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huggybug · 3 years ago

Note

Can you do something for Nick but like you guys host a going away barbecue and bonfire with all the boys and it's all emotional and cute 🥺

when i wrote this last night i put in a little note and said that we’re gonna pretend blanks signed with detroit BUT he signed with cbj sooo🥹 even better also i think i blacked out while writing this because this was not the direction i was planning on going but it’s fine…

“My parents!” Brendan clamours through your front door, drawing all the attention as per usual. He throws his arms around you and Nick, holding on for a little longer than normal before Thomas is pushing his out of the way to get his own hug in.

You’re listening to Thomas list off his travel plans for the next few days when you hear a crash coming from the kitchen. You look to Nick before excusing yourself in order to go investigate.

“I would get mad but seeing as though this could be the last time you boys ruin my kitchen, I’ll let it slide” You say as you enter the kitchen where Kent and Matty are sitting on the countertop as Owen appears to be attempting to be a bartender and making a mixed drink for the two boys.

“Aw Y/n, don’t say that. We’ll be back every summer to wreck your house” You snickered as Matty threw an arm around your shoulder.

“Maybe we should just relocate and everyone can request a trade to Columbus” You smile brightly at all three boys who laugh loudly before giving you sympathetic looks.

“We’re going to miss you too Y/n/n” Owen said as he led the group out to the backyard where the rest of the team had migrated. You move away from them and over to where Nick was sitting, holding his arm out so you could sit on his lap like usual.

The boys crowded around the fire pit and it made your heart squeeze when you remembered this was the last time you’d do this for a while. The weekly hangouts were over as were the days that the boys would just come to hang out at your house; it was going to be weird when you didn’t have at least a few guests over for dinner each night. And while you knew this was coming, it didn’t mean you were prepared for it.

You spent the night listening as the boys bantered like usual, debating the many, many topics that nobody really cared about. You watched as Brendan and Matty wrestled and the other boys cheered them on.

“Are you okay?” Nick asks when he follows you inside, telling the boys he was going to help you grab more snacks.

“Hm? Yeah, it’s just… bittersweet” You sigh, looking out the sliding glass door at the group of boys you’ve become insanely close with over the past few years. If someone would’ve told you in your freshman year that you would be this upset about some hockey players leaving, you would’ve laughed for hours. But that was before you started dating Nick, before Jimmy became your biology tutor, and also before this group of sophomores and freshman basically became your children.

“I know but just think, next year we’ll be in Columbus together well and KJ but we’ve got boys on like five different teams so we’re gonna see them all the time” You smiled when Nick pulls you into his chest while pinning you to the counter at the same time.

“But what about all the rest? I feel like we’re leaving them behind” You pouted, hating that Mackie and Luke, the two you were closest with, would be playing in Michigan next year while you and Nick would be in Ohio.

“They’ll be fine babe” He chuckled. “They’ll be up in the NHL in no time”

“I know they will”

“Want something that’ll make you feel better?” You raise an eyebrow, wondering what he could be talking about. “Boys!”

You spin around when you hear footsteps. The boys all come marching in, the freshman leading the charge and all the boys leaving are at the end of the line. They all pack into the kitchen and you can feel the tears when Mackie lifts up a gift basket and slides it over the counter to you.

‘Y/n, we’ll never be able to pay you back for what you’ve done for us but we figured this was a good start. Columbus has the best team mom coming for them!’ was written on a note attached to the basket.

“You guys…” The little note was written in very neat printing so you assumed one of the boys’ girlfriends helped with that since their writing was all horrendous. You looked up from your gift to the boys who were all grinning.

“You have literally taken care of us all year so it’s the least we could do” Luke said as he gave you a quick hug.

“Yeah I would’ve failed intro to econ if it wasn’t for you” You laugh at Dylan who really was not gifted when it came to economics.

“And… we have something else for you” You look up to see Owen, Thomas, Brendan, Kent, Matty, and Johnny all holding up different colour bags. You’re quick to figure out the bag colour corresponds to their new teams and you feel a pang hit your heart.

They hand you the bags and you open them as everyone watches. From Owen’s bright blue bag, you pull out a Buffalo hoodie. You then open Thomas’ which is a Sharks hoodie and shirt rolled up together with a hat on top. Brendan’s bag is filled with more than the other two, there’s a couple shirts folded together as well as a hat and a Knights bottle opener and keychain. Matty had a pretty full bag as well, gifting you a hoodie, a blanket, and a few random things which all had the Kraken logo. Johnny’s bag was similar to the first ones but there was a shirt for both you and Nick. Kent’s bag was the biggest because that was obviously the team you’d be repping the most. It looked like he had bought out the entire team store; there was a few shirts and hoodies and then keychains and hats. There was stuff all over your countertop, the various teams were represented by the fanned out items that the other boys were now looking through.

“This is all way too much. You guys shouldn’t have done all this” You smiled, trying to ignore the tears that were building up.

“Your our team mom Y/n/n, we wouldn’t have made it through this season without you” Ethan says happily and you sniffle before holding out your arms.

“Alright group hug come on” You thought it would’ve required more convincing but the words were barely out of your mouth and you were already being crushed by all the huge hockey bodies.

bonus🥹

yourusername

liked by edwards.73, mbeniers10 and others

yourusername officially out of here

nblanks98 congratulations babe❤️

yourusername i love you <3

dylanduke i’m in econ 205 next sem!

yourusername zoom tutoring?

brendan.brisson congrats future mrs blanks

mackie.samo my favourite senior

nblanks98

liked by brendan.brisson, nolan_moyle and others

nblanks98 happy to be doing this life thing with you

yourusername 🤍🤍🤍

umichhockey the glue that held our team together… and blanks

mbeniers10 how long until i come to columbus? desperate for y/n’s chocolate chip cookies

kentjohnson.13 eating them rn.. delicious

yourusername i don’t think that fits in the nhl diet buddy

thombordeleau_ well isn’t this cute

markestapa they grow up so fast

#nick blankenburg x reader #nick blankenburg imagine #nick blankenburg blurb #umich wolverines #umich blurbs #columbus blue jackets

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myenterpriseisparked · 3 years ago

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can.... can we get a cast for your zoologist Trek show?

I don't have names for them but here we go! This is kind of long, so I'm putting the characters under a cut.

The ship is called the USS Frontiersman. It works mostly in deep space, studying new forms of life on newly discovered planets. Crew compliment of 160. 50 exozoologists, 50 exobotanists, 20 environmentalists (including geologists and atmospheric experts). The remaining 40 crew members are engineers, security officers, helmsman, and the captain and first officer. I'm not positive on the time period this is set during, but it's at least at a point where there's not much conflict between Cardassia and the Federation.

Captain: She's a 40-year-old Engineer who never expected to make captain. Finding out she was being offered a command was the best day of her life. The worst day of her life was the next day, when she stepped on board and realized it was an exobiology ship filled with eccentrics. She slept through her required exobiology course so she has no idea what any of her crew members are talking about. She's basically that babysitter who's charges are all extremely passionate about things she doesn't understand and the parents have asked her to drive them around to local museums and science learning centers while the kids yell in the backseat about who's topic of interest is better.

First Officer: She's a 30-year-old who went through the academy on the command route and was known for being an excellent pilot. Has less knowledge of exobiology than the captain. The two of them keep trying to push interpersonal conflicts to be solved off on one another because neither of them understand what anyone's talking about enough to truly help solve the issue and, frankly, they're both a little frightened of the ferocity of their crew.

Head Engineer: Bajoran who actually did pay attention in biology and, while she's a little confused, she's eager to learn about what the others are prattling on about and is an excellent listener. She tries her best to translate for the non-exobiologist crew members, especially the captain and first officer. She was married (spouse died. tragically) and has a daughter that follows her around engineering. Everyone loves the kid and tries to convince her to study whatever their area of expertise is. Later in the show, when she's a little older, she decides to go the command route at Starfleet and become a pilot, much to the crew's dismay. The First Officer is absolutely tickled.

