewed it as a negative if it meant that it pushed long-term, historical residents out of neighborhoods they could once afford.  Erin Olson-Douglas wasn’t so sure.  She felt if redevelopment was done with respect to neighborhood integration of diverse incomes then that investment into older neighborhoods could actually be beneficial.  No easy answers for sure.

Like what’s the answer to what happened to the neighborhood north of I-235 which has never recovered from having a giant interstate placed right through the middle of it.  This decision disproportionately dispersed African-American residents and businesses.  The truth is you can’t roll back the clock and you can’t feasibly fix the injustice which happened decades ago but that also doesn’t mean that you throw your hands up and do nothing of course.  The solutions will involve public and private effort.  Policies by government and investment by the private sector.

We clearly have a ways to go as it was noted that Des Moines consistently ranks as one of the worst cities for African Americans to live in the United States.  Those rankings are backed by a plethora of measures comparing African Americans to their white counterparts along such statistics as unemployment, income, prison population, on and on.  That’s probably not shocking for members of the African American community but its tragically embarrassing and troubling for everyone else.  It’s also painfully ironic when compared to all the “good lists” and rankings that Des Moines is recognized and honored with.  It’s clear that we need to work really hard to rectify this cancer if we’re ever going to truly mature and flourish as a community.

And if we could accomplish some of those lofty goals what would that look like?  Well, we’re about to find out……   

Presentation #4- Visioning Activity & Reflection / Discussion

Visionary Headline: Study Finds Des Moines to be the Most Balanced & Equitable Community in the United States 

To conclude the class, we broke up into groups to create a “success” headline.  We were asked to explain what success looked like (from the City Core perspective) and then to come up with a newspaper headline that captured those sentiments.  Mine would be the following with an article laying out studies that indicate that Des Moines rates as #1 amongst its peers for Affordable Housing, a vibrant & energized downtown (in regards to residents, office and retail standards) along with balancing incomes and racial demographics.  Sounds a bit utopian but hey you asked us to dream.

In Conclusion:  The Capital Core strategies are based on the philosophy that a strong, growing region needs a healthy central city in order to thrive. Doing so requires increasing the capacity and diversity of downtown amenities to attract people, while building and sustaining downtown housing at multiple price points to stay affordable for the workers needed to keep businesses open including minority and historically-discriminated businesses.

[captain-unlikelynutbouquet-blog]

usual car insurance cost

"usual car insurance cost

usual car insurance cost

BEST ANSWER:  Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://financeandcreditsolution.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr 

RELATED QUESTIONS: 

What is the cheapest car insurance company?

What is the cheapest car insurance company?

Car insurance for age 17?

Well going sound awkward but i want a car without out parents knowing, been working for 2 years got enough money can prove to insurers where i got the money from im 17 and is it possible to get insurance at my address (real address where i auctally live) but i want the paperworks to be sent to another address or they contact me by email because family wants me to get a car when im 25 however im going uni so i really need a car also im not going to any fraud everything will be legit just need to make sure if i can insurance and only i know about it thanks""

""As a provisional licence holder, where is cheapest to get a insurance quote for a 206 hdi 1.9 HELPPPPPPPPPP!?""

as a provisional licence holder, where is cheapest to get a insurance quote for a 206 hdi 1.9 HELPPPPPPPPPP!""

Is it cheaper to insure your child under your insurance even if they have thier own car?

Is it cheaper on your child to insure them under your insurance even if they have their own car? We have leased a 2011 Chevrolet Cruze for our 18 year old daughter and after researching some rates that were as high as $500 per month, we thought it might be cheaper to insure her under our current policy as an additional vehicle. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? This is in the state of TN, and the lease and vehicle will be in my daughters name, we're just making the payments on everything. She is a student at a college less than 50 miles away. She does live there however, and only comes home once or twice a month.""

Should I pay my employer to get my insurance license in FL?

Should I pay my employer to get my insurance license in FL? I was recently hired at trajan insurance as a financial professional. They want me to pay $580 to get my insurance license before I even start. The company sells insurance and other financial options to consumers. They werent clear on my pay scale either. The office is located in Tampa, Fl.. Does anyone know anything about this? Please help in anyway you can. thank you""

Why does having access to more than 1 car put your insurance premium up?

I'm trying to get insured on my mums car, the quotes on insurance comparison websites are higher when I mention that she is insured on somebody else car though...""

""Im a 14 years experianced driver , going to reside in USA, Wi, soon ; how will be my Auto Insurance policy?""

Im a 32 years old male and I have been driving for past 14 years. Im going to move to USA , Wisconsin , I would like to know how will be my Auto Insurance Policy? Will I be considered as a new driver , Since I belive I would have to apply for an American Driving license?""

SR-22 Insurance help?

Got pulled over in the state of Iowa for not having a license, but I did have insurance should I deserve to get SR-22 insurance?""

I am looking for Home owners Insurance. Which do you have or recommend?

Geico or State Farm And Why? Thank you

Does anyone know how much car insurance will be on a 2003 ford focus svt 2 door?

im thinking about buying a ford focus svt i just need to no around how much car insurance might be if any one knows

Buying used car. What do I do for insurance?

I'm buying a new car today and I was wondering if I could drive it home (~2miles) without insurance. If not, what do I do? Thanks""

Cheapest way to insure a car temporarily?

I have had a company car for the last 2 years and looking to buy a 2nd car for a little bit of fun on a few weekends a year. I dont want to buy a full years insurance as it is too expensive (looking at a porshe convertable) and I am only 21. Can anyone suggest a cheap way of which i can only insure the car for a few days a year? Thank you, Richard""

What does auto liability insurance cover?

I'm confused. I have a cheap car (read: old, not worth $1,000, beat up) that I need insurance on. I'm not worried about paying for my car to get fixed if damaged. However, I have a problem with scraping people's car. For example, I drove my car out of a parking lot and nearly bumped into another one, leaving maybe a scratch or dent. Would liability insurance cover that? Does it help pay for the OTHER car? 'Cause truth be told, my car's not worth paying insurance for ha ha. VA's minimum is the 25/50/25, so that's my insurance policy.""

What is the best car insurance company in Britain?

I am 17 and looking to be put on my dads insurance. The car is a 1.4 Renault Clio and the cheapest quote is 1600. How do you get them to take the price down when speaking to them on the phone? Also I have had a bike for a couple of years with my own insurance, will this make a difference? Cheers!""

Why do women get cheaper car insurance?

Ive noticed all my guy friends pay a lot more for car insurance then i do why is that?

Do car salesmen get free dealer insurance to drive any car?

As above, I've been offered a job by a franchised motor dealership, just curious if as part of the job you get free insurance to drive all vehicles? And do you generally get a company car. It's a big part of the decision I have to make. Any help or advice would be great.""

How much would motorcycle insurance cost?

Hello, i'm 20 about to be 21 in december, but i'm gonna be going for my motorcycle license in a week, an planning on buying a kawasaki ninja 250R since it has good reviews, but i'm wondering how much it would be for insurance i'm just going for motorcycle license cause i don't like cars, trucks etc. but yeah so i don't have a normal license so i have no driving record of crashes etc. i'm in indianapolis, IN cause i know states vary. Rob""

Help Buy Auto Insurance!?

Hi, Just bought a care and now as a second step looking for a auto insurance, must be cheap, reliable and have a good history of dealing with auto insurance. Regards!""

Why is it hard to find medical Insurances?

i have a heart condition, why is it hard to find medical insurances?""

How much would auto insurance be for a 16 year old?

When i'm 14 in a year I would like to get a summer job, and store half of my paycheck in the bank because I want to save up for a car when im older and I get my lisence. I want to know how much insurance would probably be for lets say... a Mitsubishi Eclipse (1990s-2004) or a Nissan 200sx.""

Where can I get the best price on private medical insurance?

Where can I get the best price on private medical insurance?

Health insurance coverage for my 88 yr old mother with dementia?

our 88 year old mom who has dementia has medicare part a & b, with Aetna supplement. We need to relocate mom back home since she doesn''t have the funds to stay at the dementia home she is currently in. Payments keep rising. Due to the medicaid five year stepdown, she will be eligible in two years. Until then, we will keep her at home, however, is there a health coverage that will be able to cover any major health catastrophy, should one occur in next two years before Medicaid kicks in? We are willing to relocate with mom to a state that has this kind of coverage. Right now we live in New York, which in itself is very expensive and we are considering moving to help cover mom's costs. Where and what do you recommend?""

Where to buy affordable health insurance?

I was forced to retire at the age of 64. I am not eligible for medicare until Sep of 2011. Looking for health insurane I can buy now

Do you know that 30 million working poor will be able to get health insurance under the affordable care act?

But only if the law stands. http://eclectablog.com/2012/06/18-reasons-the-affordable-care-act-is-the-greatest-achievement-for-the-middle-class-since-medicare.html

Best Job description for a full time eBay seller? (For car insurance quote)?

I'm about to renew my car insurance but need to find the most appropriate and accurate job description for my trade. I am self employed as a soul trader (UK) and my main income is achieved through making small hand crafted items (mostly material based) and sell them on eBay. So far I've been using the job description of 'artist' In the 'manufacturing' industry, but I was wondering if there was a more accurate one on the standardised job description list?""

usual car insurance cost

usual car insurance cost

How can I lower my insurance rates at 19?

So I'm 19 and my insurance is about 100 a month and i pay 400(really its 300 but I pay 400 so I can finish faster) flat a month for a 2012 Chrysler 200 but initially at 18 I wanted a challenger, but my insurance rate was going to be more than my car payment, so here I am at 19 almost 20 in a few months and am wanting to try my luck again at getting a challenger(my dream car) but just want to know if theirs anything I can do to lower my rate for a sports car, I've built a substantial amount of credit I earn 30,000 a yr and have never wrecked is their anything else I can do? P.S I work hard and am a college student and in no way have received help from anyone to get what I want, I just work hard and want my dream car and feel like I can manage it but the insurance is killing me.""

""If i activate the speed limiter on my car, do you think my insurance would be cheaper?""

I have a 1.6 citroen c2 vts, and my insurance is pretty pricey. It has a speed limiter, and i've heard about this before. If i tell my insurance company i have limited the car to 70mph do you think it would be cheaper?""

""Being sued by an insurance company, can my wages be garnished?""

I was in a severe accident last year in which the damage done exceeded my coverage. Now, a year later, the other insurance company is suing me. Now, the odd thing about this is, the accident was in NJ, I now live in PA, and they cannot seem to find me. They've called my old jobs in NJ looking for me, but haven't found me here in PA. What's even odder is, the attorney hunting me down is from MY insurance company, which I now again have in PA, and that particular accident never even showed up on my driving record when I insured my vehicle here. I'm assuming it has something to do with crossing state lines, but it's very odd. My big question is, when they judge against me, can my wages be garnished here in Pennsylvania? Can they garnish wages in that scenario? And also, is anyone familiar with the crossing state lines aspect of this and why they cannot seem to find me? I would like to just file for bankruptcy so my wages cannot be garnished, but up to or over a thousand dollars is a hit I cannot take. Any help is greatly appreciated.""

How much is a good deal for an old car insurance?

It is my first time getting a car in the US... Actually, I'll be getting it tomorrow, I know it's a Toyota 1989, don't know the specific model yet but I know it's a cheap one... it has papers and registration... I mean, quite cheap and nothing very good looking. I'm 20 years old, single, international student at university... how much do you think will I have to be paying? (approximately)... and should I try getting it online? first time doing this so I'm kinda lost""

Did ObamaCare make my insurance costs go down?

Alot of people say healthcare cost will raise when Obamacare goes into efftect. But my healthcare costs has dropped from $1200/month to $400/month for the same coverage. I find it really hard to believe that Obamacare is bad. Also, Obamacare has not been implemented yet - why has healthcare costs has gone down""

Motorbike insurance question (UK)?

ok i am planning on building my own motorbike from scratch. i did a little bit of research into insurance costs and i can't seem to find any company that offers insurance for home built bikes. they all ask what make and model it is but how could i tell them that if i built it myself? also any suggestions of companies that would insure a home build would be help full. thanks guys & gals

Do you know any Insurance companies that would do 6m Car Insurance?

For various reasons, I would like insurance quotes for my car for 6 months. Has anyone had any dealings with companies that have or would? It's not a money saving exercise, thanks :)""

Does anyone knows which insurance company is better? Great eastern or prudential?

Does anyone knows which insurance company is better? Great eastern or prudential?

I'm driving uninsured. We can't afford our vehicle insurance. Is it nuts to drive out of town?

