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gayenerd · 3 years

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Interview with Billie for the Kerrang Yearbook. Sounds like this took place around 2000-2001?

Hello Billie Joe. A bit pissed at the Kerrang Awards weren't you? "I was drinking with Papa Roach the night before. Everybody went to see The Cult in Brixton. All the American bands like Papa Roach and Queens Of The Stone Age were there. I felt terrible when I got out of bed to go to the Kerrang Awards." Who ended up worse off - you or Coby Dick? "Sometimes Coby can't even hold it together when he's sober! He's super-hyper all the time. You have to say, 'Coby, turn it off for 2 minutes - I'm in my bunk!' Then he'll turn it off and you can get into a decent conversation." You experienced some difficulty in getting off the stage after accepting your Kerrang Award. "Award's shows freak me out - I'm so scared shitless of those things so I end up doing stupid things. I never theought I'd ever win an award for playing music. Watching all our videos being shown up on the screen, I just looked at Mike and Tre and said. 'Does this mean we're old now?' I can be such a self-conscious freak. I just don't know how to be cool." What's the healthiest thing you've done this year? "I like to keep myself fit. I run, I skateboard, and i'll hit the weights every other day. You reach a certain age when you've gotta start looking out for yourself. I'm staring down the barrel of 30, you know? My dad really let himself fall to @#%$ and I don't want to end up like that. Theres a preconcieved idea about musicians and punk musicians in particular that we have to self-destruct, and I can't buy into that. I like to breathe. Like like it when my heart beats - Its a really cool thing." Have you cut down on your drinking recently? "When i'm on tour I drink all day long with the guys. There's nothing else to do. But i've been at homea while. There are many, many moods to Billie Joe. There's drunk me and theres not-drunk me." What have you learned about being a father during the past year? "You learn new things every day as your kids' characters and personalities are building. Joey is 6 now, he's not a baby at all, he's a little boy. And Jacob, who's 3, is a maniac. The one rule I have is that I never expose them to television." What have you learned about Tre and Mike this past year? "Wow (long pause). I learned that Mike is a Bob Dylan fan, which was kind of suprising. I'm not the biggest fan but I definately appreciate Bob Dylan. And Tre is becoming really fluent in Spanish. His wife is Nicaraguan." What color has your hair been this year? "I shaved my head when I got off the road. Its been black. I haven't really been changing it. When the boy groups started dyeing their hair, I had to stop." Any fashion tips you'd care to pass on to Kerrang readers? "I've been wearing the same pants since High School! Never been into the Versace thing." Best punk rock song you've heard this year? "Last Nite by The Strokes. They're not really a punk band, but those guys have a really cool outlook and a good sensibility about how they present themselves. All the rap rock metal bands have lost that rock'n'roll element, and i'm just a sucker for good rock'n'roll music." What song has been stuck in your head this year, even though you hate it? "Smooth Criminal by Alien Ant Farm. It was bad when Michael Jackson sang it, but it's even worse second time around! Y'know, I think Michael Jackson should join Slipknot. His face looks so bizarre now, its like he's wearing a mask." Are Slipknot still the scariest dudes in rock? "In about a year from now, if they're still as popular as they are now, they'll be as American as apple pie. That's sort of what happened to Marilyn Manson. When he came out he was really scary looking, like 'Jesus Christ! This guy is a maniac!' But now its, 'Oh, theres Marilyn, mowing the lawn, no big deal.' I like Manson, but it's funny how the most normal people end up being the most threatening, and the people who are scariest at first end up kinda normal. That's the dissapointing thing about shock value. Neil Young is more threatening than Slipknot just because he's smarter and has more of an opinion." How much fun did you have on tour in 2001? "It's really exciting at first because you're in different places every day, but after a while i'd rather be home. I get into really long conversations with my wife, I talk to my kids a lot, I'll write little notes and draw pictures for them and fax them to the house. Our sets are getting longer, sometimes we'll play up to three hours, and its because there is no rock'n'roll lifestyle for me other than that. I'm a devoted husband and a devoted father, and so all that decadent bullshit is not my thing. You start to wonder, 'Is this the life for me?' But then I get home and I dont know what the @#%$ to do with myself because i'm not playing music. People have looked at us and gone, 'Obviously these guys have no place to go after the gig because they're still on stage!'" Where were you on September 11? "I was on West Coast time, so it was really early in the morning for me. I saw the towers fall, and it felt like the world was gonna end. What amazes me is that Tony Blair is almost heading the coalition by himself! Does he realise what he's getting his country into? This is @#%$ serious! There's been a lot of shocking words used: the 'crusade against terrorism'. The las thing you say to someone from the Middle East is the word 'crusade'." After September 11, do you share America's renewed sense of patriotism? "No way. I can't really see myself as a patriot. I don't see what happened in New York as an act of war, it's an act of terrorism. Every country has had to deal with terrorism in some form, and this is the first time America has ever seen it and they dont know what to do, so everyone is clinging to these war slogans. All the flags is people's cars and homes - it just seems kind of gross to me." Has American learnt from the tragedy? "I hope some good stuff comes out of this. People have become so self-absorbed and dedicated to their careers. I'm not a person to wave a flag for family values or anything like that, but there comes a time when your relationships and your family is the most important thing, not whether you're making $100,000 every year. Thats what I hope comes out of it - that people realise the important things in life." Six Of The Best Best Friend: " Valium. Lots of plane flights, man. Valium only lasts four hours, so if you're on an 11 hour flight take two and a half." Best advice: "Put your head between your knees if you think you are gonna pass out." Best Ass: "Tre Cool. Not only because he has one, but because he is one." Personal Best: The pinnacle moment for me this year, musically, was playing Reading. It was a great show. There's so many bands nowadays who can't play live, but to actually do it and have people singing along and getting something sentimental out of it at the same time, thats rare, and we achieved that at Reading." Best Night Out: "The furst night I went out after september 11. I really went for it. American has these feelings of its days being numbered. It's like a country that has just got cancer, but the cancer's in remission. A lot of people are doing all the things they've always talked about doing. I hadn't partied really hard in a while, so that's what I did. I went to a couple of bars with Mike and Tre and our producer. We got loud and had a good time." Best Buy: " My cellphone. The ring tone is just a goofy tune. And it vibrates well in my pocket."

#article #articles #interview #billie joe armstrong #green day

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pestopascal · 4 years

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tagged by @macomico ... i cant believe ur making me reread anything i’ve written for shame the rules are i simply do not remember my own creations

i taaaaaaggggg @hologramgf @biracialclaude @hoiist @wickedica @galacticmenace @glitchy-npc @elhuen YEEHAW!!!!!!!

> choose your 5 favourite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world. tag as many writers/artists/etc as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

1) castle of gold - got

Life marches on. Orders given, and Myrcella returns to horseback without protest. Fingers that find the ends of the braids, untangling them while they waited. All far too anxious and excited. Myrcella couldn’t recall the last time she had seen them like this, and wanted to let herself in. To embrace the warmth that came with the return of a father and mother, loved so deeply, that Sunspear had held its breath for weeks on end, awaiting them.

i was rly proud of this one bc like... myrcella was always a favourite of mine in the books just bc of the position she was in compared to everyone? always wanted to write smth and finally got it down

2) in the clear - swtor

Mako thumbed the switch. It would’ve been so easy to just flick it on, to see. To feel that heat and hear that thrum. Whilst she knew that she wasn’t sensitive, not in any sense, Mako had enough lightsabers get into her personal space to know exactly how it felt, barely grazing her skin. Torian was looking a little edgy, and there could’ve been multiple reasons why. Bad blood, one too many battles, or just all their tendency to get on edge at the mention of stuff like the Force, Jedi, Sith, lightsabers.

admittedly my first foray into swtor fics and it was rly fun to write smth about the companions like. sneaking around and trying to work out just who the person is theyre working for when the character can give nothing away yknow

3) stall - vtmb

Whilst Mercurio had remembered something of a vague conversation on humanity, he hadn’t thought much into it. LaCroix had always been waffling on about it, especially around the time Lee was turned. Something about baser instincts, frenzy, other vampire bullshit that he would figure he would’ve learned in sixty years, but still managed to only sit at the fringes of. Judging by how Ash finally stands, and how Lee looks almost forlornly at the still passed out cop, Mercurio figured this was one of those conversations.

the real ending of vtmb is ash, mercurio, romero, heather and lee all go on an extended backpacking trip through america to avoid the political and all around vampire fallout of giving santa monica the middle finger, and that’s that on that!

4) you will haunt me - the passenger

Do they believe that? With how their voice resonates, and the little tidbits fed, you know that it’s been less than three decades of walking this world. But that dissonance hasn’t quite gone, nor the longing. The great unknown. You have spent a night or two awake, wondering just what they might’ve looked like out there.

theres smth fun about writing about interdimensional beings with cults and auras and being stuck in lil human forms but finding each other through strange circumstances yknow? i’ll go back to writing about them one day

5) untitled - the super secret rosewood agenda

She doesn’t say anything to you. Drinks both your glasses and pours another. Hard line on her lips that is starting to slowly fade, until you lean over, hand on her knee. “Ohne dich kann ich nicht leben.” “ты такой неудачник.” It’s a groan, wrapped in the way you get a bandage haphazardly thrown over your face. Doesn’t stop you laughing, as you rescue the glasses, and fall on her. Fingers in her sides. “Soll ich dich einem Sommertag vergleichen?” “No, don’t!” “Er ist wie du so lieblich nicht und lind.” “Logan, you are not reciting Shakespeare right now, you are bleeding on the couch, fuck’s sake!”

you know??? YKNOW????

#*#TECHNICALLY I CHEATED I THINK I CANT REMEMBER #just bc u kno in the last yr i wrote a lot of f*r and we dont talk about her #like there was some i am still kinda prooud of but we dont like that game no more rly #ANYWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#also shout ouot to some of my andromeda fics i love them too stil #THANK YOU KORNRNRNRYRYRYRYRYR luv u

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aurea-corde · 5 years

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economy and ecology of quinoa

A range of arguments for and against mass consumption of this miracle pseudo-grain in the West - all sources seem to point to shopping sustainable as best

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/why-you-can-eat-quinoa-with-a-clear-conscience-1.3376690

“If quinoa was the main part of the diet I would be concerned about the surge in price. If Americans started to consume teff, which Ethopians use to make bread and is a huge part of their diet, then Ethopia could potentially be harmed. But quinoa is not that story,” says economist Seth Gitter, an associate professor at Towson University in the US. Along with Marc Bellemare of the University of Minnesota, he published research in 2016 for the International Trade Centre (ITC), a multi-lateral agency linked to the UN, on the impact of the quinoa trade on the welfare of Peruvian communities. Instead of causing harm it concluded this trade “contributes to improved livelihoods of the rural poor, mostly women, in Peru”.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/03/31/472453674/your-quinoa-habit-really-did-help-perus-poor-but-theres-trouble-ahead

"Households [in Puno] did not cut back their consumption between 2004 and 2012 despite a fourfold price increase," Stevens tells us.

In addition, Stevens found no sign of changes in calories, protein or carbohydrates in the diet across Peru as a whole.

...

Export demand has focused on very few of the 3,000 or so different varieties of quinoa, prompting farmers to abandon many of those varieties.

"Those varieties, created by Andean farmers, are the future of quinoa, to adapt to things like climate change," says Stefano Padulosi, a specialist in underused crops and Drucker's colleague at Bioversity International. He would like to see some sort of global mechanism to reward Andean farmers for their role in creating and maintaining quinoa diversity.

...

A greater — and less tractable — problem is environmental degradation. Drucker's student Enrico Avitabile found that more than half the Bolivian farmers he surveyed say their soil is worse than it was before the boom, for two reasons. First, high prices brought into cultivation land that used to be allowed to rest as fallow, resulting in erosion and loss of nutrients. Secondly, farmers who are growing more quinoa, and getting more for it, have reduced their llama herds, so less manure is available as fertilizer and to protect the soil.