Chief Medical Officer(s): The Frontiersman actually has 2 chief medical officers; a doctor and a veterinarian. Yes, this is terribly inefficient and yes, they constantly butt heads. The vet is a young human woman from Ohio with a dry sense of humor and a penchant for snark. The doctor is a young human male from Michigan with a dry sense of humor and a penchant for snark. They absolutely hate each other until the day they realize that they are actually in love with each other and all of their arguments have been attempts to deny their attraction. Both of them are absolutely disgusted that they could fall in love with someone so... so... infuriating gosh dang it. They try to continue denying their feelings for each other because they are from rival states and they constantly fight over jurisdiction in the medbay for new species. One day, however, one of their most heated arguments ends in a passionate kiss and they stop fighting their feelings (but not each other).

From there, the rest of the crew is divided up under chiefs of specific taxonomical divisions. Sometimes a division will only have 1 scientist, other times it has a whole crew of people. Depends on the frequency of that type of living thing appearing. Most divisions only have 3 people; a chief and two junior officers. Not every chief is featured in the show because that would be too many characters, so just the ones that are considered part of the senior staff, which were selected by Starfleet at the time of commission based on training.

Chief of Feliformia: She's a hotheaded Betazoid in her mid 30's who spends her free time boxing on the holodeck. She argues a lot with the Chief of Canidae, but they still have breakfast together every morning to trade ship gossip. She wrestles with PTSD and anxiety, which she hides under a layer of bravado. Surprisingly enough, the only person she really feels comfortable opening up to about her past is the Chief of Canidae, because, despite all of their banter about cats vs dogs, they're her closest friend and she appreciates their blunt honesty.

Chief of Canidae: They're a Trill in their mid 30's who's passionate to the point of poetry about dog-like creatures. They're host to a younger symbiont, and they're one of the shortest people on the ship. They also only really open up to the Chief of Feliformia for similar reasons; the blunt honesty. Their relationship is strictly platonic (and I mean actually platonic, not whatever the VOY writers were trying to sell to us about Janeway and Chakotay).

Chief of Rodentia: He's a 70-year-old Bajoran/Cardassian. His mother defected from the Cardassian army to be with his father and the two of them raised him on earth where he raised pet rats. He always has about 7 various rodents tucked into his lab coat. He is a neat freak about his lab space and refuses to let anyone into his area unless they have completely scrubbed up and promise not to touch his PADD stack. Part of his particularity about his lab comes from the fact that he faced a lot of public ridicule due to his mixed heritage when he was young and so he's naturally very defensive of everything he does and owns.

Chief of Chiroptera: She's a twenty-something Half Vulcan-Half Betazoid who was raised on Betazed. Her Vulcan mother was the Vulcan ambassador on Betazed, and her work made her somewhat absent so, while she has enough of a restraint on her emotions not to be violent or aggressive, she's also more Betazoid in terms of personality. The combination of telepathic and empathic abilities from her parents has made her sensitive to large crowds, which is why she LOVES working in caves with bats away from other people. The combination of the two species' abilities constantly bombarding her and the need to restrain her Vulcan emotions have also resulted in her having ADD (her attention is being pulled in every direction so focusing on other tasks that don't immediately grasp her interest is SUPER difficult for her). However, she's also incredibly kind, difficult to shock or surprise, and very passionate about her work.

Chief of Reptilia: They're a human in their early 50's, a bit reclusive, and VERY unwilling to let people in their lab. They never show up to a meeting without a snake around their neck. The snake might be venomous. No one knows for sure. Whatever the case; everyone on board is pretty sure the reptile division is actually a cult because they never see anyone from that crew outside of the lab decks.

Chief of Aves: She's human, no one knows her age, and she refuses to wear a standard-issue lab coat, opting instead to wear a tie-die coat that reaches the floor. She speaks in riddles and everyone thinks she's crazy, but she's actually incredibly wise and an excellent listener. She specializes in raptors.

Chief of Livestock: Even though it's not technically a taxonomical order, they have a guy who specializes in studying livestock of alien cultures. No one is sure how old he is, or what his species is, for that matter. He has the calm, level-headedness of a Vulcan, but he always wears a hat so no one sees his ears or eyebrows to know for sure. He might just be a Midwestern farmer, because they can be Like That too. Despite working with livestock, he also never gets injured, so not even the doctor knows. Some people speculate that he's not human OR Vulcan, but some other immortal species, like a Q. This mystery is never solved on the show, but everyone really likes this guy.

Chief Exobotanist: Despite the fact that the plants are divided up into other taxonomical species, they all report to one Chief Botanist because the plant department is a lot more efficient and interconnected than the animal departments. Despite this, she's completely overworked and undercaffeinated. However, her workload doesn't stop her from being one of the sweetest and most creative people on board. As to the rest of her character, I defer to @emilie786 , as she is the inspiration for this character!

There are other chiefs who are occasional recurring characters, like the Chief of Aquaculture and the Chief of Amphibians. There are also several junior officers who we get to know a bit that are kind of fun. I'm thinking there's some kind of star-crossed lovers arc going on between someone who works in exobotany and someone who works in exozoology. There's also an overworked head of security who is getting really sick and tired of all the escapee animals he has to track down. I think he might fall in love with the Chief Exobotanist partially because plants don't run away and get into the Jeffries tubes (until they do, of course).

Anyway, if anyone wants to add to this, go for it! I'm open to ideas!

#Star Trek: Frontiersman #star trek oc #sorry for the long post #to be continued probably

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chaos-writes · 4 years ago

Text

The Lost Boys: Road Trip

Based on one of the most vivid dreams I've ever had. Word count: 2,255. Implied romance with the boys and Star. Tw: none.

“I’ve always wanted to travel and go sight-seeing without any real objective, like moving,” said Lucy, in a dream-like tone. I chimed in, “I’ve had a cross-country road trip planned out for quite a while, but I’ve never had anyone to do it with.” “Oh really?” Lucy asked, “Where to?” “Well, it’ll be a round trip with touring both going and coming back. I'm hoping to go through Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, then we’ll go north, through Ohio, and Michigan, then come back home through Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, then through the top of California all the way back home.” “Oh my goodness! That sounds like a dream, but also a lot of gas money,” Lucy exclaimed. We laughed.

“It really would be, but I have the money saved up in a debit account, so hopefully it'll cover it. There’s also hotels, toll bridges, food, water, all that fun stuff,” I giggled. “But it would be worth it, I have tons of film for my instax camera, and a couple journals to write down my experiences.”

I gestured to her, “I have a couple extras for people that want to tag along,” Lucy smiled but quickly frowned, “Oh, I would love to go, I really would, but I have to work and look after the boys and their grandfather,” she mused. I chimed in, “It doesn't just have to be you, you know, I’ve got quite a few people in mind who could benefit from traveling.” “Well, I'll have to check with my boys and my boss. I’ll let you know if I can or can’t as soon as possible,” lucy said, with a look of disappointment in her eyes. I nodded in understanding and smiled, “Well, whenever you do let me know, I wouldn’t be upset if it was a no. I would be sure to share every detail with you, though.” “Oh, thank you for understanding, it means a lot to me!” “No problem. Well, I guess I'll be on my way then,” I said as I opened the front door.

We said our goodbyes and I headed out on my motorcycle to go and see the boys. It’s getting dark enough out where they should be slowly getting up by now. I wonder if Laddie and Star are there, too. They usually are, but sometimes they’re out and about, since they can handle sunlight a bit better than the rest. I park my bike and I can hear distant yawning and mumbling from where I'm standing at the cave entrance. They all start to float out and stretch one by one, Dwayne being first, Marko being second, David being third, and Paul being last. Of course Paul is last, he’s the heaviest sleeper. This road trip would be nothing to him, if they all agreed, that is. I just have to do some convincing.