Please settle an argument between my husband and I. We drive in our town back and forth to work, and I feel ok with that. I want to rent a car tonight because we have to go to an interview. It's about 2 hours away, down a highway strewn with police. I think it's crazy to try to drive in our vehicle, uninsured. He doesn't want to waste the money on a rental. It's a $5000 fine if we're caught - plus I'd likely lose my job (can't have a police record). How far would you drive uninsured? I don't even like driving in town - but we're a few months away from being able to afford insurance. Opinions please.""

Transferring insurance license from California to New York?

Does anyone know about this? Do the states have reciprocity? I searched Google/official sites but couldn't find anything. Thanks in advance.

Insurance for Ferrari?

I'll be 25 soon, when car insurance traditionally becomes cheaper - but I've only been driving for a couple of years and am on my father's insurance so no no claims bonus for me to amass. I'd quite like to buy a Ferrari before I'm 30. What's the best way for me to handle the insurance companies?""

Question about Michigan auto insurance! URGENT!?

I have a son that has his drivers license and he doesn't have a car. He does NOT drive my car! Does he have to be on MY policy? If he's on my insurance it raises it 500 dollars for 6 months! HELP!

How much do you pay in insurance for your Honda Civic?

I'm trying to figure out the price difference between the coupe and sedan. So, let me know the year of the car, whether it's a coupe or not, and your age. Thanks!""

The world of car insurance?

the idea that dropping the price of car insurance for men a small amount and increasing the female amount a huge hike has nothing to do with gender that's the con it's the absolute greed of government and big business hand in hand raking in a fortune as they did when changing the  s p to the criminal decimal currency? the question is why do we Joe public put up with this crap

Can a lender file a claim against your insurance company after repossession?

My car was repossessed on 9/11. I attempted to get my car back..but Wells Fargo played games..such as saying the car is on its way to the auction...no, its still there and we can't place a hold on it..it leaves for the auction in a couple of days. So, I went and got me another car. Now, today..I find out that they are filing a claim for the very day that they took the car. The claim was filed at 1:06 today. However, the car was not insured on that very date. Also, I had to sign some papers to reinstate the policy to the effect that no claims would be filed because NO accident occurred. Will the lender be able to file against my insurance policy under these circumstances?""

Best health insurance to take?

i want to take the best health insurance suggest me

CAR INSURANCE 17 YEAR OLD?

Hi im coming up 17 soon and am hoping I can pass my driving license. Anyway just wondering on how much a quote would be. Im a full time student looking for a 3rd party only, because im going to be buying a old car to start off, besides the car price how much would it roughly be. I was also considering getting a pass plus and getting a car from group 2 insurance. Any rough ideas on how much it will be? any experiences? btw I cant get on the same as my parents untill 21""

Cost of insurance for a 2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible?

I'm thinking about getting a setting for my first car but have no clue how much insurance will be . I really want to get a convertible .

""What is the cheapest motorcycle insurance for a 23 year old??? Progressive, Geico, etc??""

I have had a few blemishes on my record, some tickets and an accident, but my state requires full coverage insurance on a bike that is not paid in full, what are your suggestions??""

Transfering Auto/Insurance Title/Policy?

Short story - I did not qualify for vehicle finance - girlfriend finances the vehicle for me. We have 5 day to furnish insurance. How i do go about getting the truck in my name and furnishing insurance on it? I do not have the registration or title (coming in mail). I cant open an insurance policy on a car thats not mine. And if she opens an insurance policy on the car she would have to add me to it (but she's not going to drive it which makes for a waste of money?) Thanks for any help

What's the cheapest car insurance?

What's the cheapest car insurance?

How much would I pay for insurance?

I am a 17 going to be 18 on October next year I am going to go and study in FL and I wanted to know about cars would buying a new one be better than an old one? how much would I pay for insurance with either new or old? I want to know exact prices to compare if it would be better to buy a new car or a used one? How much would I pay per month on the insurance?

Why is car insurance so high for young drivers?

I am 18 and currently on my fathers motor trade insurance. This covers me for anything upto 1600cc for social and domestic, you are actually having a laugh 1600cc is a joke! I can drive anything for business purposes. Recently rang the insurance to see if they would insure me on an IVECO DAILY 2.8 turbo diesel, as i was delivering some furniture to my grand parents in malta, about 1000 miles away from the uk, 2000 mile round trip. The answer i got was a blatant no, i didn't even get chance to say .8, anyway i was so pissed off i did the trip. didn't have one accident what so ever, not even a near miss when i drove to malta there and back. explain why they wouldn't insure me i really don't understand. My dads friend who is 53 years old was born not to drive a car, he has an accident atleast once a week because he mentally switches off when he drives. He drove down to germany any rolled his car times on the autobahn and i didn't have a crash or a near miss once in a 3.5 ton van, where is the common sense surely they should coin the people who litterally can't drive?""

What car insurance companies offers the cheapest price for insurance for drivers under 25 years old?

I'm currently 23 and I am about to get my first car ( a sedan). Which car insurance company offers the best prices for car insurance in new york state (or just in general)? does the popularity of the brand mane of the car and model affect the insurance price? for example, would the insurance of a 2002 honda civic be more than that of to 2003 hyundai elantra (let's say both have the same mileage of 85,000)? thanks

If I get my speeding ticket dismissed will my insurance rates still increase?

I got a speeding ticket in TX, but I'm taking a course to get it dismissed. Will my insurance company even find out about my points if they're taken off my license? And if they do, will my insurance rates go up or is that completely dependent on points?""

usual car insurance cost

usual car insurance cost

Health Insurance Cost - Private option or School option?

For those of you who have experience about buying health insurance, what is the average annual cost? And usually, what is the minimum cost for basic health coverage, vision and dental coverage? (Particularly in the U.S.) Should I buy health insurance from a private company or from my university? Thanks a lot for your time.""

Will I be able to buy car insurance?Thanks?

Im 19 and I was on my dads Metropolitan insurance company. I had 2004 Honda Civic but my dad had the car title in his name. I crashed my car and I was at fault so now we're waiting for the case to settle. My dad wants to wait for the case to settle before I buy another car. The case might take another year or more before its settled. I would like to buy my own insurance and my own car. How will the insurance work out or whats the cheapest insurance? Thanks

No proof of insurance ticket LOS ANGELES CA ?

I got pulled over for speeding. Got a ticket for no proof of insurance. but now i have insurance .. i am 17 and i just wanna know whats gonna happen tomorrow in court ? and on the ticket it says (((People of the state or California Vs. me))) whats going to happened in the court?, are there going to be people watching me ? and ima take my grandma ? also if i cant pay the fine can do community service ? how many hrs ?""

How much my insurance be on a Lamborghini? ?

Hi I have looked at a few quotes online but I haven't found a site that will insure me or give me an accurate quote. I'm 21 been driving two years and the car is a Lamborghini Gallardo Sypder. Thanks

Does the insurance cover my car after i just barely bought and crashed the next day?

My Uncle bought a car one day and the next day he crashed. So I was wondering if his old car insurance which he is still paying for can cover the car.

Would my insurance go up?

I got into an accident because it was raining and the floor was slippery I was going max25 and the car slipped to the side and fliped over. Im planing to get an infinity g37 2 door car. Would my insurance go up? I had an 2006 nissan fronteir.

How can i get affordable car insurance for myself?

i have really struggled to find my own car insurance, i am 18 years old, i have taken pass plus, at the moment i am on my mums insurance, i do have a part time job, do you have any suggestions or ideas for affordable car insurance for someone of my age?""

Which Insurance is better?

I am looking for new car insurance, so I narrowed it down to Geico and Progressive? Anybody have any experience with either of them?""

Insurance on a 2004 Infiniti G35 Coupe?

I am 17 and thinking of buying a G35 coupe in September (will be 18) for school. I was wondering how much the insurance would be, this will be my first car and I've never got a speeding ticket before or been in a crash.""

Am i paying to much for car insurance?

my parents just got insurance for my first car it is a 1963 mercury comet i am 17 years old and my dad just told me the insurance for the car is $380 per month and that seems a little high what do you think? my other friend only pays $100 but he has a good student discount and has had insurance for a while.

Is minimum coverage car insurance the same as an SR22?

In Tennessee, is minimum coverage car insurance the same as an SR22? I already have minimum coverage but am now required to get an SR22. Is this something that needs to be added on or will minimum coverage suffice? Thanks.""

Where to get cheap cr insurance?

is there any where you can get cheap car insurance with no deposits

Health insurance question?

can your parents drop your health insurance he your not 26 yet????

Health insurance?

sometimes insurance doesnt cover some medical things. my mom said that she knew a man who had cancer in his eye and his insurance wouldnt cover it because they said it was comestic. does it depend on the company? and usually what other things does health insurance not cover?

Can my mom insure my vehicle?

I want to buy a newly used car and i will have a loan on it. I wanted to know if the loan and the title are all in my name, would my mom be able to insure it in her name and me just as a driver? im under 25 so my insurance would be extra high. and would i have to register it in her name at DMV to let her insure it?""

Can i get car insurance on someone elses policy?

I'm 19. I live with my sister in Detroit, MI. Can I get car insurance on my dad's policy if he lives in a different city then me? or on anyone elses policy? Im not talking about full coverage, I mean plpd, no coverage Thanks..""

How much would insurance be for a 2003 Acura RSX?

I am a male, 22 years old, clean record, live in Whitby Ontario. I also went took driving lessons (people say that will help lower insurance) and i am a class G driver (full license) I know coupes are usually more expensive for insurance. Can anyone give me an estimate of how much insurance would cost per month or for the year? I know i can call and get a quote but I want to see what the average is. Thanks!""

What is a good health insurance plan for small business owners?

i currently have blue cross of california but they raised the premium. it is the worst insurance in the world and a ppo to boot, so i can barely pick my doctors. thank you in advance.""

What is the cheapest life insurance a 66 year old man from california can get?

My dad is currently with AAA, signed up for life insurance for the first time, this month... he is paying 350 a month which is making it hard for him to have money for food. I'm looking for a cheaper plan for him. No health problems.""

Insurance resposibility?

I am a policyholder of a vehicle, and if someone borrow my vehicle and cause a accident, who will be responsible for paying the damage, his ins or mine. and what happend if he does not have insurance coverage""

What does insurance mean?

Well I'm 16 and I don't know what insurance means : so I heard that louis' bum has insurance? What does that mean

Cheap car insurance companies for young drivers? With a years no claim?

I'm 18 and my insurance went from 1300 to 1100 after a years no claim which would have just been affordable. However as I don't work for the police anymore and went back to college to get a levels, (being a student) it went up to 1700. What are really cheap insurance companies for young drivers? I have a years no claim discount...""

""Ran a stop sign, will I have to take traffic school to keep insurance rate down?""

I am a 21 year old who got a ticket for running a stop sign in Los Angeles. When I go to pay I see the option of traffic school, but it is more expensive than just paying the ticket off. If I want to keep my insurance rates at their current price, do I need to take traffic school? I am willing to do it, I just want to make sure the extra money won't be for nothing.""

My car got hit in the middle of the night. I don't have insurance but the person at fault does.?

I woke up yesterday to find my car hit and another car, with temp tags, abandoned up the road (it had a lot of damage to the front of it, so it was obviously the one that hit mine.) Today the officer who came yesterday called and had found the person at fault and gave me all of their information. I don't have insurance currently, and my car will cost a few $100 to repair, so what can I do with this info?""

Insurance pre-existing injury?

I took the ACL surgery, I had the insurance but I paid 100% because it was pre-existing. My question is: if 6 months later , I play soccer, still have that insurance and get my ACL torn again, Will the insurance company consider it as a new injury and pay for the surgery, because it is completely healed after 6mos, OR they won't because the injury is on the same knee and I still have to pay 100% of the surgery. Thank you very much.""

usual car insurance cost

usual car insurance cost

How long until you need car insurance??

We are buying a car tomorrow, how long do we have until we have to get insurance..is there a time frame.? we live in California if that helps out any..We do not have any insurance and are planning on buying a used car from a dealership. i tried looking online for quotes but i need the info for the car first..i dont have it..i dont even know which car im getting all i know is i got ten thousand for a car.""

How do I get health insurance for my newborn?

I am 6 months pregnant and 21 years old. I am still on my parents' health insurance, as I am an unemployed student. My boyfriend, who is an independent, is an unemployed student as well. He is currently uninsured and, as we have found, is uninsurable due to the fact that I am pregnant. My parents' health insurance WILL NOT cover grandchildren (dependents of dependents) and so my baby will not be covered on their plan. Individual health insurance plans will not cover my infant until up to 30 days AFTER he is born (and we can apply for medical insurance for him). How do I secure health care coverage for him BEFORE he comes so he can start going to the pediatrician immediately?""

Pickup Truck insurance at age 18?