Perhaps the greatest problem, though, is what happens when the price drops, which it already has. The cost of quinoa started to fall in February 2014 and sank as fast as it had risen. By late 2015 the cost of quinoa was back where it was in 2012, before the price increases accelerated dramatically.

http://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers15-03/010064296.pdf

[In regards to] commercial competition, it seems ethically unacceptable that after four decades of hard work with limited public assistance, Bolivian peasants, having built a prosperous international market for quinoa, now enter in direct competition with agriculture from Europe and Northern America, these latter starting up with the support of powerful agribusiness systems praising a “challenging new local production”. Capturing a growing part of the market essentially built by Andean small farmers, these farmers from the Northern Hemisphere also compete directly with the commercial quinoa production recently emerging in other Andean countries such as Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Peru. In France, one of the major quinoa importing countries in Europe, it took only two years for a group of about thirty producers to occupy 10% of the country’s quinoa market. In reality, this “new local production” leeches off the quinoa biodiversity and the niche markets patiently built by small Andean farmers.

...

They achieve this by resorting continuously to collective action and by progressively integrating the ecological dimension of a sustainable agriculture (Vassas & Vieira Pak, 2010; Walsh-Dilley, 2013). Preserving the biodiversity of their quinoa landraces, maintaining the traditional rules of common land property and at the same time avoiding the pitfalls of the agrotechnology and agrobusiness integration, the Bolivian producers could well be an example for other small farmers in the world...

#resources #ecology #economics #quinoa #ethical eating

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badmousestuff-blog · 5 years

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Is TAXATION THEFT

(SHOTS OF ME OPENING A LETTER)

Mmm Money. Oh hello there, Badmouse, I was just enjoying the sweet sweet smell of the British Payslip, nah its pretty bland, this one here’s from a job I had about 2 years ago, ah memories, memories, memories…. (Sees Tax) I’ve been stolen from.

£50 taken from me! Money that I don’t even get to decide how it gets spent, 1 vote every 5 years out of 2 preselected jerks every 5 years I wouldn’t call a great turnaround. We don’t tolerate thieves coming into our houses and stealing our prized possessions, why do we allow the Federal government to do the same?

(British Mouse appears) We don’t have a Federal Government in Britain, you poser twat.

Rational Mouse: Maybe I can be of assistance.

Its not really ‘THEFT’ though is it? Its a lot less of this “Gimmie your money, of you’ll die!” And a lot more of this “Gimme your money, and I’ll give you, Mrs Piggy Winkle.

IrM: Still Theft Buddy! If one man steals from you, is that Theft? What about 5? What if they buy the man a hamburger and give him a vote? Is that not still the…

MYOPIA ———————————————

RM: This is Myopic and Archaic guff dude

(Irrational Mouse Gasps)

This isn’t how the form of governance we now inhabit came to be anyway, its like that Who will Pick the Cotton without slaves analogy when you compare it to Roads.

Its conflating a systemic transport basis, to a generalised commodity thats sold many times over. They’re not the same thing, theres a very obvious reason why business prefers state run roads the same way industrialised economies prefer state run schools. You’re sort of neglecting why these things came to emerge in the first place. Is it it any coincidence that most of the toll roads started being gutted when Feudalism came to a close?

IrM: Who even are you?

RM: Oh, I’m RATIONAL MOUSE

IrM: So that means I’m…

(RM does the Jack Nicolson eyebrows)

IRRATIONAL MOUSE… Well thats not fair is it?

RM: Look just read the script bud, y’know how it ends

IrM: Fucking writers, you don’t do anything…

RM: Excuse me

IrM: The state has been showcased to be an incredibly inefficient, bureaucratic nightmare, that can never innovate like the market can, it wastes too much of its money, I mean have you seen the state’s attempts to be cool, they couldn’t even make a Millennium Dome profitable.

EFFICIENCY ———————————————

RM: Well you’re right on profits but apart from that its pretty much all Chicago School taft

(IrM gasps)

So many of us have a distrust for the public sector these days, its really no wonder seeing as for the past 40 years men in suits have done an active push of erasing the private sector defects by blaming the state. Quite interestingly, and surprisingly for a lot of leftists, the state sector is actually very efficient, especially when it comes to R&D.

IrM: Blow me

RM: No, I’m serious, wide spread free at the point of use services benefit amazingly from economics of scale. https://newint.org/features/2015/12/01/private-public-sector http://www.psiru.org/sites/default/files/2014-07-EWGHT-efficiency.pdf

Let me put it this way, what seems more efficient to you. Have 10 businesses all competing to not to make the best product, but to win them over to you, you can’t just ask them. In order to do that you’ve gotta come up with some snazzy designs, aesthetically pleasing logos, a funky marketing gimmick, before long you’re spending so much dough in marketing you’re not even interested in helping people, just getting yourself seen. Or You could just have one org that does all of that stuff, it doesn’t need to compete. Sounds to me like a lot of hands that could be spend doing R&D.

IrM: Thats investment not waste, besides R&D is the definition of the private sector … Yea?

RM: No. The private sector utilises R&D a lot, but effectively every piece of GPT was created in the public sector. Yes Samsung made this phone, but who made the battery that goes in it? Why is the state sector significant? TIME. Companies flock new models of these out every year to keep the money train rolling, and most importantly keep faith with their shareholders. Makes them flimsy, crappy, liable to break. But GPT takes decades not years to bring it up to commercial satisfaction. Do you really think that shareholders are gonna give you investment with the tagline of “Coming this summer. 2047”

Fact remains, we’ve had plenty of time to analyse the effects of the free-market and what we find is theres hardly any greater efficiency.

IrM: You’re really getting off topic here, okay fine businesses want roads, the market isn’t as efficient as I thought, it doesn’t mean that taxes are moral.

WHY BASE AN IDEOLOGY AROUND IT? —————————————————————

Fair enough, the government sure as hell does take my money through a warm gun doesn’t it?

But for the vast majority of us… its really small, like in my pay check I only lost 1/20th of my monthly income, and sure its annoying not being able to spend that on the latest gamer game or a lush soap but I am getting free healthcare, an education, a polli… I’m getting firemen, ROADS, libraries, Society. If thats worth £50 a month then fuck me daddy I’m ready.

(BRITISH MOUSE gasps)

Point here is, you’ve got no semblance basing your entire ideology around something so insignificant, especially when the majority of us will not be owners we’ll be workers and buyers. Now I’m no normie, I know that a lot of this just goes on corporate warfare, IMF loans, and bailouts. But I recognise that thats part of the system we live in and sadly we have to hang on to what we’ve got whilst the very government I am under is selling it all off to the highest bidder. Don’t want things getting worse do I?

IrM: Yeahh its not a significant thing to base your ideology around, but you’re not getting the point, Taxation is still THEFT!

RM: Ok.

IrM: (Puzzled) eh… No, Taxation is Theft.

RM: Well at this point does anyone care about the views of an An-cap. Come back to reality dude.

(Blinding light)

IrM: The right of a man to own his own own property is a right ordained by common natural law prerequisite to our beings here on earth, through the self-ownership of a person’s own oneself, by natural exclusivity to the creation of ethics and rule of law, as prescribed in first principles, to disagree is literal rape and medieval iceland an…

RM: Alright I get it, you want a wibbly wobbly philosophical answer. Look I could the Positive/Negative rights shit if you want, Kant and Moral hierarchies if we want, I really don’t think folks give a damn about that right now, besides theres probably better people who could do that job than me (Olly)

I think when the dust has settled it all comes down to taxes being negligible compared to what you defend.

IrM: Huh?

RM: Exploited Labour

IrM: Huh, there is no exploitation, if I want someone to pick my potatoes…

EXPLOITATION IN 45 SECONDS

A man has £10 worth of Capital, he uses this to buy raw materials. He pays a wood turner to turn this wood into a chair worth £50. For this he pays the labourer £10. The turner therefore has to make 5 chairs in this arrangement in order to buy 1 of them for himself. You don’t gotta be a genius to see theres a disconnect going on here…

Remember my old pay check? I made about £1000 a month, Now as you…

IrM: Why do you keep leaving? I’m in here?

RM: I got £1000 a month, in an average day we made £1500 worth of goods, generally there were 3 people there each day. Divided by all of us thats £500 each. Now I’m gonna be super generous and say that only half of that is profit, that brings us up to a daily average of £250, but I only saw £60. Whats going on here?

IrM: You decided to take that job…

RM: No I didn’t it beats eating ass omelettes for a living.

I’m not denying its very liberal estimate it is, but £190 is a lot of money that I literally get no say in how its spent, I’m sure a lot of it would of have to have gone back into my employment or taken out as more taxes, but its not the specific amount I’m interested in, the point is I get no say my labour power, I don’t even get a vote, best I can do is fuck my boss. If we drag this out to a month, thats £3000, I’m getting screwed. And this, this small little number, is what we consider… THEFTTTTTTTTTTTT. Those Chicago boys were good.

IrM: You can… You can start your own business…

RM: Majority will always be workers not owners.

IrM: Not if everyone decided to save up their money and open one

RM: Nobody’s going to buy your cigars if they’ve quit smoking to sell you cigars.

PAUSE

And don’t think I’d stop there, I’d consider RENT theft too, think of all the money we spend so just existing in buildings, somehow I don’t think it costs half our pay checks to have personal washing machine fixers.

IrM: But its their property

RM: O RLY?

IrM: Yes, if they weren’t allowed to do that then they wouldn’t bother, nobody would be able to find anywhere to rent

RM: And maybe if jesus had been hanged we’d all be kneeling over a fucking gibbet.

IrM: Wa.httt??

RM: Theres a reason I think why we call them American Libertarians. See if you pick up a copy of Adam Smiths stuff you’ll notice that he’s not the pastiche we think of him as. Check this out… “The landlords like any other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even from its nature produce” Now I’m not saying BOOM Smith’s a lefty, the point is he didn’t view Capitalism as great just because, he was looking at it based in his experience of the system as it existed in Britain.

But America has a very different history to us Anglos, the entire nation was founded upon a certain hatred of taxes, and tea.

BM: Actually it never really was about the taxes, they just wanted to own the slaves whole sale, didn’t want old money controlling the colonies so they could …

And when you take the views of this man, and throw it into the melting pot of Exceptionalism and Capital, you get all sorts of zany concepts, like the Self-Made man, The U-turned addict, the Noble Christian, and above all the cult of the founders. They’re dead, they’re not going to sleep with you, I’m sorry.

So what of it? Is Taxation theft? Sure, but its not worth basing your life around it. We all think the Capitalist process is just the general flow of life but its very recent, Medieval Ireland and Iceland don’t compare guys, and at the heart of that system is Exploitation, something that we all as a class deal with on a daily basis, and gain nothing from. One might argue, Taxes on business are a trade off for what they get from us.

I know when you first get into politics its juicy to claim theft over a little bite out of your salary, but we only see it that way because its… literally right in front of us, there isn’t a spare column that counts your total labour value. We shouldn’t get so pissed off over the pennies scraped off instead of the huge overhead.

IrM: Well, guess you got me there.

RM: The circle is complete

BM: I must say it really is a very American thing this whole Taxation, not good business isn’t it rather? RM: Well at least we don’t live in a socialist country… like FRANCE!

Yeah thats like 2, 3, 4 personas in 1 video, I could start an extended universe.

BOOM RAWRRRRRRRR

Oh what now?

I’M THE LATE FOR TRENDS GUY, FEMINISM IS CANCER!

nope nope.

WAIT, STOP, SOMEONE GIVE ME AN OPINION!

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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How Many Republicans Are In America

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

How Many Republicans Are In America

Democrats Return The Favor: Republicans Uninformed Or Self

Rep. Schiff: Only Question Is How Many In GOP Will Support Impeachment | Morning Joe | MSNBC

The 429 Democratic voters in our sample returned the favor and raised many of the same themes. Democrats inferred that Republicans must be VERY ill-informed, or that Fox news told me to vote for Republicans.;;Or that Republicans are uneducated and misguided people guided by what the media is feeding them.

