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addierose444 · 4 years ago

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A Typical Week: Spring 2021

Before getting into the actual content, I thought I would just point out that this is my 100th blog post! You can check out the full list here.

As noted in my fall 2020 version of this post, my week is primarily dictated by my current course schedule. (To check out all of my past courses, click here). Furthermore, the way I write these posts is to focus on academics as they're a big part of my life, but also the most natural thing to write about publicly. This post should give you a realistic sense of the structure of my week and courses. I thought it may be useful to contrast expectations and reality when it comes to productivity. Early in the semester, I mapped out my idealized homework schedule around my meetings and assignment deadlines. The first row lists deadlines. The other rows are split by my meals (lunch and dinner). Even if I don’t strictly follow the schedule, spending the time to map things out is quite useful. To write about my real schedule, I actually looked back through data from my time tracking application, Toggl Track. I know this is a very long post, but it wasn’t really interesting enough to become a two-parter.

A typical school day starts off with my 9:00 (or 9:10) alarm. I also often have a second alarm set for 9:15 as a backup. Here at college, I simply use the default clock app on my phone and have it play from my favorites playlist on Spotify. I very occasionally need to wake up earlier to finish up an assignment as midnight is my strict cutoff for doing work. I know a consistent sleep schedule is very important, but it’s definitely something I struggle with.

Monday:

My week begins with a 9:20 math class. The specific course is math methods which as previously explained is an applied math course from the physics department that is required for physics and engineering majors. We usually start off by going over the pre-class check in (PCCI) and/or other questions students have. This review is followed by a lecture on new material. Throughout the class, we work through example problems in breakout rooms (on Zoom whiteboards) and answer multiple-choice questions using the poll feature. (The poll questions are anonymous and ungraded). Partway through the class, we get a 4-minute break. One nice thing about this class is that we actually thoroughly go through the example problems when we regroup as an entire class. This is important because, without feedback, practice is of limited utility. Furthermore, going over the problem gives me a chance to get everything into my notes. The integration of lectures with practice is something I really appreciate about this course. In past math classes, the format has been a lecture followed by a worksheet of practice problems. While that model sometimes makes sense, I much prefer this integrated approach. One issue with leaving practice until the end is that you sometimes run out of time and don’t catch knowledge gaps until the end of class. After math methods, I get a 20-minute break during which I often listen to the latest episode of The Daily (a short new podcast from the New York Times).

Next up is my philosophy of logic class which starts with a few minutes of breathing and stretching. On the first day of class, I thought this was a really strange thing, but have come to appreciate it. Afterward, we go over any relevant announcements and sometimes debrief the previous class. This class is different from my other classes in that it is reading and discussion-based. We spend most of the class in the main room strengthening our understanding of the reading through full class discussions and mini-lectures. Even though the class is already very small (13 students), we also make use of breakout rooms to work through study questions. Our tests are pyramid style which means we spend one class period working independently and another class on the same questions in a small group. We also have short quizzes, called mini check-ins, every few weeks. Next up is lunch during which I sometimes listen to a podcast or audiobook. You can check out some of my favorite podcasts and books of 2020 at the associated links.

After lunch, I have my computer systems lab. The teaching assistant of my lab section starts off with a quick introduction to the assignment. We then work independently and ask questions as they come up. Even though we don’t really work collaboratively the lab is sort of fun because it’s less formal than a regular class. For the first part of the semester, the lab assignments often took way longer than the allotted time (and sometimes longer than our projects) so I often spent more of the afternoon finishing up the assignment. Fortunately, the course staff was made aware of this issue and adjusted accordingly. Just for some context, this course is a UMass class which is why there is a whole course team and teaching assistants. To read more about Five College course registration click here. At Smith, while some classes have teaching assistants who help out during class, all of the classes are taught and run by our actual professors. We also have student tutors as an academic resource outside of class. To read more about academic support systems at Smith, click here.

After finishing up my lab assignment, I start in on my math methods PCCI. A typical PCCI consists of reading a section or two of the textbook (written by our professor) and completing a short practice problem or so-called discovery exercise. Depending on the week, I either start in on my reading assignment for my computer systems class or logic class. At 4:00, I have my weekly one-on-one meeting with my supervisor for my ResLife job. Following the meeting, I relax by listening to music or an audiobook. At 5:00, I order, pick up, and eat my dinner. After dinner, I complete any remaining readings for my computer systems and logic classes. If I haven’t yet completed my lab assignment or have an exam the following day, I devote some of the night to circuits. Otherwise, I may work on a computer systems project or theory of computation assignment.

Tuesday:

Tuesday’s are my busiest day of the week in terms of class hours. With that said, it’s nothing compared to my Thursdays last fall. I start Tuesdays off with my circuits class. During class, we learn new circuit theory and circuit analysis techniques. We also go through example problems. While we often run out of time to fully work through the extra practice problems in breakout rooms, fortunately, my professor posts videos going over those problems. After taking our feedback into account, we now get a break partway through the class. Each lecture covers a lot of material, so the brain/screen break is much appreciated. To check in on how the class is feeling about various concepts, our professor has us use the annotation feature on a scale from totally get it to totally lost.

After circuits is my 20-minute break followed by my theory of computation lecture. The theoretical nature of the material means that it really is a lecture. While we obviously go through examples, there aren’t really practice problems as there would be in a math class. We use the chat to some extent in all of my classes, but to a greater degree in this course. Next up is lunch and a COVID test. At 1:40 I am back to circuits for the lab. Most of the labs are virtual with physical lab equipment, but a few have been in-person so that we could use special equipment. Ironically, one of our in-person labs was actually fully virtual in terms of lab equipment. (We were sitting on the lawn outside of Ford together and running circuit simulators on our laptops). Fortunately, we don’t usually need to stay until 4:30. I tend to just collect my data, ask some questions about the material, and then finish up the write-up at a later point in time. This time block is also the one used whenever we have an exam.

I always start by doing the textbook reading for circuits. I don’t read super closely, but it’s still a good primer for the next class. In terms of other work, Tuesdays are a bit more unpredictable and really depend on how much I got done over the weekend. Specifically, while I usually finish my math methods assignment over the weekend, occasionally I need to finish it up on Tuesday evenings. Likewise, for circuits, I sometimes finish the last few problems on a Tuesday evening. At 7:00, I have a staff meeting with the other community advisors in my neighborhood and our supervisor. Our meetings usually take place over Zoom, but our most recent one was in-person with ice cream from Herrell’s which was a lot of fun. You can read about some other Northampton food locations (restaurants, cafes, and more) here. In weeks where I haven’t yet started my computer systems work, I do what I would usually have done on a Monday on a Tuesday.

Wednesday:

Wednesdays are similar to Mondays without the computer systems lab and ResLife meeting. In the afternoon I often attend office hours for my theory of computation class to ask questions about the weekly assignment. Even though I don’t have my logic class until the following Monday, I usually just do the reading on Wednesday afternoon. On Wednesday evenings, I typically work through my circuits revisions. I also tend to do a good chunk of my computer systems coursework. This consists of watching lecture videos, taking notes, and taking lesson quizzes. Furthermore, I have definitely spent some Wednesday evenings working through computer systems projects.

Thursday:

Thursdays are like Tuesdays without the circuits lab. Even though I have the whole afternoon free, unfortunately, I am sometimes having to finish up my theory of computation assignment. It’s also common for me to start working on the new math methods problem set. In the case of this Thursday, I played some guitar and then started writing this post. I also do my circuits reading for Tuesday and take the quick lab quiz. If I have any remaining computer systems coursework, I do that as well.

Friday:

This semester I only have one class on Fridays, math methods. After class, I get a COVID test and an early lunch. I know it seems crazy how many free afternoons I have given that I am taking 22 credits and am a double STEM major. However, part of this is explained by my UMass computer systems course being asynchronous and the fact that I completed the one-credit companion course in C programming before my Smith semester started. My computer systems class was originally scheduled to meet Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons. Even though I wish the class was synchronous, the flexibility of an asynchronous class has been much appreciated. Furthermore, the class was in a terrible time block that would have caused me to miss most of house tea. Back to what a Friday afternoon looks like! After completing my PCCI for math methods, I often rewatch the lecture videos for computer systems (on double speed) and then take the weekly quiz. I next pick up tea snacks from Cutter-Z and attend house tea at 4:30. After tea, I order dinner and often eat it in the living room with housemates. Fridays are definitely my least productive day and I have definitely taken a few weekly quizzes on Saturday after having planned to take them on Friday. Instead of doing real work, I often spend Friday afternoons writing blog posts. As for this post, I wrote most of it yesterday but spent a good chunk of Friday afternoon on it as well.

Saturday:

Despite my best efforts to have a consistent sleep schedule, I often sleep in on Saturdays until 10:00. I then have a leisurely hour or so of listening to an audiobook. At 11:00, I get an early lunch. As mentioned in the Friday description, I sometimes end up taking my weekly quiz for computer systems on Saturday. When I have tests in math methods, I typically take them on Saturday night. (The tests are timed but are self-scheduled over the given weekend which includes Friday). When there is not a math test, I often work on my math problem set in the afternoon. Every few weeks, I host POCheese at 4:00. This week we are actually going to be meeting at 5:00 for a ramen night! At 6:00 I have a uke club meeting over Zoom. In weeks where I have already finished my math problem set and don’t have a test, I start in on my circuits problem set.

Sunday:

Sundays start like Saturdays in that I often have a leisurely morning. At 11:00 I get a COVID test and an early lunch. Sundays are almost always devoted to my circuits. This includes working through the problems set, the lab writeup, or studying for an upcoming exam. If my Saturday wasn’t as productive as intended, I do the homework described in that section. At 6:00 I have a Society of Women Engineers (SWE) board meeting. At 7:00, I either lead a community meeting (part of my ResLife job) or attend house council. Afterward, I fill out my weekly report (also part of my ResLife job).

#college #Smith College #academics #schedule #week in my life #homework #spring 2021

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bangtan · 7 years ago

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BTS Speaks Out In Seoul: The K-Pop Megastars Get Candid About Representing a New Generation

No sound on the planet inspires as obsessive a fandom as K-pop. The “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” of BTS have (finally, for real) imported that mania to America -- all in Korean, as they rally dissatisfied millennials around the globe. Built in 1957 as a reception hall for South Korea’s fledgling postwar government to entertain foreign dignitaries, the Korea House is a quiet oasis amid the tumult of Seoul, with a photogenic courtyard and collection of old-school Korean houses known as hanoks. Normally it’s the setting for historical TV dramas or weddings, but on this bright, cold mid-January morning, it’s a hideaway for the seven-man Korean pop group BTS, whose celebrity has expanded past K-pop’s traditional sphere of influence and, especially during the last six months, moved into the United States as well. When I arrive, the band is sequestered in a room within a room, behind paper doors manned by a security detail. In the outer room, over 20 groomers, publicists and other handlers from the group’s management agency, BigHit Entertainment, mill about, grazing on the provided snacks and drinks. Everyone speaks in low tones. The members of BTS need an extra 15 minutes before the scheduled photo shoot, I’m told. They are, understandably, exhausted: Their schedule has been packed since New Year’s Eve with performances, TV appearances, commercials and meet-and-greets. I flew into Seoul expressly to meet them for this rare opening in their calendar. The first to emerge from the room is J-Hope, 23, the former street dancer from the city of Gwangju, who capers down the steps, then doubles back to get RM, also 23, the group’s leader and English-speaking ambassador. The rest soon file out wearing similarly dark Saint Laurent-heavy outfits: Suga, 24, the idealistic and soulful rapper; Jimin, 22, the baby-faced modern dancer; V, 22, the master impressionist; Jungkook, 20, the golden maknae (youngest member, a sort of privileged position in K-pop) who’s good at everything; and Jin, 25, who’s known as “Worldwide Handsome.” They form a semicircle of multicolored bowl cuts, and RM comments on how tall I am (6 feet) and that I can speak Korean (like a 10-year-old). They’re photo-ready but groggy enough that I wish they’d taken another 15 minutes to rest. But time is money, and these guys are worth a lot. It’s reasonable that BigHit would handle the members like prized jewels. They’re among the biggest stars in K-pop -- their last album, 2017’s Love Yourself: Her, has sold 1.58 million physical copies around the globe, according to BigHit. And while it may not be a household name in the United States, BTS -- which stands for Bangtan Sonyeondan and roughly translates to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” -- is pulling unprecedented numbers for a group that mainly sings in Korean to an American populace that has long resisted K-pop’s charms. Love Yourself: Her debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 in September 2017, and BTS claims the two highest-charting songs for a K-pop group ever, “DNA” (which peaked at No. 67 on the Billboard Hot 100) and the Steve Aoki remix of “Mic Drop,” featuring Desiigner (No. 28). In the States alone, BTS has sold 1.6 million song downloads and clocked 1.5 billion-with-a-“B” on-demand streams, according to Nielsen Music. BTS has connected with millennials around the globe even though -- or really, because -- the act seems to challenge boy-band and K-pop orthodoxies. Sure, it’s got love songs and dance moves. But BTS’ music, which the members have helped write since the beginning, has regularly leveled criticism against a myopic educational system, materialism and the media, venting about a structure seemingly gamed against the younger generation. “Honestly, from our standpoint, every day is stressful for our generation. It’s hard to get a job, it’s harder to attend college now more than ever,” says RM, until recently known as Rap Monster. “Adults need to create policies that can facilitate that overall social change. Right now, the privileged class, the upper class needs to change the way they think.” Suga jumps in: “And this isn't just Korea, but the rest of the world. The reason why our music resonates with people around the world who are in their teens, 20s and 30s is because of these issues.” The shoot’s done, and we’re sitting on couches in a small living room-like space amid the production studios at the BigHit offices, the members changed into cozy but still-stylish jackets and knitwear. Here at home, speaking in Korean, they’re calmer and less eager to impress than they were on their recent, occasionally awkward American press tour, where they did the rounds on The Late Late Show With James Corden, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where RM gamely evaded questions about dating. Today, their voices are noticeably deeper, more sonorous. RM does, as usual, a lot of the talking, sometimes throwing questions out to the quieter members. But Suga is a surprise: garrulous and thoughtful, seemingly primed for a socially conscious rap battle. Rabid K-pop fandom is, by now, a pop-culture cliche. Even in a world where supporters of American stars engineer efforts to goose chart positions and feud with rival fandoms -- Beatlemania multiplied by the internet, basically -- K-pop stans are legendarily devoted and influential. The BTS ARMY (that’s short for “Adorable Representative M.C for Youth”) is the engine powering the phenomenon: It translates lyrics and Korean media appearances; rallies clicks, views, likes and retweets to get BTS trending on Twitter and YouTube; and overwhelms online polls and competitions. BigHit says that it makes sure to disseminate news and updates about the band on the fan cafe, so as not to arouse the wrath of the ARMY. The global fan base is why a group you may never have heard of is attaining the upper ranks of the U.S. charts; playing late-night slots; appearing at the Billboard Music Awards, where it picked up the fan-voted top social artist trophy in 2017; and performing on the American Music Awards. (“The AMAs were the biggest gift we could have gotten from our fans,” says Suga.) Purely in terms of social media, they’re just about the biggest thing going, driving BTS to 58 weeks at No. 1 on the Social 50 chart, a total that’s second only to Justin Bieber’s, and more than doubles the number of weeks scored by the third-place act -- none other than Taylor Swift. The ARMY doesn't merely idolize the members of BTS, it identifies with them. When the group debuted in 2013 with 2 Kool 4 Skool, the members talked about the pressures familiar to any Korean student: the need to study hard, get into college and find a stable job. Their first singles, “No More Dream” and “N.O.,” castigated peers who attended classes like zombies without a sense of purpose. What was all this education for, they asked -- to become “the No. 1 government worker?” The tracks were a throwback to Korean pop acts like H.O.T. and Seo Taiji & Boys, only updated for a generation saddled with debt in an increasingly competitive economy. “I was talking about my past self,” says RM, confessing that he was one of those drones. “There was nothing I wanted to do; just that I wanted to make a lot of money. I started the song by thinking about it as a letter written to friends who were like me in the past.” “College is presented like some sort of cure-all,” says Suga. “They say that if you go, your life will be set. They even say you’ll lose weight, get taller...” RM: “That you’ll get a girlfriend...” Jin: “That you’ll become better-looking...” Suga: “But this isn't the reality, and they realize that was all a lie. No one else can take responsibility for you at that point. “If we don’t talk about these issues, who will?” continues Suga. “Our parents? Adults? So isn't it up to us? That’s the kind of conversations we have [in the band]: Who knows best and can talk about the difficulty our generation faces? It’s us.” As they become increasingly famous, though, the artists have also become wary of saying what might be perceived as the wrong or “political” thing. Suga is the most outspoken. When I ask them about the massive candlelight protests calling for President Park Geun-hye’s resignation in Seoul last winter, Suga readily takes on the topic: “Moving past right and wrong, truth and falsehood, citizens coming together and raising their voice is something that I actively support.” RM, on the other hand, is more alert to potential sensitivities. On the recent death of Jonghyun of K-pop group SHINee, who suffered from depression and committed suicide last December, he says, “We went to give our condolences that morning. I couldn't sleep at all that night. It was so shocking, because we had seen him so often at events. He was so successful.” Adds Suga, “It was a shock to everyone, and I really sympathized with him,” and then RM moves to end the conversation: “That’s about all we can say.” But Suga goes on. “I really want to say that everyone in the world is lonely and everyone is sad, and if we know that everyone is suffering and lonely, I hope we can create an environment where we can ask for help, and say things are hard when they’re hard, and say that we miss someone when we miss them.” I later bring up a tweet that RM wrote in March 2013, saying that when he understood what the lyrics to Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ gay-marriage anthem, “Same Love,” were about, he liked the song twice as much. BTS fans naturally took this to mean that BTS openly supported gay rights -- a rarity in K-pop. Today, he’s slightly circumspect on the topic: “It’s hard to find the right words. To reverse the words: Saying ‘same love’ is saying ‘love is the same.’ I just really liked that song. That’s about all I have to say.” Suga, though, is clear on where he stands: “There’s nothing wrong. Everyone is equal.” BTS’ meteoric rise was something of a surprise, even in Korea. Three years into its career -- eons in the K-pop life cycle -- the group finally gained traction in 2016 with hits like “Blood, Sweat, Tears” and “Burn It Up.” Part of the reason is that BTS is the first major act to come out of BigHit Entertainment, an anomaly simply in that it is not one of the “Big Three” entertainment companies -- YG, JYP and SM -- that control the Korean music industry, producing most of the past decade’s notable pop acts, including Girls’ Generation, BIGBANG, Super Junior, Wonder Girls and 2NE1. And BTS simply didn't have the same feel as factory-fresh groups created to dominate the Asian music markets. Bang Si-hyuk, the founder/CEO of BigHit, cut his teeth at JYP, working alongside Park Jin-yong and writing and producing hits for Rain, 2AM and Baek Ji-young. “Even the people around me didn't believe in me,” he says, recalling the early days with BTS. “Even though they acknowledged that I had been successful in the past, they didn't believe I could take this boy group to the top.” Like the other companies, BigHit oversees everything from recording to distribution to marketing to events for its acts. He says that people thought the “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” name had a North Korean feel, but he felt that they would become a metaphorical bulletproof vest for their generation. Bang originally wanted to create a hip-hop group -- “like Migos,” according to RM. He first listened to RM’s demo tape in 2010 and still remembers some of the lines. (He cites, “My heart is like a detective who is the criminal’s son. Even as I know who the criminal is, I can’t catch him.”) “It was shocking to me,” says Bang. “RM is extremely self-reflective, sophisticated and philosophical, considering his age.” RM, whose real name is Kim Nam-joon, was only 15 at the time. Bang signed him immediately. Back then, though, “idol groups” -- boy bands and girl groups -- like Super Junior and SNSD were ascendant. So Bang created an act that would meld the honesty of hip-hop with the visual flair and charisma of a boy band in the vein of BIGBANG. During the next couple of years, he recruited Suga, a rapper he describes as having an “I don’t give a fuck” magnetism masking a humble core, and then J-Hope, the street dancer. BigHit then held extensive auditions. A casting director chased Jin after seeing him get off a bus and convinced him to try out for the group; he eventually made the team alongside V and Jungkook. Jimin was the last to join, after a BigHit agent scouted him at a modern dance school. In the beginning, each of the members tried their hand at rhyming. “I went so far as to learn how to rap,” says Jimin, who, like Jungkook, now sings. “But after they had me do it once, they were like, ‘Let’s just work harder on vocals.’” RM nods -- “It was the wise choice,” he says -- and everyone bursts out laughing. These were BigHit’s ragtag champions, and they have a sense of unity. Early on, they lived together in one small room, sleeping in bunk beds and learning one another’s sleep habits. (Jimin does strange contortions in bed, and Jungkook has started snoring. “It’s TMI,” acknowledges RM.) They still live together, just with a little more space -- J-Hope and Jimin sharing the biggest room -- and plan to keep doing so. “When we’re at home, we go around to everyone’s room,” says Jin. “Even when I go home [to see family], I get bored, honestly,” adds Suga. “And if there’s a problem or someone has hurt feelings, we don’t just leave it, we talk about it then and there.” “So if Hope and Jin fight, it’s not just the two of them that resolve it,” explains Jungkook. “It’s all seven of us!” says Suga. “Everyone gathers together,” says RM, ever the intellectual. “It’s like an agora in ancient Greece: We gather and we ask: ‘What happened?’” After the interview, RM takes me to his production studio, a small room at the end of a hall decorated with giant KAWS figurines in glass boxes, a Supreme poster of Mike Tyson and skateboards. Inside, the walls are lined with his own KAWS toys and a model version of the Banksy piece “Rage, Flower Thrower” that he admits paying a hefty sum for. Other than that, there’s just a typical workstation: a pullout chair, giant monitor and the most precious item of all, his laptop. In BTS’ lyrics, there’s a motif of the baepsae, a squat, fluffy bird native to Korea and known as the crow-tit. A Korean expression says that if a crow-tit tries to walk like a stork, it’ll tear its own legs. It’s a cautionary tale -- a suggestion that you shouldn't try too hard or be something that you’re not. But BTS deploys it as a brag, a declaration of a small, striving bird. In “Silver Spoon,” Suga puts a cheeky, boastful spin on it: “Our generation has had it hard/We’ll chase them fast/Because of the storks the crotch of my pants is stretched tight/So call me baepsa e.” Now that they are, almost in a literal sense, on top of the world, can they still claim to be underdogs? “We’re very careful about calling ourselves baepsaes now,” says Suga. “But the reality is that that’s where we started and that’s where our roots are.” And RM points out that they still consider themselves agents for change: “If there are problems, we’ll bring it up so that our voices can get louder, so that the climate changes and we can talk about it more freely.” BTS is the K-pop group of the moment because it balances the contradictions inherent to the genre on a genuinely global scale: The act is breaking through in America singing and rapping in Korean, creating intimacy through wide exposure on social media, expressing political ideas without stirring up controversy and inspiring fervent obsession with mild-mannered wholesomeness. It is the underdog that has arrived. But the group would rather you not ask what’s next. Its members and producers are skillfully evasive when it comes to questions about the next BTS album -- although they apparently have no immediate plans for an English-language release, intuiting that such a move would alienate their core fan base. Instead, they seem content to keep doing what they do. RM, of course, is philosophical about it. “In Korean, the word ‘future’ is made up of two parts,” he explains, proposing a sort of riddle about how far the band has come and how far it might yet go. “The first part means ‘not,’ and the second means ‘to come.’ In that sense, ‘future’ means something that will not come. This is to say: The future is now, and our now is us living our future.”

