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Big Ideas for Arkansas 2017

Readers and experts suggest ways to change Arkansas for the better.

Let the children play: extend recess requirements for public schools

By Michelle Davis

The first week of kindergarten, I met my oldest daughter for lunch at her Little Rock School District elementary — a well recommended, beloved school that I had researched extensively before settling into the neighborhood. After a very brief and regulated lunch period, my daughter asked that I bring her little sister down to the playground for recess. I watched the children who had so quietly eaten their lunch and shuffled through the halls in ordered lines bring the playground to life with running, jumping, imaginary games, negotiation and compromise. But just as the rules of a sport were sorted out and the roles in an imaginary game were divvied up, the bell rang loudly. The kids were corralled back into lines, slowed down and shushed, returned to their desks.

I was shocked to discover not only the brevity of this recess time, but also to learn that this was the children's only recess in the entire school day. Intuitively, it did not feel right. Perhaps this lack of recess was why the little girl who returned to me at the end of the school day felt like leftovers of my daughter. A child who during her preschool years would sit for hours listening to stories now came home barely able to sit still, reverting at times to baby talk, already worn down by the school career she only just began. Many of my entrepreneur friends talk about their utilization of frequent breaks to stimulate creativity. Progressive work environments advertise their gyms and gardens as key elements in a thriving performance culture. Why, I wondered, would children doing the critical work of their young lives require anything less to reach their full potential?

It only took a quick Google search to realize that my distress was more than mother instinct. Decades of international research argues that limiting recess is not the best for our children physically, academically or socially. It is during recess that children learn life-long lessons about peer interaction, that they reignite their focus and energy for intensive work, that they get physical exercise and developmentally necessary unstructured play.

Schools willing to take the risk and try a research-based approach are seeing excellent outcomes. Eagle Mountain Elementary in Fort Worth, Texas, made a decision to switch from one recess a day for kindergartners and first-graders to four 15-minute recess periods. The teachers, who were initially concerned about losing classroom time necessary to cover required material, realized quickly that their students were actually learning more. The children were less fidgety, discipline issues decreased, and students engaged in a more focused, creative manner.

In our globalized world, American public schools are under pressure to produce students competitive on the international stage. Rather than requiring more instructional time, increasing recess could be a key component in boosting our nation's mediocre ranking in academic performance. Finnish students, who scored highest overall in a recent comparison of academic performance in 57 countries, receive 15-minute breaks every hour. American teachers working under the Finnish model saw measurable improvements in focus and performance. Japan, also ranked as a top-10 performer, gives students 10- to 15-minute breaks every 40 to 50 minutes, taking into account that attention span diminishes after 40 to 50 minutes of intense instruction.

The support for more recess is beyond anecdote. Anthony Pellegrini of the University of Minnesota and his peers conducted four field experiments in American elementary schools that demonstrated the educational value of frequent recess. In each experiment, increasing recess time raised attentiveness and improved academic performance. Pellegrini's research also highlights the importance of recess in social development and peer relations. The American Academy of Pediatrics clearly advocates that recess is essential for the emotional, physical and social well being of our children. In a policy statement put out by the Council on School Health following a comprehensive literature review, the AAP stated that, "A growing body of evidence suggests that recess promotes not only physical health and social development but also cognitive performance." Though no exact formula is given, the policy statement recommends frequent recess at regularly scheduled intervals for maximum whole-child benefits.

After reviewing the research, I figured that my daughter's minimal recess time was a well meaning, but misguided, decision made by the administrators of my daughter's school. I knew that occasionally when the weather was beautiful, the kindergarten teachers would slip in an extra recess. I planned to print out articles I read and take them to the principle. I brought up the issue to other parents on the playground and discovered that everyone I talked with shared my distress over the lack of recess. Only when I joined the PTA board did I learn that recess guidelines are controlled by the state Department of Education, which requires a minimum average of six hours of instruction time per day. Meanwhile, the Department of Education requires at least 40 minutes of physical education and 90 minutes of physical activity per week. The latter could include additional P.E. time or recess. My child's school in the LRSD only follows this minimum requirement, which means my daughter gets about 15 minutes of recess every day and P.E. once a week. Other districts, including the Searcy School District, allow for 30 minutes of daily free play. Such strict guidelines about instructional time make it impossible to further increase recess without compromising on mandatory classroom hours. In order for our schools to freely explore the benefits of increased recess, laws need to change.

I believe that Arkansas public schools can be great. I trust that our district leaders and decision-makers want our children to thrive. They want the young minds coming out of our state to be powerful forces in our community and competitive voices in the global conversation. If we truly want to give our children the best, why would we base our decisions about their education on anything other than the most convincing research? We are not going to see our test scores go up or our children reach further when the quality of instructional time is compromised by exhaustion and restlessness. Instead, let us look to the success stories of those who have gone before us and strive to be an example of thriving education in America.

It is time for us to let our children play and see what happens.

Michelle Davis is a nurse at CHI St. Vincent Infirmary, the mother of two girls and a PTA board member in the LRSD.

Develop sharing economies

By Jessica McClard

Arkansans can make their hometowns better places by developing sharing economies.

I am founder of one such economy, the Little Free Pantry. It applies the Little Free Library concept to address food insecurity, which is a fancy way of saying I put a box on a post and stocked it with food instead of books. Grassroots and open source, the concept continues its spread across the country and internationally. Each iteration creates space for neighbors helping neighbors. Accessibility increases both supply-side and demand-side productivity. Recirculation of goods is "green."

Sharing economies are not new to Arkansas. My dad and his brother shared a lawnmower for six years; by pooling their resources, they were able to afford a higher quality machine. The Ozarkansas Tool Library program, a joint effort between Feed Communities and the Fayetteville Public Library, lends implements. A good friend of mine sometimes trades professional services for other professional services, and that same friend pointed me to Northwest Arkansas's Local Trade Partners, a small business trade exchange.

Sharing economies are not without challenges: Logistics require problem-solving and people are complicated. Arkansans who embrace these challenges anticipating more joy, productivity, community, equity and sustainability need only look around for ideas. Swap vegetables ... or anything. Take turns watching one another's kids. Put those kids on a school bus and carpool to work. Use the local library or Little Free Library. Then, post about initiatives on social media to widen impact.

The single Little Free Pantry (or swap) is "little." Lots might be big.

Jessica McClard is a financial associate with Thrivent Financial and founder of the Little Free Pantry initiative.

Create a political action committee for candidates who support policies that help kids

By Rich Huddleston

If we want better policies for children, we must elect candidates who are champions for kids.

Our goal as child advocates is to improve public policy so all children have the resources and opportunities to develop, thrive and realize their full potential. However, we cannot succeed as advocates unless state policymakers support the public policies that will improve the lives of children. While this depends on our ability to be persuasive advocates, it depends even more on the natural inclination of lawmakers to support our issues and to be champions for kids.

If a policymaker is dead set against the policies we support, even after our best advocacy efforts, we need to hold him or her accountable for their votes. How do we do that?

Many powerful special interest groups do this through political action committees that can endorse and financially support the campaigns of candidates at election time. Unfortunately, children and their advocates rarely have a powerful PAC to help them.

So, our big idea is a simple one. Let's create a powerful children's PAC in Arkansas to help elect better candidates who will support better public policies for children.

The challenge will be creating a PAC that is independent and has support on both sides of the political aisle, but that can still raise enough money to be effective and whose endorsement is valued by candidates. To accomplish this, our children's PAC would be set up in the following way:

It should be multi-issue — just as the needs of children are. It should take positions on policy issues that appeal to reasonable people of all political persuasions. The PAC's leadership and grassroots support must be broad-based (think parents) so candidates and voters don't perceive it as being the tool of any one group or individual. The PAC should target smaller donors for its financial support. If we learned anything from Bernie Sanders' campaign for president, it's the power of small donors. Finally, our children's PAC must focus on the long run. It will take several election cycles to get our champions for kids elected. It will be a district-by-district fight, and we must target the battles we can win.

It's time to take steps to get candidates elected who will be champions for kids. We can take the first step by making sure that children have their own voice at election time.

Rich Huddleston is executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families.

Create a statewide coalition to reach the unbanked and underbanked

By Darrin Williams

According to the Corporation for Enterprise Development, there are an estimated 9 million American households that are "unbanked," meaning they do not have a checking or savings account. Another 21 million households are "underbanked," which means that while they may have a bank account, they are still relying on alternative financial services.

So why is this a problem? For those who have always had a bank account, it may seem like a small thing, but for those living outside of the financial mainstream, even everyday transactions take on new meanings and new costs.

Simply cashing a check means going to a check casher who may charge high fees. Getting a loan might mean going to a payday lender or pawn shop. And don't even think about building your credit. (Hint: You won't be). All of this means that you're spending more to move and save your money — a tough prospect for those already struggling financially.

The national "Bank On" movement is an attempt to address the problem by encouraging financial institutions to join together and encourage one another to create "safe" accounts, low-cost bank accounts that provide households with a safe place to save, conduct basic financial business and build a credit history.

So now you're saying, "Darrin, you're the CEO of a bank; why don't you just do it?" Well that's where we come to the big problem in need of a big idea. Southern Bancorp is actively working to address the problem of the financially underserved in some of Arkansas's most economically distressed communities. However, the only way we're going to make a dent in those statewide numbers is by working together through a statewide coalition. From Bentonville to Eudora and all points between, by joining forces, we can make a real difference.

Darrin Williams is CEO is of Southern Bancorp Inc.

Artists-in-residence everywhere

By Tara Stickley

Artists should be put where they don't belong. They are unruly thinkers, and as such are gifted at seeing beyond rigid social stratification and bureaucratic obstacles. At a time when political speech feels more and more divisive and bipartisan agreement impossible, it'll be up to our most creative thinkers to forge a space for dialogue and compromise. There should be artists-in-residence in every administrative or legislative body. At every hospital, on every school board, every mega-corporation, there should be an artist weighing in with human-scale insights to counter things like metadata, standardized testing and the delocalization of labor.

Art is immeasurable and purposeless, and that is why it is beautiful. It's an irrational pursuit that engages the brain to work outside of binary relationships and even language itself. What if the answer to a gridlocked negotiation took the form of an arabesque, a kinetic sculpture or a color-field painting?

Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome is the only structure strong enough to withstand 180-mile-per-hour Arctic winds and now shelters critical radar equipment. The interdisciplinary model of faculty at Black Mountain College (where poet William Carlos Williams and Albert Einstein both served on the board of directors) changed American pedagogy. More recently, artist Simone Leigh's Free People's Medical Clinic provided a temporary space in Brooklyn where anyone in need could freely access gynecological services, health screenings, yoga, counseling, dance classes and herbalists. It's the improbable admixture of aesthetics and hard science that often yields true ingenuity.

Tara Stickley is a teacher and writer from Arkansas.

Give high-interest books to classrooms in Little Rock's academically distressed schools

By Ginny Blankenship

I've spent my career as an advocate for students and policy wonk for schools, but I've spent a lifetime as a book nerd — with an unhealthy obsession with school supplies.

My obsession rose to a new level when the state took over the Little Rock School District based on test scores of six schools that have long been neglected by our community. I remember reading in the paper that an English as a Second Language teacher at one of those schools, Hall High, said she didn't have enough books or supplies to help her students learn to read. When nearly a quarter of students have limited English proficiency, and 100 percent are low-income, the very least our community and policymakers can do is to make sure that this teacher — all teachers — have the resources they need to improve their school's test scores, but more importantly, to help students develop a lifelong love of reading and learning.

As a former English teacher, I have seen firsthand that when you give students easy access to high-interest books right in their classrooms, most of them will read. They'll even fight over who gets the first copy of "The Color Purple" or "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" just as much as vampire fan fiction. For middle- and high-school teachers, building a good classroom library can cost thousands of dollars, but unlike elementary school teachers, they receive no money from the district or state to do so. And while most community school supply and book drives target elementary schools, our teenagers have an urgent need for books, school supplies and engaging literacy programs, too.

Last May, I had a big idea to launch the Open Book Project to make it easy for people to give books that students want to read. In just six months, we stocked classroom libraries at Hall High and Henderson Middle School with over 6,000 new or like-new books, from authors Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Star Wars, and C.S. Lewis to J.K. Rowling. I'm now applying for 501(c)(3) status to qualify for hundreds of grants available for books and school supplies at schools in need.

After finishing classroom libraries in LRSD's academically distressed schools, I envision bringing the community together to turn outdated media centers into collegiate, coffeehouse-style reading spaces; help students start their own home libraries; and create supply closets or warehouse "stores" where teachers can find whatever resources they or their students need without having to dip into their own pockets over and over.

Please visit our website at http://ift.tt/2kvG0rL, like and share our Facebook page, and sign up to donate books or cash. It's a simple solution that can have a life-changing impact on one student and, just maybe, help create a culture of reading and excellence throughout our whole school system.

Ginny Blankenship, EdD, is founder of the Open Book Project and education policy director for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families.

Arkansas Sings Day

By Glen Hooks

At the risk of being even more sappy than usual, I genuinely believe that music has a lot of power. Music can inspire anger pt joy, action, healing, love, and even community. I'm an activist by trade, and I'll tell you that no movement has ever succeeded without a good soundtrack.

So here's what I'd like to see: Once a year, we, the vast and lovely community of Arkansans, all pledge to learn one original song (written, chosen and voted on by Arkansas musicians). On a specific day — let's call it something like Arkansas Sings Day — we'll gather together in our respective communities, with our own instruments and our own voices, and learn/sing the song loudly and lustily together.