Marko slipped his jacket and boots on, and the rest followed suit. They’re all quiet when they first wake, that’s why I don't ‘show up’ until I start hearing conversation and laughing. However, I’ve got to wait for the perfect time to come in, when they’ve been talking for a while and can actually think. “I wonder what Michael’s been doin’” I hear Paul say. “I don’t know Paul,” David sighed. “Maybe he’s been avoiding us…” He paused for a minute, then said, “Anyone hungry yet?” a wave of “not me’s” and “mm-mm’s” spread across the cave. I hear Dwayne grab a torch, light it, and begin lighting the cans all around the cave. The -now illuminated- boys begin bantering about who they should target next and what they plan to do for the day- well, night.

As a result, I put on my big-kid pants and stepped into the cave. They all turned to me, Marko exclaimed, “Hey! There you are!” “Hey guys,” I said, waving. Laddie ran up to me and hugged me from the side. I patted his back and ruffled his hair. Star smiled at me as she greeted me with a wave. I smiled back. Marko and Paul ran to me and squished me in their arms.

“I have something to share with you guys. An idea, really,” I said. All the boys looked at me in curiosity until David spoke up, “Well, what is this… idea of yours?” I beamed at all of them and said, “You all know how much I like going on adventures…” they looked even more puzzled now. “So, how about I take everyone on a really big adventure? A road trip!” They looked contemplative, as if they were considering going or not. “I could go alone…” Paul's and Marko's eyes widened, “But I much prefer having company with me, especially on trips like these.” Dwayne piped up, “So... where would we be going?” I smiled and pulled out a map, “How about I show you guys?”

The boys, Laddie, and Star crowd around behind me as I point around a U.S. map and explain where we’re going and what I'm planning on doing. I point all over the map and across the northern states. "We can add on a couple more destinations if you'd like… this is just more of the baseline plan." "Are we going to any big cities?" Marko asked. "Hell yea! And we're gonna go touring at night and see all the pretty lights and stuff. It'll be so fun!" "I'm down!" Paul says. "Me too!" Dwayne chimed in. "I wanna go!" Laddie exclaimed. Star smiled, and turned to David. The rest of us followed suit. This… is it.

I smiled at David and asked, "So, leader of the pack, are you in?" He paused. We cautiously awaited his answer. Laddie's eyes met David’s as he silently pleaded to go. David finally broke, smiled, and said, "alright. When are we leaving?" The cave uproared in a fit of whooping and hollering, mainly thanks to Marko and Paul, and Star picked Laddie up and twirled him around. "You won't regret this!" I said to David over the noise. "Well, I'm actually looking forward to it." He said.

We left to go grab a bite to eat, the boys did their thing and I took Laddie and Star to a little Italian place on the boardwalk to eat. I told the boys to meet us there when they were done. “You sure about all this?” Star asked. “Absolutely! I like having an adventure crew. I'll admit though, it's gonna be a little different with a youngin' on board,” I laughed.

After a while, Lucy finally agreed to go with our party and told her boys to look after one another. We all packed our clothes and bought some more for the boys. They needed clothes that were fit for the amount of walking. I also couldn’t let anyone see my boys in blood-stained clothes in public, we’ll look like we got in some freak accident. I rode my motorcycle and directed the boys to my place, where we have a big Volkswagen bus parked out front, fit for a party of eight. Lucy is already there after a phone call telling us she would meet us at my place. We packed our bags into the trunk, all 4 boys could fit their bags into one suitcase with vacuum seal bags, Star and Laddie share a backpack, Lucy has her own suitcase and I have my own backpack. There's a box of toiletries for us all, except for Lucy, who decided on keeping everything of hers separate from the others, which is fair enough.

It was 9pm, and we made sure everyone went to the bathroom and was all taken care of before we took off. The first drive is twelve-and-a-half hours, from Santa Carla to Salt Lake City, Utah. We toured the entire city on foot for a few hours, and decided on the next driver to take us to our next destination. Before we left Salt Lake, I put all the pictures I took into a scrapbook and wrote down the notes of what happened that day. “Hey, guys? If you want a journal to write anything down about the trip, I have a few extras here! And we can go over everyone’s journals and keep them in a safe space after the trip!” I said, as we all piled into the bus. David, sitting in the same row as me, turned to me and said, “I’d like to document what i’m experiencing. It’s a good idea, considering we’ve got a lot of…time left” he paused. I gave an understanding nod and handed him a journal. Star, from the third row, said, “i’ll take one!”

We continued across the country and journaled, and took as many pictures as possible. I will never forget how genuinely happy all the boys were, they were so used to the boardwalk and now they get to go places. Laddie would bounce around happily when we toured around on foot. Star and Lucy spent their time quietly admiring land and cityscapes. The boys would get rowdy and restless at night, desperate to get in a fight or two. I've had to intervene more than I want to admit. But overall, they were well-behaved and did great throughout the trip.

The most precious memory to me, though, is when Dwayne, Paul, and Laddie grabbed me to go for a walk. At this point we were in Cincinnati, we checked in a hotel for a couple days, just on the water. A few of us wanted to go walk on the Purple People Bridge before we left. It was getting dark out, so we held close together. We walked across the bridge, Dwayne carried Laddie piggyback style and Paul and I were walking close by. We got down far enough on the bridge that we were close to the water. The sound of the river was calming, less rapid than the water outside the cave. I pointed out all the boats on the water to Laddie and we watched the water and the city in front of us.

What the boys didn't know was there was an event going on in the city. Some sort of charity event, I was never really sure about that part, but what I did know was the boys were really gonna like it.

"Hey, let's stay here for a bit. We're not in a hurry!" I said. "Umm… alright then," Dwayne said. Paul looked at me in confusion, but didn't say anything. Laddie was falling asleep on Dwayne's back, but Dwayne didn't seem to mind.

Soon, lights flicker on, one by one, lighting the whole city in blue. "Look Laddie!" I said while tapping his arm. He hopped off of Dwayne's back and stared at the illuminated city. All of Cincinnati was now an icy blue, and I will never forget the look of wonder in Laddie's eyes. Paul and Dwayne shared the same look as well. We were all starstruck as the night sky before us lit up in a beautiful blue. Paul's smile slowly grew and he giggled. I looked at him with a questioning look.

He turned to me, and said,"Thank you. This is… was, amazing. I don't think you know how much I appreciate you. This…" I smiled and wrapped my arms around his waist. We held each other close as the city behind us twinkled and glowed. Footsteps came alongside us, the rest of the party decided to try and find us. "Looks like you and Paul are having fun," David said. I wasn't even mad at the joke this time. "We really are, why don't you join us?" I asked. David smiled and ran his fingers through my hair. He wrapped his arms around me from behind as I was hugging Paul, so I was sandwiched between them. Marko stood beside us all. David saw and invited him into the middle with me. I turned around and squeezed Marko as the others adjusted.

Laddie was excitedly pointing out every detail to Star, Dwayne and Lucy and bouncing in pure joy. "Laddie seems to be enjoying this the most. I'm so happy I get to show him these beautiful places." I said. "I will never forget the look on his face for as long as I live."

The rest of the trip went smoothly. We stopped in big cities, small towns, natural parks, and got to see part of Canada from the upper peninsula of Michigan. I wrote down two journals' worth of notes and had to buy another scrapbook to fit all the pictures I took.

Surprisingly, the whole party responded well to the really long drives we did. When we made it home and said our goodbyes to Lucy as she drove to her own home, it was like this weight was lifted off of us as we stepped into the cave. No more stress of travel, a place to stretch your legs, a place to just be... in peace. Laddie hugged me as Dwayne went around and lit the cave up. "Thank you so much," he said. "You're welcome, little dude!" I said. "Yeah, thank you!" Marko and Paul chimed in. Star walked up to me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. "Thank you for doing all of that for us," she said. "You really didn't have to." "I know, but I love you guys. The least I can do for you is take you on one of my adventures."

