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filthforfriends · 1 year

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Poll: Which fic do I finish?

While writing Guardian Angel I've started a lot of fics. I'm going to post the beginning of each and let you vote on which one I should finish. (Depending on the fic, I might let you vote to change the character) Please reblog this post. Tumblr still hasn't fixed my blog so no one is getting my notifications or tags.

#1 Quirk

Quirk was the language you’d decided on. You called it a problem, Thomas called it fucking adorable, and quirk seemed neutral. Sometimes you’d blame it on him. Tommy loved your rty talk, insisted upon it. The closer you got to orgasam, the more it became descriptors and ramblings, instead of intentional and sexy.

You couldn’t just stop talking altogether when things become less polished. Falling silent would be awkward. Tom would worry about your pleasure and check-in. You’d already tried that. Most of all it was hard to shut up when Thomas was hanging on to your every word. Especially when you were on top, and he was gazing up at you like the mortal equivalent of Aphrodite. Eyes wide, but also threatening to flutter closed from the stimulation. Pillow, pink lips parted, sexy little teeth showing, and flushed beautifully, elegant nose included.

“I love it when you talk to me,” he admitted in the afterglow.

#2 Panic

Thomas snapped at you, probably because he needed an outlet and you were the closest thing. It really upset you. Not because he was cruel, or because your boyfriend wasn’t allowed to have a bad day. Thomas simply didn’t externalize stress onto his loved ones. He’d play some violent video game or destroy his nails by picking the polish off or shred his guitar until it was out of horrousicly tune. Taking it out on you, however? A very irregular occurrence.

You’d still slept in the same bed that night, both wide awake for different reasons. His breathing was off, almost panicked. Thomas would get these runaway, anxious trains of thought that sped his heart rate up. He couldn’t stop the worrying.

#3 Something New

Two years ago it might have freaked Thomas out, but he’d matured as a sexual partner since then. He understood that him and sex toys were on the same team. He knew lube was his friend, not his competition. Sure, sometimes natural excretions are enough. Sometimes a carefully selected lubricant can make things more comfortable. There was also a third option: menstrual blood, which he fondly coined nature’s bonus lube.

He’d tried this euphemism when proposing maybe not avoiding sexual contact like the plague for six days every month. Which is when he learned that a questionable father figure and all your brothers had acted like your period was the most disgusting thing in the universe.

It started with dropping to your knees in front of him as soon as you got home from work.

#4 Awake

The last time you checked your phone with an exasperated huff it had read 10:45pm. Ethan was supposed to text you when he was going to be home 15 minutes ago. It wasn’t a particularly significant amount of time, but you were struggling to keep your eyes open. He’d occupied your thoughts nearly every moment of this very long day that had rendered you exhausted to the point of vertigo.

Regardless, Ethan had brought back an obscene lingerie set from France and gifted it to you this morning. So tonight's plans had been implied hours ago. The body suit and garter belt was gorgeous and so fucking uncomfortable that you wanted to time wearing it until the last minute. No matter how sleepy you felt, the adrenaline and endorphins of the moment would keep you going.

#5 Satin, Lace, and Other Pretty Things Part (continued)

Digging through what you affectionately referred to as your little box of horrors, was even more fun than you anticipated. You’d forgotten the full contents of your sex toy collection since you’d moved in with Thomas and stuffed it at the bottom of a closet. He had a barricade up that you were always testing the bounds of, trying to gently work around. Anal fingering? Fine (as long as you didn’t really talk about it). Rimming? Nope.

Thomas made up for this with orgasams galore, so you were far from bored. However, you also knew that wiping out a 10 inch neon green dick and balls with a suction cup at the base would just intimidate, and maybe also traumatize him. So you kept the more adventurous items in your collection tucked away in case they became appropriate later on. At the bottom of this innocuous looking plastic container, was your strap on harness. It was simple, because that's all you could afford when it came to quality leather and an adjustable o-ring.

You sat with your back to the wall, amongst phallices and vibrators spread out on the hardwood floor, running the black straps through your fingers.

#6 Colleagues

Embarrassingly enough, it was the most action you’d gotten in months. You were turning a corner, nose in your field trip roster, not watching your surroundings because the building was practically empty. His tennis shoes were quiet enough that you didn’t see Damiano until walked right into you. This wasn't a meet cute bumping into each other, you fully collided and lost balance.

“Oh shit! Shit!” He pulled you against him to stop your fall and hold you upright. For a second you were a few inches away from one of the most beautiful faces god had ever created. Giant brown eyes, jaw sharper than a blade, sky high cheekbones and an inhuman level of symmetry. Damiano knocked everything in your hands loose, a folder full of papers scattered on the shiny floor.

#7 Alpha!Ethan

“Ethan, hold your breath,” Damiano exclaims. It’s a harmless enough request that he obliges rather than asking why. Being the most rational member of Maneskin was a chaotic experience at best. That is until Dami breaks out into laughter, Victoria snickering with a hand over her mouth. Ethan hears the door shut and looks in your direction.

Walking into a room where you're the subject of the latest joke was never a great feeling. Your alpha’s bandmates were never cruel, but the power differential always made you feel like a target on some level. Even if it was just teasing between friends, they were all alphas and you were an omega. All eyes were on you: Dami and Victoria because they thought your influence over the ever-composed Ethan was hilarious. Your boyfriend looked annoyed and Thomas awkward.

#8 DILFiano (continued)

Three hours: barely a respectable amount of time to party hop with your friends before asking to go home. It’s not like you didn’t have a good excuse: they wanted to drive over an hour to some bougie party in the hills. Icarus liked to use her dad's name to get into events every now and then, just for the thrill of it...

“Is it okay to just drop you off at mine? Or do you need me to take you home?” Your heart jumps at the prospect of spending time in the David’s home. Pretending you were on this little adventure for Icarus was morally and emotionally exhausting. It’s not that you didn’t care about your friend, but because the globe had shifted its axis.

#9 More Than Friends

You were going to tell her. Victoria had made her intentions clear, and insisted you don’t answer right away.

“There's no time line. I’m sorry if this – I don’t want you to feel pressured. We’re still friends like before. Even if you’re not interested. Okay?” You open your mouth to agree. “Don’t say anything just yet,” she blurts. You raise your eyebrows, asking if now you’re allowed to say something.

“Sorry, sorry, uh! I ask you a question then interrupt you. I’m just…” Vic sighs and looks at her hands, fingers chipping at the navy nail polish. “I’m so fucking nervous,” she confesses. Her suitcase stood by the door: so nervous she waited until the very last minute.

#10 Information Introductions (continued)

“Whatever you want.” You’re on your sides, facing each other. Damiao has both his hands tucked under his head like a pillow, like you’re at your first sleepover. It's such a sharp contrast to the man who just coaxed you towards orgasam with such tenderness for the past...15 minutes? You look up to the vintage clock on your wall, still ticking away.

“40 minutes? Is your leg okay?” Damiano chuckled.

“Yeah, it's fine.” His voice lilted up on the last syllable, like the corners of his mouth upturned in a smile. You wanted to drag your fingertips along his side, but initiating touch felt like you were reaching out into the dark.

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youngster-monster · 5 years

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a soul that’s born in cold and rain

(lek belongs to @arcquos. check out his art!)

(ayin, thyme and sable belong to @baronetcoins on ao3. check out her writing!)

Death is the endless starlit road, going from and to nowhere. On each side sprawls a forest of pines, branches heavy with snow, held silent and still in darkness. He must walk, though he is lost and alone here: the only way out lies ahead, whatever it may be.

There is no light save for the distant glow of silver stars, no movement but the snowflakes falling slowly from the sky, no sound but the crunching of snow under his feet. No colors but white and grey, the world dimmed by frost and night.

And then all of this changes.

Northern lights held in the shape of a beast, cosmic colors swirling in dreamy patterns as it stands in his path, its bright eyes boring into his.

"I'm supposed to walk," he says, more a question than a request.

"When have you ever done what you were supposed to?" She asks.

On these words she turns her back to him and walks into the woods. The warmth of her presence lingers like heat on a summer night until her tail disappears between the dark trees.

He steps off the path and follows her in the dark.

(Cayde-6 comes back to life shivering, his body freezing except where a furry body is pressed against his side.

"Hello, Guardian," the wolf says, her open maw like a smile, teeth sharp and eyes bright.

He names her Sundance, for the way the weak winter sun shines over her tawny coat. She laughs, hyena like, and calls him a sap, but there's genuine warmth in her eyes when she looks at him.)

Death is the yawning abyss that devours all, the great beast waiting at the end of entropy, that which is and comes from oblivion.

The darkness is smothering, cold and heavy where it sits on their chest, inside their throat, reaching, spreading, covering them, burying them–

They grip at their throat, gasping for air, refusing to give in to the great nothingness stealing their breath. The sound of it is like claws digging into dirt, a persistent scratching, scrapping, searching–

Until it gives out, ever so slightly, all of it, the weight in their lungs and the sound in their eyes. The darkness seems to crumble on itself, just a piece of it, just enough to allow through a small head, tall ears, eyes like black light, dark and luminescent all at once.

"If it catches you, it will kill you," she says, voice like the whispers of wind. "But first it must catch you."

They want to say they are already caught, already trapped, but the darkness gave in, gave out, and there is just enough space for them to stand. As long as she is by their side they would always be just enough space to stand, to breath, unburied.

Uncaught.

She runs, then, as is in her nature. And it must be in theirs, too, because they follow, through the winding tunnels of darkness.

(Occam claws their way back to life, through of six foot of graveyard dirt and the suffocating fear of what lies below. Up above they hear scratching, digging, scrapping, searching–

For them.

They drag themself to the surface and the first thing they see is the rabbit, jittery eyes and ever-moving ears even in her prey-stillness.

She doesn't speak but her small body is soft and warm, alive in a way they forgot they knew. They burry their fingers in her fur like a man drowning and their hearts beat as one, rabbit-fast.)

Death is a pond, quiet and dark, overgrown with weeds, and the water clings to her skin and tries to drag her under.

"You're drowning already," the duck says, sounding unconcerned but not unkind. The feathers he is grooming are milky-white, like the moon seen through clouds. "Why not take the dive?"

He plunges his head in the water. His voice comes out distant as he warns her, Keep your eyes open.

She does even though she feels like she should not. She dunks her head into the water–

(Lek comes awake gasping for breath, waterlogged white hair being gently groomed by the duck sitting on her chest.

"It does no good to linger," he says, "In life or in death. You look terrible, dear."

She shrugs the comment off, as unbothered by it as he is by the water on his back, and lets the sun on her skin and the weight on her chest chase the cold of the water away.)

Death is a crushing ocean, is an endless plain of tall grass, is blindness and silence, is the wide open sky.

(Salvation is a grasping octopus, is a lioness with fur like wildfire, is a hound pressed against your side, is teeth and claws and wings and a thousand things to find the way back home.)

Death is great and inescapable and ever changing.

(So are they.)

Razel's Ghost is not settled.

It's hard to miss, what with the way he shifts constantly. In the field he does it to better fit their surroundings, hiding under Razel's clothes and fighting at his side in turns, one moment a small gecko under the collar of his coat and the next a tiger tearing through Vex circuits like it's tissue paper. In the Tower he is no less restless than Razel is, and while he fidgets and runs around his Ghost orbits around him in his robotic Core form, lands on top of Ikora's desk as a cat before jumping above the rail and taking to the sky on the small wings of a sparrow.

It's obvious. Doesn't mean Razel notices it.

Or rather, he doesn't notice it's not the norm. Most Ghosts keep to themselves, only talking to their Guardian rather than for them. He assumes the same goes for their shapeshifting. Maybe it's a social no-no, letting your Ghost go through a dozen form a minute in front of everyone. That would explain why they keep staring at Cubix and him like… that.

He goes to ask Ikora, eventually, because he trusts Cayde with many things but social etiquette isn't one of them.

"Ghosts typically settle after a few resurrections, most after the first one," she tells him, watching Cubix flit between forms, trying to decide on which one to wear for the day. "It's not that they don't shift in public. It's simply that they can't, ever. An unsettled Ghost after so many resurrections is practically unheard of."

"But... Why?" Razel asks. There are so many advantages to having an unsettled Ghost, after all.

She smiles at his confusion. "They only take this form to better guide our souls back to our body- to life. Once they find the most adapted to the task, they stop changing."

"That makes... Like, no sense. At all."

That brings a calculating look to her face. Her eyes go to Cubix briefly before she brings her attention back to him.

"Tell me, Razel, what do you see when you die?"

"Hm- what? I mean. Nothing, because I'm like. Dead?"

She hums thoughtfully at that but doesn't explain herself further. Razel takes it that the conversation is over and leaves quietly, even more confused than before.

He asks Cayde first, as usual.

Well. Technically, he asks Sundance.

"How did you know?" He asks, cross-legged in front of her.

She doesn't usually talk to people outside of Cayde, but he found that he's an exception to many things, this included.

"He was already a wolf," she says.

"I'm pretty sure he was also a robot back then."

"In soul, not body. He was a hunter, but a lonely one. Lost without a pack to hunt at his side. I became that pack."

Thats answers literally none of his questions. By the wolf-grin she gives him, she knows it.

He groans. "Thanks. I guess."

Time for a poll then.

"She has the heart of a lion," Jason, Ayin's Ghost, tells them. He trapped Cubix under his paws to stop him from running around and has been aggressively grooming him since the beginning of their discussion. Cubix looks disgruntled by it but doesn't dare try to break free. Smart Ghost. "A born leader. A huntress. It was only natural that I take the shape of her soul to better guide it back to life."

One last good lick and the lion releases Cubix. Immediately he turns into a hummingbird and flies up to Razel, hiding in the fold of his collar least Jason decides he needs another bath.

Jason is still laughing when they walk away, a low, rumbling sound that follows them out of the room.

Sable's Ghost is an octopus. She doesn't need water, because she's not a real animal, just a pure manifestation of Light shaped like an octopus, but Razel still feels uneasy watching her wrap her tentacles around Sable's shoulders. He wants to dunk her in a bucket of water just in case she actually needs it and they both forget it. It wouldn't be a surprise: Sable forgets a lot of things like that. Sleeping, eating regularly, where she put her keys...

A bit like Razel actually. They're the Tower's less functional Warlocks, which is really saying something.

"She has a mind like none other," Virgo says. Sable smiles distractedly at the compliment. "And I'm a cephalopod like none other. The way she thinks- always moving, adapting..."

Razel watches the constant curling of Virgo's tentacles around Sable's arms and shoulders, the way she changes colors until making all but one with Sable's lab robes, and thinks he has an idea of what she means. Probably.

They don't even notice him go. He makes a mental note to bring Sable something to it tonight. And an aquarium. Just in case.

Sunny is a delight to be around. She has a voice like summer rain, clear and comforting, and a permanent dog-smile on, even when things are tough. Razel would love to pet her but he's not sure if he's close enough to Thyme to ask that.

"Thyme needed a guide," she says, his head pillowed on her Guardian's thigh while she pets him. "And a friend. I knew she would like a Golden Retriever, and so here I am."

"That's it? She just wanted a dog?"

They both shrug in unison. "It doesn't have to be complicated," Thyme says.

Guess it doesn't, huh.

"So it comes from either my heart, my mind, my soul, what I want, or any combination of those four." Razel stares at Cubix with narrowed eyes, eyebrows drawn together in deep thought. Then he heaves a sigh and drops on his back. His mattress dips under Cubix's weight as his Ghost – currently shaped like a farm rabbit – hops next to him and smuggles against his side. "That didn't help like, at all."

"Do you want me to settle?" Cubix asks.

"I- huh. Not really, I guess."

He likes having Cubix turn into a bear during a fight, but it doesn't seem like a very convenient shape to sleep with – his ship only has so much space.

Cubix tucks his head in the crook of Razel's arms. "There you have it, then," he says and promptly falls asleep.

And that, as they say, is that.

Apparently you're not supposed to touch other Ghosts, either.

Shame they didn't learn that before Razel got his hands all over Sundance.

She just looks so fluffy, dozing next to Cayde while they chat. And they touch all the time – Razel and Cayde, Cayde and Sundance, Sundance and Cubix. It kind of makes sense to cut the middle man and just get his hands on her, right? She must be so soft.

He extends his hand and brushes his fingers between her ears.

It's the slightest touch, because he may be an idiot but he's not an asshole, he respects people's personal space. He's waiting for her to give him permission for a full petting session. But he doesn't get further than that.