For a day or even for just a few moments, we'll put down the things that divide us and create something that brings us together. It won't solve all of our problems, but it can help.

Glen Hooks is the chapter director of the Sierra Club of Arkansas.

Make it easier to vote

By Chris Burks

Unfortunately, Arkansas is behind when it comes to the fundamental right to vote and a sound election process. Fundamental rights won't mean more than the paper they are printed on if we do not uphold them through our laws and resources.

A key to ensuring voting rights for all Arkansans and cleaning up elections is to fix the mechanics of voting. In this day and age of a Starbucks on every corner and shopping just a click away online, voting should be secure, quick and accessible in multiple locations.

There is no reason voters should have to drive many miles to a county courthouse, or only vote in their precinct on Election Day. The good news is that the legislature agrees with this sentiment in theory. Arkansas law allows for vote centers. Vote centers allow anyone, regardless of their precinct, to vote securely in a location with a real-time voter roll.

Speaking from experience as the attorney for the Democratic Party of Arkansas, early voting is difficult to access in many counties. Local election commissioners are incentivized to have fewer early voting locations because opening more locations costs more and is more work.

Think how many more people would vote if Pulaski County voters had the choice of voting at a large, safe venue with easy parking, say Alltel Arena, or at their local precinct.

A 2015 appropriation included up to $30 million to update voting equipment statewide so that vote centers could be in every county. But that appropriation was not fully funded. As a result, vote centers were not funded in Pulaski County and other counties.

Oregon, Washington and Colorado hold all elections entirely by mail. California will begin holding all-mail elections in 2018. Arkansans probably won't want to give up their right to vote in person, but we can pass automatic voter registration and a longer absentee vote-by-mail process, too.

The ultimate idea is that when everyone can and does vote, then everyone will benefit. Fixing the mechanics of voting and cleaning up election administration will get us much closer.

Chris Burks is a lawyer with the Sanford Law firm and the Democratic Party of Arkansas.

Establish the Fourche Creek Preserve and Water Trail

By Dan Scheiman

Anyone traveling Interstate 30 downtown can see the obvious and impressive investment we have made as a city in the River Market district and the Arkansas River Trail. The heart of downtown Little Rock features fine dining, art and culture. The entire area is connected, on both sides of the river, by trails and parks that encourage people to get outside.

What few people realize, though, is that a few miles along I-30, past the downtown area, an entirely different outdoor experience awaits. At more than 1,800 acres, Fourche Bottoms stands as the largest urban wetland in the South. It is home to more than 120 species of birds, 140 species of native plants, 50 species of fish and stands of 300-year-old bald cypress trees. Sadly, it is also home to polluted water and riddled with trash, tires and other contaminants that wash into Fourche Creek from more than 70 percent of the surface area of Little Rock. Unlike the healthy, well-maintained riverfront area on the north side of downtown, this wetland area so rich in habitat and natural phenomena sits overgrown, polluted and neglected.

Restoring forest health, developing a watershed management plan, and limiting litter that flows through our storm drains will open the door to rehabilitation of this damaged area. We envision a natural wonderland where anyone can float, fish, hike and escape urban life without ever having to leave the city. By cleaning up this imperiled waterway and its surrounding forest, Little Rock can turn Fourche Creek into the crown jewel of Arkansas ecotourism. And by opening up this area to everyone, we can knock down another barrier that unnecessarily separates many of our neighborhoods.

Let's turn Fourche Bottoms into Fourche Creek Preserve and Water Trail, a thriving, resilient natural asset that allows us to provide citizens and visitors alike with robust, diverse outdoor experiences. From a 4.5-mile float, to trail linkages with other city parks, to hours of exploration of native Arkansas plants and wildlife, this wetland presents us with an opportunity to create something unique to Little Rock.

Dr. Dan Scheiman is the Bird conservation director at Audubon Arkansas and serves as the chairperson for Friends of Fourche Creek.

Issue every first grader a library card

By Garbo Hearne

Public libraries are an underused resource for our children. By learning how to use the many benefits our libraries offer, children will develop critical thinking skills, and literacy and educational standards would be increased.

To get our children into libraries, schools should make sure that, starting in first grade, every student has a public library card and opportunities to go to a library. Schools and libraries should partner to make this happen; the result would be to even the playing field between underserved schools, private and charter schools and home-schoolers.

This collaboration would also introduce many parents to underutilized resources available for children and families through the library system. Libraries would respond by strengthening their programs, perhaps by working with higher education in offering degrees in library studies and education.

There are more than books at libraries. For example, the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children's Library and Learning Center has a greenhouse, a theater, a computer lab, classes and offers free snacks. It has a walking trail. A place to exhibit art. And, 21,000 volumes.

Instituting self-learning makes for a smart and economically sound Arkansas.

No books ... no learning. No learning ... no knowledge. No knowledge ... no wisdom. No wisdom ... no ethics. No ethics ... no conscience. No conscience ... no community. No community ... no bread.

Garbo Hearne is the co-owner of Pyramid Art, Books & Custom Framing and Hearne Fine Art.

Implement restorative justice in our schools to create positive learning environments

By Rachel Norris

Typically, public education systems use punishments or zero-tolerance policies to deter negative behavior. However, a unique communication methodology called restorative justice shows that by focusing on the relationship of teachers, students and parents, schools can lower student suspension rates and increase positive learning environments in Arkansas.

Students navigate life the best way they know how, but many students simply don't have the proper tools to express and work through their emotions on their journey. As a result, this navigation can take negative turns, leading to poor outcomes. Many schools today are designed to punish this negative behavior. Restorative justice suggests schools should offer students a space to discuss their hardships, anxieties and roadblocks with their peers and teachers.

Restorative justice has been implemented in many school districts throughout the U.S. in the form of small meeting spaces, called circles. During an advisory period, these circles help to build community among students, teachers and parents and give students a designated safe space to discuss different topics. They have also been used as a space for teachers and students to communicate with one another when things in the classroom aren't proceeding in a positive way. Restorative justice circles can also be used to mediate conversations between students who have disagreements. In all circumstances, restorative justice circles have shown great success.

According to "Restorative Justice in U.S. Schools: A Research Review" conducted in 2016 by WestEd, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research agency, restorative justice circles have shown to cause improvement in student grades, a reduction in out-of-school suspensions and positive student-teacher relations. By implementing this practice here in Arkansas, it has the potential to make a huge impact on students and their community.

Rachel Norris is a science teacher at Central High School.

Patio homes, neighborhood kindergartens, leaf removal, a city lottery, gig markets, urban homesteading

By Matilda Buchanan

I can name a number of things that Little Rock would be better for having. Here's a list:

Patio homes as infill in older neighborhoods. Many of us are aging but don't want to leave our neighborhoods or live in high-rises. We want one-level spaces that allow us to engage in minimal gardening and have a place for our little dogs to romp.

Universal early childhood education in neighborhood centers with free extended daycare for working parents. These centers, for children in pre-K and kindergarten, could be attached to a local elementary school, but that would not be required. They could also be attached to a middle school or high school if the schools fulfill the "neighborhood" requirement. Centers could be in shopping malls or vacant stand-alone buildings. These centers would be the first line defense for families and would include referrals for health, social services, legal aid, etc. If Little Rock or a deep-pocket private sponsor invested 15 years in these centers, school achievement would soar, the dropout rate would plummet and crime would drop; we would be healthier and a more stable city.

Once-a-week street sweeping in all zones on the day after garbage pick-up, including blown leaf removal in the fall. This is so obvious that it really doesn't require explanation, but one of the main benefits is the immediate improvement of Fourche Creek. This could be funded by the Little Rock Lottery (see below).

A city lottery: The city of Little Rock can raise money for special projects like street sweeping and leaf removal by creating a lottery. The lottery "prizes" would be specialized city services easily provided by the city at little to no extra cost. Examples are as follows: Raffle off three months of free dumpsters for a renovation project, buy chances to have city workers remove trees and other landscape debris, win a free water meter for a sprinkler system, win a new sewer line from your house to the street, win three hours of free city backhoe work, have the city repave your driveway, get two hours of off-duty police protection for a party, etc.

Gig bazaar, to match workers with services to sell with customers wanting services. A gig bazaar would work like a farmers market or flea market. It would open up twice a month in the Hall of Industry at the State Fairgrounds or some other similar space with bathrooms and heating/air. This is better than Craigslist or Angie's List because workers and customers meet face-to-face in a neutral space. Workers/ customers can negotiate price and even barter. This should not be limited to babysitting, household cleaning and handyman needs. Letter-writing services, contract poetry, song writing for special occasions, musical entertainment, shoe repair, quick haircuts, color consultation for a room you need to paint, organizing the attic — are all stuff folks need help with. The gig workers just need to bring card tables and their imaginations. A central notice board would list services for sale and services wanted. The trick is to keep it low-tech and informal. Food trucks outside would be good. There could be mobile pet grooming stations. I foresee the feel of a renaissance marketplace or Middle Eastern bazaar.

Urban homesteading. The city of Little Rock has gotten better at condemning buildings that are being destroyed by neglect and holding trashy and absent owners responsible for the upkeep of their properties. The end result is a growing inventory of vacant lots with liens held by the city. This program would allow city residents to homestead these properties. There would be several categories in this program:

a) If a structure is salvageable, a citizen presents a plan of rehabilitation to be completed within five years. If the work is completed on time, the applicant gets clear title.

b) If the property is a vacant lot, the applicant presents building plans. If the plan meets all city requirements (building, historic and zoning), the applicant has five years to complete and occupy the site and then gets clear title to the property.

c) If the property is vacant and adjacent to the applicant's own property, the applicant can submit plans for a garden or pocket park. If approved, the applicant would have one year to complete the plans and would be required to maintain the property for 10 years to get clear title. This is the most attractive of the options because it would result in immediate, low-cost improvement to our neighborhoods.

Matilda Buchanan is retired from teaching English at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts and is now a private investigator.

Street performers national championship

By David Rose

You've all seen them. Perhaps you encountered one while waiting for the ferry to Staten Island or Sausalito. You might have watched one while walking on Venice Beach in Los Angeles or sitting under a tree in Jackson Square down in New Orleans. In England they are called buskers, but here, in the United States, we refer to them as street performers.

For the most part, they work with a limited palette, are one-trick ponies, but some of them are terribly clever. They enthrall the audience for 3 to 5 minutes, garner some coins and then, as each audience is replaced by the next, they start their act all over again. I've seen jugglers, contortionists, tap dancers and soloists on almost every instrument imaginable and, of course, the inevitable mimes.

Once, while hanging out at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, I got to see the Human Jukebox. This gentleman had taken a refrigerator carton and, with nothing more than a paring knife and a large permanent marker, fashioned it into an over-sized, stylized jukebox. He waited inside with his trumpet until a pedestrian, overcome with curiosity, slipped a dollar into the slot and pushed one of the cardboard buttons. The Human Jukebox then pulled a string that opened a flap in the box and stuck his trumpet out. There were only half a dozen buttons on the jukebox and perhaps the trumpeter only knew six songs but he played them well. The man never spoke or, for that matter, had any interaction with his audience other than the trumpet solos. I had the feeling that he tipped the box over at night and slept in it, but he was fun to watch and a steady stream of tourists put money in the slot.

Arkansas has no buskers that I know of. To have street performers, you have to have a town with enough street life to support them. However, it might be fun to bring a bunch of them here for a week or so. If we could come up with some healthy prize money I'm sure the buskers would show up; after all, they are out on the street now playing for quarters.

We could line them up on South Main in Little Rock, Central Avenue in Hot Springs or Dickson Street in Fayetteville and let them do their stuff. There would have to be some kind of voting system that was predicated on audience approval. There would also be a closing ceremony during which one of them would be crowned National Champion.

We may only get a half dozen the first year, but one of them will walk off with the title of National Champion. The other buskers around the country might not agree with Arkansas's choice but, to prove us wrong, they will have to show up the next year and take the crown in open competition. This could build from year to year, drawing more and more tourists and national attention. Hosting the Buskers National Championship could build into something quite profitable and a whole lot of fun. Unlike most of the big ideas in previous issues of the Times, the Street Performers National Championship, like the Cold War Memorial [Big Ideas 2014, online], could actually be done.

David Rose is an artist, father and creative thinker who lives in Hot Springs.

Neighborhood gardens

By Danna Schneider

I am a pie-eyed optimist, and I would like to expand in Clarksville something I think would be ideal for the entire state of Arkansas. We have started a community garden in cooperation with the University of the Ozarks. The university is already providing produce from their own garden to the public school's backpack program and teaching children how to prepare and eat fresh vegetables.

My idea is to have community gardens in all neighborhoods and teach residents how to grow fresh produce; harvest; prepare; and preserve what they grow. All of the gardens would be maintained by the neighbors, who could be taught, if needed, by their own neighbors or by master gardeners in the UA Cooperative Extension Service's Arkansas Master Gardeners Program. Civic organizations could provide the tools and the residents would be responsible for the garden. This would eventually create a healthier society and also teach responsibility, cooperation and bring people together again, which in turn would reduce crime and all kinds of societal ills in addition to closing the gaps between generations of neighbors.

Danna Schneider is a resident of Clarksville and a member of the City Council.

Year-round school, more summer programs

By Erin Finzer

With two elementary-school-aged children, summer care is a huge concern for me, both financially and from the practical standpoint of finding and managing different "camps" each week for my children that are both safe and affordable. I know middle-class families that had to leave their elementary-aged kids home alone last summer because they could not afford summer programming and did not have family or friends who could take care of their children. What about families that have even fewer financial and social resources?