#slash-writes #the lost boys #tlb #fic #tlb marko #tlb dwayne #tlb david #tlb paul #tlb star #tlb laddie #lucy emerson #tlb x reader

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ledenews · 2 years ago

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Republican Brooke McArdle Raised on Dining Table Politics

Fingertips in ears. One. At. A. Time. That is exactly how Brooke McArdle handled many of the conversations at the dinner table while she was growing up in the city of Wheeling, and that’s because her parents, Elgin and Jack McArdle, enjoyed discussing political issues over the family meal. The majority of the time the conversations concerned federal and state-level issues like taxes, crime, public assistance, and, of course, roads, roads, roads, but on occasion, the “Rents” would banter about the actions taken by Wheeling’s council members. “It really didn’t matter what they discussed, I always asked them to stop and I would do everything I could not to listen to them because I wasn’t interested at all,” Brooke recalled. “But now, when I think about it, I know it was because I didn’t understand what it all means. Once I was in high school and college, I was able to participate in those conversations with my parents and my brother, and those talks became normal for us.” Initially, Brooke applied that education to how she voted on Election Day. These days, though, she wants to utilize that political know-how in Charleston as the District 5 representative in the state House of Delegates. “As soon as I realized politics is about the world that surrounds us all every day, and that you can do something about it if you want to, I immediately wanted to get involved more than just voting,” the 23-year-old said. “And everything, if you think about it, is about politics, and the last thing I’m going to ever do is quit voting. That’s crazy to me.” The signs for the McArdle for House campaign went up last weekend, including this one on Wheeling Island. Pucks and Politics The McArdle family is big into the game of hockey and has been for decades. Elgin, a very successful Wheeling attorney who now serves as the chairperson of the state Republican Party after years of leading Ohio County’s GOP, also has been very active with youth hockey associations in Wheeling and Morgantown, and with USA Hockey. And Brooke, one of two McArdle children, played and loved youth hockey so much she was the lone lady on Wheeling Park High School’s hockey team before she graduated in 2018. For her to be that talented, though, means she endured a lot of travel … miles and miles and more miles of travel. “Oh yes, we talked politics on the hockey trips, too, and we were taking a lot of trips back in high school. Practices were near Pittsburgh, but we made a lot of trips to Canada, Michigan, and to several others,” she recalled. “Yeah, me and my Mom would talk some hockey, too, but most of the time, it was politics. “My mother has been in politics ever since I can remember, and I would go to the Lincoln Day dinners, and to the candidate forums and fundraisers, and when Ryan Ferns was in office, I knocked on doors with him and for him,” she said. “I’ve always been in politics, but on the outside. Now, I feel it’s time for me to be on the inside and that’s why I decided to run once I graduated.” McArdle decided to run for District 5's House seat because she wants those residents to be "at the table" in the state capital. She earned accounting and legal studies degrees from Elmira College while playing varsity hockey for four years, and now is concentrating on her master’s in forensic and fraud examination. Ms. McArdle also is handling quite well Newcomer Campaign 101. “I am running because of what I saw while I was going back and forth between here and New York. I didn’t like it and I know we can do better in District 5 and throughout the Northern Panhandle,” McArdle said. “I saw changes in Wheeling during those four years, and they weren’t positive changes. I want to find ways to help turn those things around in my hometown. “I also would like to see the entire state of West Virginia take the next step forward as far as our economy is concerned,” she explained. “We’ve seen so much go away from our state for all the wrong reasons, but I believe we can bring the best parts back to our area with unified efforts on all levels. Those are conversations I am looking forward to the most in Charleston.” Read the full article

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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How Many Republicans Voted For Obama In 2012

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-voted-for-obama-in-2012/

How Many Republicans Voted For Obama In 2012

Electoral College Changes And Controversies

How Obama Won: Election 2012 Breakdown

Population changes indicated by the 2010 U.S. Census changed the apportionment of votes in the Electoral College, potentially altering the allocation of votes among swing states. Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Washington gained votes; conversely, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania lost votes. The change in electoral allotment shifts the allocation of votes across the Democratic-Republican divide; pundits predicted the Democratic Party would lose electoral votes in states previously won in the past three presidential elections, and the Republican Party would gain votes in states won by Republican candidates in the last three elections.

Some states enacted new electoral laws in 2011. For example, Florida and Iowa banned felons from voting, and various states shortened their voting periods, eliminating the option of early voting. These measures were criticized as strategies to impede certain groups of voters, including college students, African Americans, and Latinx Americans.

Barack Obama: Incumbent President Barack Obama was the Democratic candidate for the 2012 presidential election. On November 6th, 2012, Obama was re-elected President for a second term.

Republicans Most Often Mention Romney Palin As Preferred Candidate

PRINCETON, NJ — Registered voters are about equally divided as to whether they would more likely vote to re-elect Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election, or vote for the Republican candidate.

These results are based on a Feb. 1-3 Gallup poll. Forty-four percent of U.S. registered voters say they are more likely to vote for Obama, 42% for the Republican candidate, and the remaining 14% are undecided or would vote for another candidate.

“It is clear at this early date that most Republicans have not developed a preference, with 42% not having an opinion or volunteering that they do not prefer any candidate.”

A year into his first term as president, Obama’s approval ratings are hovering around 50%. The 50% approval figure has been a strong predictor of an incumbent president’s re-election: presidents who averaged 50% or better from January of an election year through Election Day have all been re-elected. This includes George W. Bush, who averaged 51% in 2004, though his approval rating was 48% in Gallup’s final pre-election poll.

The re-election question pits Obama against an unnamed Republican candidate. Several prominent Republicans have already visited the early caucus and primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire, and later this year, some may announce their intention to seek the party’s nomination.

Bottom Line

Survey Methods

For results based on the sample of 942 registered voters, the maximum margin of error is Â±4 percentage points.

A Note On Terminology

Utilizing the National Exit Poll to estimate the share of the electorate that is Hispanic generally produces an estimate that is higher than that observed in the Census Bureaus November voting supplement of the Current Population Survey . In 2008, according to the National Exit Poll, 9% of voters were of Hispanic origin . However, according to the 2008 November CPS, 7.4% of voters were Hispanic . Estimates of the Hispanic share of the electorate for 2012 from the 2012 November CPS will not be available until 2013. For more details on the issues associated with using these data sources to estimate the share of the electorate that is Hispanic, see Hispanics and the 2004 Election: Population, Electorate and Voters by Roberto Suro, Richard Fry and Jeffrey Passel.

United States Presidential Election

2012 United States presidential election

51.1% 47.2%

President before election

The 2012 United States presidential election was the 57th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. Incumbent DemocraticPresidentBarack Obama and his running mate, incumbent Vice PresidentJoe Biden, were re-elected to a second term. They defeated the Republican ticket of businessman and former GovernorMitt Romney of Massachusetts and RepresentativePaul Ryan of Wisconsin.

As the incumbent president, Obama secured the Democratic nomination without serious opposition. The Republicans experienced a competitive primary. Romney was consistently competitive in the polls and won the support of many party leaders, but he faced challenges from a number of more conservative contenders. Romney secured his party’s nomination in May, defeating former Senator Rick Santorum, former Speaker of the HouseNewt Gingrich, and Texas congressman Ron Paul, among other candidates.

This was the first election in which a major party nominee lost his home state since Al Gore lost Tennessee in 2000, as Mitt Romney lost his home state of Massachusetts.

Why Obama Won The Women’s Vote

In the very long list of people who, in what might come to be seen as the most impressive achievement of his campaign, Mitt Romney managed to alienate , the biggest and most damaging group by far was women.

As the results came in, while we had to wait late and long for the final verdict endure Karl Rove’s 11th-hour meltdown; enjoy Diane Sawyer’s awesome, possibly mini-bar-assisted close of show banter and louche upper-body sway it was clear from relatively early on that while the Latino vote came out solidly for Obama, it was women, particularly single women, who made themselves most decisively heard.

This shouldn’t have been surprising. The Obama campaign had hammered away at Romney’s record on women in pointed campaign ads from way back, targeting the customary staples Romney’s opposition to Roe v Wade, abortion under any circumstance and insurance coverage for contraception so comprehensively that the danger became one of reduced impact through overexposure.