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#bangtan #bts #v #jin #suga #rm #jimin #jhope #jungkook #t:article #180215

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jessefferguson · 7 years ago

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My Double Life: 5 Years And Going

It’s been a LONG TIME since I wrote one of these, so I figured now was as good a point as any.

Words, spoken out loud, are funny. They can mean very different things.

Try this one:

I am still here.

and

I am still here.

Both of those are the best summary I can think of for how I feel today since today, May 21, is the 5th anniversary of when I was diagnosed with cancer. Five years ago, I sat in a sweltering doctors office in Washington, D.C. as he told me the results of my first biopsy. Five years later, I still have it.

After 5 years, I have two conflicting emotions: I’m still here (thank God) and I’m still (only) here. Five years later, not much has really changed but, also, everything has.

Over the 5 years, I’ve sort of lived a double life – that of a cancer patient and that of a political operative. Sometimes they overlap but, more often than not, they’re separate worlds.

By my best count, over the 5 years, I’ve had 4 surgeries, 33 days of radiation, upwards of 60 rounds of either chemotherapy or targeted therapy, about 75 blood tests, and 150 doctors’ appointments. And over the same 5 years, I’ve worked on 191 television ads, 311 polls, thousands of press releases and speeches, spent over $100 million (of other people’s money), and sent over 40,000 of my own tweets.

I continue to believe the same thing I did – and wrote about - 5 years ago, there are three keys to getting through this sort of thing: (1) Your family and friends; (2) Doctors who are the best; (3) Doing something with your time that you love to do. Even on the worst days of work, the fact that I was doing the work I wanted to do made it that much more possible to fight a disease I did not want to deal with.

WHAT’S THE LATEST WITH ME

I’m living and working from Brooklyn, still. I decided to stay here after the Clinton campaign ended rather than move back to D.C. for a bunch of reasons – closer to my doctors at Sloan Kettering and further from Trump at the WH. Both sounded like good ideas.

For just under a year, I’ve been on a clinical trail and it’s getting some pretty good results. It’s a targeted therapy drug and I’m one of the first to apply it to my unique disease. It’s unlikely to result in me being “cured” or “cancer free” but it’s definitely shrunk the disease in my skin tissue and throughout my head, neck and chest. It’s also brought down the swelling. The swelling issues are far from gone, but they’re better. The best case is that it continues shrinking things; the next best case is it stops anything from getting worse again. Either way, it’s turned my condition to a chronic one, for now. I’ll take it.

Every three weeks I do the same routine. I book a someone to come clean my house for that morning and I take a car down to Sloan Kettering. I take a blood test. The doctor and I talk about medical stuff for a few minutes and politics for a few minutes and then he sends me for treatment. He’s not from America and has a healthy interest in all the crazy things in our politics.

It takes them about 2 hours to prepare the drug, so I have found a corner in the hospital that is usually empty for work — open the laptop, put on the head set and get to work. It’s my own cancer-center-based mobile-office. I have edited TV scripts and polls, held conference calls, did a radio interview and even convinced a donor to contribute – all from a table in a hospital waiting room. Last week’s discussion was about the placement of a media buy. It’s amazing what you can pull of when people don’t really know where you are.

The drug I’m on is an easy one – targeted therapy. It’s like a smart bomb of chemo that only goes to the cells that have the disease. The worst part is the IV, which I barely notice anymore and after 30 minutes, I’m out. On the road home to a clean house with the mild side effect of an uneasy stomach for a few days. Compared to the other drugs I’ve been on, this is like a piece of cake took a walk in a park.

How long will I stay on it? No clue. But it has made this condition chronic. If you offered me a deal today — get this treatment every 3 weeks for 30 minutes and the disease stays under control, I’d sign in a minute. I’d sign it for the next 10 years. For now, I’ll stay on it unless or until it stops working – then I’ll try something else.

WHAT HAPPENED SINCE 2016

As you may remember from my last blog post, just before election 2016, I had spent the previous 6 months working while dealing with the return of my disease.

On election night 2016, I did venture out. It wasn’t something I did often but I wanted to be with the team that night at the Javits Center in Manhattan. I could, now, try to pretend that I had doubts about the outcome of that night to try to make myself look extra smart, but that would be bullshit. I didn’t; I thought we’d win.

The beginning of that afternoon and evening were great. We were monitoring voting and doing the work we needed to do and I was also seeing some good friends who I had been away from while I worked the last few months from home.

Then, the results started and the mood changed. My heart started to sink, but I kept hoping. Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and others poured in. We knew we needed to hold Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to make it work.

While we waited for those results, I got up to go to the bathroom. As I stood at the urinal, a friend who had better sense for numbers and data than I do, approached the stall next to me. We looked at each other with the same forlorn look of despair as if our confidence was waning. He said “I just looked at the latest data from Michigan; it’s gone.” And with that, I found out we had lost in a way befitting the occasion -- standing at a urinal.

Whether you believe we lost because of a mission from Russia or a miss in Michigan, or any other reason, one thing was clear: we lost the electoral college. It was over. And while I stared at my peers and colleagues – friends who had hired me and friends who I had hired – I couldn’t stop thinking, “What’s next?”

Despite what you might see or hear, the group who I worked with on that campaign were some of the smartest, most talented and most committed people I’ve ever had the privilege to work with. As I stared at all of them, I wonder what was next for them. As I thought about it more, I worried what was next for me.

At one point, I wandered away and ended up sitting in the middle of the massive loading dock in the Javits Center with 4 senior staff from the campaign. There where shipping boxes, fork lifts, and one table with a few plastic chairs in the middle. We all just kind of stared at each other. Someone would say something about what we should do or what we should say and we’d all agree but, for the life of me, I couldn’t tell you today what anyone said.

As the night ended, I was one of the last ones to leave. I’m not really sure why, I just couldn’t. I kept finding someone else to talk to. I was trying to be a bit of team cheerleader – as best as was possible at that moment.

At around 4:30am that night, I left the Javits center along side two reporters I had gotten to know. We walked for a bit and then they got into cabs and drove off. I just started walking. And walking. I was thinking about what had happened and what it meant for the country. And, if I’m honest, what it meant for me. I had cancer and had just devoted two years of my life to trying to win the presidency – and had failed. I just kept thinking, maybe even crying a bit, and walking.

When I looked up, it was 6 am and the sun was rising. I had walked from the Javits Center at 36th street down almost to the World Trade Center. Much like I did while wandering around the streets of Washington on May 21, 2013, I had done lots of thinking. But now it was November 9, 2016, and it was time to go back to work. I took a cab home, slept for a few hours, and opened my laptop.

WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING SINCE

Since the campaign ended in 2016, I’ve been “consulting.” I’m still not sure what “consulting” means but it’s what I’m doing. I’m working on my own for a variety of political projects on a variety of important issues, trying to lend my experience to things where I think I can do something interesting and make a difference in the insane moment we’re in right now.

My work has ranged from the fight over the tax plan and some new digital campaign innovations, to a new polling project and an advertising campaign and others. It’s all kept me busy and kept my mind going – in the fight and doing what I love to do. The work is good cause it’s meaningful, it’s the work I want to be doing, and the variety of projects appeals to my attention-span-of-a-fruit-fly-nature.

It’s also allowed me to speak up a bit more about what I think, which has been quite a change. For the last 15+ years, I’ve always represented someone else – the DCCC Chairman, Secretary Clinton, etc. Now I’m speaking more and writing more in my own voice.

I still feel somewhat like a hermit. I live and work in my Brooklyn apartment. I get out more now than I used to, but, nothing like I did when I was healthy. When you’ve been dealing with this as long as I have, you start to lose track of what looking, feeling and being normal would be like. I get to the deli almost every morning and they know to make my eggs and have my iced coffee ready. Others around know me too. Life is easy and that’s important for me right now. One of these days, I’ll be up for making it harder again – but not yet.

THE HEALTH CARE ISSUE

The first project I took on was to help some friends with the coalition fighting the Obamacare repeal legislation. It’s been a hard-waged battle over the last 16 months to improve health care for people instead of letting it get dismantled.

But it’s also been the first time my double lives overlapped a bit. When the Affordable Care Act passed Congress, I was at my office near capitol hill, celebrating with everyone else. But it didn’t really mean anything to me. It was a good thing, but it wasn’t personal.

Seven years later, when repeal of it failed – repeal that would undercut protections for people with pre-existing conditions like I have – it was a very different moment. In fact, when the first repeal plan was pulled from the House floor, I was actually sitting at Sloan Kettering getting my chemo. I was on the phone talking with someone working with me while in the hospital room getting treated as a news alert came across my computer screen.

I don’t often invoke my own personal health care situation while working on the issue because it shouldn’t be about me. I’m fortunate and would be able to get the care I needed if I had to. But sitting there at age 37, with an IV bag dripping a toxic chemical designed to keep me alive into my arm, I certainly had a different perspective than I had 8 years earlier as an otherwise-healthy, overweight 29 year old who saw passage of the ACA as a good reason to go to the bar and celebrate.

FIVE YEARS AND COUNTING

Once and a while I think about what I could be doing if I was fully healthy. I get sad. Maybe I get mad. As I approach 38 years old at the end of this year, more and more of my friends are having their first or second child and I’m forced to think if my life would be different if I hadn’t gotten this diagnosis five years ago. For sure, it would be. But, in the end, you play the cards your dealt and make damn well sure it’s a game you enjoy. You could win big or you could lose your shirt, but either outcome has to be worth it.

Five years ago I was diagnosed with a disease that probably should have killed me. Five years later, I’m still here. When I put it that way, it actually brings a smile to my face. I know talking about having cancer isn’t something that normally is joyful but being able to do what I love while living with the disease sure beats the alternative.

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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What Will Happen If Republicans Win

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-will-happen-if-republicans-win/

What Will Happen If Republicans Win

So How Can Republicans Win Without Texas

Lets take the 2016 map with Texas flipped as a starting point. Republicans were at 268 Electoral College votes, meaning that they would only need to flip one Democratic state to win the election. The simplest way to do that would be to target states like Minnesota , the only midwestern state the Republicans failed to pick up in 2016, minus solid blue Illinois. Lets flip Minnesota and see how the map looks then.

This is one way in which Republicans can win an election without Texas. The ten extra Electoral College votes from Minnesota push the Republicans to a victory, albeit by a small margin but a victory nonetheless. Of course, this begs the question, how realistic is this map? Well, Minnesota was by no means a comfortable victory for the Democrats in 2016; Clinton won the state by just one-and-a-half points or roughly 44,000 votes out of a total of 2.7 million votes cast. Its not unrealistic to think that, with some extra effort in campaigning, Republicans could flip the North Star State.

Republicans could also target Nevada , which was ranked as a lean-Democrat/battleground state in 2016. Clinton eventually won Nevada and its six Electoral College votes, but only by a margin of around 30,000 from just over a million cast. Heres how that map would look.

A smaller margin than if the Republicans flipped Minnesota, but a victory nonetheless.

All maps courtesy of 270towin.com

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What If The Republicans Win Everything Again

Total victory for the G.O.P. would mean Trump unleashed.

Opinion Columnist

The end of Robert Muellers investigation. The loss of health insurance for several million people. New laws that make it harder to vote. More tax cuts for the rich. More damage to the environment. A Republican Party molded even more in the image of President Trump.

These are among the plausible consequences if the Republicans sweep the midterm elections and keep control of both the House and Senate. And dont fool yourself. That outcome, although not the most likely one, remains possible. The last couple of weeks of polling have shown how it could happen.

Voters who lean Republican including whites across the South could set aside their disappointment with Trump and vote for Republican congressional candidates. Voters who lean left including Latinos and younger adults could turn out in low numbers, as they usually do in midterm elections. The Republicans continuing efforts to suppress turnout could also swing a few close elections.

No matter what, Democrats will probably win the popular vote in the House elections, for the first time since 2012. Trump, after all, remains unpopular. But the combination of gerrymandering and the concentration of Democratic voters in major cities means that a popular-vote win wont automatically translate into a House majority.