I am 18 and I want to get a Nissan Navara. I have got a quote for the non-commercial versions eg le, se and xe for 1990 which is fine, but I cant get an online quote for the D22 version. Its a 2005 D22 Navara di. It says I have to ring them as they cant give me an online quote. Does anyone know if this model can be insured on normal car insurance as I am under 21 and it will be very difficult and expensive to get commercial or van insurance.""

""%100 liable for totaled vehicle, very low settlement. help please?""

The auto insurance company says i am 100% liable to the damages, received mail from the auto insurance company, it said im responsible for 18000 for the vehicle however they will pay any 3rd party damages i hit a traffic light and rear ended a car . I called them to ask for payment options and they offered me 13000 one time payment and its settled. Why is it so cheap? im very confused""

Electric Car insurance and teen drivers.....?

How much does insurance go up if you add a 17 year old with a learner's permit to your plan. I live in Florida and have Electric Car Insurance.

What is the average homeowners insurance cost in CT for older homes?

Just got quoted an annual premium of $2300(!!) for homeowners insurance in a rural CT town (ISO rated 9/10) for a 300ish year old home in the 250-300k range. That seems exorbitantly high. What are others paying in CT for similar old homes in these quaint new england towns?

How much would car insurance be for me? (teen)?

I'm 16. Driving a Honda Accord 2001, with 130,000 miles. I live in the state of Delaware. I'm a male, with about. 3.0 average in school. If you had to guesstimate , how much do you think my insurance would be?""

Does the cost of my insurance for driving get reduced when I turn from 16 to 17?

Does the cost of my insurance for driving get reduced when I turn from 16 to 17?

Where do I go to find public liability insurance?

I am starting to run workshops, teaching creative recycling crafts and require public liability insurance. Could you point me in the right direction please?""

How much would it cost to own a porsche boxter a year? pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee... answer. i beg to you?

a 2007 model, 3.5l, if i drive around 20000 miles a year. include insurance, tax, maintenance, repairs, etc. would 5000 british pounds be enough""

Health insurance for a minor...?

I moving to California and on my own and I am 17, turning 18 in about 2 months, and I was wondering how much health insurance would cost me? and what would it cover?""

Car Insurance - Driving cross country?

I am driving my 2012 leased car from CA to MA, because I am relocating to MA from CA. I currently have farmers insurance on the car, will my insurance cover when I am driving across the country ? I will obviosly find a new insurance company in MA and will cancel my CA insurance, but i am just concerned about the Insurance during the drive. Appreciate any response. Thank you. -Kris""

How much does car insurance go up?

okay, lets say you had a car accident where no one was hurt, and its your fault. how much will your car insurance go up?""

How much would car insurance cost for me?

I'm 21 years old and I have had my driver's license for 2 years. however i still have not been able to drive since i am a poor college student and cannot afford anything. however i will be graduating soon as a registered nurse and will get a job. So i would like to know the price range for car insurance just to have an idea. thanks.

How much is teen car insurance?

Im 16 and get my license next month. my parents are asking i pay car insurance so im looking for a rough estimate of what it would cost if i have my own car or not. im a girl with straight As and I've never been in any legal trouble. thanks!

""Young car insurance, where and how?""

Just passed me test and looked at insurance and wwwwoooowwww!!!! 3000 around the value of the car any way, so insurance quotes expect young people to write there car off twice at 8000 crazy i mean i understand that there are some bad young overconfident drivers basicly this is for and auto 1.2 nisan micra fully comp on my mums insurance. Im a guy and 18 in may so what is the way around this. I don't really want a car but for me i feel its necessary because i'm not a confident driver so need to keep it going. so do i buy a bangger(If so whats a good model) or go on my mums car. UK thanks guys any help appreciated""

Is it ok to work for insurance company?

is it ok to work for insurance company?

What is the cheapest liability car insurance in the US?

What is the cheapest liability car insurance in the US?

Will my car insurance go up because my friend got a speeding ticket while driveing my car??

I let my friend drive my car and he got a speeding ticket for going 5 over. will my insurance go up because he got the ticket while driving my car or just his insurance.

Can you get a quote for car insurance before you pass your tests?

No insurance companies will give me a quote for car insurance so i was thinking that you may not be able to get a quote before you pass your test? someone help!!! PLEASE

Average cost for an fr 44 in Florida?

I just trying to determine what the average cost for an fr 44 is in Florida after a dui

Car insurance?

i have a license and live in CT and i have a question about insurance the web page says the vehicles should be insured. my dad and mom have insurance for their them but i dont so i dont have to get insurance because the vehicle is insured? or everyone should have insurance who drives on the road?

How do I get health insurance for my newborn?

I am 6 months pregnant and 21 years old. I am still on my parents' health insurance, as I am an unemployed student. My boyfriend, who is an independent, is an unemployed student as well. He is currently uninsured and, as we have found, is uninsurable due to the fact that I am pregnant. My parents' health insurance WILL NOT cover grandchildren (dependents of dependents) and so my baby will not be covered on their plan. Individual health insurance plans will not cover my infant until up to 30 days AFTER he is born (and we can apply for medical insurance for him). How do I secure health care coverage for him BEFORE he comes so he can start going to the pediatrician immediately?""

The cheapest car insurance for first time drivers?

looking to get my own car soon and trying to my license I am 24 yrs old and just starting to figure stuff out for myself and wanted to know whats the cheapest car insurance

Why are rich people so upset that poor people and youngters can now get affordable 'health care'?

here in mississippi for our age group it's like only $500 a month. No wonder they need to raise the minimum wage.

usual car insurance cost

usual car insurance cost

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/classic-car-insurance-1972-camaro-jayden-crosby/"

[foulfurywombat-blog]

Mulberry Kansas Cheap car insurance quotes zip 66756

"Mulberry Kansas Cheap car insurance quotes zip 66756

Mulberry Kansas Cheap car insurance quotes zip 66756

BEST ANSWER:  Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://insureinfo.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr 

RELATED QUESTIONS: 

Can i add a car to my insurance in another state?

i live in florida and i am wondering if i can add a car to my insurance for my sister who lives in NYC and attends a college in that state? car insurance is way to expensive for her to pay for up there so im wondering if i can insure and register the car in florida? is there any way to do this?

LEGAL!? Can I be added into my friend's car insurance?

Hi, gentlemen. I got my driver license(in CA) and a used car the other day, and I have to get my car insurance. Here is the question. Is it legal for me to be added into my friend's insurance(AAA)? He told me that I would save money if did so. Is it legal to do so even though I'm not his siblings or relatives? I'm an international student, so I wanna save money as much as possible. Thanks for reading. Every answer helps!!!""

21st Auto Insurance Company?

Any complaints regarding the 21st Auto Insurance Company? I am thinking about switching to them.

""Car insurance,Legality of this?""

Ive been checking quotes out,im going down as a second driver.The main driver doesnt own the vehicle,i do,when it gets to details about me as a second driver it asks if i own my own vehicle,i do and its the vehicle im insuring but it doesnt actually have that as an option.Am i in any way voiding my insurance,i dont think i am but i want to make sure. Anybody with the knowledge out there?! :)""

What should i do with my insurance to test drive cars?

I am looking at a car tomorrow that i will more than likely buy. My insurance is comprehensive but says the driving of other cars extension is not included for any driver named on the policy I have phoned my insurance company Diamond and the guy said it would cost me 17.50 to insure the car for a day third party. I undestand that third party means if i bump someone my insurance pays for their damage but not for mine. If i decide to buy the car should i be getting fully comprehensive for the day?

About how much would my auto insurance be? (First-time driver)?

I'm budgeting getting a car and insurance and I don't know how much it would be. It will be my first time driving/having a car or license. So no record of anything, but I'd be a newbie. It'll be in the state of Pennsylvania and it will probably be a pre-owned small car.""

What affordable dental insurance covers ortho? Can you suggest any?

I am looking for affordable dental insurance that covers ortho. I'm 29 yrs old and interested in getting one. I do have dental insurance - HMO, (BLue Cross) does this cover ortho?""

Cheapest 3rd Party car insurance?

Hi guys, I really need cheap insurance 3rd Party with full UK driving licence. I'm turning 17 tomorrow and all the prices w/ a full UK driving licences are hitting 3,500, my car's only worth 500. The prices are fine with a provisional, but as soon as I hit a full UK driving licence, they GO UP massively and it's not right. Any ideas? Thanks""

Where is a company that offeres life insurance to felons?

My husband commited a felony nine years ago when he was nineteen years old and has not been in trouble since. He is now a foreman, owns his own home and is just a regualr citizen, but he has been denied life insurance through 3 companies. Any suggestions?""

Why is my car insurance so expensive?

I just want to buy a cheap little runabout but the insurance to cover it is approx 6 times more than the car?! I want to get an automatic 1998 Vauxhall Astra hatch for less than 500. I'm 29 and have been driving for 10 years with no accidents or convictions. Granted I only have an International licence at the moment but that shouldn't mean I should be charged any extra, should it??? Any ideas as to why my standard quotes for this car keep coming out around 3000?!""

The cheapest car insurance?

Hey everyone!! I'm planning to get my first car, and i was wondering what is the cheapest possible car insurance in Utah and nationwide. thanks!!""

""Which is worse: increased taxes, or a high insurance premium?""

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2009-09-15-insurance-costs_N.htm for some reason, I'd pay any tax to fund socialized medicine thrown my way rather than pay $13,375 a year for a family of four. and you'd be crazy not to yourself. and besides...the tax would never be 4,824, which is the average a single person pays per year.""

What is the grace period to drop one car insurance company an get another 1?

My car insurance restarts September 24 I pay more for the 4month plan an want to switch. to a cheaper insurance company

Insurance for full time student in Texas.?

I will be attending college full time starting in the spring at Lone Star College in Kingwood, Texas. It is just a 2 year college. I will need insurance from my medicine that I take daily, and seeing the Doctor, if needed. I am in Texas, and will be on a tight budget, as I don't know if my job will let me work part-time or not. I am also a single mother, but won't have to carry him because his father has him covered on his policy. Any suggestions? Any help would be appreciated:o)""

Has Tort reform had a beneficial impact on Health Insurance rates in California.?

California has had Tort reform in medical malpractice for 30 years. Has this kept Health Insurance affordable in California? Ask the parents ofNataline Sarkisyan how they feel about tort reform. Rather than pay for an expensive transplant and a lifetime of expensive care, her insurer simply denied the claim knowing they most her parents could get in punitive damages was $250,000. Seems to me that tort reform is another name for death panels!!!""

Is this a Good Car for a 21 year old college student?

I'm planning to buy a 2005 Honda Civic Sedan, Automatic. How will it be on insurance? I'm also considering Chevrolet Cavalier/ Pontiac Sunfire of the same 2004-2005 year, because I've been told they're better on insurance, and cheaper cars in general, to maintain. I live in Canada. Any suggestions?""

I have full coverage on my car insurance..i accidently dented my car and broke the window my self what i do?

i have full coverage on my car insurance ,,i accidently broke the driver side window and dented the door my self,,what should i do? tell the insurance that somebody else did it and have them fix it?..they supposed to right?""

What car would be the cheapest and most reliable?

Im a 17 year old guy. My parents are giving me $2000 for a down payment on my first car. We're going to a used car lot this weekend. They have 2 cars I want and 1 car my dad thinks I should get. The ones I want are an older 2 Door Tahoe, and a Chevy S10. The one my dad thinks I should get is a Honda civic. He says the Civic would have the cheapest insurance. But I play guitar, so it would be hard to lug around a big amp, guitar case, and pedal board. I want the Tahoe the most but I think its gonna be too much. What do you think?""

How much would my insurance be if i owned a tuner car like form fast and the furious?

because i am 16 right now, and in the future ( 20's) i want to work on one, how much would my insurance be for it?""

How much is MOTORCYCLE INSURANCE?????

I am 23. I want to get a sports motorcycle. How much will my insurance be?

I need some affordable insurance that covers if you have a missing tooth please help?

I need some affordable insurance that covers if you have a missing tooth please help?

Who'd rather have health insurance than Free National Health Care

Despite the imperfections in the system (and there are plenty) I'll keep what I have rather than Micheal Moore's fictitious nirvana of government run health care.

How much would car insurance cost for a 17 year old female? More info provided?

I will be 17 yrs old when I get my intermediate license, which I will then have for 1 yr before I can get my full license. I'm looking for a general insurance quote for a 17 year old female in Iowa (does this have any bearing on the amt my parents pay). Also, I have about B average, but I'm taking AP classes if that makes a difference. I don't have a job but I will have an unpaid internship this summer (does this make a difference?). Both my mom and dad have one ticket each, but that's about it, they're both very careful drivers. I will also have taken a drivers ed course (reqd in my state). I'm also looking at purchasing either a 1998 BMW 528I or a 1998 BMW 740IL as both are under $5000 w/o taxes but if anyone can give me an estimate as to the total cost of both of these cars (after taxes, gas, insurance, etc) that would be fantastic. If any more info is needed let me know.""