His bare fingers touch her and it's like he's touching a live wire and dipping his whole body is fire and holding a star in his hands, all at once. His arms tenses and he gasps soundlessly, chest heaving, and so does she, so does Cayde–

The sensation eases in a second and he snatches his hand back as soon as he can, cringing at the pained sound she makes. Cayde's fingers are inches from his, reaching to stop him and frozen in place.

"Sorry," he rushes out, rubbing at his fingers and not quite looking at Cayde. "I didn't-"

Cayde's hand slowly falls back in his lap. He opens his mouth and makes a faint clicking sound, inner mechanisms rearranging themselves to better accommodate speech, and if he had a flesh and blood body it would be an audible swallow, probably. That's what it reminds Razel of, at least.

He's tremendously fond of Cayde's little noises.

"It's fine," Cayde chokes out eventually. "You- It's fine."

It doesn't sound fine, but Razel isn't going to put up a debate. He nudges the donut box Cayde's way, instead, in silent apology. There's only one left. He can have it... Just this once.

The feeling of it– lingers. A static-y kind of feeling under his skin, an itch he can't scratch.

He has to do something about it

"Here."

Cayde looks up from his report to Razel, who's standing there like an idiot, Cubix dangling from his outreached hands. He's shaped like a cat today, because they both consider that to be his most pettable form.

"What?"

He sways Cubix slightly. "Take him."

"... What?"

Cayde is very eloquent today. He's not often speechless but right now he's blinking owlishly at the two of them, mouth opening but no sound coming out.

Razel sighs. "I shouldn't have touched Sundance without asking. I'm sorry. But you can touch Cubix, if you want. As, you know. Payback or something."

Cayde shakes his head as if waking up from a daydream. "I told you it's fine," he says. "You don't have to feel like you have to-"

"I want you to though."

Back at it again with the dumbfounded blinking. Sundance, who he's carefully not looking at, follow the gentle swaying of Cubix his in grip with her golden eyes, no other part of her body moving.

"You what?"

"I asked Lek, about the whole... Touching daemons thing." Lek is an expert, or she acts like she's one, which is kind of the same thing. She never says no to explaining stuff to him, even if she spends most of her explanation laughing at him. "So, it's fine if you don't want me to touch Sundance. But you can touch Cubix. If you want. Because I do. Because you're important to me and I like you a lot. But it's fine if you don't want to."

"I- What?"

Traveler, he's slow today.

Razel takes matters into his own hands, crosses the space separating them in two steps and drop Cubix in Cayde's lap.

Cayde's hands fly up and stay there, hovering above Cubix. The cat has already curled up in his new spot, carefully not touching any bare stretch of metal in case Cayde doesn't want this.

Again, that faint clicking sound as Cayde glances from Cubix to Razel back to the Ghost.

Slowly, carefully, giving them both time to say no, say nevermind this is weird actually. They don't. His fingers brush against Cubix's back.

The reaction is... Quieter, this time around. A shivers that goes through all four of them. Razel's breath stutters in his throat. Warmth bloom in his chest, spread through his limbs to the very tip of his fingers. He exhales slowly, shoulders relaxing, opens eyes he didn't notice himself closing.

Cayde is carding his fingers through Cubix's fur with a dazed look in his eyes. Every touch is like static, settling into bonfire-warmth in the pit of Razel's stomach.

"Well," he says, then stops. His brain isn't exactly up to words right now. "Cool."

He sits down on the ground next to Cayde, folds his legs, lays his shaking hands in his lap and his head against Cayde's thigh. He breathes in deeply, closes his eyes again, and lets the feeling of absolute love and contentment radiating from Cubix lull him to sleep.

#writing #destiny 2 #cayde-6 #my ocs #razel #occam #daemons

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statetalks · 3 years

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What If The Republicans Win Everything Again

The Mail Ballot Factor Is A Wild Card

Saagar Enjeti: Trump WON The GOP Civil War, But Can They EVER Win Again?

Early on, California election authorities decided to proactively send mail ballots to all registered voters, just as they did in the pandemic general election of 2020. They can be returned via enclosed postage paid envelopes or dropped off at voting centers on September 14. So, if California Democrats do become motivated to vote, it wont be hard for them to do so. And you do have to wonder if Donald Trumps demonization of mail ballots during and after the 2020 presidential election might still inhibit Republicans from voting that way, even if there remains an option for turning in ballots in person.

Newsom Is Embracing A Risky Message Telling Voters To Ignore The Replacement Race

Without question, the 2003 recall election haunts todays recall opponents. There is a strong belief that Davis lost because his lieutenant governor, Cruz Bustamante, jumped into the replacement race and drew voters into supporting the recall without mustering enough support to beat Schwarzenegger. So, Team Newsom not only kept credible Democrats from running to replace him; theyve also tried to discourage Democratic voters from answering the second question on the ballot about their preference among replacement candidates. As Politico noted recently, this one-and-done messaging may be confusing or even angering the very voters Newsom needs:

Its kind of counterintuitive to forgo your right to vote,;said;Barbara OConnor, director emeritus of the Institute for the Study of Politics and the Media at Sacramento State. Everyone is in a conundrum about what they should do.

What makes the pay-no-attention-to-the-replacement-candidate-behind-the-curtain instruction to Democrats especially confusing is a new round of anti-recall ads attacking replacement front-runner Larry Elder as to the right of Trump. If Elder is so evil, shouldnt Democrats vote for someone else in the field of 45 other candidates, some of whom identify as Democrats? Its unclear.

What If Trump Wins

For many people, the prospect of what might happen if Donald Trump wins a second term is too awful to contemplate. But, as we are witnessing with the coronavirus, not contemplating scenarios that have at least some chance of happening is a grave mistake. Indeed, its a mistake that helped elect Trump in the first place.

Ideally, the press corps would be hard at work exploring this question. Alas, it is not. In the thousands of presidential campaign stories that have been published this year, you will be hard pressed to find much reporting or informed speculation about what policies Trump might pursue if hes reelected, or what the consequences might be if he were successful in enacting them. Thats not because such things arent knowable in advance. If that were the problem, political reporters wouldnt have spent the last six months gaming out which candidates were, say, likely to win which primaries. The real reason campaign journalists dont do this kind of work is that its not what theyre trained to doand, perhaps, its not what most people want to read.;

Read Also: How Many Registered Republicans In Texas

The Gop Would Rather Nation Crumble Than Give Democrats Political Win On Infrastructure

Politics in Washington is full of playacting, but few recent charades have been as absurd as the extended negotiation between Democrats and Republicans over whether they can agree on a bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Now it seems to be approaching its inevitable end: Republicans now say they’ll be making a counteroffer to the latest White House offer, even as everyone tells reporters how poorly negotiations are going.

All of which provides an excellent case study in how the two parties are motivated and constrained by their political incentives, regardless of what they might think about the substantive issue at hand.

Let’s start by considering three possible outcomes of this effort. First, Congress could pass a meaningful infrastructure bill with support from members of both parties. This is what both sides say they want .

Second, Democrats could pass an infrastructure bill with zero Republican votes. This is probably what will end up happening, provided that Sens. Joe Manchin III and Kyrsten Sinema , self-appointed guardians of bipartisan compromise, can be persuaded that the effort to win the support of Republicans was performed with sufficient enthusiasm.

Third, the bill could fail altogether, either because Manchin or Sinema pulls their support, or because a Democratic senator falls ill and can’t vote for it in the 50-50 Senate, or for some other reason.

Bipartisan passage of the bill Democrats-only passage of the bill Failure of the bill

What Motivates The Republican Party

The GOP seems wildly hypocritical and unprincipled, until you understand its guiding idea.

In the fall of 2014, the Obama White House was busy trying to stop the spread of Ebola. The administration sent advisers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assist the afflicted countries health ministries, and it sent troops to West Africa to build emergency hospitals. It began screening people arriving in the United States from at-risk nations. It isolated and treated several American medical personnel who contracted the virus abroad and brought it back home.

Toward the end of his new book, The Imposters, Steve Benen reminds us of what the Republican Party was doing while all of this was happening:

As Election Day neared . . . Kentucky Republican eagerness to exploit public anxieties started to spin out of control. Paul publicly questioned Ebola assessments from the actual experts, blamed political correctness for the Ebola threat, and traveled to battleground states questioning whether Obama administration officials had the basic level of competence necessary to maintain public safety.

He added soon after, describing a hypothetical flight, If this was a plane full of people who were symptomatic, youd be at grave risk of getting Ebola. If a plane takes twelve hours, how do you know if people will become symptomatic or not?

The Impostors:How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politicsby Steve BenenWilliam Morrow, 384 pp.

Ed Kilgore

Read Also: What Is Trump’s Approval Rating Among Republicans

How Far Can A Governor Take Emergency Powers

Republicans have criticized Newsoms use of emergency power during the coronavirus pandemic, saying hes exerted too much control without the usual checks and balances. As the pandemic sidelined normal work in the Legislature last year, Newsom issued as many executive orders in 2020 as his predecessor did in eight years.;

Assemblymember Kevin Kiley a Rocklin Republican now running in the recall election sued Newsom to try to limit his emergency power, but ultimately lost in court. With that ruling that a governor has broad authority to change or rescind laws during an emergency, GOP candidates are now talking about how theyd use such power themselves.

I would not use executive authority to create new laws and new policies, as this governor has, Kiley said in an interview with CalMatters. But I would use it to unwind things that never shouldve been there to begin with.;

Kiley said he would end Newsoms pandemic emergency declaration, which would set the stage for reversing related public health rules, such as the requirement that children wear masks at school and that state employees and health care workers get vaccinated against COVID-19 . Other GOP candidates also pledge to reverse Newsoms mask and vax orders.;;;

But the major Republican recall candidates are talking about using emergency powers for a lot more than the pandemic.;

Kevin Faulconer, the Republican former mayor of San Diego, said he would to speed up prevention efforts to clear trees and brush.;

Republican Party Faces Rage From Both Pro

By Peter Eisler, Chris Kahn, Tim Reid, Simon Lewis, Jarrett Renshaw

13 Min Read

WASHINGTON – After riots at the U.S. Capitol by President Donald Trumps supporters, the Republican Party is facing defections from two camps of voters it cant afford to lose: those saying Trump and his allies went too far in contesting the election of Democrat Joe Biden – and those saying they didnt go far enough, according to new polling and interviews with two dozen voters.

Paul Foster – a 65-year-old house painter in Ellsworth, Maine – is furious at party leaders for refusing to back the presidents claims that the election was stolen with millions of fraudulent votes. The party is going to be totally broken if it abandons Trump, Foster says, predicting Trump loyalists will spin off into a new third party.

I just wish he would run away with his tail between his legs, Cupelo says.

Though Republicans have now lost control of the White House and both houses of Congress in just four years, Trumps base remains a potent electoral force in the party. That base helped him capture more voters some 74 million than any Republican in history. The vast majority of his supporters, including 70% of Republicans, remain loyal, according to new Reuters/Ipsos polling conducted days after last weeks riot at the Capitol, and many activists say theyre willing to abandon the GOP for any perceived slight against their leader.

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Theres Even More Drama On The Horizon

Sparse polling of the recall election has shown a tightening contest on whether or not to remove Newsom. Elder also has a growing lead in the replacement race, though at least one poll has YouTube financial advisor and self-identified Democrat Kevin Paffrath actually topping the field. Team Newsom probably has mixed feelings about future polling, fearing both confirmation of the trend favoring Newsoms removal and less alarming numbers that might let Democrats relax back into complacency and indifference.

The anti-recall effort has the resources to dominate paid advertising down the stretch , but it will need to settle on a consistent message and combat the growing word of mouth among Republicans that this is the moment theyve all been waiting for. Another variable involves the internal dynamics of the replacement race. With no general election on tap , Elders Republican rivals have no reason to hold back from savagely attacking him from one angle as Democrats attack him from the other. If late polls show a rival catching up with the talk-show host, it could have a hard-to-predict effect on turnout or might even vault Paffrath into the governorship should Newsom fall.

What If 19 Alternate Histories Imagining A Very Different World

Caller: Can Republican Party Ever Win Again?

Alternate history, long popular with fiction writers, has also been explored by historians and journalists. Here are some of their intriguing conclusions.

1. What if the South won the Civil War?

Effect: America becomes one nation again in 1960.

Explanation: In a 1960 article published in Look magazine, author and Civil War buff MacKinlay Kantor envisioned a history in which the Confederate forces won the Civil War in 1863, forcing the despised President Lincoln into exile. The Southern forces annex Washington, DC renaming it the District of Dixie. The USA moves its capital to Columbus, Ohio now called ;Columbia but can no longer afford to buy Alaska from the Russians. Texas, unhappy with the new arrangement, declares its independence in 1878. Under international pressure, the Southern states gradually abolish slavery. After fighting together in two world wars, the three nations are reunified in 1960 a century after South Carolinas secession had led to the Civil War in the first place.

2. What if Charles Lindbergh were elected President in 1940?

Effect: America joins the Nazis.

3. What if Hitler successfully invaded Russia?

Effect: The Fuhrer is revered in history as a great leader.

4. What if James Dean had survived his car crash?

Effect: Robert Kennedy survives his assassination attempt.

5. What if President Kennedy had survived the assassination attempt?

Effect: Republicans win every election for the next 30 years.

6. What if Christianity missed the West?

Read Also: How Many Federal Judges Are Republicans

‘combative Tribal Angry’: Newt Gingrich Set The Stage For Trump Journalist Says

All these factors combined to produce a windfall for Republicans all over the country in the midterms of 1994, but it was a watershed election in the South. For more than a century after Reconstruction, Democrats had held a majority of the governorships and of the Senate and House seats in the South. Even as the region became accustomed to voting Republican for president, this pattern had held at the statewide and congressional levels.

But in November 1994, in a single day, the majority of Southern governorships, Senate seats and House seats shifted to the Republicans. That majority has held ever since, with more legislative seats and local offices shifting to the GOP as well. The South is now the home base of the Republican Party.

The 2020 aftermath

No wonder that in contesting the results in six swing states he lost, Trump seems to have worked hardest on Georgia. If he had won there, he still would have lost the Electoral College decisively. But as the third most populous Southern state, and the only Southern state to change its choice from 2016, it clearly held special significance.

Trump Says Republicans Would Never Be Elected Again If It Was Easier To Vote

President dismissed Democratic-led push for voter reforms amid coronavirus pandemic during Fox & Friends appearance

Donald Trump admitted on Monday that making it easier to vote in America would hurt the Republican party.

The president made the comments as he dismissed a Democratic-led push for reforms such as vote-by-mail, same-day registration and early voting as states seek to safely run elections amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Democrats had proposed the measures as part of the coronavirus stimulus. They ultimately were not included in the $2.2tn final package, which included only $400m to states to help them run elections.

The things they had in there were crazy. They had things, levels of voting that if youd ever agreed to it, youd never have a Republican elected in this country again, Trump said during an appearance on Fox & Friends. They had things in there about election days and what you do and all sorts of clawbacks. They had things that were just totally crazy and had nothing to do with workers that lost their jobs and companies that we have to save.

I dont want everybody to vote, Paul Weyrich, an influential conservative activist, said in 1980. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.

The urgency of getting election officials those resources should not be lost in the political fighting, said Myrna Perez, director of the Brennan Centers voting rights and elections program.

Also Check: What Do Republicans Think About Healthcare

Reality Check 2: The Fight Is Asymmetricaland Favors The Gop

While Democrats gesture on Twitter at building new systems, Republicans are working the current one with ruthless effectiveness.

The threats to a free and fair election that have emerged since last November are realand require nothing more than the willingness of state legislators to use and abuse the existing tools of government. Arizona, whose two new voting rules were just validated by the Supreme Court, also took the power to litigate election laws away from the Secretary of State and gave the power to the Attorney General. In at least 8 states, Republicans are advancing legislation that would take power away from local or county boards. Many more states are moving to make voting harder. It might be anti-democratic, but it falls well within the rules.

Also within the rules: How McConnell helped build a federal bench almost certain to ratify the power of those legislatures to pass laws far more restrictive than the Arizona rules upheld last week. He creatively eviscerated Senate norms to keep Merrick Garland off the Supreme Court and hand Donald Trump an astonishing three nominations in a single term. And hes recently suggested that, should a Supreme Court vacancy open, hed block even consideration of a Biden nominee if the Republicans take the Senate back in 2022. This is abnormal, anti-democratic and a cynical abuse of powerbut its legal within the existing rules.

The Plausible Solution: Just Win More

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

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

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

Filed Under:

Read Also: How Many Senate Seats Do The Republicans Have

Can Democrats Avoid A Wipeout In 2022

Bidens plan: Go big or go home.