A Division Of Power In Government Is Common In The Us With The Republicans And The Democrats Often Splitting Control Of The White House And Congress

Joe Biden may have been announced as President Elect but there are still some crucial decisions to be made on how America will be governed for the next four years. The presidential election appears to have been a pretty resounding win for the Democrats but the picture is less clear in the Senate, when both parties retain hope of having a majority when the Upper House reconvenes next year.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer released a statement after Bidens victory was called, saying: “A Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate would be the biggest difference maker to help President-elect Biden deliver for working families across the country.

Sen. Chuck Schumer: “There has been no evidence of any significant or widespread voter fraud. Joe Biden won this election fair and square. The margins of his victory are growing by the day.” pic.twitter.com/bvAFNdVAw5

The Hill November 9, 2020

All elections in Georgia, not just those for the Senate, require the winning candidate to pick up over 50% of the votes cast. This year neither of the states two Senate races had a majority winning so a run-off will be held on 5 January, with both the Democrats and the Republicans holding out hope of securing the vital seats needed to give them a majority in the Senate.

Why is control of the Senate so important?

How would a Republican Senate affect a Biden presidency?

How likely is it that a Republican Senate compromises with President Elect Biden?

What If Republicans Win The Midterms

March 3, 2018

WASHINGTON A sizable portion of the American population has been convulsing with outrage at President Trump for more than a year. Millions of people who previously took only mild interest in politics have participated in protests, fumed as they stayed riveted to news out of Washington and filled social media accounts once devoted to family updates and funny videos with furious political commentary.

Yet public life on the whole has remained surprisingly calm. A significant factor in keeping the peace has surely been anticipatory catharsis: The widespread expectations of a big Democratic wave in the coming midterm elections are containing and channeling that indignation, helping to maintain order.

What will happen if no such wave materializes and that pressure-relief valve jams shut?

The country was already badly polarized before the plot twist of election night in 2016, of course, but since then liberals and much of what remains of Americas moderate center have been seething in a way that dwarfs the usual disgruntlement of whichever faction is out of power. While nobody can know for sure whether Mr. Trump would have lost but for Russias meddling, many of his critics clearly choose to believe he is in the White House because Vladimir Putin tricked the United States into making him its leader.

This November, if the wave turns out to be a mere trickle, we could see the accomplishment of that goal take hold.

Gold If Republicans Win The Election

Oliver said if President Donald Trump pulls out a surprise victory in the election, the gold price could plunge, just as it did after the 2016 election. That happened against expectations.

While he denounced “left-wing populism,” he also said that Trump “has his own populist streak” because he likes high tariffs, cutting taxes, increasing spending and “a central bank that prints to fund internal improvements and a rising stock market.”

“The precious metals offer safe haven from the approaching political and economic turbulence,” Oliver wrote. “After a relatively brief correction, gold and silver have resumed their climb.”

He added that if the market demands that the dollar be backed on-third by gold like it was between the 1690s and the `908s, gold would need to trade at $8,927 an ounce. On the other hand, if the Federal Reserve is forced to back its liabilities by two-thirds, which he said would be more appropriate for a crisis, the gold price would have to rise to $17,854 an ounce. Further, as the Fed’s balance sheet grows, these numbers for the gold price will increase.

“Given the economic and political risks, $1,900/oz is a bargain,” he declared.”

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Reality Check 1: Biden Cant Be Fdr

Theres no question that Biden is swinging for the fences. Beyond the emerging bipartisan infrastructure bill, he has proposed a far-reaching series of programs that would collectively move the United States several steps closer to the kind of social democracy prevalent in most industrialized nations: free community college, big support for childcare and homebound seniors, a sharp increase in Medicaid, more people eligible for Medicare, a reinvigorated labor movement. It is why 100 days into the administration, NPR was asking a commonly heard question: Can Biden Join FDR and LBJ In The Democratic Party’s Pantheon?

But the FDR and LBJ examples show conclusively why visions of a transformational Biden agenda are so hard to turn into reality. In 1933, FDR had won a huge popular and electoral landslide, after which he had a three-to-one Democratic majority in the House and a 59-vote majority in the Senate. Similarly, LBJ in 1964 had won a massive popular and electoral vote landslide, along with a Senate with 69 Democrats and a House with 295. Last November, on the other hand, only 42,000 votes in three key states kept Trump from winning re-election. Democrats losses in the House whittled their margin down to mid-single digits. The Senate is 50-50.

Lessons Democrats Can Learn From The 2020 Elections

Why are the elections taking place now?

These are runoffs. Georgia does things a little differently than most other states. Back in November, if one of the Senate candidates had gotten 50% plus one vote, that candidate would have won the election outright and the state would have avoided a runoff in that race. But that didn’t happen in either contest.

Perdue came closest he won 49.7% of the vote to Ossoff’s 47.9%. Calculated another way, out of almost 5 million votes cast, Perdue missed avoiding a runoff by a little over 13,000 votes.

The Loeffler-Warnock race had another hurdle. Because it was a special election, there weren’t primaries and everyone ran on the same ballot together at once.

In a field of 20 candidates, including a prominent Republican challenger, Loeffler got just over a quarter of the vote.

Warnock actually finished ahead of her, with about a third of the vote. But when the votes were combined by party in that race, Republicans were narrowly ahead of Democrats, 49.4% to 48.4%.

Interest is high, given not just the money spent, but the high early-vote turnout, which began Dec. 14 and continued through Friday.

Column: What Happens If Republicans Win The Senate

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For most of the year, it seemed almost certain that Republicans would win the six additional U.S. Senate seats they need to oust the Democrats from their majority and take control of Congress.

But the outlook has turned murkier in recent weeks. While a GOP majority is still the most likely outcome, its no longer as sure a bet. Endangered Democratic incumbents in North Carolina and Alaska are waging surprisingly strong campaigns, and a Republican incumbent in Kansas is in unexpected trouble. We dont have a lock on this thing at all, one GOP strategist told me recently.

It even seems possible that Senate elections could end in a draw, with a 50-50 split, in which case Vice President Joe Biden would cast votes as a tiebreaker.

And thats not even the most exotic possibility.

One scenario is a Senate in which neither major party wins 50 seats. The next Senate will include two, maybe three independents. Incumbents Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine, whose seats arent up this year, may be joined by Greg Orman, a newcomer who leads the polls in Kansas. Sanders, a socialist, would continue to vote with Democrats, but King and Orman, both centrists, would be wooed by both parties and could instantly become two of the most powerful politicians on Capitol Hill.

But the most intriguing scenario for next years Senate, paradoxically, is the least exotic one: What happens if Republicans win a slim majority of 51 or 52 seats?

More Tax Cuts For The Wealthy And Further Spending Cuts For Middle

Most legislation needs 60 votes in order to break a filibuster in the Senate, but a congressional budget resolution can establish parameters for subsequent legislation to be enacted through the reconciliation process, which only requires 51 votes to pass a measure. The budget resolution itself cannot be filibustered and also only requires 51 votes to pass the Senate. As a result, it is easier for the majority to pass a budget resolution and a reconciliation bill than most other legislation.

The current conservative economic and fiscal roadmap is the fiscal year 2015 budget put forward by former vice presidential nominee and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan . The Ryan budget would provide those with incomes of at least $1 million another $200,000 per year in tax cuts while cutting nondefense spending by $4.8 trillion. Roughly $3.3 trillion of those cuts, or nearly 70 percent, target programs that help low-income and middle-class families, such as Medicaidwhich provides health coverage for low- and moderate-income familiesand Pell Grants, which help students pay for college.

When given the opportunity, Senate Republicans voted for the various Ryan budgets in 2011, 2012, and again in 2013. Previous Senate Republican actions make it clear that the budget that would result from a Republican majority would most likely feature many of the same components as Rep. Ryans past budgets.

Here Is What’s In The Covid

What does the early voting tell us?

It’s always a little tricky to interpret early-voting data and ascribe real meaning to it, but Democrats see some hopeful signs.

Three million people cast ballots early. That’s a record already for total votes cast in a Georgia runoff election. And who is voting is what’s giving Democrats optimism: Black voters are making up a higher percentage of voters than they did for the Senate races in November, and turnout in Democratic congressional districts is higher than in GOP-held ones.

Of course, Democrats saw hope in early-voting numbers in Texas before Nov. 3, and Trump wound up winning that state by 6 points, a wider margin than the polls had predicted.

How much money has been spent on the races?

Almost $500 million has been spent on advertising between the two races in just the two months since the presidential election, according to the latest numbers provided to NPR by AdImpact, a political ad-tracking firm. The figures measure ad reservations between Nov. 4 and Jan. 5.

With outside groups included, Republicans have outspent Democrats $271 million to $218 million.

What Happens When Republicans Simply Refuse To Certify Democratic Wins

Its something we need to start preparing for now.

What will the institutions of liberal democracy do when Republican officials simply refuse to concede Democratic victories? The question isnt as far-fetched as it may seem, and the reckoning may be coming far sooner than most expect.

The entire left-leaning political world has spent the months after the 2020 election obsessed over the fairness of elections, and conservative attempts to rig the vote through gerrymandering and voter suppression. This is for good reason, of course: Republicans know they lack the support to win majority support in a fair contest, but believe they have the right to rule nonetheless for reasons that ultimately boil down to white supremacy, religious dominionism and antiquated patriarchal beliefs. So Republicans have been busy passing bills to restrict voting among young people and non-whites, while doing their best to ensure that exurban conservative whites continue to be dramatically and unfairly overrepresented in the House, Senate and Electoral College.

Its hard to overstate how dangerous this is, and what its consequences might entail in the very near future. As Greg Sargent notes, the GOP appears to be plunging headlong into a level of full-blown hostility to democracy that has deeply unsettling future ramifications.

And no, thats not an exaggeration. Everything were seeing from the Republican Party is pointing directly to it in 2024.

Support Nonprofit Journalism

A Vote To Repeal The Affordable Care Act

Senate Republicans have indicated one of their first votes, should they be in the majority, would be to repeal the ACA. This would most likely occur during the first months of 2015, the same time that millions of Americans will be shopping in the state and federal marketplaces to sign up for health coverage.

Moreover, Senate Republicans would be voting to repeal the ACA when the law is working: The uninsured rate has dropped to a record low, according to a Gallup poll: 7.3 million people were enrolled and paying their premiums in the marketplaces as of August, and another 8 million people have health coverage through Medicaid, not to mention the 5 million people who signed up for ACA-compliant plans outside the marketplace. In addition, millions of Americans benefit from the consumer protections that ban insurers from denying coverage because of a pre-existing condition and from putting both lifetime and annual coverage limits on their care.

For some reason, congressional Republicans want to return to old political fights at a time when the rest of the country is ready to move forward. Having a substantive debate on how to improve the ACA and the nations health care system is one thing. Scoring political points on a law that is delivering for Americans is another.

What To Watch For

Activists and a number of Democrats have been heavily pressuring left-leaning Justice Stephen Breyer to retire while Democrats still have the power to confirm Bidens chosen nominee without Republican interference. While control of the Senate will next be determined through the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats have urged Breyer to act sooner, as Democrats slim majority in the Senate50 votes plus Vice President Kamala Harris as a tie breakermeans the party could lose their majority sooner, should one Democratic senator become incapacitated or unexpectedly have to step down. Breyer, for his part, has so far given no indication that he plans to imminently retire, and has spoken out against the idea of the Supreme Court being subject to political interferenceeven soon publishing a book on the topic and how judges try to avoid considerations of politics.

How Challenges To States Electors Will Work

For a challenge to proceed, at least one lawmaker from each chamber must object to a states electors. More than two dozen House Republicans have said they will try to challenge results, and a dozen GOP senators will join them even though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has urged senators to stay away from this.

Lawmakers dont have to give a detailed explanation of why they object; they just object in writing, which Pence will read out loud.

If theres an objection to a states electors raised by both a House and Senate lawmaker, the chambers have to split up and vote on that objection. Most of this will be done silently, save for Pence reading out loud the objections.

They have up to two hours to debate each one. That means there will be simultaneous debates in the House and Senate. We expect congressional leaders in both chambers to move to put down the challenges as quickly as possible. In the House, Pelosi will let lawmakers from the states being challenged do the speaking on the Democratic side.

What If The 2020 Election Audits Show Trump Really Won

We just don’t know. We just don’t know what comes next. It is all a calculated guess. The US Constitution is silent. Even if, if, if, it is so very clear through professional forensic election audit results, that the presidential election of 2020 was stolen and President Trump actually won, there appears to be no obvious remedy stated in the US Constitution to right this wrong. We just don’t know.

The Founding Fathers did not write up a “what if” in the Constitution to make things right. The Founding Fathers wrote up nothing in the Constitution in case mail-in ballots or the internet were used to manipulate the vote. The scary part is that since the answer to possible election fraud appears not to be in the Constitution, nor in federal law, nor in federal court cases, then the answer-the remedy will come from somewhere else. That somewhere else, we know not. But probably not from the words within the US Constitution. Much of this is conjecture.

I. This we do know…

* With a strict constructionist view of the wording in the Constitution, the words are not there to “road map” how to fix possible presidential election fraud.

* The Constitution mentions nothing about the Electoral College re-convening. Historically, the Electoral College has never re-convened for a second time for a presidential certification.

* We know that President Trump is planning something very big and important this summer, and America might look and feel very different by Labor Day Weekend.

Texas Republican Suggests Civil War Will Happen If Democrats Win Georgia Senate Runoffs

As voters in Georgia go to the polls today in a runoff election that will decide who represents them in the U.S. Senate, a Texas Republican suggested Monday evening that if Democrats win those races, conservatives might just declare civil war.

During an appearance on Fox News, Rep. Chip Roy told host Tucker Carlson:

Heres the thing. What happens tomorrow in Georgia if we have a Democratically controlled Senate, I mean, were now basically at full-scale hot conflict in this country, whereas right now were in a cold civil war. Weve got a major problem in this country where the American people, the regular people out there that are working every day, hardworking Americans, they are getting trampled by a system that is rigged against them.

The system is rigged against them? Well, Donald Trump is currently the president and Republicans control the Senate, so wouldnt that mean the rigged system is being perpetuated by those in power, i.e. the GOP?

But that wasnt all Roy had to say. He added:

That is what is at stake, and if the American people in Georgia dont show up, if Georgians dont show up and ensure that we hold the Senate in Republican hands, then thats whats happening. Two additional votes coming out of the Senate in Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, they lock it down for good.

i uh..i think a republican member of congress just threatened civil war if the dems win in georgia tomorrow pic.twitter.com/yZhwB75Up1

Andrew Lawrence January 5, 2021

Weakening Of The Investigations Against Trump

If Democrats dont control the House or the Senate, they cant initiate investigations of Trump or some of his more controversial cabinet members, such as Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt.

More importantly, after the 2018 elections, the electoral process will recede as a constraint on the president and GOP in terms of the Russia investigation at least for a while.

We dont really know why Trump, despite his constant criticisms of the investigation, has not fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, or why he has not directly tried to stop the probe by special counsel Robert Mueller. Maybe Trump, despite his rhetoric, has some real respect for the rule of law. I think its more likely that Trump understands that firing Rosenstein or making a drastic move to stop the Mueller probe would increase both the chances of Democrats winning the House and/or Senate this year, and the odds that the resulting Democratic-led chamber would feel compelled to push to impeach Trump. But if the GOP emerges from 2017 and 2018 without losing control of the House or the Senate, I suspect that, with the next election two years away, the president will feel freer to take controversial steps to end the Russia probe. And I doubt Republicans on Capitol Hill would try to stop him.

What Congress Is Doing On Wednesday

Throughout November and December, states certified their results. Then the electoral college voted Dec. 14 based on those results and made Biden the winner. States sent their electoral college vote totals to the new Congress to be counted and confirmed. This counting will happen on Wednesday. Its largely a formality, since election law says Congress has to treat states results completed by the safe harbor deadline of Dec. 8 as conclusive.

Wednesday is the penultimate step in the post-election process. All thats left after that is to inaugurate Biden.

I Do Not Buy That A Social Media Ban Hurts Trumps 2024 Aspirations: Nate Silver

sarah: Yeah, Democrats might not have their worst Senate map in 2022, but it will by no means be easy, and how they fare will have a lot to do with the national environment. And as we touched on earlier, Bidens overall approval rating will also make a big difference in Democrats midterm chances.

nrakich: Yeah, if the national environment is even a bit Republican-leaning, that could be enough to allow solid Republican recruits to flip even Nevada and New Hampshire. And then it wouldnt even matter if Democrats win Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

One thing is for sure, though whichever party wins the Senate will have only a narrow majority, so I think were stuck in this era of moderates like Sens. Joe Manchin and Lisa Murkowski controlling every bills fate for at least a while longer.

sarah: Lets talk about big picture strategy, then, and where that leaves us moving forward. Its still early and far too easy to prescribe election narratives that arent grounded in anything, but one gambit the Republican Party seems to be making at this point is that attacking the Democratic Party for being too progressive or woke will help them win.

What do we make of that playbook headed into 2022? Likewise, as the party in charge, what are Democrats planning for?

With that being said, the GOPs strategies could still gin up turnout among its base, in particular, but its hard to separate that from general dissatisfaction with Biden.

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statetalks · 3 years ago

Text

What Will Happen If Republicans Win

So How Can Republicans Win Without Texas

youtube

A smaller margin than if the Republicans flipped Minnesota, but a victory nonetheless.

All maps courtesy of 270towin.com

TAGS

What If The Republicans Win Everything Again

Total victory for the G.O.P. would mean Trump unleashed.

Opinion Columnist

A Division Of Power In Government Is Common In The Us With The Republicans And The Democrats Often Splitting Control Of The White House And Congress

The Hill November 9, 2020

Why is control of the Senate so important?