Getting insurance under my name?

In NJ, it states that you need proof of insurance to transfer a title. How can i get proof of insurance if I don't have the title under my name? Can I get insurance before tranferring the title, or can i get insurance without transferring the title? Title is transferring from my dad to me.""

I have a question about insurance? Help please?

I just recently got my license, and I'm already listed under my mom's policy. (I'm going to be driving her car.) Anyway, the rate obviously went up because she added me to her policy. But they aren't going to charge her for it until next month. Even though I'm listed under the policy, would I have to wait until next month to drive? Because I haven't technically paid yet for my part of the insurance? Thank you!""

Mulberry Kansas Cheap car insurance quotes zip 66756

Mulberry Kansas Cheap car insurance quotes zip 66756

Will women protest being forced to pay LESS for life and auto insurance than men?

No? I didn't think so.

Motorcycle insurance full coverage?

I pay full coverage for my motorcycle and my co worker who is still paying on his bike has way cheaper insurance then me. Were the same age. Is it possible not to have full coverage when you have a loan for the bike? I know your suppose to, i do but i would think the insurance company could find out some how if you told them it was paid off..right?""

When will we be required to have health insurance?

When will government make us buy insurance?

""Car insurance strange quotes, why?""

Back in August, I got a quote on a car, it worked out as 900 for the year.(I'm only 17), and since then I've been getting regular quotes, and can't help but notice how much it's gone up. In only 2 months, it's gone up from 900 to 1900. I haven't changed a thing, and if you've used confused.com you'll know that you can just re-quote, which is what I've been doing. Anybody know why it's gone up so much. By the way it goes up about 40 a day at the moment. Could it be because it's the end of the month, or the end of the year? Thanks to any answers in advance.""

Where is the best place to get life insurance quotes?

i am trying to get life insurance quotes but it is so many places to look. could someone give me a good starting point

Why is my car insurance expensive as the year go by?

i got the car in 2009, each year the car insurance keep rising by price.. it was 400, then 600, now its 800... but as the year go by the car is getting older, so why is an older car insurance more expensive? does this have anything to do with the fact that my car has leather seats?""

I need cheaper car insurance?

hi there.. im 19 years old and ive been driving 1 year and ive had 1 claim against me. when i 1st started driving i paid 1600 for the years insurence..now it has gone up to 1900 cheapest on compare the market. is there any insurence company or brooker who can give me a quote for 1600 or less who specialise in young drivers who have had a claim? please help me asap as I am really depressed about this

""If you have your learner's permit, do you need car insurance?""

If you have your learner's permit, do you need car insurance?""

Insurance premiums in the U.S.?

Did Insurance Companies increase their premiums in the U.S. for all customers (regardless of location) after Hurricane Katrina? If they did, is this a common practice? Don't insurance companies ever lose?""

Is liability insurance the same as renters insurance?

Is liability insurance the same as renters insurance?

""Crashed car into the bushes, would basic insurance cover it?""

My car brakes gave up on me and i crashed into the dense bushes. The police didn't even write a report since, as they said, it was no fault of my own and i had no injuries. Since i didn't hit anybody or anything but the bush there was no fine for me to pay. I don't know how big is the damage to the car since it happened on a saturday evening (i'll have it checked out tomorrow), but the front looks bad. I have basic Florida insurance, and i just want to know if they would cover it before i call them. If they don't cover it i'd rather just get it fixed without having my insurance rate go up. So... since it was not my fault (there were witnesses who saw i did everything possible to get the car safely off the road) would it cover at least part of the expenses?""

Is there any free or cheap health insurance?

I need to join a tennis team in high school and they said i need an insurance. My family don't have enough money to get insurance, soooo I was wondering if there are any free or cheap insurance. HELP!!""

Should kids protest against very high insurance costs by driving illegally?

Should kids protest against very high insurance costs by driving illegally?

Which is the cheaper car insurance in uk.?

i m 29 new driver looking for cheap car insurance can any one helps me for it please

""How long until a DUI goes off your driving record, for insurance purposes?

My husband got one in 05 in Washington State. I heard it was three years and then you don't have to disclose the DUI to an insurance company. I will be policy shopping soon and I don't want my rates any higher than necessary.

Why should we pay CAR insurance?

I know it is made to protect us from being sue, I understand this. BUT if we are MADE to pay insurance to drive a car then the Car insurance companies should be MADE to include Car replacement as a STANDARD pack for both Full and Liability coverage(Why should I lose my car because of a BAD driver) If your car is totaled and you are still making payments then you lose a car. If you paid off your car and it is totaled, you lose a car. Lastly, we who pay insurance and don't have an accident in six months(or one year)should be given a choice of a lower premium, cash returned or a loan.""

Does a warning for running a red light increase insurance rates? PLEASE HELP!?

Today I got pulled over for the first time for running a red light , when the officer pulled me over, as he was getting off his bike I took my seatbelt off (I know, now that I think of it, it was such a stupid thing to do, but it was my first time being pulled over and I didnt know how to react). He di.dn't say anything about the seatbelt, but he told me that I ran the red light back there. Ok, let me explain this to you guys now, i don't know if you're familiar with Cape Cod or not but there are TONS, literally tons of tourists here right now, and the roads are really narrow.. There was a guy in an Audi pulling into a parking spot in reverse in front of me and he was taking half of the lane that I was on.. This parking spot happens to be 10 ft away from the set of lights. In my mind I was thinking, I'm gonna go to the left side to let this guy go in, and while that was happening I was worried about the tourists that like to jaywalk and cross the road inbetween cars... So I go to the left and the left and gas it a little bit, I was going like 10 mph as I was taking off, and the light turns yellow, I cross the crosswalk, then the light turns red and I drive under the set of lights.. These 2 bike cops came immediately after me... So long story short, it was my first time being pulled over, I took the seatbelts off, and I ran the red light because there was a guy pulling into a parking stop right in front of me and I was too worried looking around afraid I was going to hit a jaywalking tourists. I know people always think they're right, but I honestly think I didn't do anything wrong here. I got a $25 seat belt fine and a warning for running the red light, which is complete BS. I know it's a warning but I don't want it on my record at all, how can I appeal, any tips? Im only 18 years old, just got off my JOL and I'm very conscientious of other people, never speed or anything. I appreciate your help, will give best answer, thanks!""

Car insurance?

after a claim with my car insurance they wanted the policy payment in full,i would;nt pay it at first because of the crap service i recieved.4 weeks later i said i would pay as long as my policy ran its term they refused but still want the policy money.now they wont release my no claims bonus until i give them the money. what can i do ?""

What would my car insurance be?

I am 16, female, first time getting insurance. I am thinking about getting a convertible, would my insurance be more? If so about how much more? But black or blue, not red or yellow. One of my friends is my age/sex and hers is about $100/mo. Would mine be about the same, give or take a little? I am trying to come up w/ a budget and see what I can afford so any help will be greatly appreciated! Every free insurance quote site you must fill in your EXACT car type or be 18+, I have already tried that.""

Ow much does it cost to deliver a baby without health insurance in washington hospital california ??

Ow much does it cost to deliver a baby without health insurance in washington hospital california ??

Motorcycle insurance in Guam?

Individual has military orders to Guam and is ONLY shipping a motorcycle (no POV). Most company's I've called will only cover auto insurance and let you add a motorcycle policy to make a combo. Does anyone know of independent motorcyce insurance policies covering overseas (particularly Guam) without having to insure a vehicle along with it? (I've tried most big named companies and even the independent companies on the island, and so far no luck!)""

How much more a month is car insurance for a sports car than for something like a coupe or sedan?

How much more a month is car insurance for a sports car than for something like a coupe or sedan?

Need health insurance to get from age 62 to 65?

I plan to retire in a year and need to find more affordable health insurance to get me to medicare age. I have the option of keeping my existing workplace provider, but at a cost of 800 dollars a month for my wife and I. I have been given a recommendation of a company called First Chioce Insurance . I beleive they are based in Florida. Anybody have any dealings with them?..thanks, Vince""

Does anyone knows if AIG agency auto is the same as granite state insurance company in California?

Does anyone knows if AIG agency auto is the same as granite state insurance company in California?

How do you fight with the other party's insurance company?

Hi, my car insurance covers for liability only and now I have an accident with a big truck. The big truck hit my car from the side. We were driving from 2 lanes next to each other and at one point the two lanes combine into one. While I was alittle pass over the truck, it hit me from the side. Their side has no damage since it is a big truck and our side has damaged from the driver side. The police report didn't explain clearly about whose fault it is except it mentions what the two drivers said. I think it is not my fault and the other driver denied it is his fault either. My insurance company didn't help much because we only have liability. Now, the other party insurance company called me and said they can't pay for the damanges since it is both parties fault. Therefore, pay for damanges on our own. Like I said, the other party didn't have any damages. If we have to fix it by ourselves, it will cost over $1500. :-( How should I fight with the insurance company to get my claims?""

Mulberry Kansas Cheap car insurance quotes zip 66756

Mulberry Kansas Cheap car insurance quotes zip 66756

""Planning on buying a newer car, wondering how much my insurance will go up or if it will at all?""

Right now I have a Ford mustang, and i'm paying about $800 every 6 months, i'm planning on getting a 2006 Grand Prix so since it's not a sports cr but it's newer will my insurance rate stay the same? Will it go up? Or am I lucky and will it go down?""

""Car Insurance, age limit on Family Plan?""

Okay my parents have their cars plus my younger brother on their home/auto insurance policy. My car is also included but I am wondering, is this okay or a problem since I am 25 yrs old and no longer living with them? I could get auto on my own but it is way more expensive compared to my 'share' with my parents policy. Is there a law or rule? What if I was living with them? I am in CA""

""Auto insurance question, need help!!?""

I have no idea about these questions, could someone explain them? Your neighbor has his own insurance policy with State Farm with the same coverages that you have with your Allstate Auto Policy. So when he says his insurance will cover an accident, you loan him your car. He promptly runs into a tree, causing $2,500 in damage to your car. How much will your insurance policy pay? A. $ 0 B. $ 2,000 C. $ 2,500 D. State Farm will pay E. Cannot be determined You are at the North Carolina coast when Hurricane Irene hits. Although you are able to get away, you have to leave your car and luggage behind. The hurricane blows your car into a tree, causing considerable damage and the trunk to open. Your luggage is then blown away and never recovered. It costs $8,000 to repair your car. The value of your luggage was $500. Your policy will pay: A. $ 7,500 B. $ 7,700 C. $ 8,000 D. $ 8,200 E. $ 8,500 After pumping gas in your new car, you forget to remove the hose from your gas tank. As you drive off, the hose breaks spilling some gasoline and starting a fire. The fire causes $325,000 in damage to the gas station. You are held responsible for the entire loss. Your policy will pay: A. $ 0 B. $ 100,000 C. $ 300,000 D. $ 325,000 E. None of the above Your twelve-year-old brother, who does not have a drivers license, is visiting you on campus and while sitting in your car playing with the transmission, he puts the car in drive and drives it into the front door of your sorority (or fraternity) house. The damage to your house is $22,000 and your car costs $5,500 to repair. Your brother is hurt, goes to the emergency room and is released with a few bandages and a bill for $1,500 Your policy will pay: A. $ 0 B. $ 1,500 C. $ 5,000 D. $ 6,500 E. None of the above""

Cant find insurance for a 17 year old?

my son is 17 and we just got him a peugeot 106 1.1 2000 and we have searched near enough every insurance company and we cannot find a quote under 2000 pound i know this is good compared to some quotes but does anybody know where i can go to get it cheaper Thanks

How much will a used SlugBug Convertible cost me in the state of Ohio?

I turn 16 in January 2011 and I want the car by August 2011 so in about a year and a couple months from now! How much with the car cost me to pay all up front or how much will it cost me monthly if that sounds better! How much will insurance be per month? How about Gas? All answers are appreciated and Im willing to buy 2003 to 2010 but the price range for the actual car has to be no more then 5 to 6k ? I also want to know if you think Im going to have to get a loan. . . thanks everyone!

Motorcycle insurance?

About how much would insurance cost for a 17yr old High school student. If I was buying a sports bike with around 500cc of power. I'd be on my parents plan. So I would need a guess if using Progressive.

Minor car accident (not at fault) - should I go to my insurance or small claims court?