The good news for Democrats who watched Joe Biden unveil a historically ambitious agenda last night is that newly elected presidents have almost always passed some version of their core economic planparticularly when their party controls both congressional chambers, as Bidens does now.

The bad news: Voters have almost always punished the presidents party in the next midterm election anyway. The last two times Democrats had unified controlwith Bill Clinton in 199394 and Barack Obama in 200910they endured especially resounding repudiations in the midterms, which cost Clinton his majority in both chambers and Obama the loss of the House.

Theres a very different strategy this time, David Price, a Democratic representative from North Carolina and a former political scientist, told me. Theres an openness now to the sense that a bolder plan, ironically, might have greater appeal for independents and others we need to attract than trying to trim and split the difference with Republicans.

There is this recognition of this moment and how fleeting it is, and an evaluation that, absent the trifecta of control, it is very hard to move big policy, said a senior official at one of the partys leading outside advocacy groups, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategizing. So you have to take your shot. I think thats part of what undergirds Go big.

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-if-the-republicans-win-everything-again/

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patriotsnet · 3 years

Text

What If The Republicans Win Everything Again

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

What If The Republicans Win Everything Again

The Mail Ballot Factor Is A Wild Card

Saagar Enjeti: Trump WON The GOP Civil War, But Can They EVER Win Again?

Newsom Is Embracing A Risky Message Telling Voters To Ignore The Replacement Race

What If Trump Wins

Read Also: How Many Registered Republicans In Texas

The Gop Would Rather Nation Crumble Than Give Democrats Political Win On Infrastructure

Bipartisan passage of the bill

Democrats-only passage of the bill

Failure of the bill

What Motivates The Republican Party

The GOP seems wildly hypocritical and unprincipled, until you understand its guiding idea.

Toward the end of his new book, The Imposters, Steve Benen reminds us of what the Republican Party was doing while all of this was happening:

The Impostors:How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politicsby Steve BenenWilliam Morrow, 384 pp.

Ed Kilgore

Read Also: What Is Trump’s Approval Rating Among Republicans

How Far Can A Governor Take Emergency Powers

But the major Republican recall candidates are talking about using emergency powers for a lot more than the pandemic.;

Kevin Faulconer, the Republican former mayor of San Diego, said he would to speed up prevention efforts to clear trees and brush.;

Republican Party Faces Rage From Both Pro

By Peter Eisler, Chris Kahn, Tim Reid, Simon Lewis, Jarrett Renshaw

13 Min Read

I just wish he would run away with his tail between his legs, Cupelo says.

You May Like: Did Republicans And Democrats Switch Names

Theres Even More Drama On The Horizon

What If 19 Alternate Histories Imagining A Very Different World

Caller: Can Republican Party Ever Win Again?

Alternate history, long popular with fiction writers, has also been explored by historians and journalists. Here are some of their intriguing conclusions.

1. What if the South won the Civil War?

Effect: America becomes one nation again in 1960.

2. What if Charles Lindbergh were elected President in 1940?

Effect: America joins the Nazis.

3. What if Hitler successfully invaded Russia?

Effect: The Fuhrer is revered in history as a great leader.

4. What if James Dean had survived his car crash?

Effect: Robert Kennedy survives his assassination attempt.

5. What if President Kennedy had survived the assassination attempt?

Effect: Republicans win every election for the next 30 years.

6. What if Christianity missed the West?

Read Also: How Many Federal Judges Are Republicans

‘combative Tribal Angry’: Newt Gingrich Set The Stage For Trump Journalist Says

The 2020 aftermath

Trump Says Republicans Would Never Be Elected Again If It Was Easier To Vote

President dismissed Democratic-led push for voter reforms amid coronavirus pandemic during Fox & Friends appearance

Donald Trump admitted on Monday that making it easier to vote in America would hurt the Republican party.

The urgency of getting election officials those resources should not be lost in the political fighting, said Myrna Perez, director of the Brennan Centers voting rights and elections program.

Also Check: What Do Republicans Think About Healthcare

Reality Check 2: The Fight Is Asymmetricaland Favors The Gop

While Democrats gesture on Twitter at building new systems, Republicans are working the current one with ruthless effectiveness.

The Plausible Solution: Just Win More

Filed Under:

Read Also: How Many Senate Seats Do The Republicans Have

Can Democrats Avoid A Wipeout In 2022

Bidens plan: Go big or go home.

0 notes

hermosilla-ignacio95 · 4 years

Text

03 - 09 - 2020 There's a hidden epidemic of racism in UK schools – but it's finally coming to light

the two biggest stories this year are coronavirus and Black Lives Matter, and one of the places they meet is on a cul-de-sac in Romford, Essex, silent on a weekday afternoon apart from the thrum of lawnmowers. Inside one of those tidy houses lives Intisar Chowdhury, with his wide grin and big glasses and life story that you partly know.

He’s the son of Abdul Mabud Chowdhury, the hospital doctor who even while sick with coronavirus wrote an open letter to Boris Johnson pleading for more masks and gowns for NHS colleagues. When he died three weeks later, 18-year-old Intisar was thrust into the headlines. This was early in the course of the pandemic, when each evening brought news of hundreds more Covid-19 deaths. As the adults in power tore lumps out of each other, a grieving teenager spoke with poise about the government’s lack of consideration for black and Asian carers. Of the more than 30 doctors the British Medical Association knows to have died in this pandemic, around 90% came from ethnic minorities, it says.

When we met earlier this month, Intisar showed podcast producer Mythili Rao and me the garden where his parents threw parties, the conservatory where his dad’s tablas sit silent. He has had more life pushed into the past few weeks than most schoolboys should have to live over 18 years. He could, maybe should, have taken a rest. Instead he is doing something extraordinary.

Outraged by the police killing of George Floyd, he wants to use whatever attention he has gained to battle racism. Along with his friend Clara, he appealed last month for other teenagers to recount the racism they face at school. As the call-out spread across social media, dozens of stories flooded in, from Lincolnshire to Surrey to Kent. Assembled into a dossier and reported exclusively by the Guardian, they comprise a horrific indicator of the abuse and even assaults dished out to black and Asian children by their peers and sometimes teachers in English schools.

And they crack some of the orthodoxies around race. Those big-name commentators fretting they could be silenced by “cancel culture” would do well to listen to these children who usually have no voice. Those who affect to believe that the Black Lives Matter movement is all about rusty statues or that the UK is a “post-racial” utopia should read the accounts from black schoolboys told by teachers to stop hanging out together “because we looked threatening in a gang”, or the Muslims warned by staff not “to congregate in large groups” – supposedly to prevent terrorist radicalisation.

Then there’s Appy, a black girl who goes to her Midlands grammar with natural hair, only to be told by senior staff it’s against “governmental regulations”. She is frogmarched to a storeroom, given a roll of navy blue fabric and ordered to sew her own headscarf.

In a different classroom, a teacher interrupts his presentation with a slide from a Ribena ad – a cartoon of a fat, purple blackcurrant with outsized facial features. He spends the next five minutes calling the only two black students in class, “the Ribena boys”. When one of them writes “the entire class laughed”, you feel the heat of his shame.

Doctor who pleaded for more hospital PPE dies of coronavirusRead more

We entrust our children to teachers, telling them that doing well in education helps you do well at life, believing that classrooms teach tomorrow’s adults to live together. But what many kids learn is that there isn’t the same tolerance for them as for others, whether on the syllabus or in the playground. Nor do their teachers necessarily get it: while 25% of pupils at English schools are from ethnic minorities, 93% of heads are white British.

This dossier doesn’t pretend to be science. It is a self-selected sample of students telling their side of the story, although no school we put allegations to denied them. As a gauge of the scope or scale of racism in schools, this collection is useless – but so is everything else. Academics at the University of Manchester note that the only record is those incidents that schools log with police as hate crimes. What this collection gives instead is rare indeed: a record by minority-ethnic students of their daily humiliations, the sort of thing that teens don’t tell their parents, out of guilt or a sense of isolation.

I remember that feeling. I started school at my mother’s primary in Hackney, east London, until she fell badly ill and I was moved to my local primary in Edmonton, north London. It was topsy-turvy: from holding my mum’s hand to being handed to a childminder, from multicultural inner London to (then) white-working class outer suburb. As almost the only Indian-origin kid at the new school, I went out on that first break into the playground to find what seemed like every single boy in the school hanging off the fence and chanting “rubber lips, nigger lips” – and worse. I was friendless, helpless. This continued day after day, so I went to a teacher who shrugged that they’d eventually get bored. Again, the helplessness.

It actually stopped on day four, thanks to a spelling test where I got top marks. From then on, all the boys with skinhead brothers wanted to copy my answers. So: good marks equalled not getting your head kicked in. It was my introduction to what meritocracy meant for the likes of me.

That was back in the 1980s, and I’d assumed things had got better. In many places I’m sure they have, but to read this dossier is to see why in a poll published by ITV last week, 62% of black Britons agreed that the education system had a culture of racism. It is also to see just how school communities can punish their non-white children.

Black girls are still policed for their physical appearance; Asian kids are laughed at for having strict parents. In the whiter areas or the better schools, there is often a sense that the minority-ethnic children are lucky just to be there. Naomi told me about starting primary in Chelmsford, Essex, and being the only black girl in her class. Kids called her “poo”, said she smelled and laughed at her hair. “I felt very, very ugly,” she said. One bully physically assaulted her.

Raised a Christian, she would ask God “what I did wrong for me to be black … Like, my whole life is a mistake”. She was six and this was 2010, just two years before the Olympics ceremony celebrated multicultural Britain.

For Naomi, as for me, being the target of racist abuse was an intimate shame, something that followed us home from the school gate and made us wonder what was wrong with us. Yet to see so many similar stories gathered together at first provokes sadness, then anger, but finally a strange optimism. Because in their collected weight, these testimonies show that it wasn’t our fault at all. The responsibility always lay with our tormentors and the society that enabled them. And for an 18-year-old boy to achieve that, in the depths of his own grief, is a remarkable feat.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/22/racism-uk-schools-teenager

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techcrunchappcom · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/nobodys-ever-seen-anything-like-this-how-coronavirusturned-the-us-election-upside-down-the-guardian/

'Nobody’s ever seen anything like this': how coronavirus turned the US election upside down - The Guardian

Mar-a-Lago was the place to see and be seen for guests who paid thousands of dollars for the privilege on New Year’s Eve. Diamonds and furs abounded on the red carpet. When Donald Trump arrived at his estate in Palm Beach, Florida, in high spirits and a tuxedo, he declared: “We’re going to have a great year, I predict.”

But earlier that day, a Chinese government website had identified a “pneumonia of unknown cause” in the area surrounding a seafood market in Wuhan. When midnight struck and 2020 dawned, no one could have guessed how this microscopic pathogen would turn the world upside down, infecting 15 million people, killing 625,000, crippling economies and wiping out landmark events such as the Olympic Games.

America is no exception. The coronavirus pandemic has upended the presidential election, which, on Sunday, will be just one hundred days away. It has changed the issues, the way the fight is fought and quite possibly the outcome. The nation’s biggest economic crisis for 75 years, and worst public health crisis for a century, is an asteroid strike that has rewritten the rules of politics and left historians grasping for election year comparisons.

“There is probably nothing the same as coronavirus,” said Thomas Schwartz, a history professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “Obviously, you have issues that stir the public up: 1968 would have been Vietnam and the disturbances that had taken place in the cities. But nothing quite as universal and affecting such a wide band of Americans as the coronavirus. That is really new.”

Soon after that New Year’s Eve celebration at Mar-a-Lago, Trump would be acquitted by Republicans at his Senate impeachment trial and triumphantly brandish the next day’s Washington Post front page at the White House. In his own mind, at least, he was riding a strong economy on his way to re-election, while Democrats struggled to tally results in their Iowa caucuses or settle on a unifying presidential nominee.

Trump in February, in defiant mood following his acquittal in his Senate impeachment trial. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

But the virus was on the move. On 22 January, Trump claimed that it “is totally under control” and is “going to be just fine”. On 2 February, he insisted he had stopped its spread by restricting travel from China. On 27 February, he said at the White House: “One day – it’s like a miracle – it will disappear.” And so it went on in what critics now say was a historic feat of denial and failure in leadership.

Covid-19 swept through New York, killing thousands of people. Trump declared himself a “wartime president” and held daily briefings in April but then reportedly “got bored” and switched emphasis to reviving the economy – seen as crucial to his re-election chances. Yet while the infection and death tolls ticked up, his approval ratings ticked down.

Now it seems the old maxim of “It’s the economy, stupid” will be replaced by “It’s the virus, stupid” as the defining issue for voters, not least because the suffering and death have a direct impact on the economy itself: Americans have filed 52.7m unemployment claims over the past four months.

Another famous campaign question, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”, now seems purely rhetorical. The Trump campaign has been forced to abandon the slogan “Keep America great” in favour of “Make America great again, again”.

Schwartz added: “When Trump had the economy going gangbusters he had a stronger argument on his behalf that, despite his disruptiveness and unpleasantness, people were doing OK and things seemed to be moving ahead. But look at the polling on whether the country’s going in a good direction or a bad direction and, boy, did that spike with the bad direction since March.”

Trump was arguably an unusually lucky president for his first three years, not having to face the type of major crisis that confronted many of his predecessors, enabling him to persist as a gadfly reality TV star tweeting about celebrities instead of reading national security briefs. With the eruption of the virus, that luck ran out spectacularly.

America now has 4m infections and more than 140,000 deaths, the highest tallies in the world. Cases have doubled in the past six weeks even as curves flatten in Europe.

The president continues to defend his response, pointing to travel restrictions he imposed, 50m tests conducted – more than any other country – and mass distribution of ventilators. “We’re all in this together,” he said on Wednesday. “And as Americans, we’re going to get this complete. We’re going to do it properly. We’ve been doing it properly. Sections of the country come up that we didn’t anticipate – for instance, Florida, Texas, et cetera – but we’re working with very talented people, very brilliant people, and it’s all going to work out, and it is working out.”

The pandemic was a moment when Trump could have proved his doubters wrong. He did not rise to the challenge

But his niece Mary Trump, author of a new family memoir, said his handling of the pandemic has been “criminal”. She added: “It was avoidable, it was preventable and even if we hadn’t gotten a hold of it right away, the statistics are pretty clear. Two weeks earlier, what, 90% of deaths could have been avoided? And they haven’t been, simply because he refused to wear a mask because doing so would have admitted that he was wrong about something, and that is something he cannot do.”

The pandemic was a moment when Trump could have surprised the world and proved his doubters wrong. He did not rise to the challenge in the eyes of those critics. He failed to devise a national strategy on testing, rarely spoke of the victims, refused to wear a mask until recently and undermined top public health experts such as Dr Anthony Fauci.

Leon Panetta, a former defence secretary and CIA director, said: “If you operate on the basic premise that crisis defines leadership, then you’d have to say that this crisis has also defined the failure of leadership. That has without question impacted on politics in this country.

“It’s pretty clear that there are a hell of a lot of constituencies out there that feel that he’s failed to lead with this issue. There’s a sense that in many ways he’s basically said, ‘You’re on your own in terms of dealing with this’. He at one point said he doesn’t take responsibility for what’s happening with this virus and I think that sent a real message to the country that the president’s gone awol on the country at a time of crisis.”

Such is the backlash that multiple opinion polls show the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden leading Trump by double digits, and ahead in the battleground states that will decide the electoral college. The president’s best hope now might be an “October surprise” in the form of a coronavirus vaccine. There is no clearer example of how everything has changed than Texas, which no Democrat has won since 1976. On Wednesday, a record 197 deaths from Covid-19 were reported while a Quinnipiac poll showed Biden leading Trump 45% to 44%.

Filemon Vela, a Democratic congressman from southern Texas, said: “Since the beginning of the pandemic, President Trump and our own governor, Greg Abbott, have made tactical decisions that are now resulting in the killing of Texans en masse. Any rational thinking Texan would be crazy if they voted for Donald Trump, given the way that the state is being ravaged by the virus.

“Across the state, ICUs are full. Back in my home town, patients that should be in the ICU are having to wait in emergency rooms. Patients who can’t get into emergency rooms are having to wait in ambulances for hours outside the hospital. It is a catastrophic situation and I believe that, when November comes around, the people of Texas are going to remember it.”

A protest in support of Black Lives Matter in New York in June. Trump seized on the protest by attempting to stoke ‘culture war’ divisions. Photograph: Bryan R Smith/AFP/Getty Images

Against the implacable foe of the virus, Trump has repeatedly sought to divert and distract. He seized on the Black Lives Matter protests against the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis not with healing and compassion but by attempting to stoke “culture war” divisions over crime and Confederate statues. Still, the pandemic persisted.