Also, although my own children are not "tweens" yet, I understand that summer camp options for sixth- to eighth-graders are almost impossible to find, and few parents want to leave their children at this age home alone. As more and more households have two working parents who cannot afford quality summer care, and as social and legal mores become less tolerant toward parents whose children are unsupervised, I believe this issue requires public attention.

One solution that would benefit children would be year-round school, though that would also involve smaller breaks throughout the year. Still, according to an article in the New York Times on how American schools' summer breaks hearken back to a time when more families were headed with one parent breadwinner and one parent at home, long summer breaks can put low-income children two months behind in their reading skills, and they don't catch up.

The Times also noted that in 2014, families estimated their summer daycare expenses at $958 per child, a sum that for many families equaled nearly a fourth of their income. It is higher now. So another solution would be state tax breaks, modeled after the federal Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, for working parents. Incentives to create more affordable summer programs would also be a boon to Arkansas children.

Erin Finzer is a professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Reject sprawl, support Little Rock

By Tom Fennell

We need a Chamber of Commerce and elected officials who understand that the interstate system has done wonders for bedroom communities but little for Little Rock, and that the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department's plan to vastly widen Interstate 30 through our reawakened urban core is not in Little Rock's best interest.

If our leaders would reject urban sprawl and work for the interests of the residents who elected them, Little Rock could be a first-rate city. When AHTD projects hurt Little Rock, we need leaders who will stand up to the department. That may require reconstituting our chamber to represent Little Rock first rather than Benton, Bryant, Cabot and Conway.

For Little Rock to be a greater city, we need to elect people who support sustainable urban values and planning. Who understand that commuter traffic could be routed away from downtown. That a boulevard, rather than a concrete river of fumes-generating automobiles, would be an economic boon for Little Rock. That unsafe automobiles will one day be a thing of the past, and the need for concrete swaths will be gone.

The best, most livable cities are moving away from a car-centric society to a more sensible people-moving, multimodal outlook. For Little Rock to be competitive from a business and economic development perspective, we will fall way behind if we aren't proactive about transit, pedestrians, cyclists and complete streets. Many cities — like Vancouver, Portland and Indianapolis — understand this and are moving commuter traffic away from the urban core and replacing interstate nightmares with people-friendly roads and parks. Even Reno, Nev., is building a new arterial to avoid expanding its freeway.

The Imagine Central Arkansas plan would work extremely well as an alternative to the freeway expansion by adding additional river crossings to connect arterials at Pike Avenue and East Broadway. This is a better long-term solution to congestion.

Tom Fennell is an architect with Fennell Purifoy and the designer of a boulevard alternative for a widened Interstate 30.

Make charter schools accountable

By Marion Humphrey Jr.

The Walton Family Foundation has pledged to devote an additional $250 million toward charter school expansion in cities throughout the country, including Little Rock. I wish they would do more to support traditional public schools throughout Arkansas. Because of this trend, I am practical enough to realize that charters and school privatization are here to stay. Yet, as a product of the traditional public school system (the Little Rock School District, to be exact), I hope to see charters be held accountable when it comes to educating students from marginalized and under-resourced communities, such as parts of Little Rock and rural areas throughout our state. This is not being done by the state Board of Education, which approves almost any charter application that comes its way.

Public charter schools were originally intended to be experimental educational environments that could develop innovative practices that could then be taken back into traditional public schools. But in the last decade, we have seen charters utilized as direct competitors to traditional school districts. Both charters and traditional public schools receive federal, state and local funding on a per-pupil basis. The more charter seats within a given area, the less funding that goes to the traditional school system (because students exit the district). Little Rock and other areas have seen funding declines that have contributed to the closing of neighborhood schools, which falls upon those students with the most challenges.

If charters were held to greater standards of accountability and transparency by the state Board of Education, they would not be as problematic as they are today, and could even work in concert with local school districts. So what can be done?

Reduce the selective recruitment and retention of students. Charters usually operate on a lottery basis that requires parents to submit an application. In addition, these schools often do not have a school bus system. That means interested students usually must have (1) committed parents or guardians to assist them with the application process and (2) a mode of transportation to attend the school. Last year, when the state board reviewed expansion plans of two charter operators in Little Rock, eStem Public Charter Schools and LISA Academy, it was clear they served far fewer students eligible for free or reduced lunch than the LRSD. The provision of only Rock Region Metro bus transit for their students (which very few of their students use) is one of several factors that keep these schools recruiting more children from high-need families.

Stop charters from pushing out students. Nationally, students at charter schools are more likely to be expelled, suspended or pushed out, after which they typically land back in the traditional public schools. In Little Rock, teachers and parents talk frequently about LRSD schools receiving students from charters (both high- and low-performing ones) after the date that their student population counts for per-pupil funding is made. If a student leaves after that date, those taxpayer dollars stay behind for the charter's use. In the 2014-15 school year, data provided by the Arkansas Department of Education showed that the only students returned to the LRSD from eStem and LISA were students of color. Charters should be fully discouraged from pushing out students during the school year. If they do so, we must make sure that per-pupil funding follows the returned students back to traditional public school districts.

Reduce the competition for resources between charters and traditional public schools. Charter schools are operated by private management organizations whose boards of directors often do not reside in the areas the schools serve. Therefore, they should not be privy to the same level of per-pupil funding — much of which comes from local taxpayers — that traditional public schools receive. Public charters and traditional public schools must work fluidly together or else the latter of the two will fail to exist in urban and rural areas.

Marion Andrew Humphrey Jr. is an organizer and a resident of Little Rock.

LGBT center

By V.L. Cox

I was recently invited to exhibit my artwork at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in New York, and I was blown away by the amount of support it had from major corporations, the city and the state. The Center, which just underwent a $9 million renovation and has 300,000 visitors a year, offers endless resources not only to the LGBT community, but to the community as a whole. It offers programs in the arts and culture, recovery and wellness, family and youth, a resource center and is available for rentals for events.

I have never felt so welcomed, and for the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged.

Arkansas definitely needs a community center like this. The Center gets funding from New York state as well as the city, as well as corporate support from such entities as Barneys New York, Bloomberg News, Citibank, HBO, JetBlue Airlines, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Prudential Insurance and Time Warner. There are companies in Arkansas whose policies reflect their support for LGBT rights, most notably Walmart, which as early as 2013 offered health benefits to same-sex partners, and Tyson Foods. Other national companies located in Arkansas known for their supportive position on LGBT rights that could be asked to contribute, including Alcoa (which still maintains a presence in Arkansas in Arkadelphia), Starbucks, Men's Wearhouse, McDonald's and Marriott International. There is, of course, the Arkansas Times as well.

V.L. Cox is an artist; her installation at The Center, "A Murder of Crows: The End Hate Collection," targeted discrimination and hate crimes against all minorities.

Turn Arkansas into a vote-by-mail state

By Sarah Scanlon

Let go of elections being a one-day affair and do away with all barriers to the electoral process by instituting "vote-by-mail" in Arkansas.

Turnout in Arkansas for the 2016 general election was 64.5 percent, which was above the national average of 58.2 percent. But turnout in Colorado was 71.3 percent, turnout in Oregon was 78.6 percent and turnout in Washington state was 78.8 percent. The difference is that Washington, Oregon and Colorado all have permanent vote-by-mail systems.

In vote-by-mail states, ballots are mailed between 21 and 30 days before the election and are mailed back or dropped off at the election center by the voter by Election Day. Studies have shown that most of the ballots are returned in three stages — right after they are received (by those people who are nerds, like me), right after the first of the month in which they are mailed (presumably when people are sitting down and paying their bills), and right before Election Day. This is a secure system that has multiple safeguards in place to ensure the fidelity of the process.

Oregon and Washington also mail every voter a free booklet containing detailed information about the candidates and issues that are going to be on the ballot. In Oregon, for every positive statement for an issue or a candidate, opponents can pay a fee to place their own page with a rebuttal. These states also have an online portal where candidates for office can upload a video of their stump speech. Voters can see their candidates and get an idea of whom and what they are voting for.

With the evolution of early voting, we are starting to respond to the idea that Election Day doesn't have to be only a single day. I would prefer that we instituted mandatory voting (like Australia does), but in the absence of that, my big idea is turning Arkansas into a vote-by-mail state. Perhaps this is something that could be done community by community, eventually forcing the state to do the same.

Sarah Scanlon was the former state director for Bernie Sanders' primary effort in Arkansas and was national LGBTQ outreach director for Sanders' presidential campaign.

Build a 21st century tax system around electronic transfers

By Andy Howington

Suspend your doubts about implementation and imagine a tax that is inherently progressive, impractical to avoid, and would relieve individuals, small businesses and large corporations alike from paperwork and filings.

The transaction tax would collect a fraction of a percentage from all electronic financial transactions, without exception. Anytime money moves from one account to another, a third of 1 percent of the transaction would be taken from the receiving account and put into state coffers by the financial institution. By the nature of the tax, those people and businesses moving large amounts of money would pay more into the government account. The small amounts raised would be overshadowed by the sheer volume of receipts.

Avoidance (by cash transfers) would be impractical. In this way, the state could raise money in such a way that would eliminate the need for sales, property, income and payroll taxes. The biggest winners would be lower- and middle-income households, while the biggest losers would be large corporations and financial institutions (who would still benefit from a reduction in paperwork).

Andy Howington is a small business owner.

Expand broadband access

By Elizabeth Bowles

Arkansas ranks 48th out of 50 states for broadband connectivity. Although over 58 percent of Arkansans have access to broadband speeds of 25 megabits per second, 40 percent of Arkansans do not have broadband available in their area at all. The vast majority of these Arkansans live in rural areas. This leaves nearly half the state, 1.3 million Arkansans, without access to a fixed broadband connection capable of 25 Mbps download speeds; 148,000 Arkansans have NO fixed internet providers available where they live.

Interestingly, Arkansas ranks near the top for mobile phone penetration. However, although over 98 percent of Arkansans have access to mobile broadband of varying speeds, that alone is insufficient. While some mobile connections may be capable of 25 Mbps or higher, the data and usage caps that accompany most mobile connections make them unaffordable for many of the types of activities (such as Netflix or Hulu) that urban residents take for granted. Businesses and first responders who must rely on a mobile service for their broadband access cannot compete with urban businesses with access to fixed broadband, and economic developers will bypass communities where mobile broadband is the only available way to reach the internet. Access to fixed broadband is critical for rural communities to compete economically.

Where adequate broadband is available, students have access to global information and cultural resources previously unavailable; farmers gain real-time access to vital information such as crop prices, weather forecasts and marketing opportunities; doctors and medical professionals can consult with colleagues from larger hospitals not only within Arkansas but worldwide; small businesses can expand their reach to a global market; and communities overlooked because of lack of broadband can become viable for economic development.

Fiber has often been referred to as the "gold standard" for internet access, and it may be. But the cost of fiber can be prohibitive. My company, Aristotle, uses fixed wireless solutions to provide affordable, high-speed internet for rural and suburban communities in Arkansas. Aristotle recently installed networks in England and Keo and has expansion plans that call for coverage of a six-county area of the Arkansas Delta. Residents of these counties have been searching for a broadband solution that will allow them to become competitive in markets for crops, handmade goods and other economic development initiatives.

Although fiber remains an important part of Arkansas's broadband solution, fixed wireless is key to an overall broadband strategy. A hybrid network that includes fixed wireless broadband provides a more rapidly deployable and cost-effective option for connecting Arkansas citizens: Fixed wireless is less expensive to install than fiber and less expensive to maintain; it can be deployed in a fraction of the time that it takes to deploy fiber; it is capable of the same speeds and reliability as fiber; and for consumers who stream, fixed wireless costs 20 to 50 times less than mobile broadband and has no data caps. Satellite providers impose strict data caps while delivering weather dependent service.

Broadband networks, like fast-food chains, do better with competition. Structures that prevent competition by favoring a particular technology ultimately hurt the very communities those structures are attempting to help. In communities where only one provider is available, broadband take rates (the adoption of broadband by consumers) caps at 35 to 40 percent. It is only in communities where more than one provider is available that 68 to 75 percent adoption rates occur.

Broadband internet is essential to the future of education, businesses and communities in Arkansas, and fixed wireless broadband provides the ideal connectivity solution for many rural Arkansas communities. Often, due to topographical challenges — such as mountains, granite beds, forests and rivers — deployment of wireline solutions like fiber can be cost-prohibitive. Mobile solutions allow connectivity, but data caps and data overage charges make it unaffordable as a streaming broadband option and unattractive to economic developers.

Fixed wireless broadband offers comparable speeds and reliability to fiber at a fraction of the cost of deployment of a fiber network and at a fraction of the cost to the consumer of a mobile service. A hybrid solution that includes both fixed wireless and fiber is the best option to ensure all of Arkansas has comparable access to affordable broadband.

Elizabeth Bowles is president and chair of the board of Aristotle.

Extend the Arkansas coding initiative to foreign languages

By Will Watson

Governor Hutchinson has led Arkansas computer science education into the future with his coding initiatives that have sparked unprecedented innovations in state curriculum. Arkansas kids can code, and they finally have the outlets to develop these vital skills to take part in a 21st century workforce.

We should extend this forward-thinking approach to promote the teaching of foreign languages — critical skills in the globalized market. Hutchinson has staked his legacy on Arkansas becoming an economic powerhouse, and investments in education are certainly the best way to make that happen. As we seek direct foreign investment from China and greater opportunity in other markets, let's make sure the next generation of Arkansans is prepared to negotiate those deals, navigate other cultures and import jobs and knowledge back to the state.