I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice. Last week I was involved in a minor car accident. I was at a stop light and the car behind me decided they could not wait and they tried to get by my car to make a left turn. They did not have enough room and scraped against my car with theirs. No one was hurt and no police were called. We pulled over and I got their name, phone number and address. They did not give me their insurance information and said they'd like to settle outside insurance because there are only scratches. I know it was stupid but I said okay. Also I do not have the license plate number of the car. I thought I wrote it down but I did not (I understand this is a big mistake on my behalf). We made contact over phone throughout the week and discussed repairs but suddenly they stopped answering my calls. I believe they are avoiding me. Now I am at a loss of what to do. Should I take this issue up with my insurance (at the risk of raising my premiums) or should I take this to small claims court? In either case I do not have the car's license plate so if it isn't their car will that be insufficient evidence to prove they are at fault (my word against theirs)? Thank you in advance for all your answers.""

What is the cheapest insurance I can get after an accident in NJ??

I am 18 years old so insurance is already extremely high for me(1100 for a 6 month policy through GEICO) and I recently had a minor accident where I rear ended another car and got a careless driving ticket. Im sure my rate will skyrocket in my next policy and I am wondering what I can do about it.

Where can I get the best price on private medical insurance?

Where can I get the best price on private medical insurance?

Individual health insurance?

These are my health issues I'm currently treated for and/or have perscribed meds. Moderately elevated blood pressure, osteo arthritis,fibromyalsia,and I take meds. for cholesterol and depression. I currently pay $380 a month for medical and perscription coverage. I am a 59 year old female. Ilive in Fla. The coverage I currently have is too high and too many draw backs. It seems like a rip off to pay this amount and have so MANY stipulations. I need a name and number only for companies that can truly meet my needs. Otherwise, I'll keep this lousy insurance I have.""

I'm getting a car. Can I be under my moms car insurance if my dad is the one paying for the car?

So here's the scenario/idea. My dad is buying me a car, but wants me to go under my moms insurance (I'm currently under his)..As a fair deal he buys me the car and my mom pays the insurance for it. Both are separated by the way, so they have two different insurance companies. The question is can the car be under my moms insurance if my dad is the one making the full payment and list himself as the co-owner or owner on the title? Or does the title have to be under my name or my moms name?""

Do you have to have car insurance for all of your vehicles (California- read more for details)?

I live in California and I understand that by law here you have to have car insurance; at least minimum coverage that is. But does this apply to all cars regardless of whether you even drive them on the street or not? The reason why I ask this is because I have a 1971 Chevy Camaro SS which I bought from my father about a year ago (He basically gave it to me, but I didn't want to look spoiled in front of my sister so I gave him $2,000 for it). I did have it insured for the first year thinking it probably wouldn't cost me much, but now I really regret getting it insured since it costed me nearly a fortune this year alone. And the thing that really sucks is that I've never even driven it yet since it still needs a lot of tuning up (and unfortunately I don't have enough time to fix it up since I'm usually a very busy person). Do you think it's possible to uninsure my camaro since it's not even drivable yet? I mean it's not like I'm going to hit a car or something with it since it's just sitting in my garage the whole time. I would ask my insurance agent about this, but I never really trusted them. (They were the ones that persuaded me to get it insured in the first place without even telling me whether I had to or not)""

How much is too much for insurance?

Hello. i own a 300zx twin turbo, i have modified it my self with some stuff.. but thats not importent right now. my question is that the cheapest insurance i can get for it with full coverage is around 250 a month..Im willing to pay for it, just because i love everything about this car.. but to my self i think its far too much. im 19 years old, and i was wondering what kinda stuff brings down the amount i would have to pay for insurance? ( i got my license when i was 18, ive had it for about a year now) thanks.""

Best car for a broke teen driver?

I'm 14, so I wont be getting the car for another year or so. I'd be paying for it myself, so I'd like it cheap, with good mileage and cheap insurance. I'd also like it ...show more""

Affordable health insurance in California for a family of 5?

Affordable health insurance in California for a family of 5?

""It's mandatory in California to have auto insurance at ALL times, am I right?""

If yes, to whom can I go to, in order to check the validity of the car's insurance policy? A car hit me last Tuesday (I was a pedestrian). I am gonna be reporting the incident to a DMV office tomorrow. Will they give me the insurance information of the car? The other party didn't give me insurance information on the vehicle.""

Can I Still Be Covered Under My Parents Car Insurance?

Im currently under my parents car insurance policy, I got married not too long ago and was wondering since I got married can I still be under their car insurance? Thanks""

Young Driver's Car insurance?

I am 18 years old and have just passed my driving test. I'm looking at buying a peugeot 206 1.1 litre petrol car. The problem I'm having is that insurance is very expensive. My cheapest quote is 2000 a year. I just wondered if anybody knows of any cheap car insurance companies that could beat this quote? I've tried price comparison sites such as gocompare and they are all more expensive

Cheapest Car Insurance for under 25 MA drivers?

Have 4 speeding tickets. Learned that Ill have to pay an additional 500 because of this. My parents have been paying but Ive been told they payed 2600 a year! Is there any cheaper car insurance out there with minimal coverage?

""Why do questions say cheap car insurance and affordable health insurance, not cheap health & affordable car?""

Questions about finding inexpensive car insurance usually refer to it as cheap . Questions about finding inexpensive health insurance usually refer to it as affordable . I do not recall ever seeing a question refer to affordable car insurance, and only rarely to cheap health insurance. Why is this? Why do car insurance questions use the word cheap and health insurance questions use the word affordable , and not the other way around? Is it just tradition, like saying Merry Christmas and Happy New Year , but never saying Happy Christmas and Merry New Year ? Is it because the law has the word affordable in its title, causing that word to be associated with health insurance? Is it because most of the questions are from someone who is trying to manipulate search results by causing searches for cheap car insurance and affordable health insurance to come to this website? Is it because car insurance questions usually come from users under 25 years old and questions about getting health insurance usually come from older users (health insurance questions from users under 25 usually have to do with saying on their parents' insurance and/or using their parents' insurance)?""

What reputable health insurance companies are out there?

What reputable health insurance companies are out there My mom doesn't have health insurance and my job doesn't give insurance to family members. I would like to pay monthly to a health insurance company so my mom could get health check up when she needs it. Do you know any health insurance companies that can accept low monthly payments since I don't get paid that much?

How can I get the lowest car insurance payment?

I am 25. I want to buy a cheap car with one way insurance. thanks a lot

How much is mobile home insurance in South Florida?

Looking to buy a vacation home in West Palm Beach. Does anyone out there who actually lives in a mobile home in South Florida tell me how much to expect? The park is on the Intercoastal, I was going to buy for cash but now the douche bag owner raised the price so now I am going to look else where and may have to finance some of the purchase price and I am assuming that I will have to insure it. I am expecting the worse. Please only answer if you really know a number.""

Does car insurance cover brakes?

i have full coverg on my bmw and it need front and back brakes and pads will my insurance cover this

Buy a car? No License or insurance?

Is it possible for me to buy a car with no license or insurance and have my dad drive it back to the house and keep it there? I dont intend on driving it untill i get it all sorted, i just want the satisfaction on knowing its there and its mine. Im from the UK""

Mulberry Kansas Cheap car insurance quotes zip 66756

Mulberry Kansas Cheap car insurance quotes zip 66756

Would it be ok to lower my auto insurance coverage?

I live on disability income -SSDI. This is my only income. I have no savings or other money, just my personal belongings (12 yr. old car, furniture, some jewelry, etc.) I rent an apartment. I am thinking of lowering my insurance costs by reducing the coverage amounts, which are very high right now. If I had an 'at fault' accident that exceeded my insurance coverage what assets could I be sued for by the other party?""

Can I be under my uncle's car insurance?

My uncle just bought a car for me as a gift, however it is under his name. Is it possible for me to be added as a driver under his insurance, even though I am under my parent's insurance? or would I have to add that car under my parent's insurance? This is all so confusing.""

Looking for best insurance product (LIC) which returns guaranteed & handsome amount on maturity along with acc?

Age : 35 yrs., married Premium Amount : 90  99 K per year Premium term : 25 to 30 yrs best lic plan combo plan""

Will asthma affect health insurance premium?

Hello, I had asthma as a child from ages 2 to 11. I am now 20 years old. Will this affect my health insurance premiums if I try to get an individual plan? Or will it not matter because the last incident was over 10 years ago? I do not take any medication or anything for the last 10 years.""

Hey I'm looking into buying a 2010-2011 Camaro How much would insurance be for me?

I'm 21 and looking into buying a 2010-2011 Camaro I'm just trying to figure out the basics like how much would insurance cost me and how much would the monthly payments on the car run me...I'm going to make a down payment of $5000 when I go to the dealership. Any kind good advice and tips on what I should do to get my dream car is needed ..Thanx in advance everybody

Insurance Prices?

Boy I did'nt know it was so expensive what company has affordable insurance for used cars. Or new I don't know what im getting yet.

""We are looking to buy a new home it cost about 180,000 dollars my husband makes about 36,000 dollars a year?""

could we get this home does he make enough i also have a down payment of 18,000 dollars""

What is the cheapest in car insurance to got with in europe?

Me and a friend have just got to the uk and plan on going traveling thru Europe in it Who is the cheapest company to go thru ?

Why is a five door car cheaper to insure than a 3 door car?

My father got a quote for a 5 door 1995 ford fiesta yesterday for 240. The previous car was also a fiesta of the same year and same engine but was a 3 door which cost 340 per year. We have had a 5 door ford fiesta before but that cost 340 per year as well, but the engine was the same and it was the same year. Why the difference in insurance cost between 3 and 5 doors?""

Are there different types of car insurance?

What are the different kinds?

I am 19 years old and live in a suburb of Illinois. How much will my car insurance be on a 2001 Nissan Xterra?

I am 19 years old and live in a suburb of Illinois. How much will my car insurance be on a 2001 Nissan Xterra?

600cc supersport vs 1000cc sport insurance cost?

I'm young and most insurance companies wouldn't insure me on a supersport until I've been riding for 3 years. So i'm wondering if for some dumb reason they'd be more likely to insure me on a 1000cc sportbike than a 600cc supersport bike just because the 600 is a ss. The other part of the question is what's the deal with 1000cc vs 600ccSS with older riders? Thanks love ya guys

Where can i get car insurance for under 2000 for my 17 year old son?

just passed his test

If you get a ticket for expired meter does your insurance go?

I just got a ticket for expired meter will your insurance go up because I don't want my mother to know about it

""How much would the insurance be, for a 17 year old female - new driver, for a Range Rover Vogue?""

It would be about 11/12 years old. 4.0L or 4.6L. And, probably is Petrol. How much on average would this be? UK!""

Car insurance!?

I have recently bought a new car but im 21 years old. the car is in my name but i want the main driver to be my dad and then me as an additional driver. is there any cheap insurance companies that will allow that. or has any1 aged 21 that has been driving for 2.5years got cheap insurance thanks

Fellowship in insurance?

what is the scope for fellowship in life insurance and general insurance in india to start a career in insurance.

Can I insure my boyfriends car in my name and him as a named driver?

We are trying to get the cost of his car insurance down and realised if we insure it in my name and add him as a named driver it is much cheaper. Is this allowed even though I have my own car? currently live seperately but due to move in together in 3 weeks.

Full tort or limited tort... Is it worth it to spend the extra 15% to get full tort car insurance?

I am 21 and getting my first new car tomorrow. I am looking for car insurance. It looks like I could save about 15% on my car insurance if I get limited tort instead of full tort. What do I risk by only getting limited tort? Is it worth the money?

Which make of cars are cheap to insure?

I'm planning on getting a new car but which car manufacturers make cars that are cheap on insurance? It seems Honda is on the higher side, but I was looking at Mitsubishi and theirs seems pretty low, and Mitsu is the one I was going to go with to begin with. Any suggestions? Assume it's just a normal non-sports car.""

Have you ever added an additional driver to your car insurance?

Did it raise the cost of your premium? By how much? I realize this will differ for everyone. I'm only asking because I will be added on as a driver to my mother's car after I receive my license in a couple of weeks. I'm 21 (i realize this is late to be getting a license, there were some things that unabled me to throughout the years) but not a student. I realize what we will get charged (if at all) is not the same as what someone else did/did not get charged, just wondering what might come up.""

How much would car insurance cost for a 17 year old?

Hey I will be turning 17 in a month and I was wondering how much car insurance will cost. I Think I will be going under my parents plan. I will either be getting my dads 05 range rover or an 03 nissan 350z. I have geico and live in NY if that helps. About how much would it cost to insure each car?

What is the best choice for a college student with no health insurance?