Bill Galston, a former policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, said: “If the election becomes a referendum on the president’s handling of the pandemic, he cannot win. It’s as simple as that and so, barring some miraculously favourable developments in the next hundred days, he has no choice but to change the subject as best as he can.”

The pandemic has not only transmogrified the substance of the election but also the style. Democrats were fortunate to get most their primaries out of the way and mostly unite behind a nominee before the storm hit. Other rituals of the election year calendar – campaign rallies, convention speeches, presidential debates – will be unrecognisable.

So far, the altered landscape appears to be hurting Trump and helping Biden. In 2016, the Republican thrived on rambunctious rallies where crowds chanted “Build the wall!” and, referring to his opponent Hillary Clinton, “Lock her up!” The theatre seemingly gave him a blood transfusion of political energy while building a cult of personality for crowds, often in long-neglected small towns, who then fanned out to spread the word.

Last month, however, a Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, drew a disappointingly small crowd amid virus fears, and another in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was cancelled. No more have been announced. The president has also been forced to call off Republican national convention events next month in Jacksonville, Florida, where he had been planning to make a splashy acceptance speech before a cheering crowd.

Democrats will also hold a delayed and pared-down convention in Milwaukee in August, with much of it migrating online. Biden, who at 77 would be the oldest president ever elected, has been able to lie low in his basement in Wilmington, Delaware, spared from the punishment of constant campaigning and awkward encounters that could invite his notorious gaffes. Instead the pandemic plays to his perceived strengths of empathy, experience and stability.

Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, added: “Nobody’s ever seen anything like this and nobody knows what the net effect is going to be. I don’t know to what extent the raucous Trump rallies of 2016 were instrumental to his success but what we do know is that’s not a strategy that can be repeated in 2020.”

But there may be no greater demonstration of the pandemic’s reach than polling day itself, due to take place on 3 November amid health fears, a surge of mail-in voting and a prolonged count that Trump might seek to discredit and exploit.

This week more than 30 advocacy groups and grassroots organisations joined Protect the Results, a project to mobilise millions of people should Trump “contest the election results, refuse to concede after losing, or claim victory before all the votes are counted”.

Panetta, a former White House chief of staff, has heard similar talk from friends. “On conferences and Zoom calls and emails I’m getting concern that this is not a president who has ever shown a tendency to operate with a degree of class in accepting defeat and so there’s a sense that he will resist the results of the election if it’s close,” he said.

“I guess the hope for a lot of people I’ve talked to is that the election results are so clear that it makes it very difficult for the president to even pretend that somehow the vote was wrong.”

#Uncategorized

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365news · 5 years

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365NEWS NEWSPAPERS HEADLINES FOR FRIDAY 21ST JUNE 2019

365NEWS NEWSPAPERS HEADLINES FOR FRIDAY 21ST JUNE 2019 *PUNCH* Six held for illegal possession of firearms in Katsina Buhari, APC governors and the missing policy conversation CBN forex intervention hits $42.3bn in one year Dont panic over traffic law, says LASTMA Appeal court dismisses suit seeking to sack Nnamani Police arrest five cattle rustlers in Plateau, recover cows Keeping children out of school a crime, says Buhari Court orders NIS to pay former employee N9.7m How todays entrepreneur should handle corruption Obiano feeds NYSC members with N10m World number one, Osaka out of Birmingham Cleric charges Nigerians to embrace production Obaseki restates commitment to welfare of sickle cell patients FG charges Senator Nwaoboshi with false assets declaration at CCT Youths, Nigerias greatest asset, says Oyetola Smart ways to advertise small business Forte Oil gets new CEO, CFO after Otedolas share sale Lafarge share price hits three-week high Mutual funds investment hits N746.5bn Julius Berger grows profit by 142.4% to N6.1bn Stop hosting government data abroad, NITDA warns MDAs NCAA, operators meet over planned demolition of telecoms masts Gas shortage, others cut power generation by 3,109.5MW *VANGUARD* NYSC withdraws Corps members from 'war zone areas' in Niger State Drama as HDP faction moves to withdraw petition against Buhari NCC moves to secure Nigeria's cyber-space IYC wants more Ijaw appointed as judges Beneficiaries protest alleged abandonment of Neighbourhood Watch by Rivers govt Leadership of Warri South Legislative Arm zoned to Agbarha-Warri ' Onotor NNPC: Stakeholders react, set agenda for new team We'll resist Fulani vigilantes in Igboland, Ohanaeze tells Miyetti Allah HR-V completes Honda passenger car line up Special Range Rover for astronauts Maintain status quo, court orders Ganduje, Emir Sanusi Mutilated remains of 18-yr-old tailor found in sack Kogi guber: APC pressure group rejects indirect Primary Archbishop Idahosa writes Obaseki, urges governor to shun detractors Ahmadiyya urges Nigerians on religious tolerance PDP governors blast police over alleged raid on Ishaku's residence 9th Assembly Leadership : PDP to probe members' voting pattern Breaking: FG to proscribe Almajiri system Boko Haram, insecurity has affected revenue generation in North West ' Customs boss Omo-Agege appoints Igbuzor, Odunuga and Owoeye-Wise as top aides Ikeja Electric rolls out prepaid meters for Ikorodu customers under MAP Scheme when a sleeping giant wakes up he will surprise everybody ' Obasanjo Consumer Watch: Bag of Onions N12,000 *THE NATION* Egypt 2019Africas soccer fiesta begins Kyari is NNPC boss as Buhari rejects tenure extension for Baru DSS parades fake doctor for killing 15 patients EFCC re-arraigns American over $1.2m Green Card fraud Lagos to integrate sexual education in curriculum Monarch to Army chief: call your men to order Council donates five 500 KVA transformers Oke-Osanyintolu, Bolowotan get Sanwo-Olus appointments Collapsed Synagogue building was in perfect condition Why President replaced Baru with Kyari PDP governors condemm police raid on Ishakus Abuja residence Banditry, Kidnapping, cultism: NEC sets up Security, Policing Committee Governors endorse state police to fight criminals Who succeeds Dickson in Bayelsa Zlatan, Mayorkun, Runtown, Teni 11 others for BUDX Show How Nigeria, others can achieve 2030 Agenda, by report Buhari needs experts to drive economic agenda Heartache over soaring debt servicing cost Again, global manufacturing growth down in Q1 2019 Shea butter policyll boost export, create jobs Capri-Sun 100ml pack makes its debut Industrial peace confab holds at MINILS June 25 Market embraces Alaro Citys first phase *THISDAY* Embrace Digital Technology, Elumelu Tells Students, Young Professionals AMCON MD Congratulates Senate President, Speaker FCMB Restates Commitment to Growth of Businesses RMB Holds Economic Conference Lafarge Africa Reduces Loss to N8.8bn on Tax Credit Hailu: Our Brand Is Stronger Despite B737 MAX Crash As NIMASA Distributes Relief Materials to IDPs NPAs Improved Revenue Generation NERC Seeks Performance Improvement Plans for Discos NPA: Ships Carrying Petrol, Others Expected at Lagos Ports Next Week Global Shipping Confidence Dips on US China Trade War Inspiring Young Africans Interest in Aviation Air Pollution Kills 7m people Globally Every Year EU Supports Nigeria, Beninoise Customs with N8.1bn Scanner Promoting Local Production in Plastic Industry Ethiopian Retains Best Airline Award NAMA Solicits IATA Collaboration on Manpower Development ASKY/Ethiopian Airlines Commence Lagos to Johannesburg Flight IAG Indicates Interest in 200 Boeing 737 MAX Jets Gone are Those Days of Locust in Ekiti Group Hosts Forum on Global Challenges RE: Uchas fight to Redeem Ebonyi APC IOD Harps on Adherence to Ethics in Organisations *THE SUN* y HDP splits over Buhari at presidential tribunal Blame Oshiomhole for Edo APC crisis -Idahosa Confusion as 2 speakers emerge in 9th Bauchi Assembly Idahosa: Blame Oshiomhole for Edo APC crisis 9th Plateau Assembly will pass quality bills ' Speaker Lawan drops Adedayo as Media Adviser 11 Bauchi House members elect speaker Presidential tribunal: Drama as factional HDP chairman ask tribunal to strike out petition against Buhari Bayelsa guber: Dickson commissioner begs Jonathan's kinsmen to unite Thousands protest in Malawi against poll result National coach urges corporate bodies to support handball federation in attending competitions VAR under fire as Argentina beats Scotland FIFA to take over running of CAF NIS to roll-out 10-year validity e-passport FG to remodel 10,000 schools yearly 'Osinbajo Wike receives Nigerian Academy of Education honours OPEC, NEITI congratulate Kyari over appointment as NNPC GMD It's criminal to keep children out of school 'Buhari Shake up in NNPC as Buhari appoints Kyari new GMD, 7 COOs Ihedioha in Russia for AfrExim Bank conference Lawan drops Adedayo as media 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complete projects, create jobs for youths DSS arrest fake medical doctor in Adamawa NYSC rallying point to mobilise Nigerian youths ' Kwara Gov Lawan drops Adedayo as Media Adviser Zamfara: Bandits ready to lay down arms ' police commissioner Customs intercepts banned injection worth N100m in Kano NAF graduates more pilots for engagement in combat operations Keeping children out of school a crime-Buhari Unbundling Mass Communication requiresuuuyyy blueprint for proper implementation, says Don Oil prices jump as downed US drone stokes Middle East tensions SMEDAN disburses over N400m to 109 cooperatives Julius Berger supports Nigeria's infrastructural drive We have paid $25m tax, recruited 1000 Nigerians ' StarTimes ECOWAS to strengthen SON, others for regional product certification Gulf oil producers to keep output within OPEC target in July How FG can improve local content in oil, gas sector As Air Peace hits international stage Contributory pension: PenCom verifies prospective retirees from July 1 *TRIBUNE* Nigeria's population to hit 733m by 2050 as third highest ' UN report Again, Shi'ites raise alarm over El-Zakzaky, wife deteriorating health EFCC arrests 27 suspected 'Yahoo Boys' in Osogbo, recovers eight exotic cars Court shifts Kashamu's fresh extradition case to June 27 Imbibe lessons of Orientation Course, Sanwo-Olu tells Corps members Lawan drops Festus Adedayo as Media Adviser FRSC to clampdown on motorcycles, tricycles without number plates from August 1 Tension rises in UniAbuja over moves to 'impose' outsider as VC My passion is to teach, empower people ' Digital marketer, Fabz Prison congestion: Maximum prison set to be opened in Ibadan *LEADERSHIP* Another Year 2 More Bodies Recovered As Niger APC, Senator-elect Donate Materials Oyo Barbers Protest Illegal Removal Of President I The Need For Inclusion Of PWDs In National, Public Libraries Foundation Provides Medical Assistance To Benue IDPs NDE Trains 1000, Empowers 200 In Vocational Skills EFCC Re-arraigns American For Defrauding 3 Nigerians Of $565,000 Domestic Staff Kills Employer, Mother In Lagos Police Parade Woman Who Stole 3-day-old Baby In Jos Epidemic Imminent In Abuja Over Debts Owed Cleaning Contractors 2019 Polls: Between EU's Report, INEC And PDP SBMEN Calls For Participation In Online, Magazine Editorial Workshop Govt Urged To Promote African Culture Via Theatre, Music Awka Catches Highlife Fever As Hi-Life Fest Heads To Asaba EFCC Summit: Taking Anti-corruption Fight To Greater Heights Firm To Digitise Police Database #My9jaHustle: Ikenna Chidoka Promoting SBOs Across Nigeria Mo Abudu To Chair 47th Emmy Awards Gala In November Access Bank To Offer Financial Support To Women Entrepreneurs Quality Education Key To Youth Development ' Nya-Etok Reconstruction Of Umuahia-Ikwuano-Ikot Ekpene Road To Begin Soon Singer Annjay Launches New Fashion Product Cura Sony Music WA Unveils Oluwaseun Lloyd As General Manager *BLUE PRINT* NAHCON sets up task force on visa violation, inaugurates c'ttees France 2019: Super Falcons face Germany in World Cup knockout stage, Madu thanks fans for support Confirmed! Super Falcons into World Cup round of 16 in France NEC establishes committee on security, policing to address banditry, kidnapping IFAD-VCDP injected over N10b into Ebonyi economy since 2014 Insecurity: Army bans sales of petroleum products in jerrycans Police parade 3 secondary teachers for exam malpractice 3,000 IDPs receive NAF free medicare service in Niger Kogi poll: Buhari, monarchs can't guarantee Yahaya Bello's re-election ' Audu Insecurity in my constituency makes me lose sleep 'Ari It's now a crime for parents not to send children to schools ' Buhari Looking beyond IRI, NDI report on 2019 elections Extradition: Court adjourns Kashamu's fresh suit to June 27 Golden Boot:Sanusi, Udoh get N2m each Basketball Premier League commences on July 8, Warriors, Union Bank, Islanders return Alleged money laundering: Jonathan not Dasuki, gave me N400M, Metuh opens up in court Oshiomhole responsible for Edo APC crisis PDP govs condemn police raid on Taraba gov's residence Buhari inaugurates economiccouncil, tasks governors on robust IGR Buhari calls for peace in Benin Republic Gov Emmanuel to upgrade A'Ibom NYSC facilities Yobe: UNHCR seeks support to address plights of IDPs Why Buhari appointed Kyari as GMD ' NNPC *BUSINESSDAY* Updated: CBN responds to BusinessDay's report, says TSA covers FG's overdraft Stop Driving Capital Away: A Lesson from South Africa Insurgency: Buratai's comments on soldiers' commitment unfortunate, demoralising ' Experts Updated: Lafarge Africa sells South African subsidiary to LafargeHolcim for $316m The dangerous seductiveness of collective narcissism Consumer firms current debt level doesn't call for deleveraging Discos, signs & wonders, and citizens furry Why Eterna plc is embarking on a five year corporate plan South-East 2023: Applying the SDGs Otedola exits Forte Oil shares in N64.3bn off-market deals *SPORTS* 700 athletes to participate in Awoture Eleyae's U-15 Open Championshipd - Peoples Daily 76ers Rumors: Jonathon Simmons, No. 42 NBA Draft Pick Traded to Wizards for Cash - Bleacher Report Abuja agog for 41st cbn senior tennis - New Telegraph Abuja Agog for 41st CBN Senior Tennis Championship - Thisday Adam Mukhtar emerges as FCT FA chairman - Daily Trust Admiral Schofield to Wizards: 2019 NBA Draft Scouting Profile and Analysis - Bleacher Report AFCON 2019 Kicks Off Today Amidst Security Concerns - Leadership AFCON 2019 Kicks Off With Egypt Playing Zimbabwe - Daily Independent AFCON 2019 TV Broadcast: NNPC assures NTA/HotSports of support - New Telegraph Afcon: Are Mohamed Salah's Egypt primed to disappoint at the Nations Cup - Goal Read the full article

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anexplanationofunfortunateevents · 7 years

Text

election hacks were more extensive than previously reported

I’m trying to stay away from overused words like “bombshell.” So I’ll say, Monday night’s news was a story that you really do need to know. An NSA whistleblower leaked a top secret document which concluded that the Russian military, less than a week before the 2016 election, made numerous attacks on the election system itself. Basically, it looks like they were trying to get at the voter rolls, through an attack on a voting software company used by numerous states and on local election officials. Soon after the story dropped, the whistleblower was arrested for releasing a classified document - which means the government admits that this is an authentic classified document. (And yes, her name really is Reality Winner.)

This is a scenario which was widely suspected by those of us who were following the story, but which was largely downplayed or ignored by the most influential reporters and (at least in public) politicians. Up until now, the story has been that the attack on the election was limited to the disinformation campaign. Here’s the Intercept’s nutshell on what we do and don’t know about the information leaked:

Text:

NSA REPORT DETAILS RUSSIAN HACKING EFFORT DAYS BEFORE ELECTION

What we know:

1. The NSA believes Russian hackers breached at least one e-voting vendor. 2. The NSA believes these hackers tried to infect American local government officials with computer-hijacking malware. 3. The NSA believes the hackers are part of a special team within Russian military intelligence focused on American and other foreign elections.

What we don’t know:

1. There’s no indication that the cyberattacks had any effect on the outcome of the election. 2. The NSA isn’t sure if any officials at the local level were infected with the Russian malware. 3. It’s unclear why the hackers targeted email accounts associated with the American Samoa absentee ballot system.

Again, we don’t know if this particular attack accomplished anything. The fact that attacks like this were being made as late as November is huge.