There's no better way to do this than investing in critical languages at the primary and secondary level. Exposing Arkansas students to Chinese, Japanese, German, Arabic, Korean and other languages vital to the global marketplace will produce immeasurable dividends in the future. Look at Arkansas-based companies like Slim Chickens, which is expanding into the Middle East. Imagine the application of having more Arabic speakers with educational and economic ties to Arkansas. If we're going to turn Arkansas rice into sake, as brewer Ben Bell is doing, let's have more Japanese speakers to learn the trade. The examples are countless.

Speaking a foreign language makes sense on a cultural, economic and security level. Arkansas can advance its competitiveness with global firms by being a leader not only in coding languages, but the written and spoken languages of the fastest-growing markets in the world. Foreign languages are vital to America's security, with plentiful opportunities in the armed services, intelligence and diplomatic communities. Making them a priority for our future in Arkansas just makes sense.

I challenge our legislature and governor to require and enable every Arkansas high school to offer access to at least one critical language by 2020. By doing so we can give Arkansans a marketable asset that will only grow our state's economic competitiveness and the strength of our schools.

Will Watson is a development officer at Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville.

Increase processing options for local livestock producers

By Katie Short

Arkansas needs an alternative to U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected processing for direct-market livestock products. Regulations on meat processing have not caught up to the new, thriving market for locally sourced, humanely produced meat from smaller-scale farms. The USDA has relatively effective meat processing regulations designed to be minimally invasive for large-scale producers. But, in the same way that we don't have the physical and service infrastructure to meet the demands of the local food economy, we also lack the regulatory infrastructure.

It is almost impossible for would-be meat processors to enter the abattoir business because of the high costs of opening and operating a large industrial operation. For example, USDA regulations require an on-site inspector paid for by the facility. Despite real interest from chefs, butchers and restaurateurs in Central Arkansas, the cost of running a fully licensed USDA abattoir is so prohibitive as to even daydream about the potential of such a venture.

For farmers, this means abattoirs are a bottleneck. We have to work with the limitations of the two or three USDA-approved processors in the state or else drive our animals and products hundreds of miles to reach facilities in neighboring states. The logistics and expense of travel keep us on the highway instead of the farm and cause us to spend huge portions of our operating budgets on services outside the state, further adding to the long hours, stress and heavy operating costs that sink so many small farms before their third year of operation. And still, we can't meet the demands of the growing local foodie culture in the Little Rock area.

Meanwhile, almost every county in Arkansas has a "custom processor" — a mom-and-pop shop where local hunters have their deer cut up and where everything is tagged with a "not for sale" label. Custom plants are only for end users, unfortunately. If our farm could use a local custom processing plant to produce cuts that would be sold to consumers, we would be able to lower our prices, offer a wider variety of products and spend more time perfecting our farming as opposed to our driving.

Congress has proposed federal legislation to allow a means of regulating smaller-scale processors, but it has stalled. However, some states have created their own rules that meet federal standards for safety and cleanliness. Texas, for example, has set up a parallel system to USDA inspection that creates a license somewhere between a USDA facility and a custom-type plant. The state assigns an agent to supervise the handling of meat and ensure facilities meet basic requirements regarding contamination avoidance, basic humane care standards and so on.

Regulation is a good thing, in general. We need parameters to help us define the niche that we work within. But in this case, the regulation needs an update. Our meat production system has swung so far toward large-scale farming in the last 70 years that now we are left only with the tiny remnants of a bygone production system, and not a lot of resources to meet the demand generated by contemporary food culture.

For consumers, such reform would mean more choice. Not only would more farmers be able to more easily bring their products directly to market, there would be a huge opportunity for aspiring craft meat processors. Imagine if, like the blossoming of the gourmet food truck scene, we had a thriving community of creative artisan butchers suddenly able to manage the start-up costs of building or taking over a local custom processing plant. Today's foodies are embracing high-minded, highly crafted animal products, and Arkansas's livestock producers are eager to "meat" the need, but we have a dearth of specialists to convey our raw products into artisan food.

Katie Short and her husband, Travis, own and operate Farm Girl Meats, a family farm in Perry County.

Create a statewide Next Gen Digital Economy Readiness Commission

By Rick Webb

A new digital economy that will have more impact than the industrial age is upon us. Heartland communities like those across Arkansas can compete for the demands of this new economy if we prepare. First, we need to decide what we want Arkansas to become over the next five, 10 and 15 years: A leader in data analytics/machine learning? A focus on health care and wellness? Global supply chain systems? Sustainability? Education? Smart cities? Or should we remain just another flyover state with average-paying jobs? We must quit competing among ourselves for resources and align on a master plan for the state. Then we can discuss specific roles for various communities and how we as a state should provide them with resources. We must insist on more impact from our business and institutions — enterprise businesses, universities, public and charter schools, state and city government, chambers and our evolving entrepreneur community. And we must change the perception of Arkansas from "the land of Walmart" to one that is leading the U.S. and having impact globally on how people live their lives with rapidly emerging technology and the changing needs of our citizens.

Rick Webb is director of Grit Studios, a business incubator in Bentonville focused on helping start-up founders grow their businesses to enhance the Northwest Arkansas entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Be proud

By June Freeman

We should take pride in who we are and what we have. Little Rockers, like other Arkansans, are inclined to feel apologetic for not measuring up to life as it appears to be it in major cities. We have a lot going for us here, and there is always the opportunity to improve what we have if we work together toward that end.

Many who live here think of Little Rock as being somewhere in the hinterland. But Little Rock is an international port city. One can travel to any part of the world by setting off from the shore of the Arkansas River. The reverse is true, too!

June Freeman is a retired journalist and advocate for the arts.

More hiking and backpacking events in Arkansas

By Reggie Koch

In a time when we are encouraging people to be more active and spend more time outdoors, Arkansas has the space, the terrain and the beauty to be a hiking and backpacking hotspot. If we had more organized hiking and backpacking events, like the states along the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail, our tourism and outdoor industry could thrive.

There is no shortage of places to head out on your Arkansas walkabout, and if solitude is what you want, then we've got ideal trails for you. The Arkansas state website boasts 31 backpacking trails (more than 200 if you include all the short day-hiking trails, most of which are only a couple of miles long), and some of them require multiday trips if you want to see the whole trail. These include two nationally recognized trails of over 200 miles each: The Ouachita National Recreation Trail and the Ozark Highlands Trail.

These trails are well maintained but sparsely used. Why?

In other popular activities, Arkansas has taken the initiative to organize events to attract attention to our great outdoors. For example, the Little Rock Marathon and the Big Dam Bridge cycling event both attract large crowds each year. But Arkansas is even more ideally suited for hiking and backpacking than it is for running and bicycling.

Other states enjoy hiking and backpacking crowds that support a large outdoor supply industry.

The Appalachian Trail, for example, begins in Georgia and extends through 14 states to Maine, and has millions of visitors every year. There are kickoff events each year, and there is a whole industry of outfitter stores, hostels and recreation areas supported financially by the trail visitors.

Let's organize some Arkansas hiking and backpacking events and encourage people from all over to see our state's abundant outdoor beauty.

Reggie Koch is a North Little Rock lawyer.

A new park

By George Wittenberg

Create a park that is a bridge over the already sunken Interstate 630 from from 17th Street to the pedestrian bridge at MacArthur Park. It would be wonderful and historically correct. It is no great feat to cover the road by adding trusses over it, like they have already done in Seattle, Atlanta and Dallas. The trench of I-630 exists and so does the technology and even the financing possibilities. This park would knit the neighborhoods together again and, of course, by its very existence, positively affect property values.

This park was in a 2008 report, "Urban Design Vision Plan for the Southside Main Street Neighborhood," done when I was head of the UALR Urban Studies and Design Department. It also included bringing the streetcar down Main Street to 17th, turning it eastward one block to Scott, and then heading north. The route could be included in the construction of the park concurrently.

George Wittenberg is an architect and artist.

Big Ideas for Arkansas 2017

#Big Ideas for Arkansas 2017

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pogstedshires · 5 years ago

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tell us abt your oc moose!!

i have been waiting DAYS to work on this ask bc ive been so hyped to answer it but i wanted to be able to do it correctly??? so hell yeah its 2:30 am and here i go!!!

(before i start answering this, i wanna give a shoutout to @ghostlerhost , @hell-queen-rat , and @salty-sunn !!! they’re some of the people who helped work on moose and made him the awesome oc he is today so like. yall are great, thanks!!!)

so basically moose was an oc i created …tttwooo years ago? the august of 2017, so yeah, two years ago! i hate to admit it, but originally he was a rick and morty oc. i know i know, ew, but this was before that show completely went to shit.

so… yeah! ramble time below the cut bc im writing A Lot more than i thought i would–

some of the core things about him (the brown hair with a white strip, the sad backstory, and the general aesthetic) was created in these very early stages of his character! a lot of other things were scrapped later on as i created him, and he’s changed a lot, though!

one of the big things to his storyline was created with ghostlerhost (tagged above!), where we made a huge storyline surrounding his character and two of mine. although i cant remember all the details now, i can clearly remember talking with him and coming up with this huge story on our train rides home. fun memories.

one of the things from this storyline was the fact he dated evil morty (cringy, i know, but destroy cringe culture, who cares) and of course, bc evil morty is evil, the relationship turned sour, moose burnt some shit, and then ran away. this kinda idea is still something that i add to his character! (but. without it being evil morty obviously bc No)

so fastforward a while to when i met hell-queen-rat and salty-sunn, we did a couple of rps and it led to a lot more about moose. one of the biggest things though, was during one of them, moose’s eye got torn out by evil morty (nicknamed mortimus, by then).

the whole “eye getting torn out” thing is another thing that has stayed for like. all of the time that ive had moose as a character. although, because im a dumbass, the missing eye keeps switching sides.

a lot of his personality was developed at that time too! he kinda became known as super soft, helpless, gullible, optimistic, etc! his pyromania qualities i touched on earlier were added a lot more at that point in time as well, and thats also something that just kinda sticked!

after an argument with the two friends mentioned before, though, i kinda stopped using moose for a while, and when i started using him again, it was partly out of spite and partly to vent on him. for a while there, i never used moose as a character, and the only times i really did were when i was going through some difficult stuff.

aaaand�� that leads me to now! i brought him back recently, and decided to incorporate him into my group of rvb ocs.

basically, in the rvb universe, moose was a sim trooper with pink armour, and he had a freelancer on his team– agent arkansas. when ark went to go fight the freelancer on the blue team, moose tried to stop him, and the two got into a fight. ark stabbed moose’s visor, leaving him half blind and with a damaged helmet, and then moose retaliated by burning down the base and running off.

after that, im not quite sure the details, but i know that he ends up somehow finding an energy sword and becoming a mercenary!

so… yeah!! thats my main oc moose, and a quick (not so quick) rundown on how i made him and how hes changed! ill reblog this post later once i make his askblog, but yeah!!! if you have any other questions abt him or any of my other ocs pleaaaase send them! i love rambling abt my ocs !!!

thanks for the ask!

#ive been kinda hyperfixating on moose recently so this ask was an absolute BLESSING #axel.txt #my ocs

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tsgnorthwestarkansas · 5 years ago

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Up Close and Personal with International Design Superstar Chris Goddard of Goddard Design Group

A native Arkansan and University of Arkansas graduate, Chris Goddard, principal designer and owner of Goddard Design Group, is one of Northwest Arkansas’s truly homegrown success stories. This is Chris’s thirtieth year as an interior designer to clients across the globe. Chris got his start by doing windows for a clothing store on the Downtown Fayetteville Square when he was still in college. A woman walking by, admired his work, stopped in and asked for his name. What started as a gig redoing her bookshelves took off into a multi-decade career full of national press, prestigious awards and projects as far away and extravagant as a family compound on the Baja Peninsula and luxury commercial buildings in Shanghai.

Today Chris Goddard runs his design firm, Goddard Design Group, from Fayetteville with a team of six. He splits his projects with about 30 percent here in Arkansas and 70 percent across the country and the globe. All the while, he has stayed true to his one defining philosophy: Storytelling through design. More on that in our interview with Chris, detailed below…

Stay awhile in this custom wine cellar with Turkish daybed illuminated by antique pierced lanterns designed by Goddard Design Group. (photo: Mark Jackson/Chroma)

Your iconic designs really draw us in. Can you tell us about what you mean when you talk about allowing space to tell a story?

Whenever I begin a project, we will come up with a key idea or inspiration to build the space around. Whether it’s a specific color or a family heirloom the client is really drawn to, we begin there. Then we build the entire design around it. I do the same in residential or commercial spaces. So, for example, say you have a fabulous pillow from Morocco that you just fell in love with on a family trip one year. We will pull from that pillow in a livable way and create a room that emphasizes it using color, texture and collections. We want every room to tell a story. People love to speak about their lives and where they’ve been. Rooms designed like this provide the opportunity to spark conversations and talk about all the special items in the space.

So even now with your level of clientele, you encourage them to participate in the process?

Yes! We never do the same thing twice. We never repeat fabrics or color combinations. We don’t have a formula; our formula really is the client. I always tend to suggest things to my clients, rather than tell them what to do. I encourage them to go out and find things on their own. I will leave a big, open space in a room and ask my clients to find something specific that they love, and we’ll use it to fill the space. That gives them a guide and freedom to find what they love. The greatest compliment I will ever receive for my work is if somebody walks into a client’s home and says, “This room is so you” (meaning my client).

Is there a higher purpose you serve through your passion and business?

I have always believed that the more beautiful your environment, the more beautiful your life is. If you surround yourself with beauty, you feel more elevated. This can be in your home, the space where your family grows together, or in your commercial space where you shop and work. Our environments affect our mood, and I like to believe I’m in the business of elevating moods and bringing more beauty into people’s lives.