Many also attributed votes to individual self-interest whereas GOP voters feel Democrats want free stuff, many Democrats believe Republicans think that I got mine and dont want the libs to take it away, or that some day I will be rich and then I can get the benefits that rich people get now.

Many used the question to express their anger and outrage at the other side.;;Rather than really try to take the position of their opponents, they said things like, I like a dictatorial system of Government, Im a racist, I hate non-whites.;

Where Do Trump And Biden Stand On Key Issues

Reuters: Brian Snyder/AP: Julio Cortez

The key issues grappling the country can be broken down into five main categories: coronavirus, health care, foreign policy, immigration and criminal justice.

This year, a big focus of the election has been the coronavirus pandemic, which could be a deciding factor in how people vote, as the countryâs contentious healthcare system struggles to cope.

Recommended Reading: Why Are Republicans Wearing Blue Ties

Donald Trump: Impeached In 2019 And 2021

On October 9, 2019 in Washington, D.C., President Trump answers questions on a pending impeachment inquiry.

On September 24, 2019, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump regarding his alleged efforts to pressure the President of Ukraine to investigate possible wrongdoings by his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

The decision to authorize the impeachment inquiry came after a leaked whistleblower complaint detailed a July phone conversation between Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump allegedly tied Ukrainian military aid to personal political favors. The White House later released a reconstructed transcript of the phone call, which many Democrats argued demonstrated that Trump had violated the Constitution.

On December 18, 2019, President Trump became the third U.S. president in history to be impeached as the House of Representatives voted nearly along party lines to impeach him over abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. No Republicans voted in favor of either article of impeachment, while three Democrats voted against one or both.;On February 5, 2020, the Senate voted largely along party lines to acquit Trump on both charges.

Don’t Miss: When Did The Political Parties Switch Platforms

How Is Senate Majority Chosen

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

The Institute Of Politics At Harvard University

A national poll of Americas 18-to-29 year olds released today by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School shows that despite the state of our politics, hope for America among young people is rising dramatically, especially among people of color. As more young Americans are likely to be politically engaged than they were a decade ago, they overwhelmingly approve of the job President Biden is doing, favor progressive policies, and have faith in their fellow Americans.

In the March 9-22 survey of 2,513 young Americans, the Harvard Youth Poll looked at views regarding the Biden administrations first 100 days, the future of the Republican Party, mental health, and the impacts of social media.

As millennials and Gen Z become the largest voting bloc, their values and participation provide hope for the future and also a sense of urgency that our country must address the pressing issues that concern them, said , Director, Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School.

What we see in this years Harvard Youth Poll is how great the power of politics really is, said John Della Volpe, the Director of Polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. With a new president and the temperature of politics turned down after the election, young Americans are more hopeful, more politically active, and they have more faith in their fellow Americans.

Top findings of this survey, the 41st in a biannual series, include the following:

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Do The Parties Have To Negotiate On The Rules

No. With Harris vote, Democrats could threaten to ram through a Democratic-written organizational plan that severely disadvantages the Republicans.

But Democrats may prefer negotiation to a solely Democratic plan because they may not be able to keep their own caucus in line to enact that option. Theres a long history of bipartisan gangs of institutional-minded senators who sought to play a role in shaping how the chambers rules are formed, and those senators would not support a Democratic-only plan.

Before there can be a vote No. 51, there must be votes 50, 49 and 48, said Richard Cohen, chief author of the Almanac of American Politics and a longtime congressional correspondent. Democratic senators who might have reservations about supporting the most liberal proposals, such as Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly of Arizona, wont want to be taken for granted by others in the Democratic conference.

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Other Presidents Threatened With Impeachment

A significant number of U.S. presidents have faced calls for impeachment, including five of the past six Republican presidents. But few of those accusations were taken seriously by Congress.

There were even rumblings about impeaching the nation’s first president, George Washington, by those who opposed his policies. Those calls, however, did not reach the point of becoming formal resolutions or charges.;

John Tyler was the first president to face impeachment charges. Nicknamed His Accidency for assuming the presidency after William Henry Harrison died after just 30 days in office, Tyler was wildly unpopular with his own Whig party. A House representative from Virginia submitted a petition for Tylers impeachment, but it was never taken up by the House for a vote.

Between 1932 and 1933, a congressman introduced two impeachment resolutions against;Herbert Hoover. Both were eventually tabled by large margins.;

More recently, both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were the subject of impeachment resolutions submitted by Henry B. Gonzales, a Democratic representative from Texas, but none of the resolutions were taken up for a vote in the House Judiciary Committee.

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A Plurality Believe History Will Judge Trump As A The Worst President Ever; Less Than A Quarter Of Young Americans Want Trump To Play A Key Role In The Future Of Republican Politics; Young Republicans Are Divided

Thirty percent of young Americans believe that history will judge Donald Trump as the worst president ever. Overall, 26% give the 45th president positive marks , while 54% give Trump negative marks ; 11% believe he will go down as an average president.

Twenty-two percent of young Americans surveyed agree with the statement, I want Donald Trump to play a key role in the future of Republican politics, 58% disagreed, and 19% neither agreed nor disagreed. Among young Republicans, 56% agreed while 22% disagreed, and 21% were neutral. Only 61% of those who voted for Trump in the 2020 general indicated their desire for him to remain active in the GOP.

If they had to choose, 42% of young Republicans consider themselves supporters of the Republican party, and not Donald Trump. A quarter indicated they are Trump supporters first, 24% said they support both.

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Election Results : Veto

Republicans on track to keep U.S. Senate majority

See also: State government trifectas

Two state legislatures saw changes in their veto-proof majority statusâtypically when one party controls either three-fifths or two-thirds of both chambersâas a result of the 2020 elections. Democrats gained veto-proof majorities in Delaware and New York, bringing the number of state legislatures with a veto-proof majority in both chambers to 24: 16 held by Republicans and eight held by Democrats.

Forty-four states held regularly-scheduled state legislative elections on November 3. Heading into the election, there were 22 state legislatures where one party had a veto-proof majority in both chambers; 16 held by Republicans and six held by Democrats. Twenty of those states held legislative elections in 2020.

The veto override power can play a role in conflicts between state legislatures and governors. Conflict can occur when legislatures vote to override gubernatorial vetoes or in court cases related to vetoes and the override power.

Although it has the potential to create conflict, the veto override power is rarely used. According to political scientists Peverill Squire and Gary Moncrief in 2010, only about five percent of vetoes are overridden.

Changes in state legislative veto-proof majorites State

The laws largely focus on tightening voter ID requirements, purging voter rolls and restricting absentee and mail-in ballots.

Texas

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How Many Us Presidents Have Faced Impeachment

Only three U.S. presidents have been formally impeached by CongressAndrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. One of those presidents, Donald Trump, was impeached twice during his single term. No U.S. president has ever been removed from office through impeachment.

In addition to Johnson, Clinton and Trump, only one other U.S. president has faced formal impeachment inquiries in the House of Representatives: Richard Nixon. Many other presidents have been threatened with impeachment by political foes without gaining any real traction in Congress.;

The framers of the Constitution intentionally made it difficult for Congress to remove a sitting president. The impeachment process starts in the House of Representatives with a formal impeachment inquiry. If the House Judiciary Committee finds sufficient grounds, its members write and pass articles of impeachment, which then go to the full House for a vote.

A simple majority in the House is all thats needed to formally impeach a president. But that doesnt mean he or she is out of a job. The final stage is the Senate impeachment trial. Only if two-thirds of the Senate find the president guilty of the crimes laid out in the articles of impeachment is the POTUS removed from office.

Although Congress has impeached and removed eight federal officialsall federal judgesno president has ever been found guilty during a Senate impeachment trial. Andrew Johnson came awfully close, though; he barely escaped a guilty verdict .

Are Canadian Senators Appointed For Life

Unlike the Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, the 105 senators are appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the prime minister. Senators originally held their seats for life; however, under the British North America Act, 1965, members may not sit in the Senate after reaching the age of 75.

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% Of Delta Variant Cases Are In The Non

CBS News reported, The Delta variant now accounts for more than half of the new coronavirus cases in the United States 52%. Almost all of the new cases 99.7% are among people who have not been vaccinatedThe effort comes as cases are rising in 26 states. Hospitalization rates are up in 17 states 27% in Florida, almost exclusively among the unvaccinated.

States like Florida, Mississippi, Utah, and Kentucky are already being hit hard. All of those states voted for Donald Trump.

Biden Administration: Heres Who Has Been Named So Far

Return of the bipartisan gangs

After months of stalemate over the size and scope of a coronavirus relief package in the closing weeks of the last Congress, a group of centrists from both parties, led by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, unveiled a $900 billion compromise plan that became the basis for the legislation that ultimately was approved by the House and Senate and signed by President Trump.

Manchin has said he hopes that model can translate into efforts in 2021.

Other Republican moderates such as Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska who helped on the COVID-19 aid package could also serve as powerful players if they decide to work across the aisle.

Progressives push for Senate rule changes

Liberal Democrats have pressed to get rid of the legislative filibuster so that they can pass major health care or environmental bills with a simple majority.

Biden has sidestepped questions about whether he supports doing away with keeping the 60-vote threshold, but several top Senate Democrats have signaled they back changing a rule that many of them once insisted was essential to the institution. There will be intense pressure on Biden and Democratic leaders to show they can pass some bills with GOP support, but if Senate Republicans stay largely unified to thwart the new administrations agenda, calls to eliminate the filibuster will increase.

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Poring Over Party Registration

This is not the best of times for the Democratic Party. No White House; no Senate; no House of Representatives; and a clear minority of governorships and state legislatures in their possession. Yet the Democrats approach this falls midterm elections with an advantage in one key aspect of the political process their strength in states where voters register by party.

Altogether, there are 31 states with party registration; in the others, such as Virginia, voters register without reference to party. Among the party registration states are some of the nations most populous: California, New York, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Arizona, and Massachusetts.

The basic facts: In 19 states and the District, there are more registered Democrats than Republicans. In 12 states, there are more registered Republicans than Democrats. In aggregate, 40% of all voters in party registration states are Democrats, 29% are Republicans, and 28% are independents. Nationally, the Democratic advantage in the party registration states approaches 12 million.

Still, Republican Donald Trump found a route to victory in 2016 that went through the party registration states. He scored a near sweep of those where there were more Republicans than Democrats, winning 11 of the 12, while also taking six of the 19 states where there were more Democrats than Republicans a group that included the pivotal battleground states of Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

Argument No : Biden Is Responsible For This

Republicans have an opportunity to turn Americas longest war into something Democrats own. They are saying and probably will be saying for a long time that Biden owns the fall of Afghanistan.

Biden defends himself by saying that the 20-year war came under four presidents, two of them Republican. George W. Bush started it , and Biden said it was Trump who negotiated a peace deal with the Taliban that Biden argues left it stronger.

But Biden was the president who decided to officially end the war, Republicans counter. Heres the top House Republican, Rep. Kevin McCarthy , saying that whats happening falls squarely on shoulders.

Trump, who is considering a 2024 challenge to Biden, said in a statement that Biden surrendered to the Taliban.

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List Of Republican Presidents

The Republican Party is one of the two most successful political parties in the United States . Since 1868 to date, the presidency has been shared between the two major political parties. There have been 19 Republican presidents in the United States. Here are some of the Republican presidents in the history of the United States.

Which Party Is The Party Of The 1 Percent

How Evangelicals became Republicans

First, both parties receive substantial support. Much of it comes from registered voters who make $100K+ annually. However, Democrats actually come out ahead when it comes to fundraising for campaigns. In many cases, Democrats have been able to raise twice as much in private political contributions. But what about outside of politicians? Does that mean Democrats are the wealthier party? Which American families are wealthier? Republicans or Democrats?

Honestly, it is probably Republicans. When it comes down to it, the richest families in America tend to donate to Republican candidates. Forbes reported out of the 50 richest families in the United States, 28 donate to Republican candidates. Another seven donate to Democrats. Additionally, 15 of the richest families in the U.S. donate to both parties.