How would a Republican Senate affect a Biden presidency?

How likely is it that a Republican Senate compromises with President Elect Biden?

What If Republicans Win The Midterms

March 3, 2018

What will happen if no such wave materializes and that pressure-relief valve jams shut?

This November, if the wave turns out to be a mere trickle, we could see the accomplishment of that goal take hold.

Gold If Republicans Win The Election

Oliver said if President Donald Trump pulls out a surprise victory in the election, the gold price could plunge, just as it did after the 2016 election. That happened against expectations.

“The precious metals offer safe haven from the approaching political and economic turbulence,” Oliver wrote. “After a relatively brief correction, gold and silver have resumed their climb.”

“Given the economic and political risks, $1,900/oz is a bargain,” he declared.”

TAGS

Reality Check 1: Biden Cant Be Fdr

Lessons Democrats Can Learn From The 2020 Elections

Why are the elections taking place now?

Perdue came closest he won 49.7% of the vote to Ossoff’s 47.9%. Calculated another way, out of almost 5 million votes cast, Perdue missed avoiding a runoff by a little over 13,000 votes.

The Loeffler-Warnock race had another hurdle. Because it was a special election, there weren’t primaries and everyone ran on the same ballot together at once.

In a field of 20 candidates, including a prominent Republican challenger, Loeffler got just over a quarter of the vote.

Warnock actually finished ahead of her, with about a third of the vote. But when the votes were combined by party in that race, Republicans were narrowly ahead of Democrats, 49.4% to 48.4%.

Interest is high, given not just the money spent, but the high early-vote turnout, which began Dec. 14 and continued through Friday.

Column: What Happens If Republicans Win The Senate

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For most of the year, it seemed almost certain that Republicans would win the six additional U.S. Senate seats they need to oust the Democrats from their majority and take control of Congress.

It even seems possible that Senate elections could end in a draw, with a 50-50 split, in which case Vice President Joe Biden would cast votes as a tiebreaker.

And thats not even the most exotic possibility.

But the most intriguing scenario for next years Senate, paradoxically, is the least exotic one: What happens if Republicans win a slim majority of 51 or 52 seats?

More Tax Cuts For The Wealthy And Further Spending Cuts For Middle

youtube

Here Is What’s In The Covid

What does the early voting tell us?

It’s always a little tricky to interpret early-voting data and ascribe real meaning to it, but Democrats see some hopeful signs.

Of course, Democrats saw hope in early-voting numbers in Texas before Nov. 3, and Trump wound up winning that state by 6 points, a wider margin than the polls had predicted.

How much money has been spent on the races?

With outside groups included, Republicans have outspent Democrats $271 million to $218 million.

What Happens When Republicans Simply Refuse To Certify Democratic Wins

Its something we need to start preparing for now.

And no, thats not an exaggeration. Everything were seeing from the Republican Party is pointing directly to it in 2024.

Support Nonprofit Journalism

A Vote To Repeal The Affordable Care Act

What To Watch For

How Challenges To States Electors Will Work

Lawmakers dont have to give a detailed explanation of why they object; they just object in writing, which Pence will read out loud.

What If The 2020 Election Audits Show Trump Really Won

I. This we do know…

* With a strict constructionist view of the wording in the Constitution, the words are not there to “road map” how to fix possible presidential election fraud.

* The Constitution mentions nothing about the Electoral College re-convening. Historically, the Electoral College has never re-convened for a second time for a presidential certification.

* We know that President Trump is planning something very big and important this summer, and America might look and feel very different by Labor Day Weekend.

Texas Republican Suggests Civil War Will Happen If Democrats Win Georgia Senate Runoffs

During an appearance on Fox News, Rep. Chip Roy told host Tucker Carlson:

But that wasnt all Roy had to say. He added:

i uh..i think a republican member of congress just threatened civil war if the dems win in georgia tomorrow pic.twitter.com/yZhwB75Up1

Andrew Lawrence January 5, 2021

Weakening Of The Investigations Against Trump

youtube

More importantly, after the 2018 elections, the electoral process will recede as a constraint on the president and GOP in terms of the Russia investigation at least for a while.

What Congress Is Doing On Wednesday

Wednesday is the penultimate step in the post-election process. All thats left after that is to inaugurate Biden.

I Do Not Buy That A Social Media Ban Hurts Trumps 2024 Aspirations: Nate Silver

What do we make of that playbook headed into 2022? Likewise, as the party in charge, what are Democrats planning for?

With that being said, the GOPs strategies could still gin up turnout among its base, in particular, but its hard to separate that from general dissatisfaction with Biden.

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-will-happen-if-republicans-win/

0 notes

lovingnikiforov · 7 years ago

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Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond to the survey! I got a lot more answers than I was expecting and hearing from the people who read my fics was absolutely wonderful!

I also wanted to make a quick announcement that, based on the positive support from y’all, I will be launching a Patreon in April! More news will come at the end of March or you can sign up to get an email from when it goes live! For anyone who apologized for not being able to support, please know that just reading my stories is a sign of support to me and I never would have considered this a possibility without all of you! ♥

Survey Results Under Cut

I’m not going to go through all the questions but there are a few I wanted to highlight! (fair warning: I’m a data nerd, pls prepare yourself)

Big Take Away:

Before I jump into the specifics I did want to address a concern that I saw crop up multiple times that was really touching. A lot of people mentioned that they want me to keep writing what I enjoy and not to worry about what others want to read. My response is two-fold: 1) thank you for being so sweet!!! 2) you don’t have to worry about me in that area.

When it comes to my long and more time-intensive fics I’m never going to start one unless it’s an idea I absolutely love and am willing to devote months of work to. There’s points along that writing process where it’s hard to stay motivated to finish an idea I love so I can’t imagine the agony of doing it for an idea that I’m writing out of some sense of obligation: that’s not a line I’m willing to cross.

That being said, I don’t have any problems writing oneshots and drabbles that are heavily requested because I find writing prompt fills really good exercise! I also enjoy finding ways to work in little nods to your requests into ongoing fics: it’s my way of saying thank you for continuing to read. So, as long as the request isn’t rude or demanding, feel free to send them my way whenever I ask for them!

Question One: Fandom Breakdown

So it’s not a surprise that most of the respondents read my BSD fics because I’ve found that my readers from Bungou Stray Dogs are very active both on tumblr and on AO3. What did surprise me was how many of y’all are reading across both fandoms. I previously assumed the overlap was a lot smaller so hello to you!!

Question Two: Expanding into other fandoms?

72% of respondents said they weren’t interested in seeing me write for more fandoms and 28% said they were. Based on answers to later questions, it looks like mostly y’all are good with much more content from my current fandoms which is works for me!

Some fandoms that were mentioned as suggestions that I want to highlight:

Code Geass: I love this series and I’d be interested in trying my hand at maybe a oneshot or two

No. 6 👀👀

FMA: This was mentioned more than once and I love the series. I’m up in the air about whether I’m interested in writing fic for it because I’m just so satisfied with how canon went.

BnHA: Also mentioned more than once. I should confess that I’ve only watched like one episode so you probably don’t want me making a mess of that.

Other Sports Anime: YOI is the only sports anime I’ve watched all the way through so this is also unlikely. Sorry!

Question Four: Rating Preferences

I just find it funny that 80% of y’all answered Mature and, coincidentally, 83% of my chapter fics are rated at least Mature. That’s literally all I have to say.

Question Five: Chapter Lengths

First of all, for you poor souls who prefer up to 5k, I’m sorry I can’t shut up. (Unless you’re reading Rent a (boy)Friend in which case, we’re meant to be).

Secondly, I’m really pleased to see the number of you who are down to read longer chapters. As my average chapter length has increased over the last year I was worried that I was starting to write more than people wanted to read in one sitting.

Question Six: “I wish you would write more...”

This was one of the questions where a lot of you answered that you wanted me to write whatever I want. You’re all sweethearts, thank you!

For those who got specific, here’s a few answers I wanted to highlight:

Soukoku: This was almost half the answers 😂 you’ve been heard loud and clear!

In-verse Extras: This is something I’ve been doing more of with wyll and enjoying, so I’m going to try and continue that!

Character Pieces and seeing Skk from an outside POV: why hello, have you heard of the kyouka-centric dyetyd sequel coming up? You might enjoy it ;)

More Phichuuri: I’m down if you’re down.

Fluff/Cute Moments: This was the 2nd most common answer. I’m planning to write more fluffy oneshots with the launch of my Patreon (don’t worry, those fics will also be posted on AO3: patrons will get early access). So be on the look out!

Smut: Another common response. I also plan to ramp up smut oneshots soon.

Politics: politics are my jam they will be in like every chapter fic

Fantasy: I was surprised by how often this cropped up so I’m now considering this for future stories!

Break them psychologically: I assume you read my BSD fics. I always will, it’s my favorite song.

Questions Seven and Eight: Patreon

I’d like to reiterate what I said at the top of this (very long) post. Even if you’re not able to support my Patreon I still value all of your support. Just by reading my fics and leaving comments and sharing them you’re basically my fave.

A post will be coming at the end of March with a bunch of specific details about what this will look like, but here’s a few quick notes:

Birthday Commission Fic Tier: This will be the $15 tier. However, there is not a time requirement for how long you’re a patron at this tier. If you have an interest in commissioning a fic from me at any point, just select this tier for one patron cycle and then either cancel your pledge or switch to a lower tier. (even if it’s not your birthday)

Patron Shout Outs: You, random survey respondent, get a cookie for a great idea. This will be included in the final setup!

Choose the plot direction polls: There were a couple concerns about not wanting to influence the direction of the fic. Please don’t worry! I already do polls like this on my twitter whenever I’m up in the air about a detail in the story, and the options provided will always be options I genuinely want to write!

A details post and a launch post will be coming up in the next couple of weeks. If you’re interested about possibly becoming a patron but don’t follow me on tumblr/twitter or are worried about missing the post you can fill out this Google Form to join an email list.

Thank you again to everyone who answered!

#dessa.txt #long post #like....long af sorry #t: my fic

22 notes · View notes

luovita · 5 years ago

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Get Blogging Results.

When you have to start out from scratch with blogging, it's important you know the essential things involved with it, such as website name and hosting, the program to make use of, how to earn from blogging, and what things to write about. Definitely your main goal really is to make it profitable for you by making money through blogging. Domain Name And Hosting Solution

You desire a domain and a hosting solution for your site. Wordpress.com and Blogger.com often give a good launch to blogging without costing money. Once you’re acquainted with the fundamentals of blogging, you can confidently devote to your own website name and web web host package. This would allow you to attract more customers and succeed with your home business to make money online. You will need your own paid hosting services which means you can be reassured that the internet site will not de-activate your blog should anyone ever violate their regulations. You'll also enjoy more features and overall flexibility with your personal hosting account, which means you may use special scripts, content management system, and other features for your site. Primarily, a domain name will increase your credibility as a blogger. But how will you choose a domain name and hosting services? You will need to find one with two words and has a .com expansion. Find one with your primary keyword in the name. However, it could take days that you can find a proper website name that continues to be available for sale. As for the net hosting solution, a shared enviroment plan that holds Linux and showcases of a cPanel will be a good choice. Ask the webhost about these features if you’re uncertain you will get them yourself. Software Additionally you need to find the right software. WordPress might be the best CMS out there. It really is designed for free as an available source task and it’s packed with features that you may not find in other software. For all those by using a cPanel, just look for “Fantastico” in the dashboard, then install WordPress and other software with simply a few clicks. A lot of people investing on this to really profit and make money online to have financial freedom. Blogs: Then And Now Personal blogs may have began as personal diaries, nonetheless they have became something else as time passes. People realized websites could be multi-purpose. Some used their websites to create articles about their field; others used it to talk about news; among others used it as an electric outlet for their ingenuity. Overall, weblogs have finally converted into a program where people can conversation. Instead of basically reading content from major websites, now everyone can speak about things that they can be interested in and enthusiastic about through websites, and even get visitors to react to their content. The Possibility Of Making Money From Blogging

You are able to verify the likelihood that blogging will generate profits if you look at how popular blog TechCrunch makes more than $1,000,000 annually, while Mashable.com, PerezHilton.com, and Huffington Post are earning almost the same sum of money. Although these popular sites may operate the same manner as mainstream sites do, using their paid writers, sales force, and other elements, these websites were the fruits of labor of an individual blogger. You don’t even have to have a blog as popular as these sites to make money. The average blogger can still make five to six numbers each year, mainly through marketing offers, advertising, and even online tasks launched through blogging. But to generate profits from blogs, additionally you need to set up effort and time. It’s exactly like with earning money through other methods. It might be easier so that you can make money using blogging if you are passionate and proficient in the topic that you will be going to create about. Additionally you have to be prepared to set up extra time into your site, to meet new people in the field, to be versatile enough to work anytime, everywhere, also to take up a real business, if required. What To Blog About It’s hard to choose a subject, nevertheless, you can reveal just anything if you want to blog as a spare time activity. But if you significantly want to make money using it, you will need to get the right market for you and prevent several common mistakes that new bloggers often commit. Most new bloggers commit blunder by writing too much about themselves. It could not be considered a good notion to use your name in the website or reveal your personal issues to the level of earning you look vain. While this may have made other bloggers popular, this usually works for many who have already come to a certain degree of notoriety before they even began blogging. You are able to stop with sharing a few personal encounters, but it’s better to give attention to a certain matter apart from yourself. Writing about way too many subject areas is another common mistake. Although you may be an individual of several talents and passions, pick the matter that you will be most interested in. This way, you will get a central audience, hook up with them, and lastly make money using your blog. Taking a market that you’re not necessarily enthusiastic about is also an incorrect move. Whilst some may have made money from that market, it won’t do the job if you don't know this issue or you are truly passionate about any of it. You must truly love what you’re authoring and that means you can stay with it for years before money starts moving in. You will need to focus on one blog! In this manner, you can perfect it rather than retaining several but mediocre personal blogs. Writing relevant content on topics that resonate with your target audience has a greater chance of helping you accomplish your business goals and even make money from blogging.

Step 1: Don’t Bore Your Audience To Death: How To Write Content That Sells

Good content is the building blocks of your great blog. It really is what attracts the readers and finally, the amount of money, in. Being a blogger, it's important that you really know what features lead to great content. You can also use a blogging template to not forget something that may hinder your ability to make money through blogging. Informative, Engaging, And Unique Quality content must be informative, engaging, and unique. It must be informative and beneficial to attract readers. Its importance is determined by the blog’s specific niche market. A humor blog would be beneficial to readers if it always has funny content. A fashion blog would be valuable to fashionista readers if it content the latest style and fads in fashion. The end result is to always make something helpful for the readers. Great content must be participating. It requires to coax a reply from the readers and get commentary and stocks from them. You can also use those commentary as ideas for the next posts. Great content must be unique to find the readers’ attention and store it. If indeed they will get it on other sites and personal blogs, why would they misuse their time on yours? To help you to write impactful blog posts which can probably make you do home business to make money online, informative, engaging and unique are 3 important characteristics of your blog. Killer Content Killer content is something that the readers find hugely helpful. It usually prompts these to bookmark this article and talk about it with their friends and fans offline and online immediately. Impactful blogging posts makes money fast and easy. You will find killer articles that are long and structured, but there's also short ones that pack everything that you'll require to say at once. So long as they contain something that is basically informative to the visitors, it could be considered a killer content. Maybe it's about a technique about how to save lots of on food shopping, how to take off on telephone expenses, or how to curb crazy cravings. Killer articles can further establish your articles development strategy due to traffic, backlinks, and expert that they often times bring with these to your blog. A few examples include how-to articles, interviews with experts, lists, resources, rankings, and breaking information. However, you will need to get a lot of commitment to produce killer articles. The time you put in brainstorming, exploring, writing, and editing these articles would pay back in conditions of the traffic that they might attract. Be sure to post at least one killer article every week. In the event that you can’t make time, post at least one on a monthly basis. Regular Posts Although killer articles may generate a flurry of readers to your internet site, you can create a community by frequently posting regular articles. They will be the kind that will attach one to your readers. Regular posts are crucial in maintaining your blog, especially because you wish a lot of energy to set-up and publish killer articles. Some excellent samples are quick tips, judgment articles, quick links, polls, questions to the article readers, blogs, and events. Internet is expanding exponentially which is impossible for every person to even predict what tools or information the internet have reserved for everyone to make people have the capacity to make money over the internet. Headlines To really get your readers’ attention, your write-ups will need to have great headlines. Understand that the headline is the essential thing that folks reach read. If it's not compelling enough, your readers won’t be inspired to read the key article. The headline will see whether people will read on your post if indeed they view it on article directory sites or other sites, or if indeed they will attempt reading the other posts on your site. If indeed they find your headlines flat, they might easily expect that the others of article is uninteresting as well. An excellent title uses the right words that talk with the readers. To learn the precise words that can speak right to your market, look for the right keywords on Yahoo AdWords Keyword Tool. You could utilize it totally free and it'll offer you 150 related conditions. You can also find typically the most popular predicated on their Yahoo search volume. Another component which makes a great title is its appeal to the readers’ emotion. It will stir up an sentiment in the readers, moving them to go through the website link that brings about your website or to the complete article. Blogging is the principal avenue of content marketing which you are able to not only use and engage the readers with but also generate business leads for your small business by making those readers to clients for home business to make money online. FINDING NEW IDEAS obstacle if you will have a pen and newspaper on hand which means you can jot down all your ideas and thoughts immediately. This is merely which means you won’t ignore your ideas. In addition, it helps if you begin your possible content by causing drafts in your blogging software. It might be even better when you can make a headline and bullet things of all the key ideas. If you’re prepared to write a complete article, you could work on the draft immediately. In the event that you can’t still find new ideas using the first two methods, you can go to Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Seek out keywords related to your blog’s market and appearance at the long-tail conditions to inspire possible ideas in you. You can even scour social bookmark creating sites to find what’s trending and what’s hot. You may go to Delicious.com, Reddit.com, Digg.com, or StumbleUpon.com. Ideas are available in weblogs discussing other niches, mainstream sites, printing magazines, magazines, and Television set programs. You could speak to your friends in the field too to brainstorm for new ideas. By following the conventional methods of advertising you can never reach a million at a time and allow to make money fast and easy. WHEN TO POST CONTENT New bloggers often ask the way in which frequently they need to publish articles on your blog. There is very no ideal positioning frequency. Some popular websites are kept up to date once weekly, although some get new content more regularly than once every day. But the key thing is not the amount of the articles. It’s the merchandise quality that counts. Ensure that your entire content are of help and relevant to your audience. Not submitting anything if you’re uncertain about its value is a safer option that submitting a poor content which could wreck your credibility and discourage these potential customers. For bloggers who want to monetize their blog, there has to be a balance between your quality and degree of posts. While you can’t up grade your site every day, at least undertake it regularly. Follow an idea to your entire day and even the hour of the submitting to make certain your readers they can find new 15 articles at that onetime of the week and visit your site during at that specific hour. After creating a great business to have concentrated on for such a long time its about time that you can gain traction as well as your entire focus should be on individuals who are your potential customers for your home business to make money online.