The signature Morris Sofa from the Goddard Design Group custom furniture line. Design pieces and curated artwork are available at Hubbard Clothing Company in Rogers and Hubbard Denim in Fayetteville. All furniture can be customized. (photo: Mark Jackson/Chroma)

Since we have your attention, we have to ask: Do you have any design tips for our readers?

I’m a firm believer that every room needs to have an antique or something sentimental in it to give it history. I can’t stand a room that doesn’t have a soul. No matter what style your space is in, even if it’s ultra modern, I will always incorporate something old with history, like an old floor or a door. That’s where the story begins.

What is your business's earliest success story?

I remember when I was featured in Architectural Digest. I was really young, about 23. I had just started designing three years before. When I saw that they decided to feature my work, I thought that this was something I could be successful in doing. I ended up getting a lot of national press at a young age. I was on the cover of Traditional Home and Southern Accents, and those features really did a lot to not only boost my name recognition but also to help me believe in my work. What was so fascinating about the process is that it was before computers and digital cameras. We would take photos of our work, then turn them into slides and send them out to different magazines. We would wait by the phone, and the editor would give us a call to interview us, coming back to look at the project in person, and taking more photos. It was a six to eight month process.

That was a totally different time. How did you do your work differently back in the pre-digital days?

Doing my job back then was a little more difficult! I actually had to go to places, visit with artisans. I would travel all over the world looking for the best weavers, best furniture makers, or the best tile. I spent a lot of time talking to other designers in person to ask them which artisans were the best at what. They would tell me who they used for different types of work, and then I’d find that person and go visit with them. It was a different type of research. But it was really important for me to do all that work because back then, Northwest Arkansas was very different too. This was back before I-49. We just had a whole lot of two lane roads, and the economy here hadn’t yet taken off. I would have to bring artisans in from out of state to do tile, granite, and almost every aspect of the job.

Can you share a little known fact about your business with us?

Most people ask me why I chose the bumblebee as my logo. They often assume it’s something pretentious, and ask if it’s a Gucci or a Napoleonic bee! But I chose the bee because it represents perseverance to me. If you look at a bee, it really shouldn’t be able to fly. Its body is so big and its wings are tiny. Nevertheless, the bee flies. For me, the image of the bee is a story about being able to succeed if you try hard enough. It’s about believing in yourself. It’s been my logo for 30 years because of that.

Goddard Design Group’s mid-century modern inspired lounge area served as a focal point and chill space during the 2017 "Stuart Davis: In Full Swing" exhibition at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.

We love to know how our local legends “live local”. Can you share some of your favorite places to spend your free time in NWA?

I’ve been in Fayetteville for 30 years, since I came here for college. I’m a local guy. And I’ll let you in on a little secret: I love to change other people’s lives but I don’t like to change mine. I like to go where i know everyone and feel comfortable. My favorite places to hang out are Herman’s Ribhouse, Bordino’s and Hugo’s. If I’m out, you can find me at one of those places.

Can you tell us a little bit about your home in Springdale and how you have designed it?

I love everything and my home reflects that! My big motto is if you love it, it goes together. My home is a collection of what I love. I let very few people into my home because it’s a little like falling down the rabbit hole. I believe a designer should keep his or her home a little bit of a secret, so they don’t get locked into one specific look.

The cover of Andrew Martin Interior Design Review Volume 21 from 2017. Goddard Design Group will be featured again in Volume 23 which will be released later this year. Books can be purchased through Amazon or Goddard Design Group.

To say Chris is an international design super star may just be an understatement. Just this year alone, he has been named one of the Top 100 Designers in the World by Andrew Martin Interior Design Review, plus he is the Interior Design Society Designer of the Year.

Luckily, there are soon going to be even more ways to access Chris’s legendary aesthetic. He has two coffee table books coming out, a line of furniture and his own line of fabrics. We are huge fans of Goddard Design Group’s Instagram, which features snapshots into his glamorous travel and some glimpses into his finished projects.

How lucky we are to have Chris and his design firm right here in NWA. Reach out to Goddard Design Group (3945 North Vantage Drive, Suite 2, Fayetteville, Arkansas) to create your own design story, whether that’s through a space renovation, a custom design/build for a new home or a commercial project.

#livelovelocal #scouted #goddarddesigngroup #interiordesign #interiordesigner #tsgnwarkansas #thescoutguide #nwarkansas #design

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maxmallard · 4 years ago

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So I went through these screenshots to see if they were actually real articles and, sadly, they are, but I learned a few things about them. So in order of appearance:

1. The law in Arkansas was voted upon with a pro-life mentality, and was specifically focusing on spousal rape. Marriage of course does not negate the disgusting nature of it, but it’s important to note that the headline is a tad misleading. I sincerely hope they’ve come to realise that spousal rape is just as bad since this article.

2. A harsh punishment from someone who clearly goes by the mentality of “the ends justify the means.” Refusing to testify gives rapists a better chance of going free, and lawmakers weren’t too fond of that idea.

3. Another pro-life line. The politician is defending his views by taking an optimistic view in seeing beauty in the horror. While not a bad take in and of itself, applying it to rape and incest... Yeah, that’s a big yikes.

4. Not entirely sure about this one other than the judge separating the man from the act. I kinda get it, but calling a rapist an otherwise good person just raises too many red flags.

5. They ran out of time. That’s all I got from that one. Stupid reason not to pass it.

In summary, the majority of these laws were passed with good intentions, but at the same time were horribly misguided. It’s also worth noting these articles are all from 2017. Recent, yes, but there is the possibility of them being outdated with new laws negating them. I certainly hope they’re outdated.

you can’t deny the existence of rape culture when our judicial system is ran by these gross ass men who justify it

#tw #rape mention

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theliberaltony · 6 years ago

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via FiveThirtyEight

The 2020 Democratic primary is really an electoral story. Nothing the candidates say about policy on the campaign trail will become law during the campaign.1 But the language of presidential primaries is not electoral — candidates tend not to say, “people of The Left, vote for me, I’m very liberal” or, “Democrats, pick me; sure, I’m progressive, but I’m not so progressive that it ruins my appeal with Republican-leaning independents in the Midwest.”

Instead, the language of presidential primaries is largely one of policy. Sen. Elizabeth Warren proposes a tax on wealth over $50 million and defends that policy on its merits. She doesn’t say out loud the real, immediate goal of the proposal for her — wooing liberal Democratic primary voters concerned about growing income inequality.

The 2020 candidates are likely to talk a lot about policy over the next year — it’s basically how you run for president. And you should pay attention to what they say, but not for the reasons you might think. Here’s a guide to the “policy primary,” with some thoughts from academics and one-time advisers to presidential candidates.2

1. Most importantly, policy proposals matter because the winning candidate will try to implement them as president.

There is a common view that candidates just promise whatever it takes to win and then abandon all those pledges once in office. But political science research has shown over and over again that politicians, including presidents, try to implement their campaign promises, even the more outlandish ones. We just had a record-long partial government shutdown over a campaign pledge that President Trump has unsuccessfully tried to implement — the border wall.3

So, all else being equal, you can expect follow-through from whoever is elected president on many of the policies he or she put forth during the campaign.

2. Even so, pay more attention to broad goals than fine print.

During the 2008 Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both came up with proposals to vastly increase the number of Americans with health insurance. They disagreed on the how: Clinton said a comprehensive new health insurance law should require everyone to have insurance or pay a fine; Obama had no such mandate. You know how this turned out — the law now known as Obamacare included an individual mandate.4 Somewhat similarly, during the 2016 race, Trump’s campaign named 21 people that he would consider appointing to the U.S. Supreme Court. Eventual Trump nominee and now Justice Brett Kavanaugh was not among the 21.

That said, one of the 21 was Neil Gorsuch. And the overall group was full of white, male and fairly conservative legal figures — the exact kind of people Trump has appointed to the Supreme Court and lower courts as president.

“One big takeaway from my research is that the ‘policy primary’ gives us less information about the specifics of the plans that might be on the agenda than it does about what issues are likely to be at the top of the agenda,” said Philip Rocco, a political scientist professor at Marquette University who specializes in research on the policymaking process, in an e-mail message.

Looking forward, therefore, I think it’s safe to assume the Democratic candidates running on Medicare-for-all, if elected, will at the very least push for some kind of program in which uninsured Americans can enroll in a public plan along the lines of Medicare. It’s likely Warren will try to implement some kind of new tax on the very wealthy if she is elected.

3. Rank-and-file voters probably aren’t choosing candidates based on their policy plans.

Generally, “the differences on issues [among candidates] in primaries are not huge,” said Elaine Kamarck, who was a top policy adviser to Al Gore during his 2000 presidential run. So most voters probably will not be able to assess subtle differences on policy issues among the 2020 Democratic contenders. After all, political scientists have found American voters broadly know little about politics and policy.

However, Kamarck argued that voters are often well-informed and passionate about issues that particularly affect their regions or states. So a Democratic primary candidate might do poorly in the primaries in Kentucky or West Virginia if he or she has a plan that voters in those states think will severely harm the coal industry.

4. But the policy plans tell voters about a candidate’s priorities and values — and that probably does matter electorally.

“People are not voting for a package of policy preferences, they’re voting for an individual, and the policies or issues help mark out the kind of person they are,” Mark Schmitt, who was a policy adviser on Bill Bradley’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000, said in an e-mail message.

So a candidate like Warren or Bernie Sanders with proposals to vastly increase taxes on the wealthy is communicating to voters a persona — “fighting for the little guy,” “taking on the establishment” — that might resonate with voters who are liberal or anti-establishment, even if these voters don’t really know much about, say, marginal tax rates.

Lee Drutman, a scholar at the think tank New America, concluded based on polling data that 2016 Democratic primary voters who preferred Sanders were not significantly more liberal on policy issues than those who backed Hillary Clinton. (Sanders himself certainly was to the left of Clinton.) Instead, voters’ views of the American political system and whether they thought it was fundamentally “rigged” was a strong predictor of which candidate they supported. More anti-establishment Democrats strongly preferred Sanders. That is probably, in part, because his policy proposals, like a single-payer health care system, communicated a break from the more establishment politics of Clinton.

5. Policy details matter to important groups that can offer endorsements — and those endorsements can matter electorally.

In 2016, the National Nurses Association backed Sanders over Clinton, and this wasn’t much of a surprise. The NNA has long pushed for single-payer health care, and Sanders favored that idea and Clinton did not. In making its endorsement, NAA’s leadership specifically noted Sanders’s support of single-payer and his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an Obama-era trade agreement that Clinton did not oppose as forcefully as Sanders.

So specific issue stands do really matter to key activist groups making endorsements. And that can make an impact electorally. Unions, for example, can organize their members to back candidates. When a Democratic candidate comes out with an education policy plan, that may be an appeal to parents, but it is also likely signaling to teacher unions, a powerful, organized liberal constituency in some states.

“Activists do pay attention” to specific policy ideas and stances, said Andrew Dowdle, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas who has written extensively about the presidential nomination process.

6. Pay more attention to the “flop” than the “flip.”

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been criticized for supporting overly punitive approaches to criminal justice in the past, Cory Booker for promoting charter schools, Kirsten Gillibrand for backing conservative immigration legislation, Sanders for opposing some gun control measures earlier in his career. I could go on. The Democratic Party has moved decidedly to the left in recent years, so many of the 2020 presidential candidates have, in their past, violated some of the party’s new tenets.

Scrutinizing candidate’s past records is a big part of any nomination contest. But it may not be a particularly useful exercise in predicting what these candidates would do on policy if elected president. (Note the emphasis on policy — Bill Clinton’s philandering and Trump’s lying before entering office were fairly useful predictors of what came later.)

These candidates are politicians, after all. They probably were taking stands in the past that reflected a mix of conviction and political expediency. Biden likely believed that the “crime bill” he sponsored in 1994 (and is now slammed as helping lead to the over-incarceration of African-Americans) was good policy (it was endorsed by a lot of black political leaders too). I suspect he also thought the legislation was in the political mainstream, helping him to rise up the ranks of the Democratic Party.

David Karol, an expert on the presidential nomination process who teaches at the University of Maryland, told me these “flip-flops” by candidates are often explained by their changing constituencies. He referred specifically to Gillibrand, who was first elected in 2006 in a relatively moderate district in upstate New York before becoming the senator for the entire state, which is fairly liberal-leaning.

“It’s hard to know whether the politician ‘really’ believed in their position at Time 1 or Time 2,” Karol said.

Either way, Democratic elected officials have moved away from a tough-on-crime approach and the party’s voters are now very pro-immigration . I have no doubt a President Biden would govern on criminal justice policy more like how he sounds in 2019 than he did in 1994, and that a President Gillibrand would be more pro-immigration than Candidate Gillibrand in 2006.

The obvious example here is Trump, who took some fairly liberal stands in earlier phases of his life but has generally followed GOP orthodoxy as president, as he promised to do on many issues during his 2016 campaign.

President Ronald “Reagan’s promises on abortion were far better predictors of his policies than his more pro-choice past as California’s governor were. Al Gore was pro-gun and anti-abortion at one point in his career when it made sense for a white southern Democrat to be so. But his campaign promises were better predictors,” Seth Masket, a University of Denver political scientist who is currently writing a book about presidential primaries, said in an e-mail message.

So the bottom line: Take what the presidential candidates are saying on the campaign trail seriously and literally. But more seriously than literally.

#IFTTT #FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Perry Bacon Jr.