I am a 20 year old (21 in December) who is a sophomore in college. I have absolutely no form of insurance-health, dental, etc.- and I have been wondering what is the best choice for me? I know this is a problem and I need to get some, but I am clueless. What companies are best? What should I be looking for? What do I need/not need? HELP!""

Insurance cost for a BMW 325i?

So I am 19 bought a 2004 BMW 325i for 12,000 dollars and was wondering how much the insurance would be? I live in CT and are only planning to use for school.""

Would you get Uninsured Insurance coverage in this case?

Car worth: $2000 (KBB) Annual driving: 4000 miles Uninsured Insurance Liability ($15k/$30k): $100 (a year) Uninsured Insurance Collision (up to $3500): $50 (a year) Not going to get comp/collision since it's only worth $2000. My insurance company is requesting that I sign a UI waiver since I initially said no to UI. So I'm not sure now. Just liability is costing me $700 a year (even with good driver discount) so getting UI would add $150 to it so was wondering if it's really worth it or not.

Mulberry Kansas Cheap car insurance quotes zip 66756

Mulberry Kansas Cheap car insurance quotes zip 66756

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/14-16-can-my-boyfriend-i-get-health-insurance-together-anthony-stuart/"

[perfectzablog]

How Passion Projects and Community Partners Create Relevant Learning for Teens in School

When a huge flood devastated Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 2008 the community was faced with a host of problems more commonly seen in big cities, like homelessness. But in the midst of this tragedy the residents began to see an opportunity to rethink how they would rebuild the core institutions of the town.

“We’re in Iowa, these are not things you deal with,” said Shawn Cornally, co-founder of Iowa BIG, a project-based school that came into being after the flood. “So the entire city was grappling with these giant questions together.”

The local newspaper, owned by the Gazette Co., wanted to be part of rebuilding the community. As part of a series on reimagining Cedar Rapids, the company tapped Cornally — a high school STEM teacher whose subjects have included calculus, physics and computer science — to spearhead an effort called “The Return to School Project.” Over 100 adults strapped on backpacks and went back to school — walking in the shoes of students. They were asked to report back on what they noticed about the experience.

“They said stuff like, ‘Man, teachers work their butts off and it’s kind of like no one in the building cares, even other teachers,’” said Cornally. They also noticed that students spent a lot of time transitioning, and they talked only about grades, never about what they were learning. But the adults noticed a lot of positives as well. They said it was clear school was a second home to kids and played an important support role for many of them.

Cornally wrote an article about these observations that ended with a call for Cedar Rapids to consider a school without grades or classes as part of its effort to rebuild. Rather than using standardized tests to measure learning, students would be held accountable by community partners with whom they would work on projects.

That article sparked a small experiment at the community college, with just 12 students and one half-time teacher. Over the next 10 years it grew into Iowa BIG, an alternative education offering that now has two sites, 240 students, eight teachers and a huge network of community partners. They even recently won one of the smaller XQ Super School grants for innovative school models.

WHO ATTENDS IOWA BIG?

Cornally said students interested in attending BIG often come in two types: super-high achievers looking for something interesting for their résumé, and kids for whom traditional school does not work. “They come to us because we don’t control their time, just their output,” Cornally said.

Iowa BIG is far from a traditional school, but it is public. According to Cornally, Cedar Rapids doesn’t have private or charter schools almost as a matter of tradition. All kids attend public school, so those schools are well-funded, strong academic institutions. Generations of Cedar Rapids-area families attend the same high schools and there is a lot of pride and identity around them. But the big, comprehensive high school with bells, AP classes and more traditional teaching styles doesn’t suit all learners.

That’s where Iowa BIG comes into the picture. It’s a partnership between the three school districts in the Cedar Rapids area. Students can take classes at Iowa BIG, but they graduate from their home schools and often split time between the two institutions. All three districts contribute full-time employees to BIG, and all get to claim the program as part of what they offer. This arrangement can be both great and hard for students. On the one hand, they have access to different kinds of opportunities at BIG, but some have to travel long distances between schools.

BIG classes are focused around big projects that students care about. Cornally calls them “Saturday projects,” something the student would want to be working on over the weekend, but gets to do for school instead. The projects almost always include an outside partner with whom students collaborate. That real-world home for the product helps make students accountable for their work and to their collaborators. Cornally said this approach to collaborative projects is more palatable to students who have rebelled against traditional homework. Despite all that, the courses that appear on student transcripts sound standard.

“We have a custom-built software system that tracks each kid against the state standards they’re responsible for,” Cornally said. While the classes don’t look like traditional English or chemistry classes, the teachers are aware of the standards they need to hit. They try hard to build those standards into the project in interdisciplinary ways, but when they can’t they are honest about it with the students.

“That honesty is worth a million dollars to a teenager,” Cornally said. Because students come from different schools, are on different schedules and live far apart, most don’t come to the BIG building every day. Students communicate with each other and with teachers through Slack and schedule times to meet up only when necessary.

Kellen Ochs likes BIG because the adults there respect his time. He likes science and thought he wanted to be a chemist until he started taking chemistry classes at his traditional high school. He learned about BIG from a friend who is a year older. Kellen was a disenchanted freshman enviously watching his sophomore friend leave to go to BIG nearly every day.

“He would always talk about how he went to do actual things, with real people where he learned actual things,” Kellen said. That sounded interesting, and when Kellen saw Shawn Cornally’s TED talk he thought to himself, “This guy’s reading my mind. This is exactly what I want.”

One of Kellen’s favorite projects at BIG is building a biodiesel engine. He and his group have been teaching themselves about how motors work and working out the chemistry to convert used cooking oil into something combustible.

“I think everybody knows what we’re doing and what’s going on at a molecular level now,” Kellen explained about his group’s progress. “The hard part is we had to build a fume hood and that took so long. Now we’re getting back to the fun inorganic chemistry part.”

He said made a batch of oil but didn’t get it hot enough, so only some combusted. It’s all about adding the right amount of ethyl alcohol and other reactants, Kellen explained. He’s been using a lot of YouTube videos and online materials to teach himself the inorganic chemistry he needs, and his group has taught each other a lot through trial and error.

The group meets once a week for an hour and half to check in on progress and divvy up new tasks, but Kellen says the amount of work he puts in varies from week to week. Sometimes he spends hours on it, and other times his part doesn’t take that long. He likes that he’s learning how to manage his time and that his group trusts him to complete his tasks.

Kellen is also taking English literature at BIG, a class he was originally less enthused about, but has found surprisingly enjoyable. “I thought I was going to be really bored because we did poetry in the ninth grade and it was horrible and I hated it,” Kellen said. But at BIG the poems feel more relevant — they’ve been reading poems about the African-American experience in America.

“They are living in my reality whereas when you read Shakespeare I could swear he was living in a different reality,” Kellen said. He stopped and looked up some of the names of the poets he’d enjoyed: Natasha Trethewey, Gregory Pardlo, Claudia Rankine.

But Kellen’s passion project at BIG is pool alarms. The project idea came from a local professor whose nephew drowned when his parents lost sight of him for just a moment. The pool alarm didn’t go off. Now Kellen and his friend are trying to build a better pool alarm, one that can’t fail when it’s needed.

THE PROJECTS

BIG finds projects in three main ways: businesses or organizations come asking to collaborate, teachers develop projects and find partners interested in collaborating, and students initiate projects. “The kids’ ideas are just as good as the adults’ ideas,” Cornally said.

“We are excited when a kid has an idea because half the time they’re good and half the time they’re bad, but it’s the same as the adults.” No matter how the project comes to them, Cornally said teachers work to think it through, flesh it out and make sure it’s a viable project. If it is, it gets added to a custom-built database that students can browse when they shop for projects at the start of the semester.

“We live in that universe of just below your resource line, but well above flippant,” Cornally said. In other words, many businesses come to BIG with projects that would help operations, but aren’t mission critical. That’s a perfect space for high school students to bring their enthusiasm, creativity and energy.

For example, the United States Geological Survey wanted to create an app to streamline the process when citizen scientists send in fossils. That’s an app the agency probably wouldn’t spend limited resources on, but they’re excited to have it if a student can build it.

As students work on their projects they get support from teachers, who also ensure that students are meeting the state standards required for the course. Teachers meet in a daily “scrum” where they talk about projects, individual students, who needs more support, who is avoiding all the math in the project, and who on staff would be most effective at reaching out.

At the end of the semester the school carefully translates all the project work students did into traditional credits that are recognized by traditional high schools and colleges. “You cannot be the person who changes how college does admissions and how they want to see data reported,” Cornally said. “And you can’t screw your students over by doing that.”

While the projects may not neatly fit the criteria colleges expect to see, students often discover passions they want to pursue in college through the projects they do at BIG. Bailey Swartzendruber is a good student at her traditional high school, but began taking BIG classes her senior year because she wanted to use her learning to take more of a leadership role in the community. She’s headed to the University of Iowa  for college and plans to major in International Business with a minor in human rights.

“BIG really opened that up for me,” Swartzendruber said. She came into BIG with vague goals of wanting to do something positive for the community that connected to business. She and her adviser started talking about the refugee crisis, which soon became a project writing social studies curriculum around refugee issues. Swartzendruber is excited that her work could soon be used by students around the world.

“Living in the Midwest, living in Iowa, I just never thought I would get this opportunity,” she said.

Swartzendruber also took statistics at BIG, an experience that left her with conflicting emotions. She found the open-ended, self-directed approach to math difficult. She had weekly seminars on the content and then was asked to apply it to her refugee project. For example, her teacher gave her data on the location and number of displaced persons and asked her to use coding software to analyze it. She felt overwhelmed by the task.

“At first I kind of gave up on it and didn’t turn any of my stuff in, which is so not me,” Swartzendruber said. She didn’t feel she had fully grasped the concepts before she was being asked to apply them to a situation where she also didn’t know how to use the coding software. It felt uncomfortable to learn by doing, rather than through rote practice. With hindsight, she can see that learning in a new way was uncomfortable, but that she gained valuable skills she’ll be able to use in the future. She looked at the college coursework she’ll be tackling next year and immediately noticed one class requires the same coding software she now knows how to use.

Ultimately, Swartzendruber is aware that, despite being a good student coming into BIG, she didn’t have a lot of the practical skills required for work. She was terrified to email her partner organization, didn’t know how to manage her time when she wasn’t being told exactly what to do, and had little experience disagreeing with collaborators. These are all skills she knows she has improved while at BIG. They are also skills her teachers explicitly monitor and work to improve in students.

“I feel like at my regular high school I’m just going through the motions. I felt it wasn’t pushing my boundaries,” Swartzendruber said. Now, when she goes into the BIG building, she’s inspired by the work of her fellow students. One girl designed a fashion line, coordinated a fashion show, and took it on the road with real models. Another is interviewing faith groups to find out how welcoming they are to people with alternative lifestyles.

“Whenever you go there you see kids working on crazy things, and so dialed in to what they’re doing,” Swartzendruber said. “When I go to BIG I want to be there.”

That’s one of the most important things to Cornally. He was a successful AP computer science teacher for years before helping to start Iowa BIG. He worked at a high-achieving high school, but when he ran into former students home on break from college and asked them what they learned in AP calculus that was useful in college, they rarely had an answer.

It was a clarifying moment. “Why do I lose sleep over you?” Cornally asked himself. If students didn’t need what he taught them, and didn’t remember it either, why was he working so hard? “I’m just a baby sitter that talks about calculus,” he realized. That’s when he began a journey to transform education. At BIG he’s confident students remember the work they did and can point to how it impacted their development. At Iowa BIG the “rigor” comes from knowing his students really well.

“As a district we’ve been looking for a personalized learning environment for a while,” said Erik Anderson, principal of Prairie High School in the College Community School District outside Cedar Rapids. As the district works towards a 10-year plan that will include changes at all its sites, Anderson said Iowa BIG is offering interested students some of that personalization now. And, his teachers are learning from Iowa BIG, too — some are trying to incorporate community-driven projects into their classes, while others are reimagining class as independent work time with teacher consultations available.

“There’s been flexibility required from everyone,” Anderson said. He’s proud of his staff for understanding that the goal is for students to have a good learning experience. And he sees the effect BIG is having on students in other small ways.

“You can see these young people grow and mature at a different rate, especially in how they interact with adults,” he said.

How Passion Projects and Community Partners Create Relevant Learning for Teens in School published first on https://greatpricecourse.tumblr.com/

[astudentscribe-blog]

Tech Dopes and Politics

https://www.recode.net/2017/7/3/15904484/pincus-hoffman-linkedin-zynga-clinton-win-the-future-democrats-dnc-trump

This became MUCH longer than I thought, and yeah, it’s a slog.