There was no romance; it was a question not of hope but of duty, giving voting queues in the city a muted, slightly martyred air. . Those waiting wanted to get the job done, a sober ethos they hoped Obama would take with him into his second term.

“For healthcare and child services for people in need; for people like me, the poor and the middle class. If Romney wins, it’ll be all about the upper tier.”

She grinned. “Hell, no.”

As Obama said on the stump: “Don’t boo; vote. Voting is the best revenge!”

How Many Republicans Voted For Obamacare

The Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare, received no Republican votes in either the Senate or the House of Representatives when it was passed in 2009. In the Senate, the bill was passed with a total of 60 votes, or 58 Democratic Party votes and 2 Independent Party votes. The House passed the legislation with 219 Democratic votes.

The Affordable Care Act received 39 votes against it in the Senate, all from Republicans. One senator abstained from voting. In the House, the ACA received 212 votes against it, with 34 coming from the Democratic Party and 178 from the Republican Party. There were enough votes for the ACA in the Senate to prevent an attempt to filibuster the bill, while the House vote required a simple majority.

The ACA originated in the Senate, though both the House and Senate were working on versions of a health care bill at the same time. Democrats in the House of Representatives were initially unhappy with the ACA, as they had expected some ability to negotiate additional changes before its passage. Since Republicans in the Senate were threatening to filibuster any bill they did not fully support, and Democrats no longer had enough seats to override the filibuster, no changes could be made. Since any changes to the legislation by the House would require it to be re-evaluated in the Senate, the original version was passed in 2009 on condition that it would be amended by a subsequent bill.

Who Really Voted In 2016

The national story

Exit polls indicated that the voting electorate in 2016 was 71 percent white, 12 percent black, 11 percent Latino, and 7 percent Asian or other race. Compared to 2012, the share of white voters dropped by a percentage point, as did the share of black voters. The vote share of Latinos increased by a point and the vote share of Asians and all other racial minorities increased by 2 points.

Our estimates tell a significantly different story about the racial/ethnic distribution of voters. The most salient difference here is that the exit polls underestimated the share of white voters and overestimated the share of voters of color. Our estimate is that 73.7 percent of voters were white , 8.9 percent were Latino , and 5.5 percent were Asian or other race . However, our figures agree with the exit polls on the percent of black voters .

As for shifts from 2012, our data show that the white vote share declined by only 0.3 percentage points in 2016. We found that the black vote share declined by 1.1 points, which mirrors the exit poll results, while the Latino vote share increased by 0.9 points and the vote share of Asians or other races increased by 0.5 points. So, other than shifts in the black vote share, we generally found less change in the racial/ethnic structure of the voting electorate between the two elections.

The story in the states

Well start with the trio of Rust Belt statesMichigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsinthat were decisive to Trumps victory.

Presidential Election Results: How Obama Beat Romney

Dec 20, 2016 at 2:15pm

President Barack Obama beat former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in the 2012 Presidential election.

The 2012 Presidential Election saw President Barack Obama win re-election against former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, with 332 electoral votes and 51.1 percent of the popular vote. Obama became the third-consecutive president to win a second term, the first time that happened since 1820.

The 2012 results looked similar to 2008, as only two states switched parties. In 2008, Obama won North Carolina and Indiana, but they both went for Romney in 2012. Also in 2008, Obama won Nebraskas second Congressional district, but he lost that vote in 2012.

The 2012 Electoral College results.

In the 2012 election, Romney easily beat Obama among men, 52-45 percent, notes Roper Center statistics. However, men made up 47 percent of the electorate and Obama won Women 55-44 percent.

Obama also succeeded among minority groups. He won 93 percent of the African-American vote, as well as 71 percent of the Hispanic vote. Hispanic voters made up 10 percent of the 2012 electorate, and that is expected to grow in the 2016 election.

The 2012 election also showed massive division between the political parties, as only a few voted for the other partys candidate. Ninety-two percent of Democrats voted for Obama, while 93 percent of Republicans voted for Romney.

Voter Analysis Shows Obama Would Have Lost In 2012 If Black Turnout Had Mirrored 2008

Can Republicans Recover After Big Loss to President Obama?

President Obama.

WASHINGTON America’s blacks voted at a higher rate than other minority groups in 2012 and by most measures surpassed the white turnout for the first time, reflecting a deeply polarized presidential election in which blacks strongly supported Barack Obama while many whites stayed home.

Had people voted last November at the same rates they did in 2004, when black turnout was below its current historic levels, Republican Mitt Romney would have won narrowly, according to an analysis conducted for The Associated Press.

Census data and exit polling show that whites and blacks will remain the two largest racial groups of eligible voters for the next decade. Last year’s heavy black turnout came despite concerns about the effect of new voter-identification laws on minority voting, outweighed by the desire to re-elect the first black president.

William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, analyzed the 2012 elections for the AP using census data on eligible voters and turnout, along with November’s exit polling. He estimated total votes for Obama and Romney under a scenario where 2012 turnout rates for all racial groups matched those in 2004. Overall, 2012 voter turnout was roughly 58 percent, down from 62 percent in 2008 and 60 percent in 2004.

Overall, the findings represent a tipping point for blacks, who for much of America’s history were disenfranchised and then effectively barred from voting until passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Census: Blacks Voted At Higher Rates Than Whites In 2012

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The 2012 election produced another demographic milestone in the changing face of the nation as African Americans voted at a higher rate than whites for the first time, according to a Census Bureau report released Wednesday.

The report provided fresh evidence of how higher turnout rates among African Americans and a rapidly growing Hispanic population continue to reshape the electorate in presidential elections, with broad implications for the competition between the Republican and Democratic parties.

The report found that both blacks and Hispanics voted in higher raw numbers in 2012 than in 2008, helping to propel President Obama to a reelection victory over Republican Mitt Romney. The total number of white voters actually decreased between 2008 and 2012, the first such drop by any group within the population since the bureau started to issue such statistics in 1996.

Changing demographics continue to shrink the white share of the overall electorate in presidential years. Between 1996 and 2012, the white share of the total electorate has declined from almost 83 percent to 74 percent, according to the report, which is based on a post-election survey.

These demographic shifts have given Democrats an advantage over Republicans in presidential elections due to the GOPs heavy dependence on white voters and the Democrats success in capturing sizable majorities among blacks, Hispanics and Asian Americans.

Carol Morello contributed to this report.

Reminder: Obamacare Passed Without A Single Republican Vote

Back in 2009 and 2010, Democrats controlled the White House and the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rammed Obamacare through without a single Republican vote.

The Washington Post said of the Obamacare fight at the time It has inflamed the partisanship that Obama pledged to tame when he campaigned for the White House and has limited Congresss ability to pass any other major legislation.

In December 2009, the U.S. Senate voted 60 to 39 for Obamacare. The Washington Post reported The Senate bill passed without a single GOP vote.

In March 2010, the U.S. House voted 219 to 212 for Obamacare. 34 House Democrats and all of the House Republicans voted against Obamacare. The NO votes were the only bipartisan votes.

President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010.

President Obama embraces HHS Sec Kathleen Sebelius and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after signing the health insurance reform bill, March 23, 2010.

Democrats ignored the plans offered by Republicans at the time including the House GOP plan drafted by Rep. Tom Price and The Patients Choice Act of 2009introduced by U.S. Senators Tom Coburn, M.D. and Richard Burr and U.S. Representatives Paul Ryan and Devin Nunes .

Trump Wants 10 Gop Lawmakers Gone This One May Prove Tricky

As to other lessons from the preliminary exit poll data, its clear that Hispanics are quickly becoming a political force that national politicians must acknowledge. They increased their share of the electorate by about three percentage points; at that pace, theyll tie or pass African-Americans as the largest minority voting bloc in 2016.

The Hispanic vote helped produce the dead heat in Florida, for instance. Thats a state Romney needed to win to have plausible paths to 270 electoral votes, and he could reasonably have expected to do well among the states conservative Cuban-heritage population. But Obama performed three percentage points better among Floridas Hispanics than he did in 2008, winning 60 percent of their votes. If he emerges as the winner there, that will be a big reason.