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kamitukangtamansurabaya-blog · 6 years ago

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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How Many New Republicans In Congress

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

How Many New Republicans In Congress

United States Congress Elections 2020

Democrats regain the House as record number of women elected to Congress

U.S. Senate Elections by State Alabama; Alaska; Arizona ; Arkansas; Colorado; Delaware; Georgia; Idaho; Illinois; Iowa; Kansas; Kentucky; Louisiana; Maine; Massachusetts; Michigan; Minnesota; Mississippi; Montana; Nebraska; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New Mexico; North Carolina; Oklahoma; Oregon; Rhode Island; South Carolina; South Dakota; Tennessee; Texas; Virginia; West Virginia; Wyoming U.S. House Elections by State Alabama; Alaska; Arizona; Arkansas; California; Colorado; Connecticut; Delaware; Florida; Georgia; Hawaii; Idaho; Illinois; Indiana; Iowa; Kansas; Kentucky; Louisiana; Maine; ; Massachusetts; Michigan; Minnesota; Mississippi; Missouri; Montana; Nebraska; Nevada; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New Mexico; New York; North Carolina; North Dakota; Ohio; Oklahoma; Oregon; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island; South Carolina; South Dakota; Tennessee; Texas; Utah; Vermont; Virginia; Washington; West Virginia; Wisconsin; Wyoming

A total of 470 seats in the U.S. Congress were up for election on November 3, 2020, including two special elections for U.S. Senate.

Elections covered on this page may have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. To read more about those elections and changes to them, .

On this page, you will find:

A map of seats up for election in the U.S. Senate

A breakdown of the partisan affiliations of 2020 candidates

Election Splits Congress Gop Bolstered As Democrats Falter

WASHINGTON The election scrambled seats in the House and Senate but ultimately left Congress much like it began, deeply split as voters resisted big changes despite the heated race at the top of the ticket for the White House.

Its an outcome that dampens Democratic demands for a bold new agenda, emboldens Republicans and almost ensures partisan gridlock regardless of who wins the presidency. Or perhaps, as some say, it provides a rare opening for modest across-the-aisle cooperation.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi was on track to keep control of the Democratic House, but saw her majority shrinking and her leadership called into question. Control of the Senate tilted Republicans way as they fended off an onslaught of energized challengers, though a few races remained undecided Wednesday.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday hes confident no matter who ends up running the government theyll be trying to overcome all that and get results.

One certainty is the upended projections will force a rethinking of polling, fundraising and the very messages the parties use to reach voters in the Trump era and beyond.

Trump sues in 3 states, laying ground for contesting outcome

Voters care almost as much about the economy, they said.

Incumbents Who Sought Other Offices

U.S. House members who ran for President

1 Democratic member of the U.S. House

Running for president, 2020

U.S. House members who sought a seat in the U.S. Senate

2 Democratic members of the U.S. House

3 Republican members of the U.S. House

Running for Senate, 2020

U.S. House members who ran for governor

1 Republican member of the U.S. House

Running for governor, 2020

U.S. House members who ran for another office

2 Republican members of the U.S. House

1 Democratic member of the U.S. House

Running for another office, 2020 Name No

Recommended Reading: How Many Republicans Are Now In The House Of Representatives

Raphael Warnock: I Cant Wait To Get To Work After Winning Georgia Runoff

But the fate of the larger progressive legislative agenda remains very much in doubt, given the Senates filibuster rule and the narrow size of Democrats majority.

If we have a Senate that is divided 50-50, that makes it very hard to do some of the things you just suggested like recognizing Puerto Rico as a state, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a close Biden ally, said on CNBC.

Schumer will face immense pressure from the left flank of his caucus to reform or eliminate the filibuster, but opposition from moderates like Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., has made it clear that that idea is basically dead on arrival.

With the filibuster in place, Republicans can block most legislation , imperiling many Biden priorities, from immigration reform to statehood for the District of Columbia.

The only viable path to enacting D.C. statehood is bypassing the filibuster a Jim Crow relic that has been used to block hundreds of racial justice bills, said DC statehood activist Stasha Rhodes.

There is one major exception to the filibuster rule for budget bills, which can through a process known as reconciliation that only a requires a simple majority, and Democrats are discussing ways to take full advantage of that rule or expand it.

The split chamber will put Harris in an unusual position as she is expected to take a more active role as president of the Senate, which is typically a mostly ceremonial role.

Ossoff will get to serve a full six-year term.

Trump Endorsed 75 Candidates In The Midterms How Did They Fare On Election Day

Editors Note:

This post has been updated to correct the win percentage for President Trumps endorsees and also to add races which were called after the initial post was written.

All midterm elections become referenda on the sitting president, and this one was no different. The New York Review of Books even cited UCSD election scholar Gary Jacobsons assertion that a sitting president has never been as central an issue in a midterm election as Trump is in 2018.

So how should we interpret what this means for Trump? The first is to see how his candidates did on Election Day, and to compare how they did with other national figures. Here at Brookings, we kept track of all the House and Senate candidates who were endorsed by one of the following major political figures: President Trump, Vice President Pence, former President Obama, former Vice President Biden, or Sen. Bernie Sanders. We then calculated how the candidates they endorsed performed on election night.

As we can see from the bar graph below, Trump endorsed 75 House and Senate candidates, of whom 42 or 55 percent won. With this rate, Trump performed better than Vice President Mike Pence, for whom nearly 50 percent won, but fell behind Obamas and Bidens endorsees. Sanders does the best, as his endorsees won 70 percent of the time.

Don’t Miss: Dems For Trump

Opinionthe Fantasy Of A New Republican Party

Republicans now control the redistricting process in 20 states, or 187 congressional districts, compared to only 11 states or 84 congressional districts for Democrats. Whats worse, Republicans only need to nudge the congressional boundaries in a handful of those states to wipe out Democrats hopes of retaining the House of Representatives in 2022.

In a worst-case scenario that sees the GOP split up congressional districts in major cities, Democrats could stand to lose over a dozen House seats previously considered safe. And even under a more conservative approach advocated by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and others, the GOP is still considering gutting almost half a dozen now-safe Democratic districts in states such as Indiana, Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee.

Th Congress 2009 And 2010

White House: Democrat

House: Democrats held 257 seats, Republicans held 178 seats

Senate: Democrats held 57 seats, Republicans held 41 seats; there was one independent and one independent Democrat

*Notes: U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter was reelected in 2004 as a Republican but switched parties to become a Democrat on April 30, 2009. U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut was reelected in 2006 as an independent candidate and became an Independent Democrat. U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont was elected in 2006 as an independent.

More stories from theweek.com

You May Like: Who Is Right Republicans Or Democrats

Democrats Weigh Next Options As Senate Republicans Filibuster Voting Rights Bill

They dont even want to debate it because theyre afraid. They want to deny the right to vote, make it harder to vote for so many Americans, and they dont want to talk about it, Schumer, D-N.Y., said on Tuesday. There is a rot a rot at the center of the modern Republican party. Donald Trumps big lie has spread like a cancer and threatens to envelop one of Americas major political parties.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been tasked by the White House to work on voting rights, presided over the Tuesday debate in the Senate.

The legislation is cosponsored by 49 Democratic members of the Senate. The one holdout, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Tuesday hed vote to begin debate after receiving assurances that the Senate would consider a compromise version that he has said he can support.

Today I will vote YES to move to debate this updated voting legislation as a substitute amendment to ensure every eligible voter is able to cast their ballot and participate in our great democracy, Manchin said in a statement, while adding that he doesnt support the bill as written.

Well keep talking, he said after the vote. You cant give up. You really cant.

Schumer said the vote was the starting gun, not the finish line in the battle over ballot access and vowed that Democrats will not let it die.

He told reporters on Tuesday that the state-led system held up well in the 2020 election.

It has been rejected by top Republicans as a nonstarter.

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duggardata · 7 years ago

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What Do We Know About The “Special Friends” Phase? (Part 1)

Also, all the data we’ve got about pre–marital relationship length—from Pre–Courtship (“Special Friends”) to Courtship, to Engagement, to the Altar.

Recently, I got this Ask from an Anon—

Lucky you, Anon, because you get a two–part answer. In Part 1, I’ll share all the data I have about Duggar and Bates couples’ pre–courtships. After that, in Part 2, I’ll analyze that data, and try to tell y’all when to expect the next suitor.

Part 1... After the jump.

As the Anon points out, the Duggars and Bates seem to ‘court,’ in a way, before the official courtship. Kelly Jo famously called this being “special friends.” (She seems to have coined the term in 2013, after Alyssa became interested in John Webster.) The Duggars don’t use the term ‘special friends,’ but they too refer to a “friendship phase,” which apparently involves “fellowship,” “get[ting] to know one another,” and simply “talking.”

Wanting to ‘get to know’ this bizarre concept of “special friends,” I scoured The Internet for information on the Duggar and Bates couples’ early relationships...

Couples w/ No Concrete Pre–Courtship Date—

Josiah + Lauren

Zach + Whitney

Alyssa + John

Tori + Bobby (?)

First, the bad news... I couldn’t find any solid data on any of the above couples’ pre–courtship or “special friends” phase. Often, I was able to find a vague time period—e.g., Fall 2012—but nothing specific. Here’s what I did find...

Josiah + Lauren | ???

We don’t know when Josiah and Lauren met. We don’t know when they started courting. We don’t even know, for sure, when Josiah proposed. So... yeah. It’s no surprise that their pre–courtship is a mystery.

Personally, I suspect that they started talking when Josiah reactivated his IG in August 2017, but I have no concrete evidence of this—just a hunch.

Zach + Whitney | ???

Literally all I could find about Zach + Whitney’s early relationship was this post, on the Bates’ old blog. Here’s a screenshot of the relevant part—

So, Zach ‘courtposed’ on July 1, 2013, after meeting Whit at Sonic in 2012. As for whether they had a “special friends” phase before that, I sadly have no idea.

Alyssa + John | by March 24, 2013

On Bringing Up Bates’s Season 7 premier (“The 4 Cs: Carat, Clarity, Carlin, and Courtship,” at 5:10), Alyssa says Gil + Kelly “wouldn’t even let [her] talk to John until she was 18.” (Note—That would’ve been November 9, 2012.) Kelly scoffs at this, suggesting it’s not really true, but I also wasn’t able to disprove Alyssa’s version of events...

John met Alyssa via his brother, Jordan, who apparently met the Bates during a mission to Romania in November 2011. In this clip (at ~0:54), Alyssa states that John called her father, Gil, to ask “if he could start talking to [her] and getting to know [her]”—but she doesn’t say when this happened. Basically, after lots and lots of searching, all I know for sure is that Alyssa + John were “special friends” by March 24, 2013, when the Bates posted about going on a “date” with them and Erin + Chad.

Tori + Bobby | by Valentine’s Day 2016

So... Before this, I’d heard that Tori + Bobby began ‘dating’ on Valentine’s Day 2016. Supposedly, he asked her to be his girlfriend after the Bateses’ “I Love You Day” party. But when I tried to verify this, I couldn’t. I thought it has been shown on Bringing Up Bates, but the 2016 I Love You Day episode (“A LOVEly Day”) doesn’t show it. So I really don’t know.

Bringing Up Bates introduces Bobby in “A LOVEly Day” as Tori’s boyfriend—so we know they were together by Valentine’s 2016. I just don’t feel like I can put down 2–14–16 as their definitive “special friendship” start date, without a good source to cite to. (Do any of you guys have a source for this? Help!)

Couples w/ A Known Pre–Courtship Date—

Jill + Derick

Jinger + Jeremy

Michaela + Brandon

Carlin + Evan

Now, for the good news... We’ve got precise data, meaning a specific, verified date, for each of the above couple’s pre–courtships. Let’s check it out—

Jill + Derick | August 17, 2013

Jill + Derick first ‘met’ in March 2013, when Jill happened to walk into the room while Jim Bob was on the phone with Derick. (Remember, Derick and Jim Bob were prayer partners during Derick’s mission to Nepal.) Apparently, they didn’t speak again until August 2013, when JB encouraged Derick to contact Jill, and get to know her better. Jill tells the story on the Dillard Family Website—

So, I guess it was “love at first Skype.” Based on comments like this, I feel like Jill + Derick’s relationship began with that first Skype call. Luckily, we’ve got a solid date for that from Jill’s Instagram—

Long story short, Jill + Derick started pre–courting on August 17, 2013.

Jinger + Jeremy | December 11, 2015

Like Jill + Derick’s, JinJer’s pre–courtship date comes straight from the horse’s mouth. On JingerAndJeremy.com, Jeremy writes—

Since asking Jeremy formally asked JB’s permission to “get to know Jinger” on December 11, 2015, I consider that as their pre–courtship start date.

Michaela + Brandon | November 29, 2013

Again, I’m going to cite to the couple’s personal website: Under “Our Story” on BrandonAndMichaela.com, Michaela wrote—

So, we know that on November 29, 2013, after Brandon asked Gil’s permission to “get to know [Michaela] better,” Gil + Kelly spoke to Michaela, and gave their blessing. This is similar to what happened with Jinger + Jeremy, so I consider it the start of the Keilens’ “special friends” phase.

Carlin + Evan | September 17, 2016

No surprise that Carlin, the perpetual Instagrammer, shared some pre–courtship details on her favorite social media platform— (Here’s the post.)

...and Evan posted about their ‘one year,’ as well—

This one’s pretty clear. Carlvan have been “special friends” since September 17, 2016.