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Personnel Mail And Office Expenses

House members are eligible for a Members Representational Allowance to support them in their official and representational duties to their district. The MRA is calculated based on three components: one for personnel, one for official office expenses and one for official or franked mail. The personnel allowance is the same for all members; the office and mail allowances vary based on the members districts distance from Washington, D.C., the cost of office space in the members district, and the number of non-business addresses in their district. These three components are used to calculate a single MRA that can fund any expenseâeven though each component is calculated individually, the franking allowance can be used to pay for personnel expenses if the member so chooses. In 2011 this allowance averaged $1.4 million per member, and ranged from $1.35 to $1.67 million.

The Personnel allowance was $944,671 per member in 2010. Each member may employ no more than 18 permanent employees. Members employees salary is capped at $168,411 as of 2009.

Republicans Are Stopping Biden By Not Getting Vaccinated They Are Wiping Themselves Out

The Republican refusal to get vaccinated is not going to politically stop President Biden or put Donald Trump back into office. If anything, an ongoing pandemic crisis will give Biden even more motivation to push for the implementation of his agenda.

When Republicans cheer for not getting vaccinated, they are rooting for more death among their own.; Donald Trump sowed these seeds with his COVID disinformation, and the Delta variant is poised to wipe out Republicans who have chosen to listen to Trump instead of science.

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How Many Republicans Are On The Supreme Court

Dispute Over The Constitution

GOP senators confronted by past comments on Supreme Court nomination

The legal divide over voting and elections begins with a basic dispute over how to read the Constitution and American history.

As written in 1787, it gave voters a very limited role. Members of the House were to be chosen by the people, but state legislatures would choose their U.S. senators, appoint the electors who chose the President and set rules for elections.

But the Constitution has been repeatedly amended to broaden and bolster voting rights, including protections against discrimination based on gender and race.

The Warren court saw this evolution as putting the voters in charge of Americas democracy, but todays conservative justices espouse originalism and focus on the words of the 18th century Constitution.

Its a very different court now, USC law professor Franita Tolson said, much more deferential to the states, but also, she added, they are privileging the status quo of 1787 when the electorate was mostly white men and ignoring the more egalitarian Reconstruction Amendments.

The major ruling weakening the Voting Rights Act highlights the difference. Congress passed that law under the 15th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War to protect Black Americans from having their votes denied or their voting power diluted.

In striking down a key part of the law, Roberts wrote that the framers of the Constitution intended the states to keep for themselves the power to regulate elections.

Bonica And Woodruff Campaign Finance Scores

See also: Bonica and Woodruff campaign finance scores of state supreme court justices, 2012

In October 2012, political science professors Adam Bonica and Michael Woodruff of Stanford University attempted to determine the partisan outlook of state supreme court justices in their paper, “State Supreme Court Ideology and ‘New Style’ Judicial Campaigns.” A score above 0 indicated a more conservative-leaning ideology while scores below 0 were more liberal. The state Supreme Court of Pennsylvania was given a campaign finance score , which was calculated for judges in October 2012. At that time, Pennsylvania received a score of -0.02. Based on the justices selected, Pennsylvania was the 24th most liberal court. The study was based on data from campaign contributions by judges themselves, the partisan leaning of contributors to the judges, orin the absence of electionsthe ideology of the appointing body . This study was not a definitive label of a justice but rather an academic gauge of various factors.

Prior Public Service Of Incumbents

Brett Busby and Jane Bland are former Court of Appeals justices from Houston, whose re-election bids failed in November 2018 when Democrats won all of the judicial races in that election. Blacklock previously served Governor Greg Abbott as general counsel. Huddle was a justice on the First Court of Appeals in Houston.

Blacklock replaced Don Willett, who now sits on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal appellate court that hears appeals from federal district courts in Texas. Busby succeeds Phil Johnson, who retired in 2018, and was sworn in onÂ March 20, 2019. Jane Bland was appointed in September 2019 to fill the vacancy left by Jeff Brown, who resigned from the SCOTX to accept appointment to a U.S. district court bench. Rebeca Huddle was appointed in October 2020 to replace Paul Green, who retired from the Court on August 31, 2020. Eva Guzman, the second-most senior member of the Court, resigned on June 11, 2021, and is preparing to challenge incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton in the GOP primary for that office.

Go For It Democrats Pack The Court

Youve got a plan to pack the Supreme Court with four new justices. And nothing says unity like Democratic dominance.

Soon you can add the whole of the federal government to your grip on the culture academia, journalism, entertainment, sports, philanthropy and now even corporate America.

As an earlier president once said, Elections have consequences.

With your 50-50-plus-one split in the Senate and your hulking six-person advantage in the 435-member House, you have all the mandate you need to control the court. To control all of us.

Make all of your policy fantasies come true your Green New Deal, defund the police, reparations for slavery, the $15 minimum wage, critical race theory, soaring corporate taxes. They can all be a river to your people.

Please dont read this as sour grapes. This is encouragement. After the Capitol riot, many of us conservatives thought the Republican Party would spend the next decade in the wilderness.

But you wont let that happen. Your hard push to the left is awakening conservatives across the country.

Dissenting Opinion Byron White

Bryon White was born in 1917 in Fort Collins, Colorado, and was educated at Yale Law School and the University of Oxford. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, where he met the future President John F. Kennedy. He worked as a law clerk and in private practice and later ran campaigns for John F. Kennedy. President Kennedy appointed him Deputy Attorney General and nominated him as Associate Justice to the Supreme Court in 1962. White was a notable conservative, and he dissented in the Roe v. Wade decision on what he viewed as disregard for potential life.

Some Republicans Feel Protected By 6

WASHINGTON Republican voters fearing a potential Joe Biden presidency are taking some solace in the belief that a newly conservative Supreme Court with Justice Amy Coney Barrett will restrain Democratic ambitions.

Some of President Donald Trumps supporters believe the new 6-3 majority of Republican appointees will be a bulwark against a Biden administrations attempts to move the country in a more progressive direction.

We have no fears because theres a conservative Supreme Court now, said Cynthia Manville of Buckeye, Arizona, who attended a Trump rally in Phoenix last Wednesday. We feel if Democrats cast legislation thats radical liberal, it wouldnt stand the test of time.

God has a certain way of watching over this country, said Manville, who attended with her husband, Steve, both of them wearing red Make America Great Again hats.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito

President George W. Bush nominated Samuel Alito to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who had decided to step down from the bench earlier in the year. He was confirmed by a vote of 58-42 in January of 2006. Aliton has proven to be the better of the Justices appointed by President Bush. Chief Justice John Roberts ended up being the deciding vote in favor of keeping Obamacare, to the befuddlement of many conservatives. Alito dissented in major opinions on Obamacare, as well as a ruling in 2015 that effectively legalized gay marriage in all 50 states. Alito was born in 1950 and could serve ont he court for decades to come.Justice Alito was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2006 by Republican President George W. Bush.

Was Roe Vs Wade Decided By A Republican Court

The landmark abortion case of Roe v. Wade was decided by what theoretically should have been a “conservative” Supreme Court. The decision recognized a womans right to make individual medical decisions, including abortion in line with the constitutional right to privacy. The Court ruled that the state had no interests in a womans pregnancy in the first trimester and the woman thus had a right to terminate the pregnancy. The decision remains the most controversial of the Supreme Courts rulings in the US.

Is The Us Supreme Court Republican Or Democrat

Romney Supports Vote On Supreme Court Nominee As Senate Republicans Push Forward | NBC Nightly News

The Supreme Court of the United States is composed of nine justices who have been given lifelong appointments by sitting presidents upon approval of the Senate. As the highest component of the judicial branch of the government of the United States, SCOTUS is responsible for reviewing the constitutionality of all U.S. laws. Sometimes they uphold the laws, sometimes they do not. SCOTUS was established by the U.S. Constitution and is one of the checks and balances to the other two branches of the government legislative and executive .

The justices who sit on the Supreme Court have been nominated by a president and confirmed by the Senate. SCOTUS is particularly important because when one side or another push through legislation or executive order, the courts and the justices evaluate and determine the constitutionality and legitimacy of the said items. They also decide legal disputes among states and discrepancies in lower court rulings. This is why an impartial reviewing of the law would be critical.

The Supreme Court should be non-partisan: judges who are appointed to it are not supposed to bring their allegiances as Republicans or Democrats to the bench. However, as the appointments are made by presidents, judges are often perceived as having ideological leanings, whether to the Republican side or the Democratic side.

Former Chief Justice William Rehnquist

From his appointment by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 until his death in 2005, Supreme Court Justice William Hubbs Rehnquist served as Chief Justice of the United States and became a conservative icon. Rehnquist’s term on the High Court began in 1972, when he was appointed by Richard M. Nixon. He wasted no time in distinguishing himself as a conservative, offering one of only two dissenting opinions in the controversial 1973 abortion-rights case, Roe v. Wade. Rehnquist was a strong supporter of state’s rights, as outlined in the Constitution, and took the concept of judicial restraint seriously, consistently siding with conservatives on the issues of religious expression, free speech and the expansion of federal powers.

Liberal Push To Expand Supreme Court Is All But Dead Among Hill Dems

Senate Republicans are still seizing on the issue in the lead-up to the 2022 midterms.

04/26/2021 04:30 AM EDT

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Supreme Court expansion was one of the lefts most galvanizing ideas during the 2020 Democratic primary. But the idea is going nowhere with sitting Democratic senators.

I dont think the American public is interested in having the Supreme Court expanded, said Sen. Michael Bennet .

Sen. Mark Kelly , who represents a particularly valuable swing state, said the more responsible thing to do is to keep it at nine justices. And Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto said she opposes adding seats that politicize the court.

That trio is facing reelection in 2022, making their opinions particularly important to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer . But as Sen. Ed Markey formally pushes for high court expansion, resurfacing the popular progressive cause in response to the GOPs relentless drive to fill court seats during the Trump years, its clear that few of Markeys colleagues agree with him.

While liberal measures on election reform, police bias and congressional ethics remain relatively popular with the 50-member Senate majority, expanding the Supreme Court is close to dead among the chambers Democrats.

This is in the category of things that couldnt muster 50 votes and probably couldnt muster 40 votes, said Sen. Brian Schatz . We have a historic opportunity to make change here and we should focus on those issues where we can get a majority.

How Many Republicans Are In The Supreme Court

Supreme CourtRepublicancourtsRepublicancourtscourts

As of October 6, 2018, of the 9 judges on the Supreme Court, 5 were appointed by a Republican president, and 4 were appointed by a Democratic president. As of February 11, 2020, of the 13 federal appeals courts, Republican appointees have a majority on 7 courts, while Democrat appointees have a majority on 6 courts.

Secondly, how many Supreme Court Justices are conservative? Both graphs indicate that the current Roberts Court remains conservative, with four conservative justices and the median position held by Justice Anthony Kennedy , who has also become more liberal (except Kennedy

who are the 9 Supreme Court Justices and who appointed them?

All justices

Samuel Chase

Who is currently on the Supreme Court?

Current justicesThe Supreme Court consists of a chief justice, currently John Roberts, and eight associate justices.

Nonpartisan Election Of Judges

In a nonpartisan election, some states require candidates to declare their party affiliations, while some states prohibit them from doing so. If primaries are held, they do not narrow the candidates to one per party; instead, they typically narrow the candidates to two for each seat regardless of party.

In 2020, there were 31 nonpartisan state supreme court elections. Of these elections, there were:

31 nonpartisan seats.

Associate Justice Elena Kagan

Justice Elena Kagan joined the Supreme Court in 2010 after being nominated by former President Barack Obama.

Elena Kagan, 58, has served on the Supreme Court since 2010. She was nominated by former President Barack Obama.

Kagan has degrees from Princeton University, Oxford University and Harvard Law School. She previously was a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School and Harvard Law School. A Democrat, she also served in the Clinton administration, clerked for former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and served as the Dean of Harvard Law School.