Winning the independent vote also no longer appears to be as important as it once seemed. Romney led Obama among self-described independents, 50 percent to 45 percent. Thats a turnaround from four years ago, when Obama won them, 52 percent to 44 percent.

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But independents, like whites, were a slightly smaller share of the electorate in 2012. And a declaration of independence is not necessarily indicative of a voters ideology. Obama won self-declared moderates, 56 percent to 41 percent. Obama also took 86 percent of the liberal vote, while Romney won 82 percent of conservatives.

Reality Check: Who Voted For Donald Trump

Reality Check

Donald Trump has beaten Hillary Clinton in the race to be president of the United States.

Much of the narrative ahead of the election had been that Mr Trump was supported by angry, white men. To get an insight into which groups actually voted for him, you can look at the exit poll conducted across the country by Edison Research for the National Election Pool, a consortium of ABC News, The Associated Press, CBS News, , Fox News and NBC News.

It is very difficult to get a genuinely representative sample of how more than 120 million people have voted. It is a big survey – of almost 25,000 voters – and they are the best figures available, but they should be used with caution.

It throws up some odd results, such as that 10% of people who support the idea of a wall along the Mexican border nonetheless voted for Mrs Clinton, while 5% of people who thought the next president should continue the policies of Barack Obama voted for Mr Trump.

Bear in mind that the proportions are unlikely to add up to 100%, because not everybody answered all the questions and there were other candidates standing in the election, who received about 5% of the votes.

The poll suggests that 53% of men voted for Mr Trump, with 41% voting for Mrs Clinton – those proportions are almost exactly reversed for women.

Looking specifically at white women, they favoured Mr Trump, with 53% supporting him compared with 43% for Mrs Clinton.

They Voted For Obama Then Went For Trump Can Democrats Win Them Back

May 4, 2018

RITTMAN, Ohio In the daily race that is her life, Sharla Baker does not think about politics very much.

She rises early, drives to the gas station to buy coffee, feeds her baby, dresses her two other children, ages 3 and 2, and hustles them all off to day care. By 9:30 a.m. she pulls into a hair salon 45 minutes away, where she is training to be a cosmetologist. She waxes and cuts all day long, making only the money she earns in tips, which on a recent day last month was $8.41.

But Ms. Baker does vote. She picked Barack Obama for president in 2008 and 2012. He seemed sincere and looked like a happy family man. But most important, he was a Democrat. Her great-grandmother, who grew up poor in Pennsylvania, always said that Democrats look out for the poor people.

In 2016, though, she voted for Donald J. Trump. Yes, he was rich and seemed mean on his TV show, The Apprentice. But she liked how he talked about jobs and wages and people being left out of the economy.

Now, more than a year later, she is wavering.

I voted for Trump because I wanted some change going on, said Ms. Baker, 28. But then again, maybe hes going to do the wrong change.

The swing of Obama voters to Mr. Trump proved a decisive factor in the 2016 presidential election. Of the more than 650 counties that chose Mr. Obama twice, about a third flipped to Mr. Trump. Many were in states critical to Mr. Trumps win, like Iowa, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.

A Closer Look At Older Americans

The vast majority of Americans who are 65 and older are members of the Silent generation . They came of age in the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy years. Silents favored the Democrats at times during the 1990s, but in recent elections have strongly supported the Republicans. While they aligned more with the Democrats in the 1990s, they have become much more Republican in recent years. The Silent generation replaced the Greatest generation, who were more reliable Democratic voters when they constituted the bulk of the senior vote.

Silents increasingly call themselves conservative and they hold the most consistently conservative views about government, social issues and Americas place in the world. Unlike other generations that in recent years have become more supportive of smaller government, they have held conservative views about government for years.

Today, an overwhelming majority of Silents are either angry or frustrated with government. They are the generation that is most strongly disapproving of Barack Obama, for whom a majority did not vote. Silents also are the most politically energized generation, as they demonstrated in the 2010 midterms.

More often than the younger generations, Silents take the American exceptionalist view that the United States is the greatest nation in the world. But fewer older people than young people think that Americas best days are ahead of us.

The Rise Of Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter is an activist movement originating in the African-American community that campaigns against violence and institutionalized racism toward black people in the United States. BLM regularly organizes protests around the deaths of black people in killings by law enforcement officers, as well as broader issues of racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system.

The movement began in 2013 with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin. Black Lives Matter became nationally recognized for its street demonstrations following the 2014 police shooting deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York City.

Cooperative Congressional Election Study

Virginia Republicans for Obama

The CCES found similar shares of Obama-Trump and Romney-Clinton voters compared to the ANES, at least as a percentage of all 2016 voters. In the case of the former, the CCES found 5% of all 2016 voters backed Obama in 2012 but Trump in 2016, and like the ANES 2% voted for Romney in 2012 and Clinton in 2016.

Breaking down each candidates base of support by 2012 vote, the CCES data found that about 11% of Trumps voters backed Obama in 2012, while only 4% of Clintons support came from voters who voted for Romney in 2012. The percentage data for 2012 and 2016 voting are laid out below in Table 2.

Just How Many Obama 2012

Using different surveys to try to answer an oft-asked question

In the immediate aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, many observers understandably focused on the numerous places that swung from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. Because many of these areas congregated in swing states within the Rust Belt and Midwest, they played a pivotal role in Trumps victory, as shown by the movement toward the GOP in Map 1 below. But how many total voters really switched from Obama to Trump in 2016? Different data sources tell a different story, but the answer is certainly in the millions.

Reelection And Political Gridlock

Discontent over Democratic President Obamas Affordable Care Act helped the Republicans capture the majority in the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections. It also helped spawn the Tea Party, a conservative movement that emerged from the right wing of the Republican Party and pulled the traditional conservative base further to the right. The Tea Party, which was strongly opposed to abortion, gun control, and immigration, focused primarily on limiting government spending and the size of the federal government.

Obama won reelection in 2012, but the Republicans retained their hold on the House of Representatives, and the Democratic majority in the Senate grew razor-thin. Political bickering and intractable Republican resistanceincluding a 70% increase in filibusters over the 1980s, a refusal to allow a vote on some legislation, and the glacial pace at which the Senate confirmed the Presidents judicial nominationscreated political gridlock in Washington, interfering with Obamas ability to secure any important legislative victories.

0 notes

statetalks · 3 years ago

Text

How Many Republicans Voted For Obama In 2012

Electoral College Changes And Controversies

How Obama Won: Election 2012 Breakdown

Barack Obama: Incumbent President Barack Obama was the Democratic candidate for the 2012 presidential election. On November 6th, 2012, Obama was re-elected President for a second term.

Republicans Most Often Mention Romney Palin As Preferred Candidate

“It is clear at this early date that most Republicans have not developed a preference, with 42% not having an opinion or volunteering that they do not prefer any candidate.”

Bottom Line

Survey Methods

For results based on the sample of 942 registered voters, the maximum margin of error is Â±4 percentage points.

A Note On Terminology

The analysis in this report is limited to 12 states. These states are Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. Voter survey results from the National Election Pool national exit poll and state exit polls were obtained from CNNs Election 2012 website. Utilizing the National Exit Poll to estimate the share of the electorate that is Hispanic generally produces an estimate that is higher than that observed in the Census Bureaus November voting supplement of the Current Population Survey . In 2008, according to the National Exit Poll, 9% of voters were of Hispanic origin . However, according to the 2008 November CPS, 7.4% of voters were Hispanic . Estimates of the Hispanic share of the electorate for 2012 from the 2012 November CPS will not be available until 2013. For more details on the issues associated with using these data sources to estimate the share of the electorate that is Hispanic, see Hispanics and the 2004 Election: Population, Electorate and Voters by Roberto Suro, Richard Fry and Jeffrey Passel.

United States Presidential Election

51.1% 47.2%

President before election

This was the first election in which a major party nominee lost his home state since Al Gore lost Tennessee in 2000, as Mitt Romney lost his home state of Massachusetts.