The report is confident the Russian military (GRU) was directly responsible. That’s different than the email hacks, which were still directed by the Kremlin, but done by cutout groups with cutesy names like “Cozy Bear.”*

This is a report about one line of attack, on one company and then on employees of that company’s client states. It’s not the only one that happened. Senator Mark Warner, ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Community, says that there were more attacks like it that the public doesn’t know about.

Even if it was the only one, that would still be deadly serious. The software company supports elections in eight states. If Florida and North Carolina – both of which are served by the company targeted, both of which were close the whole way through – had gone the other way, that would’ve put Clinton over the top. Several counties in Florida confirmed these attempts were made on their systems. (What, you thought Florida wasn't patient zero for electoral bullshit? Just as a general rule, Florida is why we can’t have nice things.) Even assuming this particular attack didn't get any further than the report says, this needs to be a wake-up call.

It’s hard to know exactly what to make of this story. It may feel intuitively that something would have forced us all to notice if enough voters had been thrown off the rolls to make a difference. At least, that’s how it seems to feel to the affluent white men who tend to control the conversation. In fact, we have had elections where that’s exactly what happened to thousands of people of color. Republicans do not want us to investigate this theory of Russian election tampering, because if we do, then Republicans might not be able to tamper with elections like this anymore.

To be clear: wild shit does happen. Sometimes you really do draw what seems to be an impossibly good hand. It is entirely possible for the national polls to have been on target while the polling in critical states was off just enough to tip the state to Trump by a fraction of a percent. There are perfectly reasonable explanations for the nearly unprecedented (arguably entirely unprecedented, depending on what you make of the shenanigans of 1876) split between the popular vote and the electoral college. Neither of those things are particularly likely, but it was always possible for them to occur, separately or together. If everything before and since Election Day played out like the more or less normal elections of, say, 2004 or 2012, sheer chance would be the best explanation.

However. When you know that someone with the necessary competence and resources has made an extensive effort toward and stands to benefit from an unusual event, and then the unusual event happens, it’s hard to say that sheer chance is the most plausible explanation. If somebody just in Atlantic City for the weekend gets dealt a royal flush, good for them. If somebody who’s already been banned from the casino for cheating but gets in under the cover of his very successful magic act gets dealt a royal flush, questions are entirely appropriate.

youtube

“You hear that? He ran into her knife ten times! Nothing to see here, I guess.” - no one.

I'm not jumping to conclusions about how far this all went, and neither should you. God knows we spent most of last year dealing with baseless assertions about "rigged" elections. (Almost as if there was a propaganda campaign which trapped a candidate in a rhetorical no-win situation and desensitized the public to serious allegations - oh, wait, there was.) I'm saying you need to brace yourself, because you might need to believe some things that seem too big and too scary to be true. We're at this point in part because too many people said "psht, that would never really happen" about things that were happening right in front of their faces. We don't know how far this went. We do need to accept the possibility that it could have gone really fucking far.

Further reading:

The original report is pretty technical and dense. Somewhat less technical summaries: Boing Boing, Newsweek, the Guardian.

What you can do:

Whether or not this particular hack was successful, you can be sure that the voter rolls were purged and will be purged again, because the GOP doesn't have to hack anyone to do it. That means you have to vote for candidates who promise to protect voter rights, ESPECIALLY for state and local offices, where these policies are usually set. You can also help out with voter registration drives in your community. Help out at a voter registration drive with organizations like Rock the Vote and Swing Left. Start just reminding people once in a while to register now, so we don't have to scramble six weeks before the next election.

PAY ATTENTION

*Clarification, 11/16/17: It is true that the FSB carried out the thefts and release of emails and they did not carry out the attack detailed here. This was executed by the GRU (Russian military intelligence), which also has a cutesy nickname of its own (Fancy Bear). Those whimsical designations came from the cyber security company which found the viruses and do not necessarily signify that the hackers were cutout groups. This isn’t directly relevant to the details of this report, but it’s good to be as clear as we can.

#trump russia #election 2016 #donald trump #voting rights

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wewithus · 7 years

Link

The Five Minutes for Freedom series is a collection of small, step-by-step walkthroughs designed to help you take concrete political action in support of the principles of We With Us. The articles in the series are designed to be read and their steps followed in order, as later posts frequently build on earlier ones. A chronological index of all posts in the series can be found here. While this information is targeted primarily at US readers, we welcome readers from all countries and encourage you to adapt these strategies as necessary for your jurisdiction.

5M4F 11: Protest by Phone (Round 2) [Sessions, Tillerson, Bannon, and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act] Dependencies: 5M4F10. (TIME SENSITIVE)

I posted a preview of this when the Senate confirmation hearings started on Tuesday, but I’ll give you the full run down here: this week and next (at least), your 5M4F tasks will be to script, and then make, calls to your representatives to ask them to rigorously vet and ultimately reject the confirmation of Trump’s most dangerous cabinet and White House appointments, to protest those appointments after the fact, and/or to object to top-level legislative priorities of the incoming administration.

Two of the appointments you’ll be protesting this week are cabinet appointments and require Senate approval: Jeff Sessions and Rex Tillerson (nominated for Attorney General and Secretary of State, respectively). The third, Steve Bannon, is being appointed to a White House position that does not require Senate approval, but you still need to call your representatives and put pressure on them to act in opposition to his appointment. Your voice is also urgently needed to halt the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

The basic thrust of the task is pretty simple: write yourself a script that you can use to walk you through your calls to your representatives (there is an in-depth breakdown of this process in 5M4F5, which is also excerpted behind the cut), then give your local field offices a series of calls to protest these appointments. To be most effective, you want to only call your representatives about one issue at a time, so you will need to make multiple calls throughout the week to best keep your calls focused and to the point.

I also strongly urge you to share this information with your friends and family offline and encourage them to join you in making calls with you. Our goal should be to keep the phones ringing at every field office in the country, all week long, demanding that our elected representatives do their jobs, i.e., represent us.

If you want to do this all in one go: unfortunately, these can’t be completely finished all in one go, because of the issue of keeping individual calls focused on a single issue. Also, it is probable that your local field office will be closed on Monday because of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. But what you can do is script all your calls together (that you can do today, and it’s basically a copy-paste job, so it shouldn’t be too onerous), then make your three calls about Sessions in one block on Tuesday, your three calls about Tillerson in one block on Wednesday, et cetera.

If you want to do this five minutes at a time: easier! Your three scripts for a single appointee will probably only take you about five minutes to assemble, and one call will probably take about five minutes to make. You can sprinkle your scripting throughout the day today, and sprinkle your calls throughout your field offices’ business hours during the week; or script your calls about Sessions today, then call about Sessions and script for Tillerson Tuesday; whatever.

You might want to actually make your ACA calls first, potentially—as I understand it, the actual confirmations of Sessions and Tillerson can't happen until just after the inauguration. They can do more harm to the ACA before that.

There is some starter info on each of the four nominees/appointees/issues, with reasons to call about them, behind the cut; as well as a template for your scripts, and some info about what to do if you can’t make calls. Shortcut links:

Jeff Sessions.

Rex Tillerson.

Steve Bannon.

The Affordable Care Act.

A note on how to protest amid breaking news.

How to write your scripts.

What to do if you can’t make calls.

Once you've made your calls, check in on this week's poll to let your fellow humans know you've got their backs!

Jeff Sessions (nominated for Attorney General): Jeff Sessions has a long history of racist remarks and is virulently anti-immigrant. Paraphrasing from that article: his only problem with the KKK is that they smoke weed, and he opposes both amnesty for undocumented workers and in fact legal immigration as well, arguing that it depresses wages and swells welfare rolls, neither of which is true. He also doesn’t believe in man-made climate change, and since climate change has a greater impact on the poor and other vulnerable groups than it does on wealthy and privileged groups, climate change is in fact a human rights issue. He also supports banning Muslim immigration to the United States and will almost certainly work to dismantle the progress that has been made under the Obama Administration in almost every area of criminal justice reform and civil rights. This post on The Guardian tracks the questions put to Sessions during his confirmation hearings on Jan. 10-11th and the concerns raised about his record and may be useful to you in identifying the role your senators are playing in the process.

Rex Tillerson (nominated for Secretary of State): Tillerson is not only historically unqualified to be Secretary of State, he also has a history of acting in direct opposition to American foreign policy interests in Iraq and deep, long-term ties to Russian state businesses and political operators, which should be really, really worrying no matter where you fall on the political spectrum. Let’s be really clear: this isn’t “red-baiting”. The reason why everyone reading this should be very concerned about the new administration’s affection for and deference to Russia is because—directly quoting from that NY Times article—”...today’s Russia isn’t Communist, or even leftist; it’s just an authoritarian state, with a cult of personality around its strongman, that showers benefits on an immensely wealthy oligarchy while brutally suppressing opposition and criticism.“ Lest you still believe that Russia is a country that is on the side of the left: Russia has incredibly restrictive laws against LGBTQ people, scores 148 out of 180 in the world in rankings of countries by the degree of freedom afforded to the press, and is currently moving to decriminalize domestic violence. It also directly interfered with our ability to hold a free and fair election, not just via hacking but also manipulating not only Trump but also Jill Stein, because the importance of the third-party vote in taking down Hillary Clinton. Russia is not a friend to American interests (or EU interests, or NATO interests)—but it is a friend to Exxon-Mobile. All of this, particularly when combined with Tillerson’s track record of failing to prioritize American interests, means that his confirmation would directly threaten your rights and the rights of your fellow humans. This post on The Guardian covers some of the key details from his confirmation hearing on Wednesday; their liveblog of the confirmation hearing is much more detailed (recommended) but also covers the Trump press conference, since it was going on at the same time, so some of the details of the confirmation hearing itself are getting buried. (Note: this is probably not an accident.)

Steve Bannon (appointed as Chief Strategist and Chief Counsel): Steve Bannon is a racist, xenophobe, misogynist, and anti-Semite, darling of the KKK, whose only qualification is spreading fake conspiracy news a.k.a. racist propaganda on the internet. He also has extraordinary sway over Donald Trump. Steve Bannon is really, really dangerous. We need to keep him from ever getting to the White House. However, because he’s not being appointed to a position that requires Senate confirmation, when you’re making your calls about Bannon, you basically want to ask your representatives to block other things Trump wants to get done until he fires Bannon. Make it clear to them that Bannon in the White House is an affront to American democracy and American ideals, and we need to give him the boot.

The Affordable Care Act: The Affordable Care Act is historic legislation that brought health insurance to huge swathes of Americans who were either previously unable to afford health insurance or unable to purchase health insurance due to pre-existing conditions (full disclosure: this includes me, personally, because I have migraines; my migraine medication cost also dropped from $76 a pill before I had insurance to $6 a pill with insurance. When I have a migraine and no medication I consistently end up being treated for uncontrolled vomiting in the ER.). It has helped keep people out of poverty and dramatically reduced racial disparities in coverage. The incoming administration wants to dismantle the law, starting with the individual mandate (which is absolutely critical to making the ACA economically viable for insurers); while they ostensibly say they want to replace it with ~something~, in the six years since it passed, they have come up with absolutely fuck all. Both houses of Congress have already passed the legislative first steps to dismantle the ACA--it’s starting! Call your representatives as soon as possible to let them know where you stand and how they can keep your vote the next time they’re up for re-election. You can find out how your representative in the House voted here--notably, nine Republicans crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats against the bill--and how your senators voted here--only Rand Paul crossed the aisle on that one.

A note on protesting amid breaking news: Because I’m drafting most of this a few days before it’ll go live, and because I can’t know when, precisely, you’ll actually make your individual calls, the exact nature of how you protest these appointments and laws may need to change a little bit based on how far the confirmation/legislative process has got by the time you’re calling. Also, I’m going to be copy-pasting a lot of this post to make next week’s post, which will cover a very similar set of tasks, just different people and different topics.

So. If the nominee you’re calling about is still undergoing confirmation hearings, then encourage your senators to rigorously question the nominee on issues critical to protecting the rights of your fellow humans. If the confirmation hearings for that nominee are finished, focus instead on encouraging your senators to vote against the nominee’s confirmation. If the confirmation has already gone through, either thank or criticize your senator’s vote, depending on which way they voted; and in any case make it clear to them that you continue to watch their voting behavior to see whether or not they will have your vote in 2018 (or 2020, or 2022--it’s worth also taking a second to check when your particular senators will next come up for re-election, if you don’t know off-hand, because of the Senate’s weird six-year terms. Senators up for re-election in 2018 are listed here. Senators up for re-election in 2020 are listed here. Senators up for re-election in 2022 are listed here.).

Similarly, when you’re calling about legislative priorities, depending on what has happened around that legislative issue since this post went live, you will either be urging your representatives to vote a particular way; or be thanking or criticizing their vote, depending on which way they voted, and making it clear to them that you continue to watch their voting behavior to see whether or not they will have your vote in 2018 (or 2020, or 2022).

Also, when you call your congressperson in the House about Cabinet appointments, since the House doesn’t vote on Cabinet appointments, just encourage your House representative to go on-record as opposing the nomination. The goal here is to make a lot of noise, and also to try and muster the political left to come together and resist the incoming administration with full-throated determination and conviction.

Anyway, to handle how fast this is moving, I recommend that you plan on searching a reputable news source, like The Guardian, shortly before you make your calls, for any breaking-news updates on the confirmation process that may require you to tweak your scripts.

How to Write Your Scripts (excerpted from 5M4F-5):

The basic phone script for calling your representatives goes something like so:

Hi, {can I ask who I’m speaking to? <, if they don’t say when they pick up>} [Jot their name down.] Hi, <their name>. My name is <your name> and I’m one of <your representative’s name>’s constituents in <where you live>. I wanted to let <your representative’s name> know that I strongly <support | oppose> <the thing you’re calling about>, because <succinct explanation of reason why you’re calling>. Is <your representative’s name> planning to <do the thing you want>?

Then you have to plan for a few different responses:

They’re with you: Thank you. Could you please let <appropriate pronoun> know that <expression of gratitude> and <indication that you will continue to watch your representative’s behavior and hold them accountable>?

They’re neutral: This subject is very important to me because <longer, more in-depth and emotive reason why you’re calling>. I would very much appreciate it if you could let <your representative’s name> know that I feel very strongly about this and would really encourage <appropriate pronoun> to <do the thing you want>. Is there any way I could follow up with you or <appropriate pronoun> later?

They oppose you: This subject is very important to me because <longer, more in-depth and emotive reason why you’re calling>. Can I ask why <your representative’s name> is <not doing the thing you want>? [Let them give you a reason, and write it down.] Okay, thank you. I understand <appropriate pronoun> concerns, but as one of <your representative’s name>’s voting constituents, I would really appreciate it if <appropriate pronoun> revisited <appropriate pronoun> decision because <alternate succinct explanation of reason why you’re calling>. Is there any way I could follow up with you or <appropriate pronoun> later?

<expression of gratitude>! <polite send-off>!

I want to point out that you probably don’t actually really need to plan for all of these responses. You can probably make a pretty good guess where your representative stands based on their party affiliation. However, especially if your representatives are moderates and often vote across the aisle, it’s not a bad idea to spend a little time planning for all three cases, because then your behind is covered, and you can recycle this language over and over on later calls, to different representatives. And yes: we will be calling other representatives.

This is the sample script that I wrote back in November, on a different issue and to Barbara Boxer, who has been replaced by Kamala Harris, but it gives you an idea how the Mad-Libs-filling process works:

Hi, {can I ask who I’m speaking to? <, if they don’t say when they pick up>} [Jot their name down.] Hi, <their name>. My name is <Ginny Washington>, and I’m one of <Senator Boxer>’s constituents in <West Hollywood>. I wanted to let <Senator Boxer> know that I strongly <support> <her resolution to amend the Constitution to eliminate the Electoral College>, because <I think every American’s vote should count equally>. {I just wanted to thank her for all her hard work on behalf of the principles of equal representation and equal protection under the law.}

<Thank you so much for your time>! <Have a nice day>!

If you can’t make calls: I recommended before that if you can’t make calls, you copy down snail mail addresses so you can send snail mail letters, and that you grab an email address or online contact link no matter what. Calls are the most effective, if you can make them, but please, do send snail mail letters if you can’t, or an email if you also can’t swing a stamp or get to a post office. You can use the script above as a template for your letter, but you’re probably going to want to default to assuming that your representative opposes you, and you’ll have to of course make it sound like a letter and not a phone convo.

If you care about correct forms of address: weirdly, because these things are super arcane, technically the correct way to address your senator or representative is still “The Honorable <whoever>”, as in, “The Honorable Barbara Boxer.” That goes on the envelope. You can then write “Dear Mr./Mrs./Ms. <whoever>” as your salutation.