Facts About The Supreme Court

For the second time in four years, the U.S. Supreme Court will begin its term on Monday with only eight of nine justices, following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in mid-September. The high court last carried out its duties with eight justices after the death of Antonin Scalia in 2016.

As it did four years ago, the death of a sitting justice has thrust the court into the center of a bruising political campaign for the White House. Republican President Donald Trump has nominated federal appellate judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy left by Ginsburg, even as Trumps opponent, Democrat Joe Biden, calls for confirmation proceedings to be postponed until after voters have cast their ballots for president. Republicans control the U.S. Senate and have vowed to move forward with Barretts confirmation over the objections of Biden and other Democrats.

As the high court gets back to work and hears arguments in a new set of cases including one that seeks to invalidate the 2010 Affordable Care Act here are five facts about the Supreme Court, based on surveys and other recent analyses by Pew Research Center:

In the summer, before Ginsburgs death, seven-in-ten U.S. adults said they had a favorable view of the Supreme Court. That included three-quarters of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic leaners, according to an online survey using the Centers American Trends Panel.

In 2013 Reid And Democrats Lowered Vote Threshold On Most Nominees But Not For Supreme Court Picks

In 2013, Democrats held a majority in the Senate while President Barack Obama occupied the White House.

For four decades, a 60-vote supermajority had been required to advance all federal judicial nominees and executive-office appointments, per The Washington Post.

Then, Senate Republicans attempted to filibuster multiple Obama nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, his pick for Defense secretary, and his choices to lead the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In response, Reid orchestrated a move to lower the Senate vote threshold to 51 to confirm most presidential appointments but not nominees to the Supreme Court.

Those nominees, and legislation, could still be filibustered.

The Democrat-controlled Senate voted 52-48 in favor of the change, which was dubbed the “nuclear option.”

At the time, McConnell condemned the move.

Its a sad day in the history of the Senate, he told reporters, calling it a power grab” by Democrats.

Agreement Among The Justices

Will Republicans Have The Votes To Fill Ruth Bader Ginsburgs SCOTUS Seat? | Sunday TODAY

While the highest levels of agreement were among justices in the same ideological blocs, some pairs, particularly among the more conservative justices, agreed much less often than they did last term.

91%

Alito-Roberts

On the whole, Justice Breyers voting record in the last term tilted left. He voted with Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the courts most liberal member, 91 percent of the time in divided cases in which all of the justices participated, up 18 percentage points from the previous term. Only one other pair of justices agreed that often: Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh, also at 91 percent.

At the other end of the spectrum, Justices Alito and Sotomayor agreed just 22 percent of the time. And there were signs of division on the right side of the court. Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, Mr. Trumps first two appointees, agreed 65 percent of the time, down 20 percentage points from the previous term.

The court decided just 54argued cases with signed opinions, the second-smallest number since the 1860s. The smallest was in the last term, at 53.

The Court Is Deciding Fewer Cases

The number of decisions in argued cases has fallen fairly steadily since the 1980s.

150

2010

2020

The courts docket in the term that starts in October may not be larger, but it will contain at least two potentially far-reaching cases: a challenge to the constitutional right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade and the most important Second Amendment case in more than a decade.

Marin K. Levy, a law professor at Duke, said the decision issued on Thursday upholding voting restrictions in Arizona fundamentally changed how this term will be remembered.

It puts an exclamation point on what had otherwise been a fairly quiet term, she said. It also sets the tone for next year, when the court will hear cases on hot-button topics including gun regulation and abortion.

How Republicans Have Packed The Courts For Years

Jackie CalmesTimesDissent: The Radicalization of the Republican Party and Its Capture of the Court

While Republicans lately have been attacking Democrats for plotting to pack the federal courts with like-minded judges, their party has been doing it for years.

Through bare-knuckle tactics in the Senate, an animated base of voters and an institutionalized and well-funded pipeline for judges, Republicans have stocked the federal bench at all levels with conservatives who share the rights support for whacking at the wall between church and state and at the powers of federal regulatory agencies, banning abortion and expanding gun rights.

Republicans ruthless success in the judicial wars is most evident on the highest court in the land. As the Supreme Court with its new 6-3 conservative majority ends its term this month, the question for court-watchers isnt whether it will rule in a conservative way. Its how far-reaching will those rulings be.

The courts bent was perhaps most evident in its decision last month to review a Mississippi law generally barring abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, after two lower courts ruled the statute plainly violated Supreme Court precedents that the Constitution protects a womans right to have an abortion until a fetus is viable. The case will be decided in the courts next term that starts in October.

List Of Elections In 2020

The map and table below detail which states held elections for supreme court seats in 2020. The darker shade of green a state appears in the map, the more seats were on the ballot. States shown in gray in the map did not hold supreme court elections in 2020.

2020 State Supreme Court Elections State November 3, 2020

Incumbent Win Rates By Year

Incumbents tend to do better in elections for any office than newcomers facing incumbents. This is no less true in state supreme court elections. Across all types of state supreme court elections, incumbent justices running for re-election won 93% of the time from 2008-2020. No more than six incumbent justices have lost in a single year during this time frame. 2008 was the year with the lowest incumbent win rate at 89%.

Incumbent win rates in state supreme court elections Election year

How Conservative Is The New Supreme Court Majority Really

The 360 shows you diverse perspectives on the days top stories and debates.

Whats happening

The Supreme Court began its summer recess last week, bringing an end to a term that served as the first test of its new 6-3 conservative majority, with all three of former President Donald Trump’s appointees on the bench.

During Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to replace liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the final weeks before the 2020 presidential election, Democrats warned and some Republicans hoped that a court dominated by conservatives would be primed to radically rewrite the nations laws on a host of major issues through a series of partisan decisions. That prediction, for the most part, didnt come to pass.

Over the course of this past term, the court considered a number of controversial cases, but only a few ended in 6-3 rulings along ideological lines. All nine justices sided with a religious foster care agency that had sued the city of Philadelphia after having its contract canceled because it refused to place children with same-sex couples. In a 7-2 vote, the court rebuffed the latest Republican attempt to kill the Affordable Care Act. The justices were also unanimous in knocking down restrictions on education-related spending for college athletes. Trumps efforts to challenge the results of the election were rejected by the court, with the only disagreement being among conservative justices.

Why theres debate

Whats next

List Of Nominations To The Supreme Court Of The United States

This article is part of the series on the

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest ranking judicial body in the United States. Established by Article III of the Constitution, the Court was organized by the 1st United States Congress through the Judiciary Act of 1789, which specified its original and appellate jurisdiction, created 13 judicial districts, and fixed the size of the Supreme Court at six, with one chief justice and five associate justices. During the 19th century, Congress changed the size of the Court on seven occasions, concluding with the Judiciary Act of 1869 which stipulates that the Court consists of the chief justice and eight associate justices.

George Washington holds the record for most Supreme Court nominations, with 14 nominations . Making the second-most nominations were Franklin D. Roosevelt and John Tyler, with nine each . Three presidentsâWilliam Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, and Jimmy Carterâdid not make any nominations, as there were no vacancies while they were in office, and there have not been any vacancies during the current administration of Joe Biden.

Retention Election Of Judges

In a retention election, an incumbent judge does not face an opponent. A question is placed on the ballot asking whether each judge shall be retained for another term, and voters choose “yes” or “no.” Judges must receive majority “yes” votes in order to remain in their seats.

In 2020, there were 29 retention state supreme court elections. Of these elections, there were:

28 nonpartisan seats

one Democratic-controlled seat

Roe V Wade Was Decided By A Republican

Trump, Republican on rapid pace to fill Supreme Court justice seat | GMA

One of the major issues in this presidential election concerns the nomination and subsequent appointment of at least one Supreme Court justice and possibly two or more justices.

It seems that among evangelical Christians, two issues in particular are driving support for Donald Trump: the nomination/appointment of Supreme Court justices, and the fact that he is Republican.

Moreover, at the center of the Supreme Court discussion is the 1973 Court decision on Roe vs. Wade.

During the final debate between Clinton and Trump, held at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, on October 19, 2016, and moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News, Wallace opened the debate with discussion of the Supreme Court. Below are the excerpted responses from Clinton and Trump on the issue of nominating Supreme Court justices, especially as such concerns Roe vs. Wade.

Clinton:But I feel that at this point in our countrys history, it is important that we not reverse Roe v.Wade.

Thats how I see the court, and the kind of people that I would be looking to nominate to the court would be in the great tradition of standing up to the powerful, standing up on behalf of our rights as Americans.

Trump:I feel that the justices that I am going to appoint and Ive named 20 of them the justices that Im going to appoint will be pro-life. They will have a conservative bent.

But let us consider the assumption that justices nominated by Republican presidents will lead to overturning Roe vs. Wade.

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-are-on-the-supreme-court/

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busines303-blog · 5 years

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The end of Sharknado: saying goodbye to the silliest movie franchise ever

New Post has been published on https://howtobuyfranchises.com/must-see/the-end-of-sharknado-saying-goodbye-to-the-silliest-movie-franchise-ever-2/

The end of Sharknado: saying goodbye to the silliest movie franchise ever

With The Last Sharknado: Its About Time, the cheapest, strangest, dumbest B-movie series is coming to an end but will we miss it?

Youll be reassured to learn that Sharknado 6 isnt very good. Spoilers are embargoed until premiere, so I cant tell you which hifalutin piece of cinema it references in its very first frame, nor how Tara Reid makes her entrance. I cant even tell you the genuinely ridiculous way in which she leaves. Believe me, that breaks my heart.

I can tell you that, following the destruction of the entire world back at the end of Sharknado 5, the plot involves Ian Ziering travelling back through time to destroy the first Sharknado. And I can probably tell you, since its less a spoiler and more a direct continuation of the entire series, that the special effects look like they were made for a bet by a drunk toddler and everyone who makes a cameo either looks kidnapped or concussed.

However, Sharknado 6 bears the subtitle The Last Sharknado for a reason. Unless the whole thing is rebooted next year and lets not rule that out this is it. Sharknado, the silliest, stupidest, most self-aware, most boring B-movie series in the history of film, ends here. And this is exactly the right time for it to bow out.

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Sharknado was never a particularly original idea. The Asylum had been churning out bad, low-budget creature features (Zombie Apocalypse) and piggybacking movie rip-offs (Transmorphers) at an almost monthly clip for over a decade before anybody even knew what a Sharknado was. 2009s Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus, in which two giant sea creatures battled it out to the obvious consternation of Debbie Gibson, marked another step forward thanks to its gimmicky casting and shallow veneer of self-awareness.

But everything lined up for Sharknado. It had an irresistibly silly premise (a tornado made of sharks threatens America), a knowing line of stunt-casting (Ian Ziering and Tara Reid) and a big fat wink instead of any emotional stakes (see the ending, where Ziering is eaten by a shark only to cut his way out with a chainsaw). The execution was botched, but the inventiveness more than made up for it. It was like watching an early Sam Raimi film, if Sam Raimi didnt really know how to make films very well.

As tends to be the case with successes like these, sequels were greenlit that only helped to diminish the punchdrunk silliness of the first film. Slowly, the films began to eat themselves, getting clogged up with cameos of ever decreasing stature (Kate Garraway appeared in Sharknado 5) and groanworthy movie references, and the hell-for-leather spirit that made the first outing so fun quickly ended up weighing the series down with a lumpen mythology that included but was not limited to space travel, robot limbs, lavanados, lightningnados, nukenados and the use of sharks as medical-grade defibrillators.

Tara Reid and Cassie Scerbo in The Last Sharknado: Its About Time. Photograph: Syfy

With that in mind, Sharknado 6 couldnt be anything but the end of things. In the third act, everything piles up to such an unwatchably stupid head that theres genuinely nowhere left for Sharknado to go. Or, arguably, the entire Asylum ethos. Sure, itll carry on making films, but nothing else it produces will be able to jam its tongue in its cheek quite as hard as Sharknado. Sharknado wasnt great it barely managed to be good most of the time but its memory will live on forever.