Why Obama Won The Women’s Vote

“For healthcare and child services for people in need; for people like me, the poor and the middle class. If Romney wins, it’ll be all about the upper tier.”

She grinned. “Hell, no.”

As Obama said on the stump: “Don’t boo; vote. Voting is the best revenge!”

How Many Republicans Voted For Obamacare

Who Really Voted In 2016

The national story

The story in the states

Well start with the trio of Rust Belt statesMichigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsinthat were decisive to Trumps victory.

Presidential Election Results: How Obama Beat Romney

Dec 20, 2016 at 2:15pm

President Barack Obama beat former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in the 2012 Presidential election.

The 2012 Electoral College results.

In the 2012 election, Romney easily beat Obama among men, 52-45 percent, notes Roper Center statistics. However, men made up 47 percent of the electorate and Obama won Women 55-44 percent.

Voter Analysis Shows Obama Would Have Lost In 2012 If Black Turnout Had Mirrored 2008

Can Republicans Recover After Big Loss to President Obama?

President Obama.

Census: Blacks Voted At Higher Rates Than Whites In 2012

BioFollow

Carol Morello contributed to this report.

Reminder: Obamacare Passed Without A Single Republican Vote

In December 2009, the U.S. Senate voted 60 to 39 for Obamacare. The Washington Post reported The Senate bill passed without a single GOP vote.

In March 2010, the U.S. House voted 219 to 212 for Obamacare. 34 House Democrats and all of the House Republicans voted against Obamacare. The NO votes were the only bipartisan votes.

President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010.

President Obama embraces HHS Sec Kathleen Sebelius and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after signing the health insurance reform bill, March 23, 2010.

Trump Wants 10 Gop Lawmakers Gone This One May Prove Tricky

Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox.

Reality Check: Who Voted For Donald Trump

Reality Check

Donald Trump has beaten Hillary Clinton in the race to be president of the United States.

The poll suggests that 53% of men voted for Mr Trump, with 41% voting for Mrs Clinton – those proportions are almost exactly reversed for women.

Looking specifically at white women, they favoured Mr Trump, with 53% supporting him compared with 43% for Mrs Clinton.

They Voted For Obama Then Went For Trump Can Democrats Win Them Back

May 4, 2018

RITTMAN, Ohio In the daily race that is her life, Sharla Baker does not think about politics very much.

Now, more than a year later, she is wavering.

I voted for Trump because I wanted some change going on, said Ms. Baker, 28. But then again, maybe hes going to do the wrong change.

A Closer Look At Older Americans

The Rise Of Black Lives Matter

Cooperative Congressional Election Study

Virginia Republicans for Obama

Just How Many Obama 2012

Using different surveys to try to answer an oft-asked question

Reelection And Political Gridlock

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-voted-for-obama-in-2012/

0 notes

inhumansforever · 7 years ago

Photo

Secret Warriors #8 Review

spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers

The next chapter of the adventures of The Secret Warriors begins here, by the creative team of writer, Mathew Rosenberg, illustrators, Javier Garrón and Will Robinson, and colorist, Israel Silva. Recap and review following the jump.

The very much lives-up-to-his-name Mr. Sinister has been kidnapping young Inhuman subjects as part of some nefarious scheme and this has included Inferno’s infant niece. And this has proven reason enough to get the band back together as The Secret Warriors reform to hunt down Sinister’s forces and rescue Inferno’s niece.

The tale opens up on a school playground somewhere in Dearborn Michigan where a group of youngster are playing with action figures. These kids are interrupted by Sinister and his accomplices, The Dark Beast and a group of bizarre and monstrous creatures. It turns out that one of these kids possesses genetic marking identifying him as in some way special… that he is a Mutant or Inhuman. Sinister has some sort of device, what looks to be a brain in a mechanical box, that acts as a detector for genetic aberrants. And having identifying the subject, Sinister’s goons abduct the child, putting a bag on his head and hauling him away.

Although it is illustrated in a somewhat comical fashion, it’s actually a rather jarring and frightening scene.

The narrative quickly shifts to Venice, Italy, to the executive offices of The Ennilux Corporation. Ahura, the son of Medusa and Black Bolt and current CEO of Ennilux has come to the branch headquarters to see what his newest employee, Karnak, has been up to. Ahura had hired Karnak to work out kinks in the company’s global shipping network, yet he has come to Karnak’s office to find it transformed into some dimly lit den, with he windows boarded up and plethora of notes tapped to the wall.

Karnak emerges dressed in nothing more than a loin cloth. He informs Ahura that he already has the branch’s shipping network up to 98% efficiency, but that he must now be allowed to continue with his work. Ahura knows that Karnak is up to much more than he is saying, but is quickly ushered out of the room.

Once more the narrative shifts, this time to the suburbs outside of Toledo, Ohio. This is where Dante’s sister, Gabby, lives and the scene of the crime when The Dark Beast had kidnapped Gabby’s baby. Gabby and the reformed Secret Warriors gather around, spitballing ideas over how to locate the abducted child.

Gabby’s consternation over her missing daughter is compounded by the Warriors constant bickering… for which Ms. Marvel apologizes, noting that bickering is pretty much what this team does best. Moon Girl suggests utilizing Karnak, but Quake disagrees; Ms. Marvel opts to contact the X-Men, but Dante refuses seeing them as being part of the problem. Their argument is interrupted when a loud thump echo out from up stairs.

The Warriors rush to investigate and discover that The Mutant and X-Man known as Magik has teleported into the home. After a brief and tense standoff, Magik lowers her sword, stating that she has come to aid the Warriors.

The Dark Beast had escaped on her watch and she is offering her assistance as recompense. And it turns out that Magik has learned of The Warriors’ location by way of ‘The Forum,’ and internet chat board in which the various young heroes (and Hercules) all talk with one another, gossip and exchange mission details.

Moon Girl had initially contacted Mass Master hoping The Power Pack might assist them. Mass Master then spread the matter to other young heroes, it gradually leading to the younger X-Men and finally to Magik. This is all merely a narrative tact for explaining how Magik might know the location of The Warriors, but is also my favorite part of the issue and I hope to see much more of The Forum in other comics; it’s a great means of tethering together all of the younger (or as Lunella phrases it, ‘cooler’) heroes out there (...and Hercules).

Anyways, Dante is reluctant to accept Magik’s help, but his sister won’t hear of it. She is desperate to get her daughter back and willing to take whatever help is offered - even if it comes from a creepy teleporting young woman with a giant sword and overly revealing outfit…

And Magik’s aide proves helpful indeed. Her ability to teleport the entire squad through portals that tie through a hellish limbo enables the team to investigate multiple locations in tracking down the Dark Beast. Although traveling in this fashion ends up being extremely disquieting for the team, especially Dante who cannot help but to vomit with every jump.

The various leads the team track down are provided by Moon Girl and her trusty laptop as she utilizes her extreme intellect to search the internet for purchases of the kind of laboratory equipment the Dark Beast might require for his diabolical plans.

A cut-away scene shows Karnak at his own computer, connected in to Lunella’s search. Here I must admit I was a bit confused as to what was going down. It is not clear (to me at least) whether Karnak was assisting Lunella in her search, or actually obstructing and rerouting her so to cover up his own involvement.

Whatever the case, Karnak’s interference leads the team to an industrial lot in Clearwater, Florida. There the squad comes across what appears to be just a normal work plant. Once inside, however, the Warriors encounter a host of monstrous foes. These creatures seem to be some sort of test subjects whom the Dark Beast has mutated and stitched together so to create powerful minions.

The team engages the monsters. One gets the drop on Quake, but Inferno has her back and shoot it down (and this leads to a rather embarrassing exchange where Dante tries to act cool and flirty with Daisy but trips over his words).

Magic is a good deal more savage than Ms. Marvel is used to. She intercedes to both save Magik from the monster as well as save the monster from Magik. Magic is clearly annoyed by Ms. Marvel’s innocent idealism; whereas Ms. Marvel is clearly disquieted by Magik’s ruthlessness.