#we with us #5m4f #five minutes for freedom #oppose jeff sessions #oppose rex tillerson #oppose steve bannon #save the aca

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itsfinancethings · 4 years

Link

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing a full-blown political crisis after his most senior aide Dominic Cummings admitted he drove more than 260 miles from London to Durham and back with his family, while suspecting he was infected with COVID-19, at a time when the country was under strict lockdown measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

In an unprecedented press conference in the 10 Downing Street Rose Garden on Monday, Cummings defended his actions and refused to resign or apologize, saying he took what he believed were lawful and necessary actions to ensure the wellbeing of his four-year-old child. The Prime Minister publicly spoke in support of Cummings on Sunday, and cabinet ministers have continued to defend him.

But over the holiday weekend, opposition politicians, scientists, religious leaders and medical professionals all called for Cummings to resign, saying his continued tenure showed there was one rule for the elite and another for everybody else. Members of the government’s behavioral science advisory group said they were concerned about the public health message sent by allowing Cummings to stay on. Police forces said it would make it harder to enforce the rules. Medics said the decision went against everything they had been battling for in their fight against COVID-19. And opposition lawmakers said Johnson was putting his own political interests ahead of the public good. “It is an insult to the sacrifices made by the British people that Johnson has chosen to take no action against Dominic Cummings,” said Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party.

The U.K.’s official death toll passed 37,000 on Tuesday, the highest in Europe and the second-highest in the world after the United States. Much of the anger surrounding the Cummings scandal is from families who were unable to travel to see dying relatives, or help vulnerable family members, because of the lockdown rules devised in part by Cummings himself.

Read More: How the U.K. Mismanaged Its Coronavirus Response

The crisis, now into its fifth day, is the most severe of Johnson’s 10-month tenure as Prime Minister and shows little sign of dissipating. Polls released Tuesday by Savanta, a pollster, showed Johnson’s net approval at -1%, twenty points down on +19% four days earlier. The approval rating of the government as a whole has fared similarly badly, dropping 16 points in one day to -2%. A separate poll, published by YouGov on Tuesday, showed 59% of respondents saying Cummings should resign, and 71% believing he broke lockdown rules. Here’s what to know about the furor.

Who is Dominic Cummings?

Cummings is a political strategist most famous for directing the successful “Vote Leave” campaign during the 2016 Brexit referendum, which Johnson also campaigned for.

He was portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the film Brexit: The Uncivil War, which addresses some of the ways the campaign allegedly used data and disinformation to target specific voters.

When Johnson became Prime Minister in July 2019, he appointed Cummings as his senior adviser. (Cummings is not a lawmaker, and was therefore not elected to the role.) He is now Johnson’s closest and most trusted aide. He was credited with a leading role in the December 2019 election that gave Johnson a commanding majority in parliament, and with defining the government’s main policy objectives including a roadmap on how exactly to leave the European Union.

He is known for his casual outfits, like tracksuits and a beanie hat, in 10 Downing Street. He’s also known for his anti-elite stance, regularly attacking “remainers” who campaigned for the U.K. to remain in the European Union in 2016.

What did Dominic Cummings do?

On Friday, as the nation was preparing to enter a long holiday weekend, the Guardian and Daily Mirror newspapers published a joint investigation reporting that Cummings, his wife and young son had been spotted in Durham, a city 260 miles north of London, in early April. Cummings had already been reported to be suffering from COVID symptoms at that time. The U.K. had introduced guidance in early March telling people with symptoms of COVID-19 to self-isolate at home, and complemented those rules with nationwide lockdown measures on March 23.

The reports said Cummings had been staying on his parents’ property there, despite advice from the government that people “stay home [to] save lives.” Over the following days, the papers published more details, including the news that Cummings had also been spotted at Barnard Castle, a beauty spot 30 miles away from Durham, on April 12, his wife’s birthday.

Confronted by journalists outside his home in London, Cummings said he would not resign. When a journalist suggested the situation looked bad, he replied: “Who cares about good looks? It’s a question of doing the right thing. It’s not about what you guys think.”

With little details available to the public other than what had been published by the Guardian and Mirror, Johnson appeared at a press conference on Sunday. Without giving details on the conversation, he said Cummings had explained his actions to him and he had found them acceptable, and that Cummings enjoyed his full support.

Keep up to date with our daily coronavirus newsletter by clicking here.

The conference did little to slow the tirade of public anger. On Monday, Cummings held his own press conference (an unprecedented thing for a political adviser to do) and, in a prepared address followed by questions from journalists, set out his side of the story.

He said that on March 27, his wife had come down with possible COVID-19 symptoms. Many of the people he worked most closely with had also tested positive, including Johnson. Worried he and his wife might both soon be incapacitated by the disease and unable to care for their four year-old son, he decided to drive that evening to his parents’ property in Durham, where there was a spare house they could stay in, close to family who could care for the child if necessary. (He did not believe he could “reasonably ask” anyone in London to assist with childcare, he said.) He said he believed at the time, and still does, that he was acting within the law because of an exemption under the lockdown rules for ensuring the safety and care of young children. He said he did not tell Johnson about the decision, and did not stop at any point on the journey.

Cummings said that after recovering from the disease and being cleared to return to work April 11, his eyesight “seemed to have been affected.” So he decided the following day to take a short trip to Barnard Castle, around a 30 minute drive in each direction, to test whether he would be able to make the long drive back to London. His wife and child were also in the car. He did not address the fact that the trip was made on his wife’s birthday. They made two short stops on the trip, Cummings said: once at the town because Cummings “felt a bit sick,” and for a second time in some woods for a toilet break. “At no point did we break any social distancing rules,” he said. On the return journey to London the family may have stopped to fill up on gas, Cummings said, but added he could not be certain.

Cummings also denied eyewitness testimonies, reported by the Guardian and Mirror, that he been seen in Durham for a second time later in April after his return to London. But he admitted he had spoken to Johnson about his trip to Durham weeks earlier, when both were recovering from the virus.

He acknowledged he should have made a statement sooner, but neither apologized nor expressed regret for his actions. “I believe that in all circumstances I behaved reasonably and legally, balancing the safety of my family and the extreme situation in No.10 and the public interest in effective government to which I could contribute,” he said.

What has the response been in the U.K.?

Many Britons were left unconvinced by Cummings’ statement and the scandal has continued to dominate the British news media.

At least 33 Conservative lawmakers have called on Cummings to resign, and a junior minister, Douglas Ross, himself resigned from Johnson’s government on Tuesday in response to Cummings’ refusal to quit. “While the intentions may have been well meaning, the reaction to this news shows that Mr Cummings’ interpretation of the government advice was not shared by the vast majority of people who have done as the government asked,” Ross said in a statement.

Opposition lawmakers also continued to call for Cummings to leave. “It is now a matter of record that Mr Dominic Cummings broke multiple lockdown rules,” a letter, written by six opposition parties (excluding Labour) said. “He is yet to express any apology or contrition for these actions. There cannot be one rule for those involved in formulating public health advice and another for the rest of us.”

However Johnson’s government has continued to stand by Cummings. In a round of broadcast interviews on Tuesday, cabinet minister Michael Gove defended the special adviser. Asked by a presenter if he himself would drive a 60-mile journey to test his eyesight, Gove said “I have on occasions in the past driven with my wife in order to make sure that, er, what’s the right way of putting it,” before trailing off and changing the subject.

As well as revealing the extent to which hypocrisy by those in positions in power matters to the British voting public, the Cummings crisis has also revealed the extent to which Johnson sees his top adviser as indispensable. “What is very frustrating,” one unnamed minister told ITV on Sunday, “is that Cummings is only an adviser, and yet he is being protected in a way that would never happen to a minister.”

Please send any tips, leads, and stories to [email protected].

#IFTTT #Blogger

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warninggraphiccontent · 4 years

Text

26 June 2020

We're jammin'

Back in 2018 (remember 2018? simpler times), a number of us from the IfG, some of our friends from Full Fact and Nick Halliday spent 90 minutes trying to map the government data ecosystem. That is, we had lots of pinpoint cards and scribbled the names of organisations that had some sort of responsibility for data in government on them.

You can find that original effort here. It was a bit rough and ready, we never turned it into anything beautiful, but it was useful for understanding the data landscape across government (and more than supporting our hunch that one of the challenges of data in government is the multiplicity of meanings of 'data' and the proliferation of players involved).

Just over two years on, and with a National Data Strategy expected later this year, I thought it was time to revisit the map. Since we can't physically come together around some post-its, I've turned the old 'map' into a series of slides using Google Jamboard (the first time I've used it). Please do take a look - and add, copy, edit, remix, amend as you see fit (within the parameters suggested on the first slide, of course).

We know lots of people found the original helpful for navigating government data - I hope this one can be even more useful.

And if you're in a collaborative mood, I'm always looking for additions to the following open spreadsheets:

Reports related to data in UK government

A 'data' reading list

Data-related developments in the UK's coronavirus response.

Briefly:

If you can't get enough of the words 'jam' and 'data' being juxtaposed, then you must check out DataJam North East...

...and if you can't enough of public sector-related data meet-ups, then we have a fantastic Data Bites for you this Wednesday, 1 July at 6pm. Register here. Previous events here. It's an admin data special courtesy of ADR UK.

Have a good weekend

Gavin

Today's links:

Tips, tech, etc

Will Covid kill off the office?* (The Spectator)

Don’t expect a flexible work revolution (HR Magazine)

Make video conferencing tools work across government (GDS, via Oliver)

#dontgobacktonormal

Graphic content

Viral content

COVID-19 VACCINE TRACKER (Milken Institute)

How the Virus Won* (New York Times)

An expanding epidemic (Reuters)

Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK (GOV.UK)

Coronavirus: How does the UK's death toll compare with other countries? (BBC News)

Revealed: data shows 10 countries risking coronavirus second wave as lockdown relaxed (The Guardian)

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count* (New York Times)

How Somalis in east London were hit by the pandemic (FT)

Understanding excess deaths: variation in the impact of COVID-19 between countries, regions and localities (Health Foundation)

Rainy days (Resolution Foundation)

Air pollution rebounds in Europe’s cities as lockdowns ease* (FT Data)

What are the symptoms of COVID-19? Only 59% of Britons know all three (YouGov)

The government's daily Coronavirus briefings (Oliver for IfG)

Viral content: consequences

Summer brings hope and fear to Britain’s beaches and seaside towns* (FT)

Corona Shock – June* (Tortoise)

Prospering in the pandemic: the top 100 companies* (FT)

Scandinavian and Asian countries are on the way to normal everyday work - economic recovery in real time (Neue Zurcher Zeitung)

The last three months of Citizens Advice data (Gemma)

UK government and politics

Labour councils in England hit harder by austerity than Tory areas (The Guardian)

Dominic Cummings could face inquiry over special advisers (The Guardian)

Freedom of information; civil service staff numbers (IfG, now updated)

Environment and energy

UK and global emissions and temperature trends (Commons Library)

PIPE DOWN: How gas companies influence EU policy and have pocketed €4 billion of taxpayers’ money (Global Witness)

AMAZON GOLD RUSH: The threatened tribe (Reuters)

Sport and leisure

Why Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool are on cusp of Premier League glory* (FT)

Pyramid scheme: This should have been the week of Glastonbury at 50 – will music festivals ever make a comeback?* (Tortoise)

Everything else

Seventy-five years after the UN’s founding, the world order is at risk of collapse* (The Economist)

The Human Genome Project transformed biology and medicine* (The Economist)

The N.Y.P.D. Spends $6 Billion a Year. Proposals to Defund It Want to Cut $1 Billion.* (New York Times)

Where Banks Don’t Lend (WBEZ)

Mapping London’s ethnic diversity (Niko Kommenda - though note this)

Aid Transparency Index 2020 (Publish What You Fund)

Thread (David McNair)

Trump vs Biden: who is leading the 2020 US election polls?* (FT)

What to consider when visualizing data for colorblind readers (Datawrapper)

Meta data

Viral content: contact details

Coronavirus recovery - six data protection steps for organisations (ICO)

The data rules for reopening pubs and restaurants... (me)

Concerns raised about pubs collecting data for coronavirus tracing (New Scientist)

Businesses face privacy minefield over contact-tracing rules, say campaigners (The Guardian)

The UK needs a track-and-trace system we can trust with our data (Institute for Global Change)

Viral content: I call app Britain (and elsewhere)

Google and Apple's diktat to governments on coronavirus contact-tracing apps is a troubling display of unaccountable power (Tom Loosemore for Business Insider)

The UK’s contact tracing app fiasco is a master class in mismanagement* (MIT Technology Review)

Tracking and tracing covid-19—what are the promises, limitations and risks? (Babbage, The Economist)

Apple 'not told' about UK's latest app plans (BBC News)

Does any country have 'a functioning track and trace app'? (Full Fact)

NHS Covid app didn’t pass the test but it still points way to the future (Evening Standard)

The public inquiry... (medConfidential)

No, the government hasn’t installed a coronavirus app on your phone (Which?)

Coronavirus: Ireland set to launch contact-trace app (BBC News)

French give cool reception to Covid-19 contact-tracing app* (FT)

Viral content: local data for local people

Whitehall not sharing Covid-19 data on local outbreaks, say councils (The Guardian)

Local data for local places can help save lives (ODI Leeds)

City-wide data in London: pandemic response & recovery (Part 1); Where we want to get to (Part 2) (Smart London)

Viral content: everything else

“Agreeing to do it in four weeks must’ve been a moment of madness”: Inside the team that built the UK’s furlough scheme (NS Tech)

Covid-19 has made me rethink how I publish, share and coordinate UK food data (UK Data Service)

This open source project is using Python, SQL and Docker to understand coronavirus health data (ZDNet)

Coronavirus: Artificial intelligence to 'rank' NHS patients to help clear post-COVID backlog (Sky News)

Covid-19: The Disaster Automation Was Waiting For (Tribune)

'We're using data during this crisis like never before' (via Sir Chris Ham, via Graham)

How coronavirus reshaped the NHS* (Wired)

Covid-19 and lack of linked datasets for care homes (BMJ)

Uber, WeWork, Airbnb – how coronavirus is bursting the tech bubble (The Conversation)

International Public Health Identity Systems Monitor (Ada Lovelace Institute)

Viral misinformation

Damian Collins MP: Social media firms must take responsibility for harmful Covid-19 disinformation (Press Gazette)

Coronavirus misinformation, and how scientists can help to fight it (Nature)

Countering Disinformation (Cardiff University)

Canaries in the Coal Mine: COVID-19 Misinformation and Black Communities (Shorenstein Center)

UK government

Digital Secretary's closing speech to the UK Tech Cluster Group (DCMS)

The UK’s digital strategy should be the wholesale elimination of administrative burden (Richard Pope)

Helping service teams make decisions about authentication and identity assurance (Technology in government)

Home Office faces court challenge over 'discriminatory' visa algorithm (Civil Service World)

Amazon UK executive to advise GDS on gov.uk (NS Tech)

We’re creating a DfE Service Manual (DfE Digital - discussion here)

If government is mostly service design, is most government service design databases and rights (Richard Pope)

Making it easier to access and use earth observation data (Defra digital)

Questions: Data Strategy (House of Lords)

Big tech

Andrew Yang is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data (The Verge)

CEO of Open Technology Fund Resigns After Closed-Source Lobbying Effort (Motherboard)

Why on Earth did Facebook Just Acquire Mapillary? (Joe Morrison)

Data justice

Data Justice Lab publishes guidebook on data literacy tools (Data Justice Lab)

If the idea of tech not being neutral is new to you, or if you think of tech as just a tool (that is equally likely to be used for good or bad), I want to share some resources & examples in this thread... (Rachel Thomas)

Wrongfully Accused by an Algorithm* (New York Times)

Everything else

Data sharing, US style (Wojtek Kopczuk, via Tom)

Data-informed/enabled vs data-driven (Amanda)

Combining Crowds and Machines: Experiments in collective intelligence design 1.0 (Nesta)

360Giving’s Datastore: a coming-of-age story for open data infrastructure (Open Data Services)

Why ‘digital’ is not separate from organisational resilience. (Cassie Robinson)

WHO DO THEY THINK WE ARE? Political Parties, Political Profiling, and The Law (Open Rights Group)

Tool (Open Rights Group)

How the BBC’s Shared Data Unit teaches journalists to find the news 'hiding in plain sight' (The Drum)

Dealing with rejection (FOIMan)

Opportunities

EVENT: Data Bites #12: Getting things done with data in government (IfG)

JOB: Head of (or Director of) Advocacy (Open Contracting Partnership)

JOB: Grade 7 Developer (MHCLG)

JOBS: Big Brother Watch

JOB: Data Engineer (The National Archives)

We’re hiring engineers! (EBM DataLab)

JOB: Ethics Research Scientist (DeepMind)

JOBS: Ethics Team, Public Policy Programme (The Alan Turing Institute)

JOB: Senior Data Scientist (Business Intelligence and Analytics) (Ordnance Survey)

INVITATION TO TENDER: Demonstrate the impact and value of tools developed within the OpenActive initiative (ODI)

CALL TO ACTION: Audit reform (Luminate)

And finally...