Oh, where to begin with this shitstorm. Let’s start with some snark and then move onto more serious concerns (though really, it’s not like those are going to be held too far apart because good lord).

This is the kind of idea that two dopes in a sitcom or movie would be talking about to anyone who would listen. They’re young, white, male, and rich, though not necessarily in that order. They’re tired with politics or the delivery business or media - really, the exact what they’re tired of doesn’t matter so much as the disdain for “X as usual” (which they never really define nor care to). They’ve got this great idea though - “what if you could change the way X worked with just a click? Introducing, Win The Future! (with a giant poster board of a “WTF” logo in simplistic font, probably with some kind of geometric-esque symbol for branding)”

Everyone, except maybe the most gullible person, or someone who has no idea how politics or the internet work, in the room look at these two like they’re probably high. They never get mentioned again, except as a brick joke several acts later, and only in a positive light if the writers are trying a “take that” at consumerism and such. You’ve probably seen something like this in numerous versions of media, enough that I don’t even have to really give a specific scene because the idea of two rich novices trying to tell everyone EXACTLY what will fix their problems is built into satiric writing. Shit, the Big Bang Theory’s probably done this more times than years I’ve been alive.

In this article? Played completely straight. No winks, no asides (except one kinda-sorta-maybe), just two scrappy underdogs with degrees from little-known universities like UPenn, Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford, armed with only $5 billion between themselves, trying to change the world. The underdogs in question: Mark Pincus, co-founder of Zynga (of Farmville fame, among others), and Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn (the eternal punchline of social media platforms).

I’m trying not to dip into ad hominem too much here because there are plenty of smart, compassionate, self-aware people who happen to be wealthy, I’m sure. Not most of them and certainly not the ones you hear the most about, but I’m willing to grant that not everyone with an income over $250k a year is an abominable moron divested from reality. But as the tone may suggest, I’m skeptical.

And it certainly does little to suggest you fit in that category when you spout this nonsense:  

“It’s become this competitive insider’s world,” said Pincus, who has donated nearly $2.5 million to candidates and causes, according to federal records. "Whether it’s me or my family and friends … we just feel - we’ve always felt - left out. It just feels like the bar is so high for any of us to have a voice and choice.”

Setting aside for a moment the gurgling rage that threatens to dispose of my ability to construct coherent thought, the lack of self-awareness in those three sentences is almost staggeringly funny. It almost makes me think the writer was trying to slip an aside in about how absurd that statement is, coming from that source, but given a) it’s from recode and b) the generally positive tone of the piece, it seems unlikely.

Mark Pincus is from the neighborhood in Chicago were the terms “Trixie” and “Chad” sprung up to describe the young affluent type who was as vapid as they were wealthy, and boy does it seem to fit. Pincus’ career tab on his wiki page goes, “Before he became an entrepreneur, Pincus worked in venture capital and financial services,” which is shorthand for ‘he wasn’t quite rich enough to buy an island, but enough to make some really dumb purchases at the yacht dealership” and was rich enough to be “an early investor’ in basically every major social media platform of the early-00s. Richard Hoffman has a similar setup, growing up in Palo Alto and Berkeley, attending Stanford and Oxford, becoming an “angel investor” and investing in too many startups to list here for practical purposes. They are, if you hadn’t guessed, both white, live/work in the Silicon Valley area, and incredibly well-connected (Hoffman’s a member of the Bilderberg Group, if you ever want to fantasize about the closest thing to the Illuminati in real life).

This is not to diminish anything good either of them has done. Jury’s out on social gaming’s ultimate effect on society, but I lean towards neutral at worst, and it’s been helpful to people in all sorts of ways, and Zynga upended the market and general consensus on that. Hoffman, while being one of the guys behind PayPal (yeah, another one), a member of Microsoft’s board and has a history of investments in Facebook and Airbnb, is probably most notable for a number of tech-related philanthropic endeavors and was the money behind Crisis Text Line.

The notion they’re advocating, of a more democratic process, is not a bad one at all and if we’re choosing between folks like these two and Peter Thiel or even Mark “I’m So Normal Guys Look I’m Going To Iowa” Zuckerberg, I’m with Hoffman and Pincus any day (Never mind that a world relying on the deep pockets of tech billionaires for political reform makes me gag). But to call these two anything but “insiders” is a fundamental failure to grasp how much power and access that the people with lots of money (remember: $5 billion between them) have compared to the vast majority of voters in this country.

And, you guessed it, it gets worse. The only platform items that the WTF (I still cannot fucking believe) have committed to far are “Whether or not they believe engineering degrees should be free to all Americans, and if they oppose lawmakers who don’t call for Trump’s immediate impeachment” per the article above. Which, uh, that’s cool how about college for everyone not just engineers (while super important and underappreciated), and second, again, uh yeah but that has the same effect as threatening to boycott space travel: the people who agree with you are already there, the people who dislike it aren’t gonna move (especially for you), and there’s really no practical effect that’ll happen in the near term (i.e. Elon Musk loses it Howard Hughes-style, Spruce Goosing our way to space and when a Democratic majority takes the House, for space and Trump respectively).

Worse, in the same vein as saying they’ve “felt left out” the article details an approach that is, well, concerning.

In politics, though, Pincus sees a similarly — needlessly — complex game. Replace the Xbox controller maybe with the impenetrable machinations of Congress, where bills and markups and votes are often the stuff of hard-to-discern theater. So, too, are the costs of playing increasingly high at a time when political money can — and does — flow uninhibited to campaigns in the forms of hard-to-track nonprofits and super PACs.

Simple things are not bad - simple ideals like universal health care, college tuition for all, anti-discrimination laws, equal pay for equal work, guaranteeing the right to vote for every person in the Constitution are all ones I’ve heard Democrats talk about and I for one embrace enthusiastically. But this isn’t about simplicity of ideal, this is simplicity of process - and democracy, even the lacking measures that are so often twisted or bandied about for gaining power, is inherently messy and complicated. It’s designed that way, because if something is simple, then it is easy to manipulate and seize control of. Tech guys, more so than most businesses it seems, are all about efficiency - getting down to basics, streamlining workflow and production, which again! All good things! But politics and civic service is not a business, and it cannot be operated on the same principle of a business - those in power have to be held accountable, and that means you will inevitably sacrifice some efficiency. Not the kind of partisan wrangling and obstructionism (again rooted in accumulating power rather than serving the people or process, but that’s another rant for another day) that has been a problem for the last two decades, and for both parties but predominantly the GOP; complexity is not a vice - if we wanted simple and efficient, we’ve had plenty of examples and most of them we’ve fought wars again at one point or another.

No, this kind of simple suggests that you just don’t want to learn or be troubled to get your hands dirty in what you see as a nasty business, the holier-than-thou kind of simple. It’s the kind of simple where you run into a problem you can’t fix with a check or a call to someone you know, so you call the system broken and impenetrable and fund-raise or petition based off of the frustrations of other people, usually those who have far less money, power, access, or time than you do. It is the simple that is based off of good intentions because it’s easy and you’re scared and you’ve seen the other side go for easy and simple and win, even while lying or rejecting reality entirely. “He doesn’t speak like a politician, he thinks like one of us! He’s authentic!”

And now this is the part where I have to make more in the way of conjecture rather than history and background, but it’s equally important.

As a general rule, Pincus told me in June, WTF aspires to be “pro-social [and] pro-planet, but also pro-business and pro-economy.”

I said this already on twitter, but how can you much more of a useless “both sides” centrist techie stereotype can you be? Other, just as useful ideas from this platform:  

"We’re pro-puppy, but also pro-kitten."

"Pro-blue skies but pro-clean water.”

“Pro-justice AND pro-equality”

Also, “pro-social” - whatever the fuck THAT means - is the only mention of anything in the ballpark of issues of racial justice, economic inequality, women’s rights, LGBTQ issues, and more. Hold onto that for a moment.

The exact direction is up to its supporters, who can steer the organization through the campaigns they choose and promote, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that WTF seeks to push Democrats further to the political left.

“I’m fearful the Democratic Party is already moving too far to the left,” Pincus said. “I want to push the Democratic Party to be more in touch with mainstream America, and on some issues, that’s more left, and on some issues it might be more right.”

Yeah, this is pretty concerning, especially given a long list of failed centrist political programs like No Labels or Americans Elect. Both of those groups (which, disclaimer, the latter I signed up for with its “national online primary” in 2012) tend to focus towards “fiscal responsibility” and “treating America like a business” and policy like a balanced budget amendment (nope) and tone policing stuff like you see from Peggy Noon or David Brooks. It usually couches this in “both sides are bad” rhetoric or in the case of some more progressive elements, decries both parties as being basically the same (see: “She’s no better than Trump!” for a more progressive take on it with 2016).

What WTF isn’t: “Pro-politician,” Pincus said. “So we’d like to see either political outsiders or politicians who are ready to put the people ahead of their career.”

And then we circle back to the “simple because it’s easy” route, where anyone can look at the current White House and go “jesus christ, I don’t have any experience but I can certainly do better than that!” Because politicians are an easy target (boy howdy do I know that) and it’s easy to find things in the political system that seem antiquated or archaic or overly coated in red-tape and you can sure bet that some of them are. But it’s the one we’ve got, and making another out of whole-cloth should terrify anyone who understands half of what that’d entail.

Time to come back to that idea I said to hang onto at the top of the page, “pro-social.” As I noted, there is not one mention of what are commonly referred to as “social issues” - LGBTQ rights, civil rights, women’s rights, all of which (if the names didn’t tip you off) tend to be about what the folks in power already have and minorities tend to not. There’s one mention of immigration policy, and that’s in the context of the Muslim travel ban being a catalyst for rounding up an email list of wealthy white liberal donors, and “affordable healthcare” is similarly piled into that one block quote from said email. And that’s frankly not surprising.

These two, and pretty much everyone else mentioned or sniffed at for this idea, is of that rich, white, male, and young demographic I talked about back in the beginning of this novella. So, no, it’s not surprising - it is still frustrating, and dangerous because it begets ideas like this:

Initially, Pincus had planned to solicit feedback at launch on recruiting a potential challenger to Democrats’ leader in the House, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, in a primary election. That idea is on hold — for now — but Pincus and Hoffman are still trying to solicit candidates to run elsewhere as so-called “WTF Democrats.” For Pincus, one of his early targets: Stephan Jenkins from Third Eye Blind. The two have met in recent months, in fact.

At first, Pincus planned to pitch potential supporters on challenging Pelosi, an audacious move at a time when insurgent Democrats are wondering if her leadership in the House has given Republicans too much opportunity to go on the attack. Days before the launch of WTF, however, the Zynga leader opted against proposing such a plan. (Asked if he backed a fight to unseat Pelosi, Hoffman told me hours earlier he was “waiting to see,” but stressed that he’s “certainly not opposed to it.”)

Also on Pincus’s potential target list: California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who he derided as a “career politician.” Feinstein also isn’t an introductory target for WTF, but Pincus said he’s already had conversations with folks like Jenkins, the frontman of Third Eye Blind, about someday challenging her.

Pelosi and Feinstein, two of the most powerful women in Congress, are the only listed targets this group has been public about so far. The only reason for doing so seems to be that they’re folks who have been in politics for decades and based in the San Francisco area. You could say it’s the “career politicians” thing (see: No Labels for an example of another centrist group that talks about experience in political arenas like leprosy) but that doesn’t really add up. There are Democratic leaders in Congress like Senator Chuck Schumer of New York (18 years in the Senate, another 18 in the House), Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont (42 years in the Senate), Steny Hoyer of Maryland (36 years in the House), or John Lewis (elected just months prior to Pelosi in 1987); all of which are senior to Pelosi and Feinstein, but with zero mention - and while you can make arguments that careerism has influenced any and all of the individuals I just listed along with Pelosi and Feinstein, only the latter two are singled out as public targets.

Yeah, you can probably guess the difference, but here it is: tech companies are shit when it comes to women in their midst. Tech culture (and venture capital and business in general and… ad infinitum) is notorious brutal to break into, and even more so for women who often deal with harassment, stagnant wages, lack of promotion, and hostile atmosphere. The most visibly toxic results of tech culture’s osmosis into society are, unfortunately, displayed often enough on Twitter and the White House (and sometimes at the nexus of the two), but it also manifests itself in ways that are, in the big picture, subtle or even benign in their appearance, but have the overall effect of leaving women on the outside of policy and power - and leading to bullshit like Viagra being covered by every fucking insurance plan in the known universe, but birth control being a coin toss (at best) prior to the ACA.