For what is The Meg, a film where Jason Statham and a little dog battle a shark the size of an ocean liner, if not a certain sign of Sharknados legacy? The Meg is what Sharknado would be if it was made with any money or talent, and it is ultimately what will propel our weird fascination for knowingly silly shark films to the next level.

And The Asylum will be just fine. After all, this week it released Megalodon; a film made to piggyback on the success of The Meg, which was heavily inspired by Sharknado. So thats a company making a rip-off of a film that ripped off its own film. Maybe we arent done eating ourselves just yet after all.

The Last Sharknado: Its About Time will air in the US on 19 August and in the UK on 20 August, both on Syfy

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

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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The best way to counter the far right? Know the enemy | Hari Kunzru

Since Trumps election win, his online footsoldiers are ever more emboldened. Heres how to fight back

Last weekend, I flew to Berlin to speak at a seminar. I found myself relieved to be off American soil but worried about leaving my family behind. I wasnt concerned about their safety, at least not as things stand. My wife and children are citizens and my immigration status is solid, though its significant that these are times when I have to think about my wifes citizenship and my solid immigration status.

Since the inauguration, which feels like a long time ago, the pace of change has been rapid and the need to be close to my loved ones is strong. Like many of my friends, my social media use has become compulsive and unhealthy. You could think of it as informational hyper-vigilance, a draining state in which your need to keep yourself informed wakes you up in the middle of the night to check if something has happened, something that requires an immediate response or decision. You need to know how everyone else is reading each new development. Who is being melodramatic? Who is complacent? Who is reading the roiling political currents in a helpful way?

Ha ha ha, says the voice in my head. Look at the anxious snowflake who cant get past muh feelz. One of my symptoms is a compulsion to spend too much time on the far-right internet. While itself driven by extreme emotionalism, the toxic right tends to adopt a tone of lofty rationality towards its antagonists. The pain of leftists is not only intellectually contemptible but actively enjoyable. Indeed, theres an argument that it may even be a policy driver for the Bannon-Miller faction of the new Trump administration, the part that has migrated from the internet to the Oval Office and which understands the appetite of its base for bloody revenge.

The coastal liberal, that great straw man, is considered to be smug and insulated from the consequences of the politically correct positions he or she holds, particularly on immigration. The measure of Trumps various Bannon-authored policy announcements may not be their substance, their wisdom or their basis in any kind of broadly shared reality but their capacity to wound and unsettle ideological enemies.

On accounts with profile pictures of crusader knights, Roman philosophers or anime characters in states of ecstatic euphoria, one reads a lot about the Enlightenment and about the self-indulgence and corruption of a mythical hegemonic left. The great vice is empathy, the decadent prioritising of sentiment over reason and of racial or cultural outsiders over insiders, a trait of a self-indulgent class that has been infected by a sort of viral guilt by Frankfurt School Marxism. Rationality is a cipher for whiteness in this conversation and often cloaks itself in the language of sociobiology. Liberal expressions of empathy, particularly towards minorities or out-groups, are not only maladaptive in evolutionary terms, theyre not even sincere, merely so-called virtue signalling, part of a coercive shame game the rightists are refusing to play. This appeal to rationality comes with a supplement of irrational violence.

In the days after the election, as the message boards exulted in the power of their meme magic to alter the course of history, the hashtag #rwds did the rounds, standing for right-wing death squads. A quick and queasy perusal showed a lot of frothing millennials gleefully imagining the cartoonish torture of Jews, intellectuals, all the usual suspects, with an aesthetic derived from the cold war in Latin America. After the inauguration day incident in which Richard Spencer was punched while giving a TV interview, these same people presented themselves as victims of an intolerable breakdown of civility and the rule of law and threatened to take matters into their own hands if they werent protected by the authorities.

Ive never had much time for the strand of armchair American liberalism that believes in the essential goodness of America, the sort of people who quote Dr Martin Luther Kings famous phrase about the arc of the moral universe bending towards justice, not in order to urge fellow citizens towards struggle but to suggest that some cosmic process will make everything turn out all right. Theyre usually people who would never dream of espousing the embarrassingly retrograde theology of Manifest Destiny but cling on to a sort of fuzzy exceptionalism, in which they are absolved by their Americanness of responsibility to make the future.

While I was in Berlin, the executive order on immigration was announced and all hell broke out at the airports. Customs and Border Protection started detaining travellers whose status had changed while they were in the air. At Washington Dulles airport, a five-year-old Iranian boy was handcuffed. The Customs and Border Protection patrol defied court orders to give access to detainees, court orders that wouldnt have even been sought had a large cohort of lawyers not been part of massive protests that made it impossible for the authorities to ignore the situation.

This kind of practical grassroots action is in sharp contrast to the supine posture of congressional Democrats, who are lagging far behind the people they purport to lead.

Though the right berates the left for a politics based on empathy, their own strategy (or tendency, if you prefer not to tell conspiracy stories) is towards the colonisation of the public sphere by the presentation of feeling, instead of more traditional republican (and Republican) virtues such as moral rectitude, sincerity or adherence to truth. The presidents background in reality television gives him an intuitive sense that the veracity of a thing has no necessary relation to its feeling of truth and in that lies its political force. If he says his inauguration was the biggest ever, or that some nameless expert told him that torture works, no amount of fact checking will, in itself, counter that.

For those of us who believe that we need to preserve a functioning public sphere based on some shared standard of truth, it remains important to combat the alternative facts of the new administration, but the most successful actions of the last two weeks, such as the Womens March and the occupation of the airports, have shown that the facts on the ground matter just as much.

Comments will be opened later

Read more: http://bit.ly/2jS1wCe

from The best way to counter the far right? Know the enemy | Hari Kunzru

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thisdaynews · 5 years

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‘There’s China and there’s everything else:’ Trump’s trade wars scramble domestic political fights

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/theres-china-and-theres-everything-else-trumps-trade-wars-scramble-domestic-political-fights/

‘There’s China and there’s everything else:’ Trump’s trade wars scramble domestic political fights

President Donald Trump’s campaign believes he can beat the Democratic field by standing up as the fiercest defender of American interests against China. | Patrick Semansky/AP Photo

global translations

Trump has pushed Republicans away from their long-held positions on free trade.

President Donald Trump’s multi-front trade war on the global stage has opened two distinct political battles over tariffs in the domestic arena that will shape the future of U.S. trade policy: in his race for reelection, and in the coming reckoning in Congress on his legislative priority, a renegotiated NAFTA.

The new politics of trade is scrambling traditional party alignments in a fashion unseen in modern American history.

Story Continued Below

A new episode of POLITICO’s Global Translations podcast detailed how far Trumpism has pried Republicans away from their free-trade orthodoxy — a gambit that comes to a head next month. Meanwhile, the 2020 presidential primary is pushing Democrats toward a far more confrontational position with China compared with the stances of the Obama and Clinton administrations.

“I think there are two totally separate discussions going on,” said Lori Wallach, a trade specialist at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, who’s been in these battles for decades. “There’s China, and there’s everything else.”

Within the 2020 presidential race, Trump’s campaign believes he can beat the Democratic field by standing up as the fiercest defender of American interests against the economic and strategic threats from China. Reprising his 2016 argument that past political leaders — including the Obama administration and Democratic front-runner Joe Biden — reacted too timidly while Beijing spent decades flouting international rules, Trump is eager to show he made good on his promise to stand up to China through the volley of tariffs he has imposed — and the threat of more.

But the president’s fearless — or reckless — enthusiasm for tariffs as a weapon has sparked a second battle: within his own party and in the halls of Congress where the passage of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement now hangs in the balance due to Trump’s threats of tariffs against allies.

Earlier this year, Senate Republicans made clear that the North American deal could not proceed until Trump’s tariffs were removed from Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum. But no sooner had Trump relented, than he threatened new tariffs on Mexican products as a way to pressure Mexico on migration policy. Republican senators mounted unprecedented pushback against his plans and have made clear that any additional tariffs could block the agreement. While House Republicans have been more supportive of Trump — and face primary contests in which GOP voters demand loyalty to Trump — Republican senators who don’t necessarily face reelection in this cycle, including Ted Cruz (R-Texas), are becoming more vocal.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has not yet decided to bring the agreement up for a vote — and the clock is ticking with summer recess approaching. If not passed before the August recess, the deal could be swept away by congressional priorities such as raising the debt ceiling — and then will give way to campaign season.

“I surely hope that he has learned from history that lower tariffs are good,” said Chuck Grassley, the Republican senator from Iowa who chairs the Senate Finance Committee and made the lifting of steel tariffs a precondition for passage of the USMCA.

Whether the president believes tariffs are an end to themselves is not clear. Said Grassley, “I have heard him say something along this line that leads me to believe that he wants lower tariffs. … ‘What do you mean you don’t want a trade war? We’ve had a trade war and we lost.’ So he wants to do something about that.”

But while he’s under pressure in Congress on tariffs against allies, when it comes to China, it’s a different story. Trump’s confrontation with China is being matched by muscular rhetoric from progressive Democratic hopefuls like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. They — like Trump — see an opportunity to paint Biden as too weak and complacent about taking on the many economic and security threats they perceive as emanating from Beijing.

In a campaign ad, Sanders touts his votes against NAFTA, the Central America Free Trade Agreement and China’s entry into the WTO. “We need trade policies in this country that benefit the working people of the United States and not just the CEOs of large corporations,” Sanders says in the ad.

Sanders has also criticized Biden, saying,“Joe voted for NAFTA and permanent normal trade relations, trade agreements with China. I helped — led the effort against that. I don’t think there’s much question about who’s more progressive.”

While Biden makes the case that constructive engagement with China is in America’s interest, Warren has come out with a platform she calls “economic patriotism” that also plays up the problem of China. “The Chinese are bad actors on trade. That means that our best way to fight back is with strength and with a coherent plan,” she said.

The emerging dynamic involves campaigns taking even harder lines on China, urged on by influential voices on the left — raising the possibility of a broader shift in American attitudes that could outlive the Trump administration.

“I also support the use of tariffs against the Chinese because they have so willfully and blatantly violated all norms of international trade, and they continue to do that — whether it’s currency manipulation, whether it’s stealing of intellectual property rights, or anything of that sort,” said Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO.

However, like Republican senators, Trumka opposed the use of tariffs against Mexico and Canada.

“Tariffs are a legitimate form of an economic weapon or a trade weapon. They are legitimate if used properly, but they should be used like a rifle shot. You use them when someone is violating an agreement, and you use it to correct that action or to stop that action,” he said. “It’s not to be used as a shotgun, where you just shoot it out there and it hits everywhere.”

Since Mexico and Canada did not violate the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement, he said, “there shouldn’t have been tariffs imposed on them.”

Many Republicans recognize Trump will need the support of America’s allies to be successful in the confrontation with China.

Grassley said it was a mistake to walk away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in 2017, but he is heartened that U.S. allies like Canada, Japan, and those in Europe are a “united front” against China, because they’re all facing the same challenge.

“They may not like the specific tactics the president’s using,” Grassley said. “But they know that his heart is in the right place of getting China to live by the international rules of trade.”

#domestic #Foreign #political #Politics

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bisoroblog · 5 years

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How Schools Spark Excitement for Learning with Role Playing and Games

Michael Matera’s students don’t merely learn about medieval Europe, they live it. Albeit, with a few monsters and enchanted items thrown in the mix.

The Milwaukee teacher’s Grade 6 history class is an ongoing role-playing game called Realm of Nobles, where students join guilds, earn achievements, make trades and wage the occasional epic battle in an imaginary medieval kingdom. Matera has played the game for years, and maintains that the fusion of history, fantasy, narrative and role-play is an effective formula to engage students in learning.

“The excitement and the pride in their accomplishments are all through the roof. I love seeing kids gaining real-world skills, taking risks and learning from defeat in this gamified class,” said Matera, who wrote Explore Like a Pirate: Gamification and Game-Inspired Course Design to Engage, Enrich and Elevate Your Learners, a manual for teachers who aspire to design their classes as games.