#dataviz

Body language... (Wired/Reuben Binns)

While listening to council meetings in Montreal, local mayor Sue Montgomery decided to knit in red when men spoke and in green for women... (#WOMENSART, via David)

19 Data Graphs All About Disney That Are Beyond Fascinating (Ranker, via Heather)

Coronavirus in Florida (Dare Obasanjo)

Watch the impact of the internet in 3 mins (V1 Analytics, via David)

Everything else

Cryptography... (Josh Glendinning)

Stickers (Andrew Newman)

A Woman On TikTok Sang A Song Calling Out People For Using Racist Statistics, And It's Gone Super Viral (BuzzFeed)

0 notes

stickyyouthstudent · 7 years

Text

US employment falls for first time in seven years amid hurricane destruction - business live

Non-farm payrolls fell by 33,000 last month as Hurricanes Harvey and Irma triggered a record drop in employment in the hospitality and leisure sectors

Halifax report: UK houses prices grow at fastest rate in eight months

Pound hits four-week low against dollar as Tory infighting builds

UK productivity falls in the second quarter and lags G7 average

1.33pm BST

Payrolls actually fell by 33,000 last month in figures just out, far worse than expected.

Economists had predicted 90,000 jobs would be added. Figures for August were revised up to show 169,000 jobs were added (up from a previous estimate of 156,000).

#UnitedStates Non Farm Payrolls at -33K https://t.co/AL0r1gqseN http://pic.twitter.com/k39zqwxVWR

1.29pm BST

Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist, is speaking about trust at the Royal Society of Arts in London.

He says that in some ways, loss of trust in institutions is the very definition of a financial crisis, including the most recent one which has been “hugely trust-busting”.

Even as the scars of this crisis heal, this trust deficit might not repair itself naturally. The trust deficit that those in money and finance face may be not cyclical, not temporary, but structural and permanent.

And if that’s true, then those of us within financial services, including central banks, will really have to go some to repair that deficit.

1.20pm BST

US non-farm payrolls for September are coming up at 1.30pm.

Economists polled by Reuters are predicting the number of jobs added last month fell sharply to 90,000, from 156,000 in August, largely as a result of hurricane disruption.

1.11pm BST

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has announced it is extending its investigations to other 2 Sisters poultry plants in England and Wales, as well as its scandal-hit West Bromwich chicken processing plant.

It follows a Guardian and ITV News investigation that revealed poor hygiene standards and food safety records being altered.

Related: UK's top supplier of supermarket chicken fiddles food safety dates

12.16pm BST

Over in Greece pensioners have been protesting outside the country’s highest administrative court against further cuts demanded by international creditors. It is the second such demonstration this week as anger mounts over the spectre of yet more cutbacks next year. Helena Smith reports.

12.03pm BST

Howard Archer, chief economic advisor to the EY Item forecasting group, has analysed the UK productivity figures and says Brexit negotiations could further hold back progress:

There is a risk that prolonged uncertainty may end up weighing down markedly on business investment and damage productivity. Prolonged difficult Brexit negotiations could increase this risk.

This could also be compounded if foreign companies markedly reduce their investment in the UK, diluting any beneficial spill-over of skills and knowledge.

Related: UK productivity fall leaves it well behind world's big economies

11.49am BST

Easyjet is the biggest faller in the FTSE 100 with shares down 2.7% this morning.

The low cost carrier is down despite flying a record 24.1m passengers in the three months to September. The airline also said in a trading update that it was on track to make annual profits of £405-£410m, at the higher end of its guidance but below last year’s £495m.

11.28am BST

A separate report from the ONS shows that the UK was less productive than the average among the G7 advanced economies in 2016.

Output per hour worked in the UK was 15.1% below the average in 2016, compared with 15.5% below in 2015.

11.11am BST

Britain was less productive between April and June compared with the previous quarter, with output per hour worked down 0.1%.

It was dragged down by the manufacturing sector, where productivity fell in the second quarter by 1.3% according to the Office for National Statistics. Meanwhile services sector productivity was up 0.2% over the period.

Poor productivity performance underpins the stagnation of real wages, and presents the government with a particular challenge since it appears likely that previous forecasts of earnings, and hence also of tax revenues, have been overoptimistic.

Commenting, on today’s productivity figures, ONS Head of Productivity Philip Wales said: https://t.co/gJg5IopFKT http://pic.twitter.com/zkhiDZ1j2i

10.33am BST

David Madden, analyst at CMC Markets, has this take on developments in Spain and the implications for markets:

The IBEX has been hit by profit taking as yesterday’s impressive bounce back was short lived. The decision by Madrid to suspend the Catalan parliament is a short-term solution to the problem, as the two sides are still locked in a stalemate.

The Spanish government is in the process of making it easier for companies headquartered in Catalonia to switch their head office to another part of Spain. While Madrid is keeping the pressure on Catalonia, it is likely that dealers will steer clear of the Spanish stock market.

10.11am BST

Spanish equities and government bonds are underperforming other European markets after Catalonia’s head of foreign affairs said the region’s parliament would meet on Monday.

It is in defiance of Madrid, after the the Spanish constitutional court suspended the Catalan parliament, threatening more tensions and instability.

9.42am BST

Jeremy Leaf, a north London estate agent and a former residential chairman of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors:

Once again, the market has proved its resilience and confounded the doom mongers. Not that there is too much to get excited about with these figures which confirm what we have seen at the coalface recently - that prices are holding up reasonably well where vendors are realistic, partly in response to a continuing shortage of stock.

Sadly, we are not seeing the hoped-for autumn bounce but a steady market is more than welcome with so much uncertain economic news.

The sudden surge in Halifax’s measure of house prices—up 3% over the last three months alone—is impossible to reconcile with all the other housing market evidence.

Halifax’s measure is the most volatile of all the indices we track. Other surveys show that the pipeline of demand is soft; RICS has reported that new buyer enquiries have fallen in six of the last seven months. Real wages still have further to fall over the next six months and mortgage rates will rise soon in response to the increase in banks’ funding costs.

In the current cautious market, prices treading water is good – and stability plus gentle growth is very good.

But momentum remains patchy and what growth there is is wavering rather than sustained, and prices remain under intense pressure in several key regions.

9.23am BST

Halifax said UK house prices are partly being propped up by a shortage of homes on the market:

9.03am BST

Guardian Business has launched a daily email.

Besides the key news headlines that you’d expect, there’s an at-a-glance agenda of the day’s main events, insightful opinion pieces and a quality feature to sink your teeth into each day.

Related: Business Today: sign up for a morning shot of financial news

8.56am BST

Annual house prices rose by 4% in September according to the Halifax price index.

It was the strongest rate of growth since February, bucking the trend of other recent reports which have indicated a weakening market.

The annual rate of growth has picked up for the second consecutive month, rising from 2.6% in August to 4% in September. The average house price is now £225,109 – the highest on record.

UK house prices continue to be supported by an ongoing shortage of properties for sale and solid growth in full-time employment.

There has been recent speculation on the possibility of a rise in the Bank of England base rate. We do not anticipate this will have a significant effect on transaction volumes.

8.44am BST

Wall Street hit fresh record highs on Thursday, with risk appetite among investors boosted by signs of a robust US economy.

A backdrop of strong economic data, optimism for corporate earnings in the third quarter and the recently released plan for tax cuts are fuelling the latest surge.

It’s hard to see how Donald Trump’s plan to revamp the US economy can live up to the hyped-up expectations but repeatedly fresh record highs indicate confidence not caution.

8.33am BST

It’s pretty quiet in markets across Europe this morning, as markets await the main event at 1.30pm with the publication of the US non-farm payrolls report in September.

Markets are feeling a little more relaxed about developments in Spain, where politicians in Catalonia do no seem able to agree on the best way forward. For now at least, that is helping to ease investor fears.

8.15am BST

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone crisis and business.

The pound is under renewed pressure this morning as uncertainty builds over Theresa May’s future as Prime Minister.

We did have a result that was not at all what anyone wanted, least of all what she wanted or anticipated, and... sometimes when things happen you have to take responsibility for them.

This is a view I have held for quite some time and quite a lot of colleagues feel the same way, including five former cabinet ministers.

Related: Tory ministers privately agree Theresa May should go, says Grant Schapps

The pound has had another poor week its third weekly decline in a row, as concerns about political instability as well as disappointing economic data have undermined sentiment.

seems likely that this discontent will once again amount to nothing more than hot air in the short term at least. The last thing the currency, the Conservative party and more importantly the country needs right now is the self-indulgence of another leadership battle.

0 notes

comm300-derarzt-blog · 7 years

Text

I collected everything assigned and more: 18 image of German people, places, things; 4 short video’s describing German ‘top 10’ destinations and food; 4 German Song links; 4 recent news stories about Germany; and 3 travel blogs which included a blog from a German National.

It’s very easy to get inspired about the sojourn when you spend a couple hours perusing thru Germany sights and sounds. I began with Oktoberfest sights in Munich and Stuttgart (from the

liter sized beers to the dirndl dress’). The Oktoberfest songs are also inspiring, from the ommpah bands (www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9UqZOv8-OY) to 99 Red Balloons by Nena (www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQYQTFudrqc).

The short videos are very informational in order to get a sense as to where and what to visit (www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxqVTW7Z4AY and www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM3KuxozrTY). After reviewing the short video’s I downloaded a couple pictures of the sights (Brandenburg Gate and Check Point Charlie in Berlin; Neuschwanstein Castle or the Disney Castle in Southern Bavaria; Wartberg Castle where Luther wrote his declaration; Hohenzollern Castle; Heidelberg Castle; Cologne Cathedral; and The Porsche Museum in Stuttgart):

The travel blogs are equally informative, telling you a story from the bloggers perspective (www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-guides/germany-travel-tips/ and www.travellerspoint.com/blogs/Germany/).

Rick Steves blog is always informative (www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD9b7mP6whk) where he talks about shopping in Rothenberg and the Rhine River that flows thru Germany:

As opposed to this blogger I found, a German blogger who travels too (www.instagram.com/sonneundwolken/)

Another informative video is about German Food - Schnitzel (www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1txY5E-aZg):

Two inspiring music artists in Germany are David Garrett (Violin) and Sarah Conner: (www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ_BoOlAXyk and www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTx7tfe8iOQ)

I plan to use the media researched to help me plan my trip, where to visit and what to do. There is so much to do, so little time, this research will enable me to rate the ‘must not miss’ sights and sounds.

As with any research, there are many more areas that I’d like to see/visit (Germany’s commitment to wind energy; the Zugspitze Glacier in Southern Bavaria; and Dachau Concentration Camp).

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, is taking a lot of heat in dealing with the refugees but Merkel’s Concervitive Party has a slight lead over the Social Party (3rd Article/see below).

Given the length of the four news articles, I’ve copied/pasted them at the bottom (does not count in my 500 words). The other articles deal with Germany’s quarrel over Erdogan’s consolidation of power (1st Article); the Berlin truck attack and the mosque closure (2nd article) and finally some suggestion that the German Government spied on Foreign Journalist (4th Article).

My media collection is a good first stab but needs more breadth and depth, including sights in Northern and Eastern Germany. I’m a little weak on the historical perspective of Europe and current events given today’s insurgents and lone wolfs.

I plan to continue adding media items as I read them, in particular news items. I really don’t want to stand out in a crowd, so will ensure I’m up to speed on current events in Germany. As I watch BBC or read The Spiegel, will ensure I add those items to my sojourning list.

GERMANY

Opinion: Turkey-Germany quarrel out in the open

Tensions between Germany and Turkey have escalated. Chancellor Merkel needs to speak out strongly against a possible public appearance in Germany by President Erdogan, writes Jens Thurau.

It is difficult to keep up with the exchange of accusations Germany and Turkey have been flinging at each other. The latest episode features two Turkish ministers being barred from stumping at events in Germany for an upcoming April referendum that would further consolidate Erdogan's grip on power.

"What kind of democracy is this?" complained Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag, one of the two men affected. This coming from a representative of a government that in recent months has swiftly jailed hundreds of its critics.

Public accusations and refusal to talk

Germany's Justice Minister Heiko Maas tried to smooth things over with his enraged counterpart. What reached German media instead was a letter warning of the breakdown of rule of law in Turkey.

The German government's press secretary said the dispute over cancelling the ministers' appearances in Germany should not get mixed up with the fate of Deniz Yucel, a German-Turkish journalist for Germany's "Die Welt" newspaper who has been detained in Istanbul.

Yet precisely this has happened. Yucel is being used as a bargaining chip, branded in the Turkish media as a German agent or terrorist. "Germany has gone mad," surmised the "Yeni Safak” newspaper. From Berlin, German President Joachim Gauck dispensed with diplomacy and criticized the leadership apparatus, framed in religion, which Erdogan is clearly trying to establish.

All this just in the last 24 hours, following months of Ankara's untenable dealings – arresting regime critics and calling upon Germany to go after Erdogan's opponents here, to hit just a few points – being met with a measured tone. The priority has always been to maintain lines of communication with Turkey because we need it: as a NATO partner, an EU partner on refugees and the country with the largest population of its citizens living in Germany.

Germany: Not looking on passively

That softness is changing. To win his referendum, Erdogan needs the support of the 1.5 million Turkish voters living in Germany. A victory for him is far from guaranteed in Turkey itself, according to polling, making "yes” votes from abroad all the more decisive.

There is a growing desire in Germany to resist Erdogan's efforts, including a visit he has slated for end of March or early April. Politicians at all levels and from both the government and opposition have come out publicly against Germany being used as a stage for Turkey's further move towards autocracy.

It is legally complicated since the right to assembly is a core value in Germany. Events in Cologne and Gaggenau could only be cancelled on the basis of security, and decided at the local level. Nevertheless, Chancellor Angela Merkel must make a clear statement: Erdogan is not welcome to campaign here. That is the only tone Ankara understands; if it understands anything at all.

Date 03.03.2017

Author Jens Thurau

THE GUARDIAN-

Berlin truck attack: mosque shut down amid anti-terror raids

Police guard a residential building in Berlin after a raid in connection with the Fussilet 33 mosque.

A mosque used by the Berlin Christmas market truck attacker, Anis Amri, has been shut down by German authorities amid a series of police raids in the hunt for other radical Islamists.

The prayer rooms of the Fussilet 33 mosque in the central district of Moabit was a known meeting place for men and women who moved in Islamist circles.

More than 460 police officers swept 24 other locations across the city in the early hours of Tuesday morning in raids linked to activities at the mosque, where it is suspected money was regularly collected to fund terror attacks in Syria.

Amri, who carried out the attack on 19 Decemberin which 12 people died and more than 50 were injured, was a regular visitor to Fussilet 33, along with other Islamists police believe were willing to carry out further terrorist attacks.

Members of the mosque – mostly of Turkish or Caucasian origin – were allegedly radicalised there and recruited to fight for Islamic State in Syria.

The entrance of the Fussilet mosque. Photograph: Michael Sohn/AP

Officers had observed the mosque entrance using a hidden camera from a police station located opposite, a spokesman said. Communication between various members of the Fussilet 33 association had also been under surveillance.

Among the properties searched on Tuesday were office spaces, flats, and six cells in two prisons. No arrests are believed to have been made.

Speaking to the Associated Press, Berlin’s top security official said authorities had seized funds belonging to Fussilet 33, shut down its website and imposed a blanket ban to prevent the organisation from establishing itself under a different name or location.

“It was necessary to ban the organisation and all successor organisations to stop it once and for all,” Andreas Geisel said “People who preach hate have no place in this city.”

Amri fled Berlin after the attack and was apprehended on the outskirts of Milan four days later by two police officers, one of whom shot him dead.

Authorities announced they would finally close the mosque this month after several attempts to do so since 2015. Given notice of the closure, the organisers moved out last week and cancelled their rental contract with the landlord.

The door has been boarded up and a notice in German and Turkish reads: “This mosque is now closed.”