Ridding Congress of the deadwood is a popular drumbeat and has been more or less since there’s been a Congress to campaign about, and especially against. But kicking out people based solely on the fact that they’ve been there for a long time is a great way to ensure that the folks who make up the institutional memory of how to get things done and passed (see the current Republican Congress as to how important it is to have the folks who know how to make a deal and negotiate with the other party). And when it’s clear that you’re only thinking of doing that, at first blush, to the women in power, including arguably the most efficient and successful political operative the House has seen since Henry Clay?

Yeah, fuck that nonsense. I’ll ride with Nancy Pelosi and complexity any day over two rich bros who think they know just how to fix all our problems with one easy solution.

[hellomynameisbisexual]

Travis has had both boyfriends and girlfriends since high school. But when his coworkers discovered his dating history at a board game night, they told him he couldn’t be bisexual. “Bi men don’t exist,” they said. “You’re just a confused gay guy.” Travis, 34, had brought his girlfriend with him that night, but they started calling her his “roommate” after they found out he was bi.

Santiago got an even harsher reaction when he came out to his family. “‘Bisexual’ is just code for insincere gay man” is how he said one of his relatives reacted. “He didn’t use the term ‘gay man,’” 24-year-old Santiago told me, “but I won’t repeat slurs.”

In the past couple of months, I’ve heard dozens of stories like these from bisexual men who have had their sexual orientations invalidated by family members, friends, partners, and even strangers. Thomas was called a “fence-sitter” by a group of gay men at a bar. Shirodj was told that he was “just gay but not ready to come out of the closet.” Alexis had his bisexuality questioned by a lesbian teacher who he thought would be an ally. Many of these same men have been told that women are “all a little bi” or “secretly bi” but that men can only be gay or straight, nothing else.

In other words, bisexual men are like climate change: real but constantly denied.

A full 2% of men identified themselves as bisexual on a 2016 survey from the Centers for Disease Control, which means that there are at least three million bi guys in the United States alone—a number roughly equivalent to the population of Iowa. (On the same survey, 5.5% of women self-identified as bisexual, which comes out to roughly the same number of people as live in New Jersey.) The probability that an entire state’s worth of people would lie about being attracted to more than one gender is about as close to zero as you can get.

But the idea that only women can be bisexual is a persistent myth, one that has been decades in the making. And prejudice with such deep historical roots won’t disappear overnight.

👬👫👬👫

To understand why bisexual men are still being told that their sexual orientation doesn’t exist, we have to go back to the gay liberation movement of the late 1960s. That’s when Dr. H. Sharif “Herukhuti” Williams, a cultural studies scholar and co-editor of the anthology Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men, told me that male sexual fluidity got thrown under the bus in the name of gay rights—specifically white, upper-class gay rights.

“One of the byproducts of the gay liberation movement is this…solidifying of the [sexual] binary,” Herukhuti told me, citing the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s as a pre-Stonewall period of relatively unstigmatized sexual fluidity.

Four decades later, the gay liberation movement created a new type of man—the “modern gay man,” Herukhuti calls him—who was both “different from and similar to” the straight man. As Jillian Weiss, now the executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense Fund, wrote in a 2003 review of this same history, “gays and lesbians campaigned for acceptance by suggesting that they were ‘just like you,’ but with the single (but extremely significant exception) of [having] partners of the same sex.” Under this framework, attraction to a single gender was the unifying glue between gay men, lesbians, and straight people—bisexual people were just “confused.”

Bisexual people realized that they would have to form groups and coalitions of their own if they wanted cultural acceptance. But just as bisexual activism was gaining a foothold in the 1980s, the AIDS crisis hit, and everything changed—especially for bisexual men.

“AIDS forced certain bisexual men out [of the closet], it forced a lot of bisexual men back in, and then it killed off a number of them,” longtime bisexual activist and author Ron Suresha told me.Those deaths hindered the development of male bisexual activism at a particularly critical moment. “A number of men who would have been involved and were involved in the early years of the bi movement died—and they died early and they died quickly,” bisexual writer Mike Syzmanski recalled.

The AIDS crisis also gave rise to one of the most pernicious and persistent stereotypes about bisexual men, namely that they are the “bridge” for HIV transmission between gay men and heterosexual women. As Brian Dodge, a public health researcher at Indiana University, told me, this is a “warped notion” that has “never been substantiated by any real data.” The CDC, too, has debunked the same myth in the specific context of U.S. black communities: No, black men on the “down low” are not primarily responsible for high rates of HIV among black women.

For decades, bisexual men have been portrayed—even within the LGBT community—as secretly gay, sexually confused vectors of disease.

In 2016, bisexual men are still feeling the effects of the virus and the misperceptions around it.

“We’re still underrepresented on the boards of almost all of the national bisexual organizations,” Suresha told me, referring to the fact that women occupy most of the key leadership positions in bisexual activism. And in a new, nationally representative study of attitudes toward bisexual people, Dodge and his research team found that 43% of respondents agreed —at least somewhat—with the statement: “People should be afraid to have sex with bisexual men because of HIV/STD risks.”

For decades, bisexual men have been portrayed—even within the LGBT community—as secretly gay, sexually confused vectors of disease. Is it any wonder that they are still fighting to shed that false image today? It’s hard to convince people that you exist when they barely see you as human.

👬👫👬👫

It’s not that bisexual women have it easy. Both bisexual men and women are much less likely than gay men and lesbians to be out of the closet, with only 28% telling Pew that most of the important people in their life know about their orientation. Collectively, bisexual people also have some of the worst mental health outcomes in the LGBT community and their risk of intimate partner violence is disturbingly high. Bisexual people also face discrimination within the LGBT community while fending off accusations that their orientation excludes non-binary genders. (In response, bisexual educator Robyn Ochs defines “bisexuality” as attraction to “people of more than one sex and/or gender” rather than just to “men and women.”)

And on top of these general problems, bisexual women are routinely hypersexualized, stereotyped as “sluts,” dismissed as “experimenting,” and harassed on dating apps. Their bisexuality is reduced to a spectacle or waved away as a “phase.”

But it is still bisexual men who seem to have their very existence questioned more often.

Suresha pointed me to a 2005 New York Times article with the headline “Straight, Gay, Or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited,” the fallout of which he saw as “a disaster for bi people.” The article reported on a new study “cast[ing] doubt on whether true bisexuality exists, at least in men.” The study in question measured the genital arousal of a small sample of men and found, as the Times summarized, that “three-quarters of the [bisexual male] group had arousal patterns identical to those of gay men; the rest were indistinguishable from heterosexuals.”

“It got repeated and repeated in all sorts of media,” Suresha recalled. “People reported it in news briefs on the radio, in print, in magazines, all over the place.”

As the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force noted in its response to the article, the original study had some clear methodological limitations—only 33 self-identified bisexual men were included and participants were recruited through “gay-oriented magazines”—but the Times went ahead and reported that the research “lends support to those who have long been skeptical that bisexuality is a distinct and stable sexual orientation.”

“Show me the quest for scientific proof that heterosexuality exists. It begins and ends with even just one person saying, ‘I’m straight.’” — Amy Andre, Huffington Post

The article fueled the devious narrative that male bisexuality was just homosexuality in disguise. The lived experiences of bisexual men don’t support that narrative—and neither does science—but its power comes from prejudice, not from solid evidence.

And unsurprisingly, the 2005 study’s conclusions did not survive the test of time. In fact, one of the co-authors of that study went on to co-author a 2011 study which found that “bisexual patterns of both subjective and genital arousal” did indeed occur among men. The New York Times Magazine later devoted a feature to the push for the 2011 study, briefly acknowledging the paper’s previous poor coverage. But many in the bisexual community were unimpressed that the scientific community was still being positioned as the authority on the existence of bisexual men.

“Show me the quest for scientific proof that heterosexuality exists,” Amy Andre wrote on the Huffington Post in response to the feature. “It begins and ends with even just one person saying, ‘I’m straight.’”

👬👫👬👫

One of the most tragic things about society’s refusal to accept bisexual men is that we don’t even know why it is still so vehement. Dodge believes that his new study offers some hints—the persistent and widespread endorsement of the HIV “bridge” myth is alarming—but he told me that he would need “more qualitative and more focused research” before he could definitively state that HIV stigma is the primary factor driving negative attitudes toward bisexual men. (Research in this area is indeed sorely lacking. The last major study on the subject prior to the survey Dodge’s team conducted was published in 2002.)

In the meantime, bisexual advocates have developed plenty of compelling theories, many of them focused on the dominance of traditional masculinity. For example, Herukhuti explained that “we live in a society in which boundaries between men are policed because of patriarchy and sexism.” Men are expected to be “kings of their kingdom”—not to share their domain.

“For men to bridge those boundaries with each other—the only way that we can conceive of that is in the sense that these are ‘non-men,’” Herukhuti told me, adding that, in a patriarchal society, gay men are indeed seen as “non-men.” The refusal to accept that men can be bisexual, then, is partly a refusal to accept that someone who is bisexual can even be a man.

Many of the bisexual men I interviewed endorsed this same hypothesis. Kevin, 25, told me that “it’s seen as really unmanly to be attracted to men.” Another Kevin, 26, added that “the core concept of masculinity doesn’t leave room for anything besides extremes.” Justin, in his mid 20s, said that “men are one way and gay men are another way [but] bisexual men are this weird middle ground.”

Our society doesn’t seem to do well with more than two—especially when so many still believe that there’s only one right way to be a man.

And Michael, 28, added that bisexual men are “symbolically dangerous”—a “big interior threat to hetero masculinity” because of a shared attraction to women. It’s easy for a straight guy to differentiate himself from the modern gay man, but how can he reassure himself that he is nothing like his bisexual counterpart?

The answer is obvious: He can equate male bisexuality with homosexuality.

The logic needed to balance that equation, Herukhuti explained to me, is disturbingly close to the racist, Jim Crow-era “one-drop rule,” which designated anyone with the slightest bit of African ancestry as black for legal purposes.

“For a male to have had any kind of same-sex sexual experience, they are automatically designated as gay, based on that one-drop rule,” Herukhuti said. “And that taints them.”

To see that logic at work, look no further than the state of HIV research, much of which still groups gay and bisexual men together as MSM, or men who have sex with men. Dodge, who specializes in the area of HIV/AIDS, explained that “when a man reports sexual activity with another man, that becomes the recorded mode of transmission and there’s no data reporting about female or other partners.” Bisexual men have their identities erased—literally—from the resulting data.

“A really easy way to fix this,” Dodge added, “would be to just create a separate surveillance category.”

But when it comes to categories, our society doesn’t seem to do well with more than two—especially when so many still believe that there’s only one right way to be a man.

👬👫👬👫

The situation of bisexual men is not hopeless. Slowly but surely, they are expanding the horizons of masculinity. The silver lining in Dodge’s study, for example, is that there has been a decided “‘shift’ in attitudes toward bisexual men and women from negative to more neutral in the general population” over the last decade or so, although negative attitudes toward bisexual men were still “significantly greater” than the negativity directed at their female peers.

“Put the champagne on the ice,” Dodge joked. “We’re no longer at the very bottom of the barrel but we’ve still got a ways to go.”

That distance will likely be shortened by a rising generation that is far more tolerant of sexual fluidity than their predecessors. Respondents to Dodge’s survey who were under age 25 had more positive attitudes toward bisexuality, perhaps because so many of them openly identify as LGBTQ themselves—some as bisexual, some as pansexual, and some refusing labels altogether.

That growing acceptance is starting to be reflected in movies and on television, once forms of media that were, and still often are, notoriously hostile to bisexual men. A character named Darryl came out as bisexual with a myth-busting song on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and, as GLAAD recently noted, other shows like Shadowhunters and Black Sails are starting to do bi male representation right. The HBO comedy Insecure even made biphobia into a powerful storyline when one straight female character, Molly, shunned her love interest when he told her that he once had oral sex with a guy in a college. But other shows, like House of Cards, are still using a male character’s bisexuality as a way to accentuate his villainy.

Ultimately, bisexual men themselves will continue to be the most powerful force for changing hearts and minds. I asked each bisexual man I interviewed what he would want the world to know about his sexual orientation. Some wanted to clear up specific misconceptions but so many of them simply wanted people to acknowledge that male bisexuality is not fake.

“It’s important that bisexuality be acknowledged as real,” said Martyn, 30, adding that “there’s only so long someone can hold on to a part of themselves that seems invisible before it starts to make them doubt their own sense of self.”

“I am happy being bisexual and I’m not looking for an answer,” said Dan, 19. “I’m not trying things out, I’m not using this as a placeholder to discover my identity. This is who I am. And I love it.”

Samantha Allen is a reporter for Fusion’s Sex+Life vertical. She has a PhD in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Emory University and was the 2013 John Money Fellow at the Kinsey Institute. Before joining Fusion, she was a tech and health reporter for The Daily Beast.