Step 2: Maximizing Your Blog Design and Usability

New bloggers have to focus on the design and usability of their blog. This step will help in this aspect of blogging.

Free Themes Designing your site doesn't have to be costly. In fact, you can certainly do it free of charge, particularly if you’re using WordPress. It has a whole lot of free and excellent topics which you can use. Just go directly to the Themes Directory and you’ll find a variety of choices within. These themes can be customized. If you wish to add personality to your site, just tweak your selected theme just a little and you’ll get a distinctive blog design. It could help if you have an operating understanding of CSS and HTML to help you design your brand-new blog. You might go to HTML.net or w3Institutions.com to find courses on designing websites. Blog Logo To improve readers’ knowing of your site, you will need an identifying logo. Spend money on someone to raise the uniqueness of your site and promote your brand further. You can test websites like 99designs.com to find great logos for your site. It gives you to carry a contest concerning who are able to design the best logo for you. You are able to speak to the designers, await weekly, then choose from several entries. This may even save money because you will get great logos as cheap as $150. Designing Based On What You Want Your Visitors To Do There are many things that you might ask of your readers when they visit your blog, such as the following: • Read at least one article • Read the most read posts • Subscribe to your newsletter • Subscribe to your RSS feed • Click on ads • Share your post to a social bookmarking site • Leave comments • Buy from you • Click on the link to your social networks • Share your posts on the social networks • Share your post to friends through email • Check as many articles as they can • Download your eBook However, you can design your site to motivate your readers to do many of these things. That's, if you don’t want to produce a clutter out of your site. You skill is to choose your priorities one of the actions that you would like your readers to do. Then, make a design to cause those activities among your readers. The end result is that the fewer activities you want your readers to do, the much more likely it is that they can get your meaning and implement those actions. Convincing Subscribers Among the critical activities that you should ask of your readers is a subscription to your site. The greater members you have, the larger your assured audience will be. Furthermore, it is much easier to forge human relationships with members, who might become regular readers. Apart from asking visitors to sign up to your Feed, you can also use Twitter and email to notify members of new articles to your site. In designing your site, make method for your subscription calls. Put one above the fold, either on the sidebar or in the header. You can even put one in the bottom of every post, with a call-to-action for a membership. Showcasing The Best Content Apart from getting visitors to do the thing you need these to do also to have more subscribers, additionally you need to believe about how precisely to hold on your visitors. First, you can create a special section for your “Most Read Articles” in your blog layout. Normally, this is delegated in the sidebar, even though some sites also put this section in the footer or header, depending on what works for the blogger. You are able to choose typically the most popular articles by hand or automate the choice using tools including the WordPress Popular Articles plugin. Second, you can begin an internal web page that will automatically list the most visited articles. You are able to prepare them by month or any other category. In order to avoid disrupting your layout, you can connect to this inner page from the key menu. Rather than a text hyperlink, you may use a graphic to obtain the visitors’ attention and cause them to the best content of your site. You don’t have to be grammatically correct all the time because it isn’t about how to improve english but how you make money over the internet or make money by blogging. Common Usability Blunders To Avoid There are many blunders committed as it pertains to the usability of the blog, including the following: • Not placing a search package. The search package pays to when readers want to find specific articles on your site. It could frustrate them and discourage them from making use of your blog if you miss this important usability feature. • No contact web page. It's important for readers to have the ability to contact you if indeed they want to speak about or ask you about something. Treat the contact package as your link with your readers, who may have some helpful opinions for you. • Insufficient archives. Your site should have a full page compiling your entire posts. It generally does not only improve consumer experience, but it addittionally serves as a sitemap that se's value in rank websites. • Bad font. Your readers should never only love your articles, but your articles’ typography as well. Utilize the right font, font size, and collection spacing that produce for comfortable reading. • Complex navigation. You are able to simplify your website navigation by placing a link to your house page on your entire internal pages, using a navigation pub, rather than using drop-down selections, among others. • Using unseen links. Be sure to identify your hyperlinks by underlining them, or by using a different font color for the anchor keywords. You can even utilize them to simplify navigation. • Overloading blog with ads. Although you earn a living from ads, don’t overdo it if you don’t want to carefully turn off readers. Start small and develop your ads, but always prioritize end user experience. • Using way too many widgets, switches, and badges. These might look crowded in the sidebar, making your site look cluttered. Choose only the switches and widgets that you truly need. If your content is original and engrossing you can instantly convert several people to loyal leads for your home business to make money online.

Step 3: How To Forge Relationships With Your Audience, and Why Do You Need To

In virtually any field, building relationship is definitely important. It is true even in blogging. Your associations with other site owners and bloggers can help bring new visitors and purchasers to your site. This is one way important networking is which chapter will educate you on tricks how to create a network online. The main thing that you'll require to keep in mind is to forge genuine relationships. Don’t befriend people because they're famous or important in your field. Instead, hook up with them because you prefer their work, value them, and believe they will help you broaden your contacts. The best way you can figure this out is by going out, talking to people, listening to their questions and finally incorporating all these into your writing of the blog about your home business home business to make money online. Real networking is about finding mutual relationships. You get help from other people as you lend them help too! The first rung on the ladder in networking should be about making a set of relevant, active and popular blogs. The amount of weblogs you will probably find will depend on your niche. For example, a popular niche market, such as technology and fashion, may have many sites that you can hook up to, while a less popular theme may have fewer sites to network with. You can start your list by looking into these websites to find relevant blogs for you: • AllTop • BlogCatalog • Technorati • BlogRank • Wikio Top Blogs After making a list, prepare to speak to these bloggers. Introduce yourself first. You are able to contact them via the e-mail address listed on the site or contact page. Once you create your introductory message, be direct to the idea and talk about who you are. Conversation about how precisely your blog stocks a distinct segment with theirs. You can also include the Link to your site in the note or in your personal. If you want the other bloggers’ post, require permission to connect to it. Before you even ask other bloggers to help you by linking their site to yours, make the first move. You'll find appropriate content to connect to if you sign up to all the websites that you stated. If you discover the one that you prefer, write another post, show your judgment about this issue, and provide a web link to the other blogger’s post. Remember that links to quality, relevant content can help your readers as well as your standing. It’s incorrect to expect that doing this will ruin your Yahoo PageRank or traffic. On the other hand, your readers will surely love you for directing those to other valuable articles through the exterior links. Apart from linking to the other bloggers in your network, you can also help them by referring other folks with their site or blog, nominating them for an prize, recommending them for an interview, or sharing their content on social marketing. These activities will illustrate that you are their good friend, hence the beginning of a good romance. Now, caring for good connections will surely pay back in conditions to getting them to execute a favour for you. For just one, you can keep these things share your very best content with their audience. Choose your killer articles for this function. However, it’s incorrect to beg them for a web link. Just casually talk about that you have articles that they could like. Which has a straight forward note, the other bloggers might read your article. If indeed they enjoy it, they won’t wait to connect to it. But if indeed they don’t, this means that you'll require to set up more work to set-up compelling articles that will easily earn the links of the other bloggers in your network.

Chapter 4: Don’t Let It Just Sit There, Promote Your Blog!

Exchange Links Link exchanges, contrary to public opinion among bloggers, remain effective. When you can do them right, they can drive traffic to your site and boost your search engine results positioning. However, you should be careful never to break the search engine’s plans regarding exchanging links. Be sure to exchange web links only with sites that are highly relevant to your market and that'll be beneficial to the readers for a broader knowledge of your topic. Additionally it is important never to prioritize search engine optimization in choosing the anchor word. Make it natural utilizing the name of your blog that you'll link to. If you wish to don't be penalized, choose the rel=”nofollow” attribute on the links and have the other blogger in the exchange to do the same. This may assure the various search engines that you’re not exchanging links to talk about internet search engine juice, but you'll still get traffic. You can place the exchange links under “Recommended Blogs” or “Friends,” for instance. Some sites put them in the Feed, with a note. Write Blog Comments You are able to promote your site through blog commenting. Choose sites that are highly relevant to yours and leave helpful, funny, or even controversial comments to pique the eye of the audience of this blog. Be sure to leave your hyperlink for the reason that comment, so when these visitors select it, it'll cause them to your site. These viewers is going to be considering your articles too, given that they found you after reading a blog highly relevant to yours to begin with. To make certain you will hook viewers to check out your comments to your internet site, show patience in posting commentary on as much relevant weblogs as is feasible and do it many times per day. However, don’t write useless commentary. Every comment must add information or increase big questions about this issue being discussed. Make sure never to optimize your comment with your keywords or blatantly use your blog’s name to don't be categorized as spam. You should use the name of your site, but make use of it with your name. This can make your comment more personal and you will need that to hook up with people. Make yourself a savvy blogger. Guest Blog This is a favorite practice in the blogging world, wherein you write articles for another blogger. The other blogger gets a free of charge article, when you, the guest blogger, have more exposure. You can even gain traffic for your site by together with your website link in the byline of your guest websites. Be smart in your interaction so you can get more potential customers on to your pool and start making money through blogging. Use Social Networks Social media sites are excellent toils to hook up with your audience and gain new visitors. You can test Twitter, given its massive population. Create a merchant account and put it to use to upgrade your followers once you distribute new content or find relevant links from other sites or sites. Each tweet should be valuable to your fans. You can even use Facebook. Create a merchant account for your site and take good thing about all its features by publishing articles, images, and videos. You can also take up a community in it. You will find more than 400 internet sites that you can explore. Consider which systems have great ties to your market and utilize them to promote your site. Use Social Bookmarking Sites Social bookmark creating sites enable you to save and share bookmarks of webpages. These websites often ranking popular submissions and bookmarks. Typically the most popular ones tend to be shown on leading page. A number of the popular book-marking sites which you can use are Digg.com and StumbleUpon.com. Websites and websites that are highlighted on Digg.com often get 20,000 to as much as 100,000 guests within a day. However, there are lower likelihood of reaching to the front webpage due to stiff competition among webpages. StumbleUpon.com, on the other hands, requires users to set up its toolbar on the browsers. Its biggest benefit is that a good few votes will increase your website traffic for a number of days. You may even want to try Great tasting.com, Reddit.com, Hype.Yahoo.com, Fark.com, Mixx.com, Faves.com, Propeller.com, Newsvine.com, and Shoutwire.com. Promote Killer Content You are able to capitalize on your killer articles to help expand promote your site. You are able to follow these pointers to promote your site as it is as well as your killer articles: • Inform other bloggers and site owners about your killer articles through email. • Ask friends for assist in submitting your killer articles to relevant social bookmark creating sites. • Post about your killer articles in your interpersonal press accounts. • Ask friends and family to vote for your write-ups on the social bookmark creating sites. • Connect to this article from your other sites or sites with another topic. Spend money on link building attempts for your killer articles.

Chapter 5: Now, Here’s How You Make Sure Money From Your Blog

Making money away of your site ought to be the previous step rather than the other way around. When you have a great blog that received proper promotional treatment, it'll likely provide you with the income that you'll require. Establish Authority First Before you even start concentrating on making profits out of your blogs, ensure that you establish the next things first: • Great content • Good traffic • An authority figure in your niche • A loyal following • A blog design suitable for ads Many bloggers often ask whether to start out with zero advertising or even to introduce some with their audience right in the beginning. However the decision is totally your decision. In the event that you keep your site ads-free initially, you might switch off some readers when you introduce them later. If you too choose to create advertisements immediately, this will show your audience that you want to monetize your site. This can also help you explore your earnings sources. 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This is actually the position that will get you premium rates. Use Google Adsense If you wish to earn from Google AdSense, you will need to operate a vehicle high traffic to your site. Ensure that at least 70% of this traffic is internet search engine traffic. It is because this traffic is often composed of men and women who will probably select ads. When you are assured of the requirements, you will need to choose the right AdSense devices. One of the most profitable ones will be the 300x250 rectangle, the 336x280 large rectangle, and the 160x600 large skyscraper. In choosing a posture, you have to get ready for a possible decrease in user experience. Your readers may not want it when you have to blend the advertising with this content rather than placing them in the sidebar. Profit From Sponsorships And Direct Advertising Once you've established a good following for your site, you can sell advertisings right to your audience and earn much more from it. You will need to evidently tell advertisers that you’re ready because of their advertisings by putting an “Advertise around” page. The pro of the method is that you can regulate how and where in fact the advertisings will be located and you could earn much more by not by using a middleman. However, the con is that you'll require to set up more work to control all the advertisings and ventures with the advertisers on your own. So, in the event you go directly to the advertisers or do you want to await them to come quickly to you? If you're just you start with direct ads, you have to find and contact the advertisers first. Focus on building a set of relevant advertisers, those that contain already used online advertisings and are available products that your viewers use. You'll find such advertisers by looking the advertisers on the other websites in your field, by searching Google making use of your keywords and looking at the firms in the “Sponsored Links,” and by registering for advertising networks, such as BuySellAds.com or SponsoredReviews.com. After that you can contact these potential advertisers. Be sure to expose your site and yourself, chat about how precisely you are prepared to support their advertising on your website and exactly how their product/service is suitable for your visitors, suggest to them some basic stats about your site, especially clients and traffic, and spotlight the advertising features that you can provide, including the banner formats, position, and rates. In determining advertising rates, it could be a good notion to start out with charging $0.50 CPM to promote 125x125 banners on the sidebar. In the event that you get 200,000 views monthly, you may charge these banners in this position $100 monthly. Use this computation generally of thumb for determining the rates of other advertisings in several positions. Check your blog’s real site views to analyze your rates. Use Yahoo Analytics to get this done. Try Affiliate Marketing Internet affiliate marketing can complement your profits from your site. First, check all the merchandise and services that you’re using and discover possible affiliate marketing programs related to them. You could write reviews about them and devote your affiliate marketing links. Write genuine reviews about the merchandise or service to determine your credibility. This can help you earn your readers’ trust and self confidence in your content. Keep an eye on the latest products and services that your readers might be thinking about. If you discover one, contact the product/service professional and have if they give a joint venture partner program. You can even join internet affiliate marketing networks such as ClickBank.com or CommissionJunction.com. Bank On E-MAIL MARKETING You can hook up to your audience better through e-mails and forge relationships with them. The larger your email list is, a lot more advantageous it'll be to you, particularly if you choose to do e-mail marketing. In the event that you don’t want your e-mails to be classified as spam, use e-mail marketing services. The most dependable ones are iContact, Aweber, and ConstantContact. Explore all the techniques that will encourage visitors to sign up to your email updates and react to you. Establish a stable email relationship with them by mailing at least one email weekly, or every fourteen days. Don’t forget to add valuable information in each email.

CONCLUSION: Make The Most Out Of Your Blog

You can earn a living out of your site using all the strategies discussed above. These pointers were also employed by bloggers, who are actually living perfectly from the amount of money that they acquired off their personal blogs. However, you have to set up a great deal of effort, time and patience while getting ready to monetize your site. It is a mistake to take care of your site merely as a way to obtain advertising money. Understand that a blog is more than simply a site with buck indications posted in the header, footer or sidebar. Its biggest function will be to hook up one to all of those other world. Aside from earning money out of your site, it's also advisable to put it to use to make new friends, create a community of readers, and establish human relationships with individuals who can help your site as well as your readers. Use your site to determine your power in the field and explore new ideas that will drive traffic to your site. Don’t misuse the opportunities that your site brings to find associates and start useful assignments that will gain you, your audience, as well as your network. When you should give attention to making money making use of your blog, don’t be blinded by all the huge benefits that you can escape it. A very important thing about blogging is the fact you don’t even need to believe far ahead in to the future. If your site becomes favored by a high position in your specific niche market, you can make use of it for virtually any venture. It's rather a great program to create a book, to really get your aspiration job, or even to launch something. Read the full article

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kjweldon · 8 years ago

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2017

It was the death of Prince that established 2016 as the worst year ever. The one-two punch of David Bowie and Alan Rickman had been bad, but no worse than any other year. But in April, Americans decided collectively that the year was a disaster. That was before Donald Trump won first the nomination and then, unthinkably, the presidency. Before Leonard Cohen died. And Gwen Ifill. And Gene Wilder. A nation shellshocked by the election faced the end of the year with grim humor. Pinterest filled up with instructions for making dumpster fire ornaments. The tired jokes made the rounds: protect Betty White. Take Ruth Bader Ginsburg to an undisclosed location until the year ends. Die, 2016, die.