A growing number of educators like Matera are remodeling their classes by fusing game elements to their instructional environments. But, does switching grades for experience points and homework for quests amount only to cosmetic surgery? Is school merely being “reskinned” with a new paint job without fundamentally altering the age-old classroom rituals?

The Rise of the EduLARP

The use of simulations and role-play in education is not a recent development. Model United Nations, historical re-enactments, mock trials and other types of dramatic simulations have been in the teacher toolbox for decades. What is new, however, is that the simulation is packaged as a game and sustained for an extended period, often spanning the entire school year.

This particular union of role-play, narrative, and game owes no small debt to Dungeons & Dragons, the classic role-playing game (RPG) that is enjoying a recent resurgence. D&D pioneered and popularized an array of RPG conventions that are now video game and tabletop staples, like experience points (XP), levels, loot, character classes and boss fights.

In the mid-’70s some eager D&D fans donned armor, weapons, gowns and cloaks, and transplanted RPG elements to the real world in the form of live-action role-play, or LARPs. Players stay in character as they interact and battle in elaborate adventures set in real-life forests and fields that evoke medieval fantasy. The popularity of LARPs in Scandinavia inspired a pair of Danish educators to open the Østerskov School that teaches with edularps. Today, edularps are found in schools in Sweden, Finland and Denmark, and even some U.S. schools have jumped into the fray.

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Sanne Harder, a game designer and educator who worked at the Østerskov School, thinks that edularps are not only a fun way to learn, but also a better way to learn.

“When I choose to use role-play as a means of teaching, it is because it is an excellent way of organizing teaching, not because the hobby appeals to its fans,” wrote Harder. “In the 21st century, being a teacher is not about teaching pupils facts, it is about helping them internalize knowledge, skills, and competencies.”

Sarah Lynne Bowman and Anne Standiford conducted a 2016 mixed methods study of edularps at an L.A. charter school and found that they encouraged “greater motivation, engagement, interaction with peers, collaboration, and comprehension of material,” which is promising, but the area is new and the research nascent.

Choosing a Road to Victory

Edularps, and other class-as-game variants like alternate reality games (ARGs), pervasive games and gamified class, are popping up in schools, universities and even camps across North America. While the sword-and-sorcery motif remains prevalent, some educators have diversified into themes and settings that better fit their learning goals.

While still a high school science teacher, University of Connecticut assistant professor Stephen Slota designed a unit-length game to teach human reproduction and sexually transmitted diseases. “The students worked in teams of three to control a character avatar in a fictitious village, and their goal was to engage in an epidemiological study of the area by investigating locales and speaking to non-player characters as enacted by the instructor,” said Slota, who edited Exploding the Castle: Rethinking How Video Games & Game Mechanics Can Shape The Future Of Education, a collection of game-based learning essays.

Slota has since developed half a dozen class-as-games for subjects as far-flung as education technology, Latin, psychology and biology. Matera also sets one of his games during the Cold War, and the edularps at the Østerskov School involve a wide range of themes and settings.

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The games tend to be flexible and students are able to alter the unfolding experience through the choices they make. This freedom to shape their circumstances and the accompanying sense of agency is a big part of what engages them in learning.

“I’ve found — both anecdotally and in my research — that freedom to push and pull at the game’s narrative and ruleset provides students with a sense of greater personal ownership, and therefore greater depth of knowledge about content than usually accompanies schoolwork,” said Slota.

Matera also stresses the importance of student agency, and feels that it marks a significant departure from typical classroom dynamics.

“Games have clear objects, but no one set path to that victory. This is where strategy comes into play. An RPG, as with many well-designed games, allows for the players to create their own path to victory,” said Matera. “This level of customization and personalization feels different than traditional school because it is different. Students have an opportunity to create their own experience within the game. They earn badges, items and power-ups that allow them to have a unique game characters. This leads to endless strategies, trades and allegiances to help successfully make it through the Realm.”

Houston-area teacher Kade Wells also personalizes his class by using a D&D-style character class system. He gives his students a basic personality test and, based on the results, assigns them one of four roles designed to support classroom management.

“Protectors keep the peace and manage group outbursts; Initiators get things ready and help to get materials, sharpen pencils and put things away; Diplomats help group members and facilitate all processes and are ultimately responsible for the group’s behavior; Sages keep the records, help with attendance, make sure that things are orderly and accounted for,” said Wells, who has found the class system empowers his students to self-regulate and take greater ownership of their environment.

There’s an App for That

Matera, Slota and Wells design their games from scratch, cannibalizing a pastiche of web applications, pen-and-paper elements, learning management systems, Google apps, spreadsheets and any other available tools that they can bend to their playful purposes. But teachers who don’t have the time, confidence or knowledge to dive into the DIY approach can turn to commercial software designed to help educators run their classes as games.

Rezzly’s 3D GameLab, the University of Michigan’s GradeCraft, NEXED’s Answerables and Classcraft are gameful learning management systems that have tapped into the class-as-game zeitgeist to help educators keep track of quests, levels, experience points, badges and other game features.

“They will do anything for XP [experience points] and GP [gold pieces] to level up their avatar,” said Carrie Casey, a Wisconsin middle-school science teacher who uses Classcraft. “I have seen some of my students who will not hand in work — work hard to get their work in for me so they get XP and do not disappoint their team.”

It has also helped Casey reach some challenging students: “I have connected to them through gaming where no other teacher has connected to them that year.”

Canadian teacher Justin Matheson says that his Grade 6 students loved the sword-and-sorcery motif, and he credits Classcraft’s video game qualities for fostering perseverance. “With video games, people get to a point where things become increasingly difficult and they experience repeated failure. Then, you are encouraged to try again and again, and to seek help through outside resources to find success. This is the most notable benefit that I have seen in my class. My students see difficulties as speed bumps instead of roadblocks.”

Grafting Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG elements to classrooms can have an effect that delves much deeper than mere optics. Games and classes are both systems that operate with rules. When the rules that typically govern the class are hacked by the rules of the game, a fundamental shift can take place. Games offer a valuable palette of functions and features that can be creatively repurposed to rewrite some of education’s more problematic operations. Educators who are not satisfied with business as usual can tap into the power of play and design the change they want to see.

How Schools Spark Excitement for Learning with Role Playing and Games published first on https://dlbusinessnow.tumblr.com/

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perfectzablog · 5 years

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How Schools Spark Excitement for Learning with Role Playing and Games

Michael Matera’s students don’t merely learn about medieval Europe, they live it. Albeit, with a few monsters and enchanted items thrown in the mix.

The Rise of the EduLARP

youtube

Sanne Harder, a game designer and educator who worked at the Østerskov School, thinks that edularps are not only a fun way to learn, but also a better way to learn.

Choosing a Road to Victory

youtube

Matera also stresses the importance of student agency, and feels that it marks a significant departure from typical classroom dynamics.

There’s an App for That

It has also helped Casey reach some challenging students: “I have connected to them through gaming where no other teacher has connected to them that year.”

How Schools Spark Excitement for Learning with Role Playing and Games published first on https://greatpricecourse.tumblr.com/

0 notes

bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Mueller seeks Roger Stone’s testimony to House intelligence panel, suggesting special counsel is near end of probe of Trump adviser

https://wapo.st/2EzNBiq

EXCLUSIVE: Signs are building Mueller may be moving to charge Roger Stone .... Mueller sought Trump adviser's official testimony to the House Intel Committee on Friday. Me w @nakashimae @PostRoz @RoigFranzia @CarolLeonnig

Notably, Mueller's letter asking for Stone's testimony is the first time the special counsel has asked for anything from the House Intelligence Committee. The committee is likely to consider the request at a closed door meeting Thursday.

🚨🚨BREAKING MUELLER ALERT 🚨 🚨

Mueller seeks Roger Stone’s testimony to House intelligence panel, suggesting special counsel is near end of probe of Trump adviser

By Carol D. Leonnig, Ellen Nakashima, Rosalind S. Helderman and Manuel Roig-Franzia |December 19 at 5:48 PM EST |Washington Post | Posted December 19, 2018 |

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III asked the House Intelligence Committee on Friday for an official transcript of Trump adviser Roger Stone’s testimony, according to people familiar with the request, a sign that prosecutors could be moving to charge him with a crime.

It is the first time Mueller has formally asked the committee to turn over material the panel has gathered in its investigation of Russian interference of the 2016 campaign, according to the people.

The move suggests that the special counsel is moving to finalize his months-long investigation of Stone — a key part of Mueller’s inquiry into whether anyone in President Trump’s orbit coordinated with the Russians.

Stone, who has advised Trump on and off for decades and was in contact with the candidate during the 2016 campaign, has been a focus of the special counsel as Mueller probes whether the Trump campaign had advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’s release of Democratic emails allegedly hacked by Russian operatives.

Securing an official transcript from the committee would be a necessary step before pursuing an indictment that Stone allegedly lied to lawmakers, legal experts said.

The special counsel could use the threat of a false-statement charge to seek cooperation from Stone, as Mueller has done with other Trump advisers, such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn and longtime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.

It is unclear what aspect of Stone’s testimony Mueller is scrutinizing. But Stone has given conflicting accounts about what prompted him to accurately predict during the 2016 race that WikiLeaks was going to unleash material that would hurt Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

In an interview Wednesday, Stone said he had not been notified of Mueller’s request. But he said he is confident that the transcript of his testimony will not provide the special counsel with grounds to charge him.

“I don’t think any reasonable attorney who looks at it would conclude that I committed perjury, which requires intent and materiality,” Stone said.

For weeks, the special counsel’s office has had access to an unofficial copy of Stone’s closed-door September 2017 interview, according to people with knowledge of the process. Mueller’s request of the official copy signals the special counsel could now be pursuing an indictment, several legal experts said.

“That suggests prosecutors are getting ready to bring a charge,” said former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner. “Prosecutors can’t bring a charge without an original certified copy of the transcript that shows the witness lied.”

The House Intelligence Committee, which has provided testimony of its witnesses to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for a declassification review, has not yet turned over the official Stone transcript to Mueller, according to the people with knowledge of the situation.

The committee is expected to discuss the topic at a closed-door business session scheduled for Thursday, according to one person familiar with committee plans. An agenda for the meeting posted online shows the panel’s first item to consider is the “Transmission of Certain Executive Session Materials to the Executive Branch.”

The committee’s incoming chairman, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), who takes over from Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) next month, has made it clear that he believes the committee should provide the special counsel with the Stone document.

“I believe that there’s ample reason to be concerned about his truthfulness, “ Schiff said Sunday on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.” “And I do think that with respect to Mr. Stone, and perhaps others, the special counsel is in a better position to determine the truth or falsity of that testimony, and that we ought to provide it to the special counsel.”

A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment. Schiff declined to comment. A spokesman for Nunes did not respond to requests for comment.

Stone accused House Democrats of “attempting to play frivolous word games, and hairsplitting about semantics over nonmaterial matters.”

“This has devolved into gotcha word games, perjury traps and trumped process crimes,” he said Wednesday. “I think people can see through the political motivations behind this.”

Stone added: “Where is the evidence of Russian collusion or WikiLeaks collaboration?”

Mueller has spent months investigating whether Stone knew of WikiLeaks’s plan to release hacked Democratic emails in advance of the November 2016 election and whether he lied to Congress about his knowledge and his contacts with the group. In July, the special counsel charged a group of Russian intelligence officers with hacking the emails and providing them to WikiLeaks.

Stone, who boasted during the race that he was in touch with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, has said since that his past comments were exaggerated or misunderstood. Both he and WikiLeaks have adamantly denied they were in contact.

Several weeks ago, the House Intelligence Committee provided transcripts of its interviews with Stone and more than 50 other individuals to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is conducting a declassification review before they are released publicly, according to congressional officials.

As part of that review, ODNI shares copies of the transcripts with other agencies, including the special counsel’s office, that might have an interest in protecting information in the interviews, officials said.