WORLD

German conservatives edge ahead of Social Democrats in Emnid poll

Posted 05 Mar 2017 05:35

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives took a one point lead over the Social Democrats (SPD) in the latest poll conducted by Emnid for the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, with nearly seven months to go before federal elections.

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its CSU Bavarian sister party gained one percentage point to reach 33 percent support, compared with an unchanged 32 percent for the SPD in a poll of 1,403 people taken from Feb. 23 to March 1.

The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party gained one percentage point in the poll to reach 10 percent, while the ratings for the Left party and pro-environment Green party were unchanged at 8 percent and 7 percent, respectively.

The Free Democratic Party lost one percentage point compared to the last poll to reach 6 percent, just above the 5 percent threshold needed to take seats in parliament.

The increase for Merkel's conservatives came after a surge in support for the SPD that followed its nomination of former European Parliament President Martin Schulz as its candidate to challenge Merkel in the Sept. 24 national election.

Merkel, who is seeking a fourth term in the election, leads a coalition government made up of the CDU/CSU and the centre-left SPD, but Schulz is hoping to win enough votes to form a new government with smaller allies.

The unexpectedly strong gains shown by the SPD - and the CDU/CSU's slide - have prompted some German media to write about "Merkel fatigue" and what they see as the chancellor's lack of enthusiasm for this year's campaign.

"Angela Merkel suddenly seems like one of those dinosaurs that was incapable of adapting in time, and could only hang around limply waiting for its own extinction," wrote Jakob Augstein, a columnist for Der Spiegel magazine, in Sunday's edition.

But the new Emnid poll and others taken over the past week showed Merkel's conservatives have now stabilised and are now polling neck-and-neck or just ahead of the Social Democrats.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Bernard Orr)

- Reuters

SPIEGEL ExclusiveDocuments Indicate Germany Spied on Foreign Journalists

Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, apparently spied on large numbers of foreign journalists overseas over the course of several years, including employees of the BBC, Reuters and the New York Times. Critics see a massive violation of press freedoms.

By Maik Baumgärtner, Martin Knobbe and Jörg Schindler

Arnaud Zajtman, 44, is not exactly the kind of person you would mistake for a terrorist, weapons trader or drug dealer. The Belgian journalist has been reporting from Africa for almost 20 years, with a keen interest in Congo. For 10 years, he was stationed in Kinshasa as a correspondent, first for the BBC and then for the television broadcaster France 24. His stories focused on the forgotten children of Congo, on the battles fought by the rebels and on the country's first free elections since 1965.

In that election year, in September 2006, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency, took an interest in the journalist's work. Agents included Zajtman's two Congolese telephone numbers in the agency's surveillance list as so-called "selectors."

Zajtman knew nothing about it. German officials never informed him that his phone had been tapped, the journalist says. He was horrified when he was contacted by SPIEGEL regarding the alleged surveillance by the Germans. "It isn't a good feeling to know that somebody was listening in when you're dealing with highly sensitive sources."

The Belgian journalist isn't the only reporter who was spied on. According to documents seen by SPIEGEL, the BND conducted surveillance on at least 50 additional telephone numbers, fax numbers and email addresses belonging to journalists or newsrooms around the world in the years following 1999.

Included among them were more than a dozen connections belonging to the BBC, often to the offices of the international World Service. The documents indicate that the German intelligence agency didn't just tap into the phones of BBC correspondents in Afghanistan, but also targeted telephone and fax numbers at BBC headquarters in London.

State Meddling

A phone number belonging to the New York Times in Afghanistan was also on the BND list, as were several mobile and satellite numbers belonging to the news agency Reuters in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. The German spies also conducted surveillance on the independent Zimbabwean newspaper Daily News before dictator Robert Mugabe banned it for seven years in 2003. Other numbers on the list belonged to news agencies from Kuwait, Lebanon and India in addition to journalist associations in Nepal and Indonesia.

Journalists in Germany enjoy far-reaching protection against state meddling. They enjoy similar legal protection to lawyers, doctors and priests: occupations that require secrecy. Journalists have the right to refuse to testify in court in order to protect their sources. German law forbids the country's domestic intelligence agency from conducting surveillance on persons who have that right.

The German chapter of Reporters without Borders says that the BND's systematic surveillance of journalists is an "egregious attack on press freedoms" and "a new dimension of constitutional violation." Christian Mihr, head of the German chapter of Reporters without Borders, says that press freedom "is not a right granted by the graciousness of the German government, it is an inviolable human right that also applies to foreign journalists."

The allegations come as the German parliamentary investigative committee focusing on U.S. spying in Germany is completing its inquiry. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who appeared before the committee last Thursday, was the last witness called and now the committee members are working on their closing report. But even as the committee also addressed extensive BND spying, the surveillance of journalists was only a fringe issue.

Constitutional Challenge

Committee members, for example, referred in their questions to the scandal surrounding SPIEGEL reporter Susanne Koelbl, whose emails were read by the BND for a several-month period in 2006. Agency employees said at the time that their target had been the Afghan minister for industry and trade, with whom Koelbl was in contact. The journalist's emails, they insisted, had been inadvertently intercepted and the agency issued her an apology.

But the surveillance of journalists documented in the papers SPIEGEL has seen was almost certainly not inadvertent. The search terms used clearly targeted the journalists or the newsrooms whose contact information is on the BND list. The German intelligence agency declined to comment on the allegations. "Regarding operative aspects of its activities, the BND comments exclusively to the German government or the committee responsible in the German parliament," the BND press office stated.

Reporters without Borders is concerned that the BND will continue conducting surveillance on foreign journalists. And the new law governing the BND, which went into effect in January, won't change that. "What is missing from the new law is an exception for journalists of the kind that exists (in the law governing domestic intelligence)," says Mihr. And he is prepared to fight for it. Together with other journalist associations and under the leadership of the Society for Civil Rights, Reporters without Borders is preparing a constitutional challenge to the new BND law.

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viralhottopics · 7 years

Text

The 10-a-day diet tested: ‘I feel like a sentient composter’

New research suggests that we ought to be eating 10 portions of fruit and veg a day. Stuart Heritage plies himself with the good stuff, and Guardian cook Felicity Cloake judges his efforts

Like everyone else in the world, my blood ran cold when I heard that we are now expected to eat 10 portions of fruit and vegetables every day. That is double the previous recommended amount, and even that required too much effort for my liking. Oh, sure, the effects of 10 a day sound miraculous researchers claim that it would decrease our chance of heart disease by 24%, stroke by 33% and cancer by 13% but it sounds a bit much, doesnt it?

Perhaps not. We wanted to investigate how much fruit and vegetables you need to eat to gain the maximum protection against disease, and premature death. Our results suggest that although five portions of fruit and vegetables is good, 10 a day is even better, said Imperial Colleges Dr Dagfinn Aune, lead author of the research.

What does it mean exactly? Its 10 servings of 80g portions so three tablespoons of peas, or one pear, say, is a single portion. So, is it do-able?

A YouGov poll from 2012 reported that only one in five of us manage to hit five portions a day, let alone 10. Brave pioneer that I am, I decided to find out over the course of a long weekend, before Guardian cook Felicity Cloake judged my efforts and offered some suggestions of how better to hit my goal.

Friday Breakfast

My breakfast usually consists of horrifyingly sugary cereal, to provide me with the artificial jolt of energy required to see me through the morning. Today, however, I eat a grapefruit, a banana and an apple. Better yet, a whole grapefruit counts as two portions. Still, its 7.30am, and Ive already almost hit half of my daily quota. In your face, science. Im going to live for ever.

Except Im not, obviously, because as Harley Street dietitian and sports nutritionist Raquel Britzke points out, favouring fruit over vegetables has problems of its own. Both give you carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and fibre, she says. But fruits tend to have more carbs, and consequently more sugar, than vegetables. If you have a slow metabolism or are trying to lose weight, I recommend eating seven portions of veggies and three portions of fruit. Great.

A happy start to the experiment. Photograph: Stuart Heritage

Lunch

G2 sends a photographer to my house, to show the world what I look like when Im near some vegetables. Inadvertently, my lunch becomes all the things that the photographer tells me to put into my mouth. This ends up being an apple, a banana and two different carrots.

Dinner

On a normal day, my meal of chicken and potatoes would have been entirely vegetable-free but, knowing that I now have a target to hit, I pile up a mound of cherry tomatoes on the side and work through those as well. Its not quite the advice I was given by another nutritionist, Laura Thomas, who suggested that all meals should consist of at least 50% vegetables, but its a start. A bowl of watermelon for pudding and Ive easily hit my 10.

Total intake: 10 portions.

Felicitys verdict

Stuart has immediately discovered the easy part of fruit and veg consumption: the fruit bit. Australians are told fruit should make up just two of their recommended seven portions a day because of its effect on blood sugar and he has got through 60g of sugar for breakfast alone. Although our own government seems to take the view that any fresh produce is better than the traditional British diet of Jammie Dodgers, it might be wise to swap some of this fruit for avocado on toast or a mushroom omelette occasionally, and save the sweet stuff for pudding later in the day.

Saturday Breakfast

Now that I have a toddler who can shout the word pancakes in a vaguely threatening manner, Saturday breakfast is always a rigidly enforced stack of banana pancakes. The good news: one stack has a whole banana in it. The bad news: it also has eggs and flour in it, which fill me up much more than just a banana would. However, I still manage to heroically force down an apple and two satsumas as well. Four portions, done and dusted by 8am. I am the best.

Saturday breakfast: banana pancakes and fruit. Photograph: Stuart Heritage

Except, wait. After checking the NHS website, I realise that a satsuma only counts as half a portion, which knocks me back down to three. Undaunted, I eat two more satsumas to boost me back up, which means that Ive now eaten four satsumas in a row for breakfast. This is no way for a man to live.

Snack

I put my son down for a morning nap and, because of this stupid challenge, think: What a perfect opportunity to eat an entire raw carrot. It has been years since I last ate an entire raw carrot, and now I see why. Raw carrots are rubbish all chew and no reward. The carrot takes a thousand years to eat. It takes so long that my son wakes up before I finish, and I have to put the rest of it in my pocket for later. All this work, trying to sneak in a vegetable whenever I have a moment of downtime, is starting to make me feel less like a person and more like a sentient composter.

Lunch

A bowl of chicken-and-vegetable soup (which counts as a portion, according to the label), and two portions of grapes. Two portions of grapes is 28 grapes, which I count out one by one like some sort of shivering Victorian waif. What have I become?

Later, while running errands, the wind begins. There is a good three-minute stretch where a brand-new fart pops out of my trousers with every step I take. This is new. So much for science; I worry that if everyone eats 10 portions of fruit and veg a day, well all end up dead from methane inhalation.

Dinner

Meatballs and pasta and tomato sauce (homemade, so it counts) and another big bowl of watermelon. Ive hit my 10 portions again, and I only had to accidentally fumigate one shop to do it.

Total intake: 10 portions.

Felicitys verdict

Banana pancakes are a painless way to get fruit into children; top with berries to add an extra portion, and ring the changes with cheesy courgette or crispy carrot fritters occasionally. Equally, at this time of year, when salads feel a bit punishing, soup is a lifesaver: minestrone will happily absorb any old odds and ends you have in the fridge. You can also add finely chopped veg to meatballs and burgers (grated carrot or finely chopped spinach are good candidates) and, of course, if Stuart ever finishes that sugary watermelon, he could always knock up a chocolate beetroot or parsnip-and-orange cake as an after-dinner treat.

A bountiful breakfast. Photograph: Stuart Heritage

Sunday Breakfast

The plan was to have a nice, big, healthy breakfast and then head out as a family to a fancy event in London. However, a combination of train cancellations, a sick wife and barely any sleep means that breakfast now consists of a chocolate chip cookie that I made with my son yesterday. The cookie has a glac cherry on it. Glac cherries apparently do not count towards your 10 a day. This feels like an oversight on the part of the NHS.

Lunch

Post-event, with my wife home unwell, my son and I find ourselves in the nightmarish epicentre of tourist hellscape London. Thomass advice for eating out is this: Ordering vegetable sides is a good option, but you could also think about replacing one of your protein foods with beans they can count as one portion per day. Trying to get more vegetarian meals in, too, will make it much easier, and this is consistent with the advice to cut back on red and processed meat.

However, this is an emergency; I just want to survive today. Lunch ends up being something that can be eaten quickly at the nearest possible kid-friendly place: a burger and chips from Giraffe. (Chips dont count as a portion, by the way. I checked.) I could have ordered vegetables but, after yesterdays carrot debacle, I realise that I would still be there chewing on it now if I had. Knowing what a failure today has become, and remembering that Thomas said they count, I order a smoothie. At least thats something.

On the train home, I distract my son and, when he isnt looking, eat some of the snacks I bought for him. I manage six grapes and a third of a satsuma, which is about two-thirds of a portion in total. Still counts, though.

Basically watermelon is terrible for you. Photograph: Stuart Heritage

Dinner

Poor marital communication means that we end up eating chips again in the evening. On the plus side, we also have baked beans. Half a can of baked beans equals one portion of vegetables, and for one beautiful moment I toy with the idea of getting back on track by gorging myself on a multipack. However, the NHS guidance points out that anything over half a can still only counts as one portion, because they dont give the same mixture of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients as fruit and vegetables. This, it dawns on me, also applies to my doubled-up portions of grapefuit, apple and banana on Friday. I check the NHSs five a day website and it explains that to get the maximum benefits, you need to eat different types of fruit and vegetables. Stupid NHS. This isnt why I pay my taxes.

More watermelon for pudding, but this doesnt really make up for anything, especially since Britzke has decided to single out watermelon as one of the worst fruits to eat, thanks to its high glycemic index. Nutritionally, today has been a disaster.

Total intake: 3.66 portions.

Felicitys verdict

The problem with fruit and vegetables is that they tend to take more preparation than merely opening a packet (or, in Stuarts case, the biscuit tin), so its a good idea to keep carrot sticks or broccoli florets handy for those moments when you dont have time to faff about with cooking, ideally with a pot of something delicious to dip them into so you dont lose the will to live and reach for the crisps instead. In fact, like many healthy eating regimes, fitting more fruit and veg into your diet is much easier with a bit of forward planning. Stock up on frozen veg, tins of beans and pulses, and jars of fruit to add to meals when the salad drawer is bare. Also remember that although the potato is cruelly classed, by the powers that be, as a starchy food rather than a vegetable by the powers that be, the sweet potato is not and it makes seriously delicious chips. Just saying, Stuart.

MONDAY Breakfast

Yesterday broke me. Carting a kid about for a day is stressful enough as it is, and fretting about hitting a seemingly arbitrary vegetable target just added another level of anxiety to proceedings. So, today, screw it. Im just going to eat like normal. And, hey, if it kills me, it kills me. Breakfast is a leftover grapefruit. Happy now?

This only soups up the tally by one. Photograph: Stuart Heritage

Snack

An apple. If were being honest, its an apple and two Cadbury Creme Eggs. But were only counting the fruit and vegetables I eat, not any of my other disgusting dietary habits. Still, thats two portions so far.

Lunch

More chicken-and-vegetable soup. That makes three portions of fruit and veg. If these were the bad old days, back when we were all gormless knuckle-draggers who only thought we needed to eat five portions a day to be healthy, Id have been laughing. God, I miss the bad old days.

Dinner

I make shepherds pie. It contains two tins of tomatoes, two onions, two carrots, a leek that I had lying around and some frozen peas. If Ive done my maths right, divided by five, I think this works out at three portions a person. Add in the requisite bowl of watermelon at the end and thats four portions.

Total intake: seven portions.

Felicitys verdict

In just four days, Stuarts achieved fruit and veg enlightenment: the secret to eating more is to incorporate them into your ordinary diet, rather than hoping youll magically turn into the kind of person who enjoys snacking on raw kale. Adding extra portions to stews, curries, ragus and the like makes it feel a lot less like eating rabbit food than munching on a raw carrot next time he could try mixing some celeriac into the mash on top of his shepherds pie, too. And dont worry if some days are better than others: if beans on toast and an apple are the best you can manage, its still better than nothing. Even if you do have a Creme Egg on the side.

Total four-day intake: 30.66/40 portions

(If you let me have the doubled-up fruit and veg, which you shouldnt, but hey.)

Without really trying, Ive come tantalisingly close to the target. It hasnt made me too farty. It hasnt caused me any stress. So perhaps this is the secret here: you should just eat as many portions of fruit and vegetables as you can without letting it take over your life. If it goes belly-up for a day which it will, because there is more to life than endlessly chewing on foliage then thats not a big deal. After all, whats the point of living longer if its just going to make you uptight, unhappy and flatulent? Quit whining, science. Im doing fine.