Then Christmas week took Carrie Fisher, George Michael, Debbie Reynolds. The jokes turned to a solemn and miserable silence. For every person who complained about the horror of 2016 on Facebook, there was a commenter ready to point out that arbitrary periods of time could not be evil. The data scientists threw their hats in the ring, pointing out that indeed, the number of A- and B-list celebrity deaths this year were indeed a bit higher than usual, and the average age lower. Or, perhaps, that the number of deaths was normal, and only the clustering was odd. No matter. No one was listening to the numbers guys anyway. People were too busy reposting memes, creating memorial playlists for holiday parties, rewatching Harry Potter and Star Wars and Singin’ in the Rain.

And then New Year’s came and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Other than a few people who believed deeply in unlucky numbers and astrology, no one really believed it was the year responsible for all the death. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that no one wanted to admit, even to themselves, that they had started to become superstitious about 2016. Still, despite the coming inauguration, there was a sense on January 1, 2017, that the long battle had ended, and the world was turning toward morning.

Then Elton John’s airplane crashed. January 2. With the New Year’s holiday on a Sunday, many people had Monday off. They hadn’t even returned to work yet, and another death.

The next day it was LeBron James in a car accident and Michael Phelps of an aneurysm.

That was a bit of a change-up. Most of the 2016 deaths had come from the world of music or film. Sports figures had to this point largely been spared, with the notable exception of Mohammed Ali. But he was long past of the peak of his fame, and his death hadn’t registered as much more than extra ballast to the misery of the year. But now 2017 was starting with two athletes, still young. Guys who had ignored all the fuss thus far were glued to ESPN watching tributes.

Two days passed before the next victim: Sarah Michelle Gellar. Gen X and the Millennials held planned costumed vigils, but the day after her skiing accident, Johnny Depp overdosed, so Jack Sparrow and Edward Scissorhands stood beside Buffy. A few Princess Leias and Snapes inevitably showed up, sparking a national debate over the what it meant to appropriate a memorial. Facebook became the nation’s site of mourning.

Then J.K. Rowling had a stroke, and the whole world keened in grief.

Now the conspiracy theorists came out in full force. Donald Trump, said a commentator on DailyKos, was killing off his competitors for fame. No, argued Alex Jones, it was ISIS, bent on destroying the dominant Western culture. A strange new sexually-transmitted disease caused disorientation, clumsiness, heart failure. A serial killer. A gang of serial killers. Ancient curses. Brand new curses. Desperate for a rational explanation, producers of morning shows booked doctors to talk about the dangers of stress in contemporary life. Celebrities, whose lives were even more stressful than average people, were the first to show the effects of 24/7 social media, lack of sleep, pressure. Surely that was all.

The data scientists were on TV as well, trying to explain that outliers were indeed part of a normal distribution, that some periods would have more celebrity deaths than others. If they were heard at all, it wasn’t for long.. First came the fashion show that killed seventeen major actors, including four People’s Choice winners, in a fire set by Karl Lagerfeld’s cigarette. Then the entire Douglas clan suffered a brutal food poisoning incident at a family function, and only Catherine Zeta Jones survived. Between these two incidents, only three days apart, Anthony Bourdain died of eating improperly prepared pufferfish, the Property Brothers were crushed in a roof collapse, Mick Jagger ODed on prescription pills, Aretha Franklin broke her neck falling down a flight of stairs, and Anderson Cooper was shot in Syria.

Rumors started to fly that the Oscars would be bombed - by ISIS, by neo-Nazis, by Russians, by the Church of Scientology. So few invitations were accepted that fashion designers and drivers were offered spaces. Those who showed included the very old and brave and the very young and ambitious. Maggie Smith accepted her award with a sly look to the camera, a smile, and a slow slump onto the stage. The cause of death was described by her physician as “a terminal case of knowing how to make an exit.”

People put out its first memorial edition that was neither focused on a single celebrity nor published at year’s end. The editors demurred when questioned about plans, but the new People Remembered began to appear biweekly. The New York Times fought the trend for three more months, then began including a memorial insert monthly, which came to be known as the Dead Society Page.

The poster on DailyKos found his beliefs about Trump's involvement rejected by the the community, so he took his theories to his own site. Trump: Celebrity Serial Killer developed a huge following. Trump threatened to sue, but nothing came of it. He may have been too busy on Twitter, discounting the ideas that the most famous were dying first. “Such sad news, but glad the really big celebrities untouched. #MAGA.” “Created task force to determine why famous musicians and actors dying at such rate. Glad whatever is happening doesn’t affect leaders!”

The dead had indeed not yet included any politicians of note. But then Cory Booker helped an elderly woman out of a burning building and was overcome by smoke inhalation. Two days later, talking to a group of schoolchildren, Al Franken pretended to fall off the Senate balcony, losing his balance and landing headfirst on Booker’s chair. Just one week after that, Hillary Clinton contracted a new and deadly form of bird flu when in Singapore for a Clinton Foundation-sponsored Summit on Women’s Health and died within days.

The series of tributes to fallen Democrats pushed Trump over the edge. At 2 AM the night of Clinton’s funeral, he tweeted out comments about how the country was “purging the losers.” Unfortunately, his tweets crossposted with announcements of the deaths of Garth Brooks and Danica Patrick. The faith of his base was shaken for the first time, and former fans gathered across the South and the Rust Belt to burn their red caps and copies of Art of the Deal. The great raging bonfires themselves claimed several lives, but none famous, so no one noticed.

B-list actors at first saw opportunity in the loss of more famous competition, but after 27 Oscar winners died in May alone, ambition became overcome by fear. Casting agents found their calls unreturned. Some of the A-list believed there was no avoiding the inevitable. Meryl Streep and Drew Barrymore joked on Colbert that there was no chance of them becoming less famous overnight, so why hide? All three were killed in a gas explosion backstage. The photo of the two women laughing together while Colbert looked on appeared on the front page of two hundred newspapers.

After that, booking late night shows became nearly impossible. The A list thought they were tempting fate; the B list didn’t want to become any more famous than they were. Even the least famous among the famous began to shirk the limelight, as if the very act of being seen on television or quoted in the newspaper might draw death. Producers found themselves rejected by professors, first term Congressmen, mayors of minor cities, athletes in the lesser Olympic sports, and Broadway actors who were not Lin-Manuel Miranda (electrocuted when a hairdryer fell in the tub).

Ira Glass and Sarah Vowell devoted a special episode of This American Life to the celebrity death problem, in which they agreed that it was a good thing that NPR-famous didn’t count. Ira was found drowned in a hotel swimming pool later that week. Vowell locked herself in her bedroom, which she described later in her book Accidental Survivor as going “full Brian Wilson.”

On FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver concluded that greater fame increased risk and calculated a celebrity’s odds of dying based on a formula that included the number of TV appearances over the last five years, number of awards received, and box-office, ratings, or album sales figures, and meme presence. He claimed that he skipped politicians and others because he lacked good comparative data, but the other political bloggers accused him of fearing Trump’s response if the president either topped the list of the doomed or didn’t rank high enough. The List became a touchstone. At grim parties, the famous compared their scores. The country watched nervously as the top twenty died off within two months.

The religious blamed sinful Hollywood lifestyles. Churchgoing increased, as did sales of lucky charms and protective candles and incense. A Pew Research Center poll determined that fully seventy percent of the public believed that the deaths were a punishment, but the country was divided on what it was being punished for. About half believed it was abortion and gay marriage, the other half believed it was the results of the 2016 election. Both sides held vigils - in some places, nightly. A few fanatics hoped the right sacrifice would stop the epidemic and took matters into their own hands. The assassination attempts on Paul Ryan and Pope Francis were unsuccessful, but RuPaul and Keith Richards were both killed.

Richards’ death ended what had become a booming business in death-betting. The odds against him had been so high the bookies lost their shirts. But gambling in all forms increased as people began to lose their faith in randomness, in probability, in chance.

David Brooks wrote a column blaming everything on a lack of bipartisanship, and at last his utterings were considered inane enough to get him fired. Inevitably, people joked that this was one good thing to result from all this tragedy, but now, in September, with more than six hundred celebrity deaths since January 1 by the Washington Post’s estimation, even gallows humor had lost its savor.

The CDC had been unable to determine any common thread among the deaths besides fame. Their only response was a public health campaign on preventing heart diseases and avoiding household accidents. Ads ran in Variety and mass emails were sent to members of the Actor’s Guild and the American Federation of Musicians reminding them about taking their meds, scheduling preventive screenings, keeping fresh batteries in their smoke detectors.

The task force Trump had ordered never actually met, a fact revealed in Mother Jones and reported for two days on the major networks before George Takei, Betty White, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Beyonce and Jay Z, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, and Taylor Swift all died on the same day. Under pressure from members of Congress, who had been fielding unprecedented calls and letters from constituents looking for days in memoriam for each lost celebrity in turn, Trump called for a national day of mourning. Kellyanne Conway emphasized in the announcement that all government employees would still be expected to work.

The country took a day to grieve. In every city and town, at national parks, along rural highways, Americans took to the streets to mourn. They sang, held hands, carried photos and banners with the names of the fallen. And they wept. They wept for their idols. They wept for the songs that would never be written and the stories that would never be told. They wept for the people they were when they first danced to their favorite song, voted for someone they really believed in, watched their team win the championship, fell in love with a stranger on a screen. They wept for their own lost ones, so irretrievably gone, their lives undocumented, unfilmed, their deaths uncelebrated, barely remembered outside their families, their loves. They wept for their mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, friends and lovers who never made the team, wrote the hit, got the role, won the race, whose dreams were so long lost they were unknown, forgotten. They wept for the America they had once believed they were. The nation cried until it had no more tears, and then went back to their homes, where they sat in quiet, the television and the internet and even their cell phones off.

And then it was over. Two days passed, three, a week. No deaths of note. The following week Danny Bonaduce was stabbed by a prostitute, and headlines screamed “Not Over Yet?” but there was agreement that this seemed less an aberration than a return to normality. People Remembered stopped production. Trump threatened a military attack on China. And the networks and magazines and websites began planning their 2017 retrospectives, a review of the worst year ever.

#worstyearever

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thisdaynews · 5 years ago

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Inside the crazy race to replace Mark Meadows

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/inside-the-crazy-race-to-replace-mark-meadows/

Inside the crazy race to replace Mark Meadows

The race itself has drawn national interest because of its connection to Meadows, one of the president’s closest congressional allies. And the insinuation that he is actively working to elect a candidate that may have publicly bashed Trump has added an extra layer of intrigue.

“It’s edited to make it appear that she’s against the president when she’s actually very much for, and I happen to know that,” Meadows said in an interview last monthshortly after the message went out. “There is zero chance that my wife would have endorsed Lynda Bennett had she been even remotely against the president of the United States.”

Two days after the mass text, Meadows doubled down and endorsed Bennett himself over a field of a dozen contenders that includes a state senator and his former congressional district director.

Some local GOP leaders had urged the congressman not to endorse out of anger at the way he announced his surprise retirement just 30 hours before the state’s filing deadline. They quickly speculated that Bennett, a friend of the Meadows’, had advance notice of his exit and that the congressman timed his decision to help her — a charge that Meadows and Bennett deny.

Bennett’s ties to Meadows, his wife, Debbie, and her devotion to the president have become a prominent topic of discussion ahead of the March 3 primary that will extend into a May runoff if no candidate clears 30 percent of the vote.

So have the mysterious text messages, which baffled local party officials, who cannot determine the origin and scope of the message or the veracity of the audio tape.

“It’s caught some people off-guard, not knowing exactly when, where, who and what any motivation may have been,” said Aubrey Woodard, the 11th District GOP chairman. “It’s definitely a mystery. It certainly is. I don’t know if that’s to have an effect on her electability one way or another, but it’s certainly not something she wanted to have out.”

The texts were sent out from a D.C. area-code number around 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 29, according to a survey of screenshots from five different recipients obtained by POLITICO. Those texts were all sent from different numbers, though all but one had the same exchange, (915). Attempts to call those numbers yielded an automated response that none were in service.

This account comes from interviews with a dozen people who live in or have connections to western North Carolina, including registered Republican voters in five counties across the district who all received the audio file via text. The message was also sent to the cell phone of a POLITICO reporter.

Accompanying the file is a text message: “Please listen to this audio from Lynda Bennett, GOP candidate for NCs 11th Congressional District, & hear where she stands on President Trump in her own words.”

The audio is purportedly taken from a fall 2016 meeting of Haywood County Republicans, according to three people who were at the meeting. The discussion centers around palm cards — handouts given to voters outside polling locations that advocate for a slate of candidates.

Some Republicans wanted names of certain GOP nominees to be taken off the palm cards that would be distributed outside the polling location, according to Bennett and Ken Henson, the chairman of the Haywood County GOP, who was also present at the meeting.

Bennett said she advocated for the inclusion of all candidates, including Trump, but that the audio was chopped to suggest otherwise.

“They have cut off the beginning and the end, and they just grabbed this part out of the middle,” Bennett said in an interview this week. “I’m saying, ‘This is what I’ve been hearing,’ and then I mimic the ‘Never Trumpers.’”

Bennett said she had been supportive of the president for years. The clip, she said, was “taken completely taken out of context” and was likely “a coordinated attack” from one of her opponents or an outside group.

Versions of the audio have been circulating among Republicans in the district. Monroe Miller, a GOP activist from Haywood County, said he created the original audio of the meeting and posted two unedited segments of it to his website this month, along with 11 pages of typed and handwritten notes and a diagram of the meeting room. But he denied coordinating any text message pushing out the audio to voters in the district.

Miller is a member of a local Republican faction, sometimes called the “Haywood Five,” that has openly sparred with the leadership of the Haywood County GOP.

He disputes Bennett’s account of the meeting. Miller said he did not think she was imitating anyone and that he believed her to be opposed to Trump.

“This came out spontaneous,” Miller said of her “Never Trump” comments. “It’s pretty evident from the recording. She just went off, and I didn’t view that as role-playing.”

“She was very vocal,” he said. “Lynda was a very opinionated person.”

Some local Republicans suspect a candidate or outside group hoping to fracture the field along the lines of Trump loyalty— a key fault line in GOP primaries — coordinated the message, possibly by contracting a firm that offers peer-to-peer text messaging.

Candidates will have to file “pre-primary”campaign-finance reports with the FEC on Feb. 20, but it could be easy to disguise an SMS-texting payment as vague expenditure for consulting or another service.

The filing deadline will alsooffer a look at which candidates are the most formidable ahead of the Super Tuesday race. Without any public polling, it’s not clear if Bennett is even in the top tier of candidates. A dozen Republicans filed to run for the solid GOPseat, but only a handful have spent money on television advertising.

State Sen. Jim Davis, the only current state legislator in the race, is likely a frontrunner. Wayne King, Meadows’ former district director, is also running, as is businessman Chuck Archerd, veteran Dan Driscoll and Madison Cawthorn, the survivor of a near-fatal car accident.

Bennett has two outside groups supporting her on the airwaves. Meadows cut a direct-to-camera TV ad for House Freedom Action, the political arm of the Freedom Caucus, in which he calls Bennett a “good friend” who will “work with President Trump to drain the swamp.”

It’s possible that no member has yoked their fortune more tightly to Trump than Meadows, who said he is leaving Congress after four terms to serve in an as-yet-undefined role in Trump world.

The president notably gave both Meadows, his wife and the race a shout out in his post-impeachment victory speech last week at the White House.

“He’s just a very special guy,” Trump said, gesturing to Meadows. “His wife I actually like better than him, to be honest.”

He also asked Meadows about a possible successor: “You got somebody good to run? Somebody going to win your district by at least 20 points? Please?”

#Foreign #Meadows #Politics #replace

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dinafbrownil · 5 years ago

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Patients Want A ‘Good Death’ At Home, But Hospice Care Can Badly Strain Families

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“I’m not anti-hospice at all,” said Joy Johnston, who relocated to New Mexico years ago at age 40 to care for her dying mother.

“But I think people aren’t prepared for all the effort that it takes to give someone a good death at home.”

Surveys show dying at home is what most Americans say they want. But it’s “not all it’s cracked up to be,” said Johnston, a caregiver advocate and writer from Atlanta.

She wrote an essay about her frustrations with the way hospice care often works in the United States. Johnston, like many family caregivers, was surprised that her mother’s hospice provider left most of the physical work to her. She said that during the final weeks of her mother’s life, she felt more like a tired nurse than a devoted daughter.

Hospice allows a patient deemed to have fewer than six months to live to change the focus of their medical care — from the goal of curing disease to a new goal of using treatments and medicines to maintain comfort and quality of life. It is a form of palliative care, which also focuses on pain management, but can be provided while a patient continues to seek a cure or receive treatments to prolong life.

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According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 7 in 10 Americans say they would prefer to die at home. And that’s the direction the health care system is moving, as part of an effort to avoid unnecessary and expensive treatment at the end of life. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)

The home hospice movement has been great for patients and many patients are thrilled with the care they get, said Dr. Parul Goyal, a palliative care physician with Vanderbilt Health.

“I do think that when they are at home, they are in a peaceful environment,” Goyal said. “It is comfortable for them. But,” she noted, “it may not be comfortable for family members watching them taking their last breath.”

When it comes to where we die, the U.S. has reached a tipping point. Home is now the most common place of death, according to new research, and a majority of Medicare patients are turning to hospice services to help make that possible. Fewer Americans these days are dying in a hospital, under the close supervision of doctors and nurses.

Hospice care is usually offered in the home, or sometimes in a nursing home. Since the mid-1990s, Medicare has allowed the hospice benefit to cover more types of diagnoses, and therefore more people. As acceptance grows among physicians and patients, the numbers continue to balloon — from 1.27 million patients in 2012 to 1.49 million in 2017.

According to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Association, hospice is now a $19 billion industry, almost entirely funded by taxpayers. But as the business has grown, so has the burden on families, who are often the ones providing most of the care. For example, one intimate task in particular — trying to get her mom’s bowels moving — changed Joy Johnston’s view of what hospice really means. Constipation plagues many dying patients.