Couples w/ An Estimated Pre–Courtship Date—

Josh + Anna

Jessa + Ben

Joseph + Kendra

Joy + Austin

Erin + Chad

Josie + Kelton

For these couples, the exact date isn’t known, but there’s enough data to guess a specific date—i.e., September 8, 2017, rather than “Fall 2017.” My reasoning follows—

Josh + Anna | c. June 15, 2007

Thanks to @keepingupwithfundies, I found this record of Josh + Anna’s “Love Story,” from their old website. While it’s a very long, rambling story, but here’s the gist of it—

They met at the Big Sandy ATI Conference in 2006. I tried, but couldn’t verify the 2006 conference dates; however, I’m fairly confident (~90%) it was May 2–5, 2006: Until 2009, the event always started on a Tuesday, and ended on the first Friday in May. (Click here for past dates!)

A “few weeks later,” the Kellers visited the Duggars in Arkansas. The day they left, Josh told Jim Bob that he felt Anna was ‘the One’ for him.

Skip ahead to Big Sandy 2007 (May 1–4, 2007). After seeing the Duggar Family again there, Anna felt God was guiding towards Josh.

“A few weeks later,” Anna’s father asked Anna (for the first time) if “God had been speaking to [her] about” the man she might marry. When Anna admitted interest in Josh, Mr. Keller said “Joshua was the one for [Anna],” and told her to “pray for [Josh] and his family every day.”

“About a week later,” the Kellers had “special company,” as Anna put it. Josh came on his own (?) to Florida, spent time with the Kellers, and told Anna’s parents how he planned to provide for Anna.

Finally, in January 2017, after yet another visit to Florida, Josh sought Mr. Keller’s permission to court Anna, which was granted.

So, looking at this, I’d say Josh + Anna began pre–courting when Anna told her father of her interest in Josh, got his blessing, and was told “pray for [Josh] and his family.” That was “a few weeks” after Big Sandy 2007, which ran from May 1–4, 2007. That puts us in early June 2007, but let’s just say June 15, 2007—a nice, round data, that also adds in a bit of time for Josh’s first visit.

Jessa + Ben | c. May 12, 2015

My sleuthing turned up several versions of the ‘How Jessa Met Ben’ story—one by Jessa, one by Ben, and one by Michelle Duggar. Michelle’s version differs in significant ways from the other two—notably, by claiming that “Jim Bob was the initiator,” who set Jessa + Ben up. So, let’s just look at Jessa and Ben’s stories; after all, it’s their relationship.

In this Seewald Family Blog post, Jessa states—

She first met Ben at church on a Sunday. They had a brief conversation about her new iPhone. He was 17 Years old at the time.

“Three weeks later,” the Seewalds again visited the Duggars’ church. At the end of mass, the Duggars invited the Seewalds to “have supper with [them].”

“After that,” Ben visited the Duggars “just about once a month.” Jessa + Ben talked during his visits, and “text[ed] a lot” between visits.

In a different Seewald Family Blog post, Ben adds a few details—

On the day he first met Jessa, the Duggars invited the Seewalds “to a conference just a few days later.”

The Seewalds end up attending the conference; while there, Ben sought Jim Bob out, introduced himself, and asked for J.B.’s phone number.

After this, Ben begins visiting the Duggars “every month and a half.”

Ben also says: “I talked to [Jim Bob] about getting [Jessa’s] number not long afterwards and we began to text.” It’s not entirely clear what event Ben is referencing when he says “not long afterwards.” (Damnit, Ben!)

Combining Jessa + Ben’s accounts, it seems that their “special friends” phase began after the Seewalds and Duggars had supper: That’s when Ben’s regular visits began, and when Benessa started texting. Per Jessa, the fateful supper occurred “three weeks” after she first met Ben. She also said he was 17 then, so we know this was before May 19, 2013 (Ben’s 18th Birthday).

Now, what about this conference Ben talks about? I think it was Big Sandy, as Ben talks about the entire Duggar clan being there with an RV. Big Sandy 2013 ran from April 22—April 26, 2013. If the Duggars invited the Seewalds to come “just a few days” before as Ben said, that means Jessa + Ben’s met on April 21, 2013. Jessa says the fateful supper was 3 Weeks later, so that’s May 12, 2013. That’s the date I use as their pre–courtship start date.

Joseph + Kendra | c. September 8, 2017

JoKen revealed their courtship to PEOPLE on March 8, 2017, just one day after Joe ‘courtposed.’ Accompanying the PEOPLE exclusive was a TLC video, shot the day of the ‘courtposal.’ In that video, Joe said—

“We have been talking for about six months, and ... right when we started talking we really hit it off really well.”

Later, on Counting On (“A New Courtship”), Joe repeated this fact. Just before he ‘courtposed,” he told producers—

“I’ve known Kendra for about five years now and we met at [the Caldwells’] church. We’ve been talking for close to six months. I guess we would call it more of a friendship stage.”

Clearly, JoKen got to know each other for ~6 Months. While Joe never gave us the specific date, we can easily estimate it by subtracting 180 Days (~6 Months) from March 7, 2017—i.e., the date they officially started courting. When we do, we get a ‘ballpark’ pre–courtship date of September 8, 2016. (Note—Probably a coincidence, but... They got married September 8, 2017. Just saying.)

Joy + Austin | March 2, 2016

On Joy + Austin’s “At–A–Glance” post, I speculated that JoyStin started ‘getting to know’ each other in Spring 2016. My evidence for this comes from Counting On (“A New Baby”), when Austin asks Jim Bob’s permission to marry to Joy. In the scene, which you can watch here, J.B. mentions giving Austin permission to get to know Joy about a year prior.

(Side Note—If anyone’s savvy with public records and figures out when Austin’s fifth ‘flip’ was listed, that would be super helpful, since we know he asked J.B.’s permission to marry Joy right before listing that house!)

Since I don’t have the property records, let’s just estimate this by subtracting 1 Year (365 Days) from Austin’s proposal date (3–2–17). That gives us a “special friends” phase start date of March 2, 2016. Admittedly, it’s a rougher estimate than what we have from some other couples... But it’ll work!

ETA—Initially, I had the Forsyths in the “no concrete data” category. I moved them over here because I realized that what we have for them is basically the exact same as what we have for JoyStin. I think it’s fair to put them over here.

Erin + Chad | c. April 30, 2011

Erin + Chad met at the 2011 Institute in Basic Life Principles’s (IBLP) Valentine’s Day Banquet, which was held on February 11, 2011. (The Paines describe how they met in this video, but don’t specifically say it was an IBLP event. However, it’s clear that it was the IBLP Banquet, based on this post, in which the Bateses say that’s where they met the Paines.)

According to Chad (in this clip, at ~1:35), he saw Erin again “later on that year,” at “a conference ... in Texas.” When I heard that, I immediately suspected that that event was, in fact, the 2011 ATI Conference in Big Sandy, TX—a suspicion that the Bateses’ blog quickly confirmed. Per Chad, he got to know Erin better at Big Sandy and, “from then on, we kinda pursued a relationship.”

Sounds like a pre–courtship to me! In 2011, the Big Sandy ATI Conference ran from April 26–29, so—taking Chad at this word—the Paines have been ‘special friends’ since April 30, 2011.

Josie + Kelton | c. October 31, 2016

In the latest Bringing Up Bates (“Another Beautiful Season of Blessings”), Josie + Kelton finally gave us a hint about when they got together. When asking Gil + Kelly for permission to court, Josie and Kelton say (at ~32:05) that they’ve been “talking” for “about a year” (Kelton) and “over a year” (Josie)—after a time spent apart, slowing things down, at Gil’s request. (If you count that time, they say it’s been “about three years” of special friendship. I don’t think it makes any sense to count the period spent ‘broken up,’ though, so I’ll only count the 1sh Year.)

For me, when Josie + Kelton said it’s been “about a year” and “over a year,” the Bateses’ October 2016 trip to Florida immediately came to mind. (You know... That’s the trip where Bobby + Tori started courting! It’s featured in the Bringing Up Bates episode “I Donut Know What I’d Do Without You.”) Josie came along on that trip; it would make perfect sense if that’s when she and Kelton rekindled their relationship. So, let’s go with that... It was a Fall Break trip; Crown College had Fall Break 2016 from October 27–31, 2016.) Based on that, I feel confident enough to guess that Josie + Kelton started pre–courting (again) c. October 31, 2016.

Wow, that was a long post. In Part 2, we’ll try to make sense of all this data!

#precourtship #special friends #duggar family #bates family

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statetalks · 3 years ago

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What Are The Basic Differences Between Democrats And Republicans

Growing Share Of Americans Say There Are Major Differences In What The Parties Stand For

A majority of Americans say there is a great deal of difference in what the Republican and Democratic parties stand for, while 37% see a fair amount of difference and 7% say there is hardly any difference between the two parties.

These opinions have changed dramatically over the past three decades. From the late 1980s through the mid-2000s, no more than about a third of Americans said there were major differences between the two parties. But the share expressing this view has increased, especially over the past decade.

In the current survey, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say there are major differences in what the parties stand for .

In both parties, people who are attentive to politics on a regular basis are more likely than those who are less attentive to see wide, growing divides in the country.

Most Republicans who say they follow what is happening in government and public affairs most of the time perceive a great deal of difference in what the Democratic and Republican parties stand for . Among Republicans who follow government and public affairs less often, a smaller majority says there are major differences between the parties. Among Democrats, there is a similar gap in views by engagement; 70% of politically attentive Democrats see a wide gulf between the parties, while just 49% of less-attentive Democrats say the same.

Democrat Vs Republican: Where Did The Parties Get Their Names

In the United States, the words Democrat and Republican are widely used to mean the two major American political parties: the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

We often hear these words used to describe things the parties do or the people connected to them. For example, former Vice President Joe Biden is the Democratic candidate for president, and members of the Republican Party are often simply called Republicans.

The English words democratic and republicanactually have long, complex histories that go far beyond red and blue states or donkeys and elephants. Lets take a closer look at where these two words came from and how they came to be used in the names of the two political parties.

The Parties Act Differently Because They Are Different

Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty

This data only takes you so far. “Conservatism” is more than just a preference for small government. Democrats are only somewhat more likely to introduce new legislation than Republicans. As Grossmann told me in an interview, “these are differences in degrees that are based on a difference in kind between the party coalitions.”

But they’re a reminder that American politics is fundamentally rational. Republicans are uncompromising because compromise tends to expand the scope of government. Democrats are willing to make deep concessions because policy moves in a generally liberal direction. Republicans have a clearer message about government because their message about government is fundamentally popular. Democrats talk more about policy because what they have to say about policy is fundamentally popular.

Republicans are uncompromising because compromise tends to expand the scope of government

The data also explains why Democratic and Republicans have so much trouble understanding each other. Democrats tend to project their preference for policymaking onto the Republican Party and then respond with anger and confusion when Republicans don’t seem interested in making a deal. Republicans tend to assume the Democratic Party is more ideological than it is, and so see various policy initiatives as part of an ideological effort to remake America along more socialistic lines.

Who Is A Democrat

A Democrat is someone who believes in the principles of a republic, thus, in the power of the majority. Unlike a Republican, who is conservative in his ideas, a Democrat is liberal in his ideas. A Democrat accepts the concept of a larger federal government People of all classes should be benefited by the various schemes of the government according to a Democrat. They should not be concerned more about individual interests. This means that a Democrat looks upon all classes of people as equal.

In short it can be said that a Republican believes that the people are adept at looking after themselves. A Democrat on the contrary firmly believes that the federal government alone is capable of bringing about equality.

Figure 02: Andrew Jackson, the First Democratic President of the United States

Furthermore, a Democrat supports government-sponsored programs. A Democrat is pro-choice in approach, As a result, a Democrat supports social policies at federal government level It is interesting to note that unlike the Republicans, Democrats support the view that the military budget should be decreased. These are the main differences between a Republican and a Democrat. Now let us summarize the difference as follows.

What Is The Democratic Party

The Democratic Party is the oldest and it originated from the anti-federalisms in the US during the independence from Great Britain.

The donkey symbol of the party was introduced by Andrew Jackson during his campaign in 1828.

The majority of the democrats are young voters and they are regarded to be liberal-minded. To date, the party has about 15 democrat presidents since its independence.

Trump Vs Clinton In Opinion Polls

Over the course of 2020, Biden’s lead over Trump in opinion polls has widened. A list of head-to-head match-ups for Clinton and Trump in opinion polls can be found on Wikipedia.

BBC’

RealClearPolitics also compiles an average of national polls, which mirrors the Wikipedia compilation above and shows Biden leading Trump consistently throughout 2020.

Another tracker of national sentiment is compiled by FiveThirtyEight.com. Their visualization also shows Biden has a lead of roughly 8 percentage points as of October 3, 2020.

It should be noted that opinion polls can paint a misleading picture. In 2016, these same models and averages showed Clinton leading Trump by 3 to 4 percentage points. And although Trump lost the popular vote, he did win the electoral vote and therefore the presidency.

The Party Thats Actually Best For The Economy

Many analyses look at which party is best for the economy. A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Democratic presidents since World War II have performed much better than Republicans. On average, Democratic presidents grew the economy 4.4% each year versus 2.5% for Republicans.

A study by Princeton University economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson found that the economy performs better when the president is a Democrat. They report that by many measures, the performance gap is startlingly large. Between Truman and Obama, growth was 1.8% higher under Democrats than Republicans.

A Hudson Institute study found that the six years with the best growth were evenly split between Republican and Democrat presidents.

Most of these evaluations measure growth during the presidents term in office. But no president has control over the growth added during his first year. The budget for that fiscal year was already set by the previous president, so you should compare the gross domestic product at the end of the presidents last budget to the end of his predecessors last budget.