However, because the Stone interview was conducted in executive session, the transcript officially belongs to the committee and may not be released unless authorized by the committee, according to its rules.

In general, if prosecutors want to bring a charge of lying to investigators, they must obtain a certified “clean” copy from the transcriber or clerk who took the statement to present as an exhibit to a grand jury, legal experts said.

Charges of lying to Congress are relatively rare. But last month, Cohen pleaded guilty to such a charge as part of the special counsel probe.

Stone released written testimony he provided the House Intelligence Committee before his September 2017 interview, in which he wrote that he had no “advanced knowledge of the source or actual content of the WikiLeaks disclosures regarding Hillary Clinton.”

He told the panel that he based some his predictions on public information and tips from associates. He also said that he had an intermediary who provided him with information about WikiLeaks — but refused to name the person, indicating the person was a journalist with whom he had spoken off the record.

Shortly after his closed-door appearance, Stone wrote a letter to the committee saying he learned about WikiLeaks’s planned release from Randy Credico, a New York comedian who had interviewed Assange and is a longtime friend of New York attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler, who has represented the group.

Credico has repeatedly denied passing any information from WikiLeaks to Stone. He said he may have speculated about the group’s tactics with Stone.

In recent weeks, Mueller’s prosecutors have been focused on another Stone associate who alerted him to an upcoming WikiLeaks release in 2016: conservative writer Jerome Corsi.

In an Aug. 2, 2016, email, Corsi wrote to Stone that the group planned to disclose emails that October that would embarrass Clinton, according to charging documents drafted by Mueller’s team and provided to The Washington Post.

“Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps,” Corsi wrote in the email quoted in the draft document, referring to Assange, who has been living in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London since 2012. “One shortly after I’m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging.”

Corsi, who rejected a plea offer from the special counsel, said the email was based on his speculation of what WikiLeaks might be planning, not any inside knowledge.

The day after receiving the message from Corsi, Stone has said, he spoke with Trump by phone.

Stone has said he never discussed WikiLeaks or hacked emails with Trump. “Unless Mueller has tape recordings of the phone calls, what would that prove?” he told The Post last month.

“The emails prove nothing,” Stone added, “other than like every other politico and political reporter in America, I was curious to know what it was that WikiLeaks had.”

Both Trump and Stone have decried the Mueller investigation as a “political witch hunt,” and Stone has said Mueller is applying intense pressure on his associates as a way of punishing him for supporting the president.

Over the past several months, Mueller’s investigators have interviewed a dozen Stone friends and associates, focusing on individuals who discussed WikiLeaks with Stone before to the election. Some have provided testimony and records that contradict Stone’s claims.

Charles Ortel, a Wall Street analyst and conservative writer, told The Post that he was interviewed in New York last week by two FBI agents who asked about his 2016 contacts with Stone, Corsi and Credico.

Ortel said the agents were interested in an email from then-Fox News reporter James Rosen that Ortel forwarded to Stone on July 25, 2016. In it, Rosen wrote, “Am told WikiLeaks will be doing a massive dump of HRC emails relating to the CF in September,” referring to Clinton and her family foundation.

Ortel declined to disclose the full details of his FBI interview but told The Post that he did not know where Rosen had gotten his information about WikiLeaks’s plans.

Rosen, who no longer works at Fox News, has repeatedly declined to comment.

#donald trump #politics #trump administration #RogerStone #robert mueller #mueller #Mueller Investigation

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How Many Republicans In The Senate Now

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How Many Republicans In The Senate Now

Personnel Mail And Office Expenses

How Could The 2020 Election Impact Control Of The Senate? | NBC News NOW

The Personnel allowance was $944,671 per member in 2010. Each member may employ no more than 18 permanent employees. Members employees salary is capped at $168,411 as of 2009.

Biden Administration: Heres Who Has Been Named So Far

Return of the bipartisan gangs

Manchin has said he hopes that model can translate into efforts in 2021.

Progressives push for Senate rule changes

Liberal Democrats have pressed to get rid of the legislative filibuster so that they can pass major health care or environmental bills with a simple majority.

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Democrat Jon Ossoff Claims Victory Over David Perdue In Georgia Runoff

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York is expected to replace GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell as majority leader and will determine which bills come to the floor for votes.

The ambitious proposals addressing climate change and health care and other domestic priorities touted by Biden and Harris will be difficult, if impossible, to advance with more moderate Democrats especially those facing competitive 2022 midterm reelection campaigns reluctant to sign onto partisan proposals. The much smaller-than-anticipated House Democratic majority compounds the challenge for the party.

Instead, Biden will need to consider which domestic priorities can get bipartisan support since Senate rules now require anything to get 60 votes to advance. The president-elect has already indicated that additional coronavirus relief will be his first priority, but he has also said he plans to unveil an infrastructure plan that could get support from Republicans.

In a statement Wednesday, Biden said that “Georgia’s voters delivered a resounding message yesterday: they want action on the crises we face and they want it right now. On COVID-19, on economic relief, on climate, on racial justice, on voting rights and so much more. They want us to move, but move together.”

The president-elect also spoke to Democrats’ potential total control of Washington.

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Trump’s Former Physician Wins House Seat

Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician who served under both Presidents Trump and Obama, has won his race in Texas’ 13th Congressional District. Jackson rose to prominence in 2018 when he gave a glowing press conference about Mr. Trump’s health.

Mr. Trump nominated Jackson to be Veterans Affairs secretary last year, but Jackson withdrew amid allegations that he drank on the job and over-prescribed medications. In his House race, Jackson has closely aligned himself with Mr. Trump. He has downplayed the coronavirus pandemic and criticized mask-wearing requirements. He has also promoted baseless claims about Biden’s mental health.

Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw also won reelection. Crenshaw is a conservative firebrand and a rising GOP star in the House.

Are Senators Chosen By Popular Vote

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

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Do The Parties Have To Negotiate On The Rules

No. With Harris vote, Democrats could threaten to ram through a Democratic-written organizational plan that severely disadvantages the Republicans.

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States That Gained Seats

The three most populous states to gain seats are Texas, Florida and North Carolina, and in each, Republicans will control the redistricting process. For the first time in decades, they wont have to seek preclearance from the Justice Department either before implementing their maps thanks to the 2013 Supreme Court decision that struck down part of the Voting Rights Act. That, in turn, could open the door for more extreme gerrymandering in these states, which historically disenfranchised voters of color.;

For instance, Republicans will at least try to draw Texass two new districts to be as safe as possible for Republicans. But they also face the challenge that Texass suburbs its fastest-growing areas are rapidly becoming more Democratic, which threatened to blow up their 2011 gerrymander. According to Daily Kos Elections, Biden came within 3 percentage points of carrying 22 out of Texass current 36 districts in the 2020 election. So in an effort to shore up Republican incumbents in some areas, the Texas legislature may be forced to create safe new districts for Democrats in places like Austin, Dallas or Houston. But even if one or both of the new seats are blue, Texass map will still likely benefit Republicans overall , muddying the question of which party truly benefits from reapportionment here.

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Democrats May Have Control At The Federal Level But Republicans Are Pushing Back Through States

30 state legislatures are now controlled by Republicans, while only 18 are controlled by Democrats.

Though the hotly anticipated Blue Wave did not sweep over the country as thoroughly as some analysts had predicted in the weeks and months leading up to the American election on November 3, 2020, theres no denying that Democrats notched major victories in both the Senate and the White House, despite losing several seats in the House of Representatives.

But that victory is beginning to be undercut by the majority of state legislatures, which are Republican-controlled, as they begin to enact stricter voting laws, pass state sovereignty bills and push through highly conservative legislation to push back against Democratic ideologies in Washington.

Many Republicans Mobilizing Against Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill

Republicans keep control of the House and Senate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Washington Examiner Videos

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Are Canadian Senators Appointed For Life

‘your Way Is Failing’: Tapper Pushes Back On Gop Governor For Covid

Ask any national Republican who their best candidate is to beat freshman Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly in 2022 and the name that you’ll likely hear the most is Doug Ducey.

“Good news! RINO Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona has restated the fact that he is not running for the United States Senate. It would not matter, however, because he could not get the nomination after failing to perform on the Voter Fraud in Arizona. Also, there is no way he would get my endorsement, which means, his aspirations would be permanently put to rest anyway. Again, thank you to our brave Republicans in the Arizona State Senate for their bravery in putting forward the Forensic Audit. Everybody is anxiously awaiting the result!”

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Seats Without Major Party Opposition

See also: Major party candidates with major party competition in the November 2020 state legislative elections

In 2020, 2,067 state legislative seats, 35.2% of all seats up for election, did not have major party competition. When a candidate from only one of either the Democratic or Republican parties runs for a state legislative seat, the seat is all but guaranteed to be won by that party.

Democrats contested 82.7% of all state legislative seats. 1,019 state legislative seats did not feature a Democratic candidate and were likely to be won by a Republican.

Republicans contested 82.4% of all state legislative seats. 1,032 seats did not feature a Republican candidate and were likely to be won by a Democrat.

In 11 states, more than half of all seats did not have major party competition.

In four states, more than 90% of all candidates had major party competition.

The five states with the most major party competition in the general election were:

The five states with the least major party competition in the general election were:

Seats without major party competition, 2020 State

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Here Are The Republicans Calling For Biden’s Removal Amid Afghanistan Fallout

The fall of Kabul on Sunday and the resultant emergency evacuation of U.S. citizens from Afghanistan have triggered a wave of outrage among lawmakers, with numerous Republicans going beyond mere criticism of the Biden administration’s drawdown of U.S. troops to say that the president ought to vacate office.

The invocation of the 25th Amendment, resignation, and impeachment have all been promoted in recent days as possible solutions by a growing number of Republican officials, who say Biden’s actions since Afghanistan fell to the Taliban call into question the president’s fitness to serve.

Here are the GOP members who have called on Biden to leave or be removed from the Oval Office so far.

25th Amendment

Multiple lawmakers have said the use of the 25th Amendment may be in order.

Sen. Rick Scott: “After the disastrous events in Afghanistan, we must confront a serious question: Is Joe Biden capable of discharging the duties of his office or has time come to exercise the provisions of the 25th Amendment?” Scott wrote in a tweet Monday.

Rep. Claudia Tenney: Tenney, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was less equivocal, saying it is “clear” Biden is failing to perform his duties.

Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought during the previous Congress to establish a commission within the body to participate in 25th Amendment proceedings during the waning days of President Donald Trump’s administration.

Resignation

Impeachment

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How Many Senators Will Vote To Convict Donald Trump

Now that Donald Trump has been impeached for an historic second time, attention turns to the Senate where, according to the Constitution, a trial will begin. The big question isunlike last year when only one Republican Senator voted to convict Trump on charges resulting from his phone call with the President of Ukrainewill there be 17 Republican senators willing to vote to convict Trump?

Lets start with what we know. Senator Ben Sasse is the only senator who has said clearly that he is open to convicting Trump. Senator Mitt Romney voted to convict last year when Trump was impeached over his phone call with the Ukrainian president. The charges in this impeachment are equally if not more serious, so it seems likely that he too may vote to convict. Senator Lisa Murkowski and Senator Patrick Toomey have also made statements signaling that theyve had enough of Trump. Murkowski just wants him out, saying He has caused enough damage, and Toomey thinks he committed impeachable offenses but is unsure whether impeachment makes sense this close to the end of the Trump presidency.

Pelosi Says It Doesn’t Matter Right Now If She’ll Seek Another Term As Speaker Beyond 2022

;In a press call, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shot down a question about whether this upcoming term would be her last as speaker, calling it the “least important question you could ask today.” She added that “the fate of our nation, the soul of the nation” is at stake in the election.

“Elections are about the future,” Pelosi said. “One of these days I’ll let you know what my plans are, when it is appropriate and when it matters. It doesn’t matter right now.”

After the 2018 election, Pelosi agreed to term limits on Democratic leaders that would prevent her from serving as speaker beyond 2022.