“It’s ironically called the ‘comfort care kit’ that you get with home hospice. They include suppositories, and so I had to do that,” she said. “That was the lowest point. And I’m sure it was the lowest point for my mother as well. And it didn’t work.”

Hospice agencies primarily serve in an advisory role and from a distance, even in the final, intense days when family caregivers, or home nurses they’ve hired, must continually adjust morphine doses or deal with typical end-of-life symptoms, such as bleeding or breathing trouble. Those decisive moments can be scary for the family, said Dr. Joan Teno, a physician and leading hospice researcher at Oregon Health and Science University.

“Imagine if you’re the caregiver, and that you’re in the house,” Teno said. “It’s in the middle of the night, 2 o’clock in the morning, and all of a sudden, your family member has a grand mal seizure.”

That’s exactly what happened with Teno’s mother.

“While it was difficult for me to witness, I knew what to do,” she said.

In contrast, Teno said, in her father’s final hours, he was admitted to a hospice residence.

Such residences often resemble a nursing home, with private rooms where family and friends can come and go and with round-the-clock medical attention just down the hall.

Teno called the residence experience of hospice a “godsend.” But an inpatient facility is rarely an option, she said. Patients have to be in bad shape for Medicare to pay the higher inpatient rate that hospice residences charge. And by the time such patients reach their final days, it’s often too much trouble for them and the family to move.

Hospice care is a lucrative business. It is now the most profitable type of health care service that Medicare pays for. According to Medicare data, for-profit hospice agencies now outnumber the nonprofits that pioneered the service in the 1970s. But agencies that need to generate profits for investors aren’t building dedicated hospice units or residences, in general — mostly because such facilities aren’t profitable enough.

Joe Shega is chief medical officer at the for-profit VITAS Healthcare, the largest hospice company in the U.S. He insists it is the patients’ wishes, not a corporate desire to make more money, that drives his firm’s business model.

“Our focus is on what patients want, and 85 to 90% want to be at home,” Shega said. “So, our focus is building programs that help them be there.”

For many families, making hospice work at home means hiring extra help.

‘I Guess I’ve Just Accepted What’s Available’

On the day I visit her home outside Nashville, hospice patient Jean McCasland is at the kitchen table refusing to eat a spoonful of peach yogurt. Each morning, nurse’s aide Karrie Velez pulverizes McCasland’s medications in a pill crusher and mixes them into her breakfast yogurt.

“If you don’t, she will just spit them out,” Velez said.

Like a growing share of hospice patients, McCasland has dementia. She needs a service that hospice rarely provides — a one-on-one health attendant for several hours, so the regular family caregiver can get a break each day. When Velez is not around, John McCasland — Jean’s husband of nearly 50 years — is the person in charge at home.

“I have said from the beginning that was my intention, that she would be at home through the duration, as long as I was able,” John said.

But what hospice provided wasn’t enough help. So he has had to drain the couple’s retirement accounts to hire Velez, a private caregiver, out-of-pocket.

Hospice agencies usually bring in a hospital bed, an oxygen machine or a wheelchair — whatever equipment is needed. Prescriptions show up at the house for pain and anxiety. But hands-on help is scarce. According to Medicare, hospice benefits can include home health aides and homemaker services. But in practice, that in-person help is often limited to a couple of baths a week. Medicare data reveals that, on average, a nurse or aide is only in the patient’s home 30 minutes, or so, per day.

Jean McCasland’s husband hasn’t complained. “I guess I’ve just accepted what’s available and not really thought beyond what could be,” he said. “Because this is what they say they do.”

John McCasland of Goodlettsville, Tennessee, hired a private caregiver to help with his wife, Jean (left), who suffered from dementia for eight years. Even when hospice took over, he still found he needed the extra help from Karrie Velez. Jean died in October after 13 months on home hospice.(Blake Farmer/WPLN)

Families often don’t consider whether they’re getting their money’s worth because they’re not paying for hospice services directly: Medicare gets the bills. John keeps his monthly statements from Medicare organized in a three-ring binder, but he had never noticed that his agency charges nearly $200 a day, whether there is a health provider in the home that day or not.

That daily reimbursement covers equipment rentals and a 24-hour hotline that lets patients or family members consult a nurse as needed; John said it gives him peace of mind that help is a phone call away. “There’s a sense of comfort in knowing that they are keeping an eye on her,” he said.

The rate that hospice charges Medicare drops a bit after the patient’s first two months on the benefit. After reviewing his paperwork, John realized Medicare paid the hospice agency $60,000 in the first 12 months Jean was on hospice.

Was the care his wife got worth that?

“When you consider the amount of money that’s involved, perhaps they would provide somebody around the clock,” he said.

Sue Riggle is the administrator for the McCaslands’ hospice agency and said she understands how much help patients with dementia need. Her company is a small for-profit business called Adoration; she said the agency can’t provide more services than what Medicare pays for.

“I think everybody wishes we could provide the sitter-service part of it,” said Riggle. “But it’s not something that is covered by hospices.”

I checked in with John and Velez (Jean’s longtime private caregiver) this winter. The two were by Jean’s side — and had been there for several days straight — when she died in October. The hospice nurse showed up only afterward, to officially document the death.

This experience of family caregivers is typical but often unexpected.

‘It’s A Burden I Lovingly Did’

“It does take a toll” on families, said Katherine Ornstein, an associate professor of geriatrics and palliative medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, who studies what typically happens in the last years of patients’ lives. The increasing burden on loved ones — especially spouses — is reaching a breaking point for many people, her research shows. This particular type of stress has even been given a name: caregiver syndrome.

“Our long-term-care system in this country is really using families — unpaid family members,” she said. “That’s our situation.”

A few high-profile advocates have even started questioning whether hospice is right for everybody. For some who have gone through home hospice with a loved one, the difficult experience has led them to want something else for themselves.

Social worker Coneigh Sea has a portrait of her husband that sits in the entryway of her home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. He died of prostate cancer in their bedroom in 1993. Enough time has passed since then that the mental fog she experienced while managing his medication and bodily fluids — mostly by herself — has cleared, she said.

But it was a burden.

“For me to say that — there’s that guilt,” she said. “But I know better. It was a burden that I lovingly did.”

Coneigh Sea is a social worker from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, who cared for her dying husband, a home hospice patient. Now she wants to make sure her children don’t do the same for her.(Blake Farmer/WPLN)

She doesn’t regret the experience but said it is not one she wishes for her own grown children. She recently sat them down, she said, to make sure they handle her death differently.

“I told my family, if there is such a thing, I will come back and I will haunt you,” she said with a laugh. “Don’t you do that.”

Sea’s family may have limited options. Sidestepping home hospice typically means paying for a pricey nursing home or dying with the cost and potential chaos of a hospital — which is precisely what hospice care was set up to avoid. As researchers in the field look to the future, they are calling for more palliative care, not less — and, at the same time, they are advocating for more support for the spouses, family members and friends tasked with caring for the patient.

“We really have to expand — in general — our approach to supporting caregivers,” Ornstein said, noting that some countries outside the U.S. pay for a wider range and longer duration of home health services.

“I think what we really need to do is be broadening the support that individuals and families can have as they’re caring for individuals throughout the course of serious illness,” Ornstein said.

“And I think that probably speaks to the expansion of palliative care, in general.”

This story is part of a partnership that includes Nashville Public Radio, NPR and Kaiser Health News.

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/home-hospice-care-unexpectedly-burdens-family-caregivers/

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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What Will Happen If Republicans Win

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-will-happen-if-republicans-win/

What Will Happen If Republicans Win

So How Can Republicans Win Without Texas

A smaller margin than if the Republicans flipped Minnesota, but a victory nonetheless.

All maps courtesy of 270towin.com

TAGS

What If The Republicans Win Everything Again

Total victory for the G.O.P. would mean Trump unleashed.

Opinion Columnist

A Division Of Power In Government Is Common In The Us With The Republicans And The Democrats Often Splitting Control Of The White House And Congress

The Hill November 9, 2020

Why is control of the Senate so important?

How would a Republican Senate affect a Biden presidency?

How likely is it that a Republican Senate compromises with President Elect Biden?

What If Republicans Win The Midterms

March 3, 2018

What will happen if no such wave materializes and that pressure-relief valve jams shut?

This November, if the wave turns out to be a mere trickle, we could see the accomplishment of that goal take hold.

Gold If Republicans Win The Election

Oliver said if President Donald Trump pulls out a surprise victory in the election, the gold price could plunge, just as it did after the 2016 election. That happened against expectations.

“The precious metals offer safe haven from the approaching political and economic turbulence,” Oliver wrote. “After a relatively brief correction, gold and silver have resumed their climb.”

“Given the economic and political risks, $1,900/oz is a bargain,” he declared.”

TAGS

Reality Check 1: Biden Cant Be Fdr

Lessons Democrats Can Learn From The 2020 Elections

Why are the elections taking place now?

Perdue came closest he won 49.7% of the vote to Ossoff’s 47.9%. Calculated another way, out of almost 5 million votes cast, Perdue missed avoiding a runoff by a little over 13,000 votes.

The Loeffler-Warnock race had another hurdle. Because it was a special election, there weren’t primaries and everyone ran on the same ballot together at once.

In a field of 20 candidates, including a prominent Republican challenger, Loeffler got just over a quarter of the vote.

Warnock actually finished ahead of her, with about a third of the vote. But when the votes were combined by party in that race, Republicans were narrowly ahead of Democrats, 49.4% to 48.4%.

Interest is high, given not just the money spent, but the high early-vote turnout, which began Dec. 14 and continued through Friday.

Column: What Happens If Republicans Win The Senate

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For most of the year, it seemed almost certain that Republicans would win the six additional U.S. Senate seats they need to oust the Democrats from their majority and take control of Congress.

It even seems possible that Senate elections could end in a draw, with a 50-50 split, in which case Vice President Joe Biden would cast votes as a tiebreaker.

And thats not even the most exotic possibility.

But the most intriguing scenario for next years Senate, paradoxically, is the least exotic one: What happens if Republicans win a slim majority of 51 or 52 seats?

More Tax Cuts For The Wealthy And Further Spending Cuts For Middle

Here Is What’s In The Covid

What does the early voting tell us?

It’s always a little tricky to interpret early-voting data and ascribe real meaning to it, but Democrats see some hopeful signs.

Of course, Democrats saw hope in early-voting numbers in Texas before Nov. 3, and Trump wound up winning that state by 6 points, a wider margin than the polls had predicted.

How much money has been spent on the races?

With outside groups included, Republicans have outspent Democrats $271 million to $218 million.

What Happens When Republicans Simply Refuse To Certify Democratic Wins

Its something we need to start preparing for now.

And no, thats not an exaggeration. Everything were seeing from the Republican Party is pointing directly to it in 2024.

Support Nonprofit Journalism

A Vote To Repeal The Affordable Care Act

What To Watch For

How Challenges To States Electors Will Work

Lawmakers dont have to give a detailed explanation of why they object; they just object in writing, which Pence will read out loud.

What If The 2020 Election Audits Show Trump Really Won

I. This we do know…

* With a strict constructionist view of the wording in the Constitution, the words are not there to “road map” how to fix possible presidential election fraud.

* The Constitution mentions nothing about the Electoral College re-convening. Historically, the Electoral College has never re-convened for a second time for a presidential certification.

* We know that President Trump is planning something very big and important this summer, and America might look and feel very different by Labor Day Weekend.

Texas Republican Suggests Civil War Will Happen If Democrats Win Georgia Senate Runoffs

During an appearance on Fox News, Rep. Chip Roy told host Tucker Carlson:

But that wasnt all Roy had to say. He added:

i uh..i think a republican member of congress just threatened civil war if the dems win in georgia tomorrow pic.twitter.com/yZhwB75Up1

Andrew Lawrence January 5, 2021

Weakening Of The Investigations Against Trump

More importantly, after the 2018 elections, the electoral process will recede as a constraint on the president and GOP in terms of the Russia investigation at least for a while.

What Congress Is Doing On Wednesday

Wednesday is the penultimate step in the post-election process. All thats left after that is to inaugurate Biden.

I Do Not Buy That A Social Media Ban Hurts Trumps 2024 Aspirations: Nate Silver

What do we make of that playbook headed into 2022? Likewise, as the party in charge, what are Democrats planning for?

With that being said, the GOPs strategies could still gin up turnout among its base, in particular, but its hard to separate that from general dissatisfaction with Biden.

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paulbenedictblog · 5 years ago

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%news%

New Post has been published on %http://paulbenedictsgeneralstore.com%

News top stories daily news hot topics Justin Trudeau: Las buenas noticias, y las malas, para el primer ministro de Canadá

News top stories daily news hot topics

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Media caption“Canadians voted in favour of a progressive agenda” – Justin Trudeau’s victory speech

High Minister Justin Trudeau has retained energy in Canada’s election but lost both his majority and – by a minute margin – the favored vote. Here is a breakdown of the fitting files for his Liberal occasion – and the atrocious.

News top stories daily news hot topics Comely files – he’s mild in energy

It was once a cosmopolitan election battle for the Liberals but there was once the sense leisurely on Monday evening among occasion devoted in Montreal that they can also now breathe a cramped much less difficult.

When TV networks started projecting a Liberal minority, supporters at the election evening headquarters erupted into chants of “four more years” as one scheme of relief passed by technique of the crowd.

“The Liberals did better than we belief they would,” acknowledged supporter Brian, who selected now not to give his closing name, announcing he had been spooked by polls that advised a tighter plod.

Extraordinary Liberal MP Marlene Jennings says voters “indulge in shown they mild indulge in believe in the Liberal authorities and in Justin Trudeau, and they positively didn’t desire a Conservative authorities, now not even a minority authorities”.

Peaceful, Ms Jennings conceded she had grown frustrated staring at the campaign get sidetracked by “so-known as scandals” at some level of the closing few weeks.

“There were times at some level of the campaign the place I needed to desire the Liberal strategists and shake them and utter: ‘Why don’t seem like we speaking relating to the enormous things we have got done over and over?'”

News top stories daily news hot topics Scandalous files – his star energy is diminished

Mr Trudeau had an exceptionally lengthy honeymoon by most political requirements – but his status has clearly dimmed with the Canadian public.

The place did he stumble?

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Media captionFour years of Justin Trudeau in two minutes

Even earlier than the election campaign started on 11 September, his approval rankings had slipped.

The predominant peril with the Canadian public came after a disastrous abroad outing to India, which took roar against a backdrop of relate-ops showcasing the Trudeau family in account for feeble Indian outfits.

Then came the SNC-Lavalin affair – an ethics scandal connected to makes an strive to stress a ragged attorney basic to carve inspire a deal for a firm going by technique of a corruption trial, which extra tarnished Mr Trudeau’s personal stamp.

That ragged attorney basic, Jody Wilson-Raybould, was once booted out of the Liberal occasion by Mr Trudeau.

In opposition to the percentages, Ms Wilson-Raybould ran and obtained as an self sustaining in her Vancouver utilizing.

Image copyright Reuters

Image caption Jody Wilson-Raybould

She is a vocal critic of Mr Trudeau and might per chance per chance wait on as a reminder of that scandal in the Residence of Commons.

Within the end, revelations that Mr Trudeau wore blackface – broadly seen as a racist caricature – on as a minimum thrice shook the Liberal campaign and compelled Mr Trudeau to ask Canadians to forgive him for his past misbehaviour.

News top stories daily news hot topics Scandalous files – the Liberals lost the West

The prairie provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan grew to change into completely Conservative blue – rather than one Recent Democratic Celebration (NDP) stronghold in the town of Edmonton.

That blue wave helped the Conservatives produce nearly 30 seats in Monday’s election, taking them from 95 to about 122.

The Liberals were by no methodology going to brush these deeply Conservative areas. Even at the peak of their status in 2015 they simplest held a handful of seats in these two provinces.

However now Alberta and Saskatchewan indulge in grew to change into solidly faraway from Mr Trudeau’s occasion amid one scheme in western Canada that its interests are now not represented in Canada’s capital of Ottawa.

With closing results mild rolling in early Tuesday morning, the Conservatives furthermore had a minute lead in the favored vote – 34.5% to the Liberals’ 33%.

That didn’t plod the dignity of Conservative leader Andrew Scheer who acknowledged in his speech to occasion devoted that “more Canadians wanted us to bewitch than any diversified occasion”.

News top stories daily news hot topics Scandalous files – the Bloc bounced inspire

The Bloc Quebecois has furthermore had a resurgence.

Voters had relegated the occasion calling for sovereignty for Quebec to the sidelines in the closing two elections – but its fortunes grew to change into under the recent management of Yves-Francois Blanchet, and they more than tripled its seat depend, from 10 to an estimated 32.

Image copyright Getty Photos

Mr Blanchet campaigned under the slogan “Quebec, c’est nous” or “We’re Quebec”, and on being a solid suppose in Ottawa for that province’s interests.

The occasion, which simplest runs candidates in Quebec, is at odds with Mr Trudeau on disorders like the province’s controversial secularism law – Bill 21 – which prevents judges, law enforcement officers, teachers and public servants preserving some diversified positions from sporting spiritual symbols such because the kippah, turban or hijab whereas at work.

Mr Trudeau did provide an olive branch to those Canadians who rejected the Liberals at the pollfield, and acknowledged he had heard the frustration from prairie voters loud and sure.

“To of us that did now not vote for us, know that we are going to work daily for you,” he acknowledged. “We are able to govern for all individuals.”

News top stories daily news hot topics Comely files – he can mild govern with a minority

Mr Trudeau will need the enhance of diversified parties to pause his promised “progressive agenda” if he desires to lift on to energy.

One likely ally is the NDP, who might per chance per chance help the Liberals to outlive key self belief votes and to skedaddle legislation.