For Obama, that would be the fiscal year from October 1, 2009, to September 30, 2018. Thats FY 2010 through FY 2017. During that time, GDP increased from $15.6 trillion to $17.7 trillion, or by 14%. Thats 1.7% a year.

The chart below ranks the presidents since 1929 on the average annual increase in GDP.

1.4%

A president would have better growth if he had no recession.

Where Do Trump And Biden Stand On Key Issues

Reuters: Brian Snyder/AP: Julio Cortez

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

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

The average healthcare costs for COVID-19 treatment is up to $US30,000 , an Americas Health Insurance Plans 2020 study has found.

Red States And Blue States List

Due to the TV coverage during some of the presidential elections in the past, the color Red has become associated with the Republicans and Blue is associated with the Democrats.

The Democratic Party, once dominant in the Southeastern United States, is now strongest in the Northeast , Great Lakes Region, as well as along the Pacific Coast , including Hawaii. The Democrats are also strongest in major cities. Recently, Democratic candidates have been faring better in some southern states, such as Virginia, Arkansas, and Florida, and in the Rocky Mountain states, especially Colorado, Montana, Nevada, and New Mexico.

Since 1980, geographically the Republican “base” is strongest in the South and West, and weakest in the Northeast and the Pacific Coast. The Republican Party’s strongest focus of political influence lies in the Great Plains states, particularly Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, and in the western states of Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah.

Difference Between Democrats Vs Republicans

The origins of the Democratic Party can trace back to the anti-federalist factions around the time of Americas independence. The factions were sectioned off into the Democrat-Republican parties. Founded in 1854, Republican Party, by activists in the fight for no more slavery. Republican philosophies lean more towards freedoms for individuals, rights, and responsibilities, whereas the Democrats lean towards equality and community and social influence.

One of the main differences between the two parties ideals. Democrats tend to lean more towards an active role for the government and believe that it can improve the nature of peoples lives and can achieve the greater goals of equality and opportunity. Republicans tend to need a smaller government in terms of the responsibilities and roles of government. The Democratic party discrimination-free laws and environmental regulations for work, whereas, the Republican party thinks such laws and rules threatening to job and business development because these laws have consequences that are unexpected.

Another difference is, Democrats, support abortion rights but Republicans believe abortions are illegal and immoral. Another difference between Democrats vs Republicans is in the limitations on government by the law. Both parties governments often use a representational system where the citizens vote to elect politicians to represent their form the government and interests.

The Philosophy Behind Republican Economic Policy

Republicans advocate supply-side economics that primarily benefits businesses and investors. This theory states that tax cuts on businesses allow them to hire more workers, in turn increasing demand and growth. In theory, the increased revenue from a stronger economy offsets the initial revenue loss over time.

Republicans advocate the right to pursue prosperity without government interference. They argue this is achieved by self-discipline, enterprise, saving, and investing.

Republicans business-friendly approach leads most people to believe that they are better for the economy. A closer look reveals that Democrats are, in many respects, actually better.

How To Explain The Difference Between Republicans And Democrats

Politics are confusing, even for adults. This years political cycle is even more confusing than most. Anything that confuses and parents is sure to raise questions in children.

As the primaries roll on, many children are asking questions about the two major political parties and what all the arguing means. This years political cycle is more emotionally charged than most. Those emotions can make it difficult for parents to fairly explain political differences to children. Goodness knows, as an avid sports fan, I could not objectively describe the rivalry between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.

The Philosophy Behind Democratic Economic Policy

Democrats gear their economic policies to benefit low-income and middle-income families. They argue that reducing income inequality is the best way to foster economic growth. Low-income families are more likely to spend any extra money on necessities instead of saving or investing it. That directly increases demand and spurs economic growth. Democrats also support a Keynesian economic theory, which says that the government should spend its way out of a recession.

One dollar spent on increased food stamp benefits generates $1.73 in economic output.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt first outlined the Economic Bill of Rights in his 1944 State of the Union address. It included taxes on war profiteering and price controls on food costs. President Harry Trumans 1949 Fair Deal proposed an increase in the minimum wage, civil rights legislation, and national health care. President Barack Obama expanded Medicaid with the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

Differences Between Democrat And Republican Checkout 2021 Update

ADS!

Difference between Democrat and Republican: Democrats and Republicans are the two most prominent political parties in the United States.

These two parties dominate Americas political landscape but differ greatly in their philosophies and ideals ranging from taxes, the role of government, Medicare, gun control, , healthcare, abortion, and more.

Democrats and Republicans remain the two historically largest parties, which hold the majority of the seats in the Senate and in the House of Representatives.

Democratsand Republicanshave opposing views and positions on several key issues, including economic, political, military, and social matters.

Policymaking Has A Liberal Bias

Democratic presidents talk more about policy, propose more specific policy ideas, and pass more significant pieces of legislation. The numbers are stark. Since 1945, Democratic presidents have put forward 39 percent more policy proposals than Republican presidents, and 62 percent more domestic policy proposals.

“There is a good reason for this asymmetry,” write Grossmann and Hopkins. “Democrats and liberals are more likely to focus on policymaking because any change that occurs is much more likely to be liberal than conservative. New policies usually expand the scope of government responsibility, funding, or regulation. There are occasional conservative policy successes as well, but they are less frequent and are usually accompanied by expansion of government responsibility in other areas.”

The chart above codes significant policy changes by whether they expand or contract the “scope of government regulation, funding, or responsibility.” Policy changes turned out to be more than three times as likely to expand the scope of government than to contract it. This is often true even when Republicans are signing the laws.

As such, gridlock is often the best small-government conservatives can hope for. And so they’re more comfortable with it than Democrats.

Main Difference Between Democrats And Republicans In Point Form

Democratic Party was founded in 1828 while the Republican Party in 1854 The Democratic Party has about 15 presidents while the Republican Party has about 19 presidents since independence Republican Party voters are older generation while Democratic Party voters are the younger generation The voters of Republicans are conservatives while democrats are liberal The main color of republicans is red while that of democrats is blue The party symbol of democrats is a donkey whereas that of republicans is an elephant The Democrats party was founded on the basis of anti-federalism whereas republican party on the basis of anti-slavery and agent of modernity The Democrats party has a larger membership subscription whereas republican has a lower membership subscription Democrats applaud same-sex marriage whereas republicans condemn same-sex marriage Democrats want the elderly medical program to be allowed while republicans reject suggestions of elderly medical care program

Views Of The Parties Traits And Characteristics

The Republican Party and the Democratic Party are both seen as too extreme by a majority of Americans. About six-in-ten say the phrase too extreme in its positions describes the Republican Party at least somewhat well, including 30% who say this describes the GOP very well. The share of Americans who say the same phrase applies to the Democratic Party is nearly identical: 61% say this applies at least somewhat, and 29% say it describes the party very well.

The public also is critical of the parties ability to govern honestly and ethically: Just 38% say the phrase governs in an honest and ethical way describes the Republican Party at least somewhat well, while 61% say it does not. Roughly half say this describes the Democratic Party at least somewhat well, while about as many say it doesnt.

The public views the Democratic Party more positively than the Republican Party on three other traits and characteristics. Four-in-ten say that the phrase represents the interests of people like me applies at least somewhat well to the Republican Party, while half say this phrase describes the Democratic Party at least somewhat well.

A majority says the description cares about the middle class describes the Democratic Party at least somewhat well. By comparison, 39% say that it applies to the Republican Party.

Large majorities of Republicans and Democrats assign positive characteristics to their own party, while taking a much more negative view of the opposing party.

What Is The Difference Between Republicans And Democrats

Republicans and Democrats are the two main and historically the largest political parties in the US and, after every election, hold the majority seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate as well as the highest number of Governors. Though both the parties mean well for the US citizens, they have distinct differences that manifest in their comments, decisions, and history. These differences are mainly ideological, political, social, and economic paths to making the US successful and the world a better place for all. Differences between the two parties that are covered in this article rely on the majority position though individual politicians may have varied preferences.

Regulating The Economy Democratic Style

The Democratic Party is generally considered more willing to intervene in the economy, subscribing to the belief that government power is needed to regulate businesses that ignore social interests in the pursuit of earning a return for shareholders. This intervention can come in the form of regulation or taxation to support social programs. Opponents often describe the Democratic approach to governing as “tax and spend.”

Democratic Candidate Joe Biden

Reuters: Carlos Barria

The Democrats are the liberal political party and their candidate is Joe Biden, who has run for president twice before.

A former senator for Delaware who served six terms, Biden is best known as Barack Obama’s vice-president.

He held that role for eight years, and it has helped make him a major contender for many Democrat supporters.

Earlier this year, Biden chose California Senator Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential running mate.

The 77-year-old has built his campaign on the Obama legacy, and tackling the country’s staggering health care issues.

He is known for his down-to-earth personality and his ability to connect with working-class voters. He would be the oldest first-term president in history if elected.

According to 2017 Pew Research Centre data, a vast majority of the African American population supports the Democratic party, with 88 per cent voting for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential elections.

Difference Between Democratic And Republican Party With Similarities

Democrats and Republicans are the two main political parties in the USA. Both parties hold the most of the seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives. They also obtain the maximum number of Governors. Although both parties mean well for US citizens, they have distinct differences. These difference between democratic and republican party are mainly in political, ideological, economic, and social pathways. However, we will try to cover the topic in this article.

Differences and Similarities between democratic and republican party are the main topics. We will know about the Republican Party and Democratic Party at first. Therefore, here is the basic concept of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.

Table of Contents

1.2 Similarities of Democrats with Republicans:

Nine Big Differences Between Republicans And Democrats

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In the storm of political bickering, allegations and attack ads this election season, it’s easy to lose track of what the candidates and their political parties actually stand for. Many potential voters who’ve grown weary of the endless stream of negative campaigning may have the misconception that Barack Obama and the Democrats really aren’t all that different from Mitt Romney and the Republicans.

But take a quick look at the official 2012 platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties, and you’ll quickly some pretty extreme contrasts in philosophy on everything from taxes to abortion. In their national party platforms, the Democrats and Republicans have laid out a set of fundamentally different visions for America and the role its government should play in our lives.

On the public radio show This American Life, host Ira Glass notes the widening chasm between the two parties:

“Everyone knows that politics is now so divided in our country that not only do the two sides disagree on the solutions to the countrys problems, they dont even agree on what the problems are. Its two versions of the world in collision.”

Taken directly from the Republican and Democratic party Platforms, here are some of the widest divides on major issues that may impact you .

Democrats Are Under More Pressure From Interest Groups To Pass Policy

Another difference between the Democratic and Republican parties is that Democrats answer to more interest groups than Republicans.

Grossmann and Hopkins assemble studies showing that Democratic delegates at both national and state conventions report more organization memberships than Republican delegates, suggesting that Democratic conventions are the site of more organized interest group activity than Republican conventions. They also note a study showing that more interest groups make endorsements in Democratic primaries than in Republican primaries.

The graphic above is perhaps the most persuasive evidence of the density of the Democratic interest-group ecosystem: it connects interest groups that endorsed more than one of the same candidate or bill in the 2001-2002 Congress and the 2002 midterm election. So, if the AFL-CIO and the Sierra Club both endorsed Senator Mary Landrieu for reelection and they also both endorsed No Child Left Behind, they get a line. The more shared endorsements between two groups, the thicker the line connecting them; the more total connections any individual group has to other groups, the larger the circle they get.

there are more organized groups asking Democrats for policy than asking Republicans for policy

Histories Of The Parties

The Democratic party started in 1828 as anti-federalist sentiments began to form. The Republican party formed a few decades later, in 1854, with the formation of the party to stopping slavery, which they viewed to be unconstitutional.

The difference between a democrat and a republican has changed many, many times throughout history. Democrats used to be considered more conservative, while the republican party fought for more progressive ideas. These ideals have switched over time.

What Is A Republican Party

The Republican Party is the second oldest and it originated from anti-slavery ideologies and agents of modernity.

The first president to won with the party is Abraham Lincoln. The party was established in 1854 and the elephant is their symbol.

The majority of the republicans are older voters and they are regarded as conservative-minded. The party has about 19 republican presidents since independence.

Huge Difference Between Democrats And Republicans In Tabular Form

What is the core difference between democrats and republicans?

Democrats and Republicans are the two main political parties in the United States of America. The parties tend to hold major seats in the seat and house of representatives after every election.

The main difference between republicans and democrats is that republicans are conservatives and right-leaning whereas democrats are liberal and left-leaning.

Crime And Capital Punishment

Republicans generally believe in harsher penalties when someone has committed a crime, including for selling illegal drugs. They also generally favor capital punishment and back a system with many layers to ensure the proper punishment has been meted out. Democrats are more progressive in their views, believing that crimes do not involve violence, such as selling drugs, should have lighter penalties and rehabilitation. They are also against capital punishment in any form.

Heres A Breakdown Of Core Democratic Beliefs:

TAXES: Democrats typically demand higher taxes on its citizens. The Supreme Court r ruled that Obamacare was a tax for example. Since this was Democratic legislation, Americans must now either get an Obamacare policy or pay a stiff penalty during tax time. While there are some segments of the population who need help from the rest of its citizens, most do not. The government should have addressed only that segment who couldnt afford health insurance. It wouldve been much cheaper. President Trumps tax plan gave 2 to 4 thousand per year to families. The Biden Harris Administration vowed on day one to revoke the tax cuts and increase taxes on the working, dying middle class. Having your tax exemption double was huge! Ivanka Trump helped to raise the childcare credit to 2K per child!!!! That is thousands in some homes that will go away according to Biden on DAY 1.

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-are-the-basic-differences-between-democrats-and-republicans/

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