However that enhance comes at a label.

Image copyright Getty Photos

Image caption From left: Justin Trudeau, Andrew Scheer and Jagmeet Singh

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has already residing out his occasion’s laundry list of priorities in a minority anguish: enhance for a nationwide pharmacare knowing, investments in housing, addressing student debt, decreasing cell phone and cyber web funds, action on climate, and raising taxes on the wealthiest Canadians.

However Mr Singh’s roar is much less sure on the Trans Mountain pipeline venture, which might per chance per chance triple the capacity of impolite oil the most up-to-date pipeline carries to the west hover.

Mr Trudeau’s Liberals enhance the venture, announcing it is in Canada’s nationwide hobby.

In his speech to supporters leisurely in the early hours of Tuesday, Mr Singh vowed his occasion would play a “sure fair” in Ottawa.

However enhance for a minority authorities furthermore most incessantly has an expiration date.

On moderate, minority governments in Canada closing about a yr and a half of to 2 years, noteworthy shorter than the identical outdated four-yr majority timeframe.

News top stories daily news hot topics Comely files – voters pause desire climate action

The Conservatives had pledged to without prolong repeal Mr Trudeau’s signature climate policy in the occasion that they came to energy.

However now it feels like the federal carbon tax – imposed on four provinces that did now not already indulge in their possess cap-and-trade programme or label on carbon in roar – will stay one more day.

It is miles now not going to be too subtle for Mr Trudeau to stable enhance from during occasion lines for his climate insurance policies.

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Media captionWhat’s more indispensable to Canadians — the financial system or the ambiance?

The NDP, the Bloc Quebecois and Canada’s Greens, which added a seat in Atlantic Canada, all campaigned on taking action on the ambiance.

“Chances are you’ll per chance per chance indulge in gotten asked us to demonstrate scheme more imaginative and prescient and ambition as we take care of the ideal anguish of this period – climate trade,” Mr Trudeau acknowledged in his victory speech.

“That is precisely what we are going to pause.”

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stephenmccull · 4 years ago

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Biden Seeks $400 Billion to Buttress Long-Term Care. A Look at What’s at Stake.

There’s widespread agreement that it’s important to help older adults and people with disabilities remain independent as long as possible. But are we prepared to do what’s necessary, as a nation, to make this possible?

This story also ran on NPR. It can be republished for free.

That’s the challenge President Joe Biden has put forward with his bold proposal to spend $400 billion over eight years on home and community-based services, a major part of his $2 trillion infrastructure plan.

It’s a “historic and profound” opportunity to build a stronger framework of services surrounding vulnerable people who need considerable ongoing assistance, said Ai-jen Poo, director of Caring Across Generations, a national group advocating for older adults, individuals with disabilities, families and caregivers.

It comes as the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc in nursing homes, assisted living facilities and group homes, killing more than 174,000 people and triggering awareness of the need for more long-term care options.

“There’s a much greater understanding now that it is not a good thing to be stuck in long-term care institutions” and that community-based care is an “essential alternative, which the vast majority of people would prefer,” said Ari Ne’eman, senior research associate at Harvard Law School’s Project on Disability.

“The systems we do have are crumbling” due to underfunding and understaffing, and “there has never been a greater opportunity for change than now,” said Katie Smith Sloan, president of LeadingAge, at a recent press conference where the president’s proposal was discussed. LeadingAge is a national association of more than 5,000 nonprofit nursing homes, assisted living centers, senior living communities and home care providers.

But prospects for the president’s proposal are uncertain. Republicans decry its cost and argue that much of what the proposed American Jobs Plan contains, including the emphasis on home-based care, doesn’t count as real infrastructure.

“Though this [proposal] is a necessary step to strengthen our long-term care system, politically it will be a challenge,” suggested Joseph Gaugler, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, who studies long-term care.

Even advocates acknowledge the proposal doesn’t address the full extent of care needed by the nation’s rapidly growing older population. In particular, middle-income seniors won’t qualify directly for programs that would be expanded. They would, however, benefit from a larger, better paid, better trained workforce of aides that help people in their homes — one of the plan’s objectives.

“This [plan] isn’t everything that’s needed, not by any step of the imagination,” Poo said. “What we really want to get to is universal access to long-term care. But that will be a multistep process.”

Understanding what’s at stake is essential as communities across the country and Congress begin discussing Biden’s proposal.

The services in question. Home and community-based services help people who need significant assistance live at home as opposed to nursing homes or group homes.

Services can include home visits from nurses or occupational therapists; assistance with personal care such as eating or bathing; help from case managers; attendance at adult day centers; help with cooking, cleaning and other chores; transportation; and home repairs and modifications. It can also help pay for durable medical equipment such as wheelchairs or oxygen tanks.

The need. At some point, 70% of older adults will require help with dressing, hygiene, moving around, managing finances, taking medications, cooking, housekeeping and other daily needs, usually for two to four years. As the nation’s aging population expands to 74 million in 2030 (the year all baby boomers will have entered older age), that need will expand exponentially.

Younger adults and children with conditions such as cerebral palsy, blindness or intellectual disabilities can similarly require significant assistance.

The burden on families. Currently, 53 million family members provide most of the care that vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities require — without being paid and often at significant financial and emotional cost. According to AARP, family caregivers on average devote about 24 hours a week, to helping loved ones and spend around $7,000 out-of-pocket.

This reflects a sobering reality: Long-term care services are simply too expensive for most individuals and families. According to a survey last year by Genworth, a financial services firm, the hourly cost for a home health aide averages $24. Annually, assisted living centers charge an average $51,600, while a semiprivate room in a nursing home goes for $93,075.

Medicare limitations. Many people assume that Medicare — the nation’s health program for 61 million older adults and people with severe disabilities — will pay for long-term care, including home-based services. But Medicare coverage is extremely limited.

In the community, Medicare covers home health only for older adults and people with severe disabilities who are homebound and need skilled services from nurses and therapists. It does not pay for 24-hour care or care for personal aides or homemakers. In 2018, about 3.4 million Medicare members received home health services.

In nursing homes, Medicare pays only for rehabilitation services for a maximum of 100 days. It does not provide support for long-term stays in nursing homes or assisted living facilities.

Medicaid options. Medicaid — the federal-state health program for 72 million children and adults in low-income households — can be an alternative, but financial eligibility standards are strict and only people with meager incomes and assets qualify.

Medicaid supports two types of long-term care: home and community-based services and those provided in institutions such as nursing homes. But only care in institutions is mandated by the federal government. Home and community-based services are provided at the discretion of the states.

Although all states offer home and community-based services of some kind, there’s enormous variation in the types of services offered, who is served (states can set caps on enrollment) and state spending. Generally, people need to be frail enough to need nursing home care to qualify.

Nationally, 57% of Medicaid’s long-term care budget goes to home and community-based services — $92 billion in the 2018 federal budget year. But half of states still spend twice as much on institutional care as they do on community-based care. And 41 states have waiting lists, totaling nearly 820,000 people, with an average wait of 39 months.

Based on the best information available, between 4 million and 5 million people receive Medicaid-funded home and community-based services — a fraction of those who need care.

Workforce issues. Biden’s proposal doesn’t specify how $400 billion in additional funding would be spent, beyond stating that access to home and community-based care would be expanded and caregivers would receive “a long-overdue raise, stronger benefits, and an opportunity to organize or join a union.”

Caregivers, including nursing assistants and home health and personal care aides, earn $12 an hour, on average. Most are women of color; about one-third of those working for agencies don’t receive health insurance from their employers.

By the end of this decade, an extra 1 million workers will be needed for home-based care — a number of experts believe will be difficult, if not impossible, to reach given poor pay and working conditions.

“We have a choice to keep these poverty-wage jobs or make them good jobs that allow people to take pride in their work while taking care of their families,” said Poo of Caring Across Generations.

Next steps. Biden’s plan leaves out many details. For example: What portion of funding should go to strengthening the workforce? What portion should be devoted to eliminating waiting lists? What amount should be spent on expanding services?

How will inequities of the current system — for instance, the lack of accessible services in rural counties or for people with dementia — be addressed? “We want to see funding to states tied to addressing those inequities,” said Amber Christ, directing attorney of the health team at Justice in Aging, an advocacy organization.

Meanwhile, supporters of the plan suggest it could be just the opening of a major effort to shore up other parts of the safety net. “There are huge gaps in the system for middle-income families that need to be addressed,” said David Certner, AARP’s legislative counsel.

Reforms that should be considered include tax credits for caregivers, expanding Medicare’s home health benefit and removing the requirement that people receiving Medicare home health be homebound, said Christ of Justice in Aging.

”We should be looking more broadly at potential solutions that reach people who have some resources but not enough to pay for these services as well,” she said.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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nonsensebot · 6 years ago

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In this essay I will

After obsessively researching the history of Cartoon Network, broadcast TV, and the production of Adventure Time and other shows, I've come to the conclusion that Cartoon Network is run by Slimer, the green slimy ghost from Ghostbusters (1984).

When Adventure Time made its debut in 2010, it was an smash hit. It more than doubled 2009 viewership ratings in its time slot, and more than tripled ratings in the 9-14 age group. Its popularity only increased from there, with ratings steadily growing for the first 5 seasons. The show received strong reviews from critics, got dozens of awards, and amassed a large and devoted fan base. Comics and other products were successfully marketed alongside the show. For years, AT was consistently CN's top franchise.

Then, in 2014, after five and a half seasons of rising ratings, viewership fell. Season 7 ratings were a third of those of season 6. By season 9, AT’s ratings were a fifth of what they were at its peak. In 2016, it was announced that the show, CN's most popular show just two years prior, was cancelled.

Now, if the show had actually gotten worse in its second half, as many long-running shows do, this decline would be understandable. However, most fans agree that AT only got better with time after season 6. Furthermore, the show received consistent praise from critics throughout seasons 6-10. It earned six of its eight Primetime Emmy Awards after 2014.

So what happened?

In November of 2014, halfway through season 6, CN made several changes to AT's broadcasting schedule. The weekly release schedule was abandoned, and new episodes were released in sporadic week-long bursts, with gaps of weeks or even months between new releases. Advertising for new episodes ceased. Reruns were never aired. These decisions disrupted most fans’ viewing schedules, and left many fans of the show simply unable to watch new episodes, or know when new episodes were released. Some even wondered if the show had been quietly taken off the air.

One has to ask why CN would do this to their biggest franchise.

I believe that it was ultimately a bad decision, for reasons I’ll get to later. However, to understand why the decision was made, we have to first understand the current state of television.

Simply put, the advent of the internet has led to indomitable competitors for traditional broadcast TV. The meteoric rise of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Youtube, and others have all contributed to what some journalists describe as a “freefall” in ratings for channels including Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and the Disney Channel. For most people today, it’s more convenient and cheaper to watch your shows on literally anything but a TV.

Another part of the answer is that every show is an investment with a potential risk and reward. Risk and reward have to be balanced differently depending on the economic environment of the time. In a world where TV is being rapidly eclipsed by internet-based streaming services, CN perceived AT as too “risky” compared to "safer" shows. Even if CN was doomed, its life could be prolonged by sticking to tried and tested formulas.

Several things made AT a risky venture from the start. The show broke the status quo in multiple ways, with non-traditional story elements, devices, setting, tone, character development, and subject matter. Also, the show's wide appeal and arc-driven story clashed with CN's focus on the 7-15 year old demographic and non-serialized content. Ironically, the things which made AT “risky” were the same things which made it popular.

Then why did CN take up AT in the first place? In 2010, CN was in decline after a series of popular shows in the 2000s ended, and several other late-2000s shows had failed to take off. Ratings were falling, so they wanted something good to bring the viewers back. Enter Adventure Time.

CN saw AT from the start as a risky venture which could let it escape its late 2000s ratings slump. CN execs never expected such a non-traditional show to become so popular. Nobody had any idea if the success of the show would continue; nobody had ever done this before. This made it a risky venture (in the eyes of network CN executives). Episodes took 8-9 months to produce, and entire seasons were worked on concurrently, which meant that if viewership suddenly fell through, the money that was poured into production would go nowhere. Now, with the accelerating decline of television, CN felt that it needed to return to cartoons built on a more reliable model.

In 2014, after a small dip in viewership from season 5 to season 6, and having reaped an adequate rebound in channel viewership thanks to AT, CN adopted a new strategy, in which AT and several more nontraditional shows were pushed to the wayside in favor of new shows based on a more traditional model. Many CN shows, including Steven Universe and Regular Show, began to receive a similar sporadic broadcast treatment shortly after AT.

If CN didn’t want to lose money producing shows that it believed catered to unreliable audiences, why did it continue to produce them at all, only to air them so sporadically? Apparently, the internet is again the answer.

The idea was that shows which were especially popular on the internet could be treated differently from other shows. Through the internet, fans would find out about airing times from official announcements and from other fans. This would mean three things: 1) The airing schedule could be more inconsistent, since fans wouldn’t be reliant upon a consistent schedule to know when the show airs; 2) Promotions for the show could be reduced, since fans would find out about airing times through other means, and the show would promote itself via the internet; 3) Re-runs of the show could be reduced, since fans would mostly watch only the first run.

All three of these things would save money, something any company is always keen on doing. This lead to the idea of releasing new episodes of certain shows in sporadic “bomb weeks”. Hypothetically, fans would tune in for their shows and tune out, and the rest of the channel could be dedicated to programming for audiences who still play by the rules of old TV. An additional hypothetical benefit of this strategy was that releasing multiple episodes in quick succession would result in a brief spike in online popularity of the cartoon, leading more people to find out about it, more so than a regular release schedule would. (Like how the intermittent gonging of a grandfather clock is much more noticeable than the regular ticking of a second hand.)

If the internet worked like it does in the imagination of a middle-aged Cartoon Network executive, then maybe everything would’ve worked out, and CN’s ratings wouldn’t be in freefall. The reality is that many of those fans who reside on the internet simply don’t tune in; many don’t even have TV subscriptions. This meant that the “bomb week” strategy actually led to a decline in the popularity of shows the network perceived as “risky” to begin with, leading to the cancellation or early conclusion of many shows, including Adventure Time, Regular Show, Clarence, and others.

Cartoons like The Amazing World of Gumball and Teen Titans Go, which fit the model of a “safe” cartoon and appealed to younger (and ostensibly-but-not-really less internet-suave) audiences were given more airtime and more advertisement. By late 2014, Gumball and TTG alone occupied half of CN's airtime, with the other half being mostly reruns and a few other new shows.

Now, most of the channel’s content is mostly aimed at a younger audience, with looser story progressions which allow for out-of-order viewing of episodes and reruns. Squeezed into weekends and evenings here and there are shows whose fans reside on the internet, who (ostensibly-but-not-really) learn about airing times on the internet and tune in just to watch their shows.

In other words, the way in which CN had treated its audience and its shows has only led to a further decline in overall channel ratings. Remember that time that CN aired a week of only TTG episodes, with 2 episodes of Steven Universe at random times? This is the kind of thing that only seems like a good decision if you have no idea how the internet works or what kids want from a TV channel.

From a financial viewpoint, CN’s decision made some degree of sense. Television has been on the decline for decades, and is even more so now with the rise of Netflix and other alternative platforms. Focusing resources on shows which are more likely to give returns on those investments in years to come is a logical decision, even if it’s a sucky one from the perspective of a fan. However, I think that it was still a bad one. The move to drop anything which was too strange or too new was in itself a risk which relied on the idea that cartoons would forever be shown on TV, and that “slow and steady wins the race”, so risks aren’t worth taking. TV will inevitably die. If anything, CN could’ve licensed out some of its IPs to producers like Netflix and the like. I don’t have any conclusion to this thread. There is no really good way forward for CN, and cable TV in general, short of a miracle of some sort.

To counter some counterarguments...

Many would say that every show has to end, and I agree. I only disagree with the manner in which CN treated AT in the second half of its run. Despite consistently positive reviews, CN cut the show’s air time, which caused viewership ratings to drop. This drop in ratings then directly led to an early cancellation in 2016. The production team originally had an entire extra season planned, and at some point had thoughts of producing a movie; these ideas had to be thrown out and cut down to fit within CN’s constraints and mandates.

Some would say that the show actually got worse as it progressed. This is a matter of personal opinion, just as is my opinion that it got better. The general opinion, as shown by polls of the fanbase, is that the quality of the show was at the very least consistent throughout all ten seasons.

Some might counter-argue that the show was cancelled due to low ratings. This is actually something I agree with. However, the low ratings were caused by CN’s dramatic changes to AT’s airing schedule.

Some might say that creator Pendleton Ward stepping down as showrunner mid-season 5 led to a decline in AT’s quality and therefore popularity. While I agree that season 5 was something of a high point in the show’s quality, and season 6 is a bit of a low point, the quality during and after Ward’s tenure as showrunner was mostly the same. I do think that Ward’s stepping down may be related to the timing of CN’s decision to dump the show. The very first season in which Adam Muto was the sole showrunner, season 6, was the very first season in which the season premiere had lower ratings than the last season’s premiere. From the perspective of a CN executive trying to save a channel in a dying industry, this is a red flag.

...

tl;dr

Cable and broadcast TV is dying, Adventure Time was a casualty in its ongoing death throes

#adventure time #my post #a REALLY LONG ASS POST #which i spent all of like a full day researching and writing #for no reason other than to vent a little bit #really wish that CN had just licensed the IP to Netflix or something #Netflix would've just funded the same crew on that fat Netflix payroll and with fewer constraints and less censorship #I would have watched the fuck out of adventure time if it was on netflix #but then they only put up the episodes on amazon after release #and then moved them all to hulu #the main channel of new releases still being the CN channel #with a completely random schedule #the crew kept producing a great show even as fans dwindled thanks to CN's dumb moves #great show that couldve been better if CN didnt make several bad decisions

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