In any case, these monsters prove no match for the Warriors and they quickly defeat them. In the wake of the battle, Moon Girl ventures deeper into the facility and discovers a huge antechamber where countless kids are imprisoned in some sort of stasis chambers. It is not clear who these kids are and what they are being used for. Are they all latent Inhumans? are some Mutants? Are they going to be okay? It all remains to be seen, but it is here that the issue comes to an end with the promise of continuation next month.

This was a wild ride with lots of fun details and interactions between the characters. The overarching plot remains a bit nebulous. It’s not clear what Sinister and The Dark Beast are up, nor how it may or may not connect to what Karnak is doing at Ennilux.

The Warriors’ protracted search for The Dark Beast felt very much like just an excuse for funny banter and sight gags. To this extent, the issue as a whole doesn’t lift above the sum of its parts… which is fine in that the interchanges between the characters is so much fun.

The highlights of these interactions include Quake and Magik bonding over their both feeling annoyed by Ms. Marvel, the running gag of Dante puking every time the team teleports, Karnak’s particular idea of what constitutes ‘business casual’ attire, Dante’s botched effort to flirt with Daisy, and, of course, The Forum. Getting to see The Forum in and of itself is worth the cover price…

Javier Garrón illustrated the majority of the issue, with Will Robinson illustrating the scenes in Italy between Karnak and Ahura. Both are terrific artists, but I did not feel the two styles gelled together well. The shift in artistic styles was a bit jarring and sort of took me out of the story, although this is likely a matter of personal tastes and I can imagine there are other readers who like the shifting of artistic styles.

Garrón’s knack for facial expressions is heavily leaned upon in Rosenberg’s script. He really excels at capturing gestures of exasperation, annoyance, mirthfulness and confusion on the character’s faces. And this really hammers home the punchlines in the dialogue. It can be an easy matter to take for granted, but Rosenberg and Garrón work together especially well.

And Garrón’s ability to relay facial expression on a more subtle scale is especially impressive considering the high number of panels he squeezes onto the page.

I’m actually not a huge fan of how Garrón draws monsters, they’re a little too cartoony for my tastes, but once more this is just a matter of personal preferences.

As always, Israel Silva’s coloring is exceptional throughout.

From it’s first issue, Secret warriors has been a very character-driven book. The plots have often been secondary to the development of the characters, and this continues in this new arc. While the first two arcs of Secret Warriors focused very strongly on Daisy, this one feels much more evenly spread out with all of the characters getting relatively equal attention.

The inclusion of Magik works quite well. The hows and whys of her joining the team are kind of shoe-horned in, but it works just fine and Magik fits in with the team right off the bat. Her stodgy contempt for Ms. Marvel’s idealism and challenging of Quake’s leadership skills fits in nicely with the general acrimony that existed between the teammates to begin with. Malik’s inclusion looks as though it will help to further the development of the Warriors; although it is yet to be seen whether or not this will be bilateral, if she will grow or change by way of being apart of the team herself. Time will tell.

All in all, a really fun read and definitely recommended. Three and a half out of five Lockjaws!

#Secret Warriors #Mathew Rosenberg #Javier Garrón #Israel Silva #Wil Robinson #spoilers #Inhumans #review

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teesunflowerus · 5 years ago

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rhetoricfemme · 7 years ago

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JeanMarco Month (June 24) Prompt 5: Choices/Instinct

@jeanmarcomonth might have technically ended yesterday, but I’m finally able to contribute something I’ve written, and I’m near certain that this story would not have come into fruition without all of the encouragement that JMM has provided. To the mods who created and maintained this month, and to everyone who uploaded content, thank you so much for making it great!

Rating: Teen and Up

Summary: Jean returns close to home after graduating college. Thrilled to be among family and drawing closer to a new chapter in life, he encounters a few elements of surprise along the way.

Marco is a musician finishing graduate school. Content to go it alone, he's working to establish himself professionally in a community he's come to love, but ends up with more than he bargained for when Jean returns home.

Excerpt: The air is thick and humid as stars and streetlamps vie for attention on Grand River Avenue. String after string of Italian lights and neon signs brighten the faces of still-relaxed college students looking to soak up their last week of freedom. It’s a few more careless nights out before the Michigan cold comes on and academics have swallowed them whole.

Conversation and music meld into one steady hum up and down the bustling sidewalks, and for a while it’s the only thing Jean Kirschstein is able to hear. He turns his head back toward his roommate and friend, Eren, whose been by his side most nights out since they first met in their Ohio State dorm four long years ago.

Now, Jean strains his ear while pushing against the pub door that spills them back out into the late August evening. He figures they have about a mile on foot to go, and is intent on making it to their next destination while both of them are still sober.

Walking several blocks north, they banter aimlessly as Jean turns them down a side street, mentally relearning the college town he frequented as a teenager; the campus neighborhoods he’d received text directions for as they all grew older and began to go their separate ways. The directions are simple enough, and he chooses to forgo the map tonight, as he’d like to properly learn the town he’s about to call home.

Read the rest of Chapter One on AO3!

#jeanmarcomonth #jeanmarco #jean kirschstein #marco bodt #snk #mine #my writing #fan fiction

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imkipsy · 8 years ago

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I swiped right on everyone on Tinder (yes, everyone)

I previously began this project in my first year of college, I was 18 and beginning my studies as a theatre/biology double major at The Ohio State University. Shortly after reaching 1500 matches, I began to fear for my safety, and aborted the social experiment right after the beginning of my second semester. Now, being in my third year and two years older, I thought it would be a good idea to restart my project in hopes of gathering information on interesting people and (maybe) even finding someone I like. I am a seasoned user of Tinder, averaging about seven dates, two casual hookups, and even a couple of possible relationships. I am starting this article at the milestone of my 2000th like, a phrase I never thought I would be writing in a Word document while sitting on my mother’s couch. And yes, I swiped right on EVERYONE, minus a select few who were maybe going to compromise my safety (exes, past abusers, etc.). After almost a month of the project, I feel the need to talk about my findings and what this could possibly mean for the future of casual dating.

This project revival began just before the new year of 2017 after a stimulating conversation with my roommate about crazy dates and exes (Tinder or otherwise). I had been an on/off Tinder user for about 2 years, only rendering it useless when I was monogamous or having one of my “independent woman who don’t need no man” emotional bouts. My roommate, on the other hand, was a more recent victim of the hells of Tinder; finding it tough to convince herself to keep using the app for the chance of clicking with someone. We discussed writing a Tinder episode for a small show we were collaborating on outside of our academics, a project we were using to showcase the actuality of college life. This was the catalyst for both of us remaking both of our profiles and PAYING for Tinder Plus. We both signed up for a month membership, offering us a whole slew of new options for the app, like boosts during peak hours and unlimited likes. We decided to make hyperbolic versions of ourselves, seeing how much a man could handle before questioning his swipe decision. Our pictures featured tasteful cleavage and good angles, all necessary for reeling in ~the perfect man~. My bio read, “0 in the pink, 5 in the stink”, a phrase that I do not remember the source of, but seemed fitting for this version of Kelsey. I also had my preferences set to “men and women” since I am a bisexual woman, but none of the women bothered me. My roommate’s bio said, “hit me with the shocker”, so let’s just say that we were not setting ourselves up for success. We began swiping and found ourselves reeling in the instant gratification and validation in our attractiveness as women. The only song that was completely applicable at this point was “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls (I wish they made more music). We were quickly up to 500 matches after a few hours, and the messages were flowing in so fast that we had to put our phones on “Do Not Disturb”. Some of my messages were questioning the whole anal fisting thing, many others were ultimately willing and on board to participate in a night of intimate annihilation. However, most the messages were duds like “hey” or “wyd” BUT I have included some mighty fine gems here for your satisfaction.

Let me just say up front, I matched with some real creeps, like people you see on the street and think “this person looks like they might murder me” or “I am getting a very strange vibe from you so I am hoping you can hear my thoughts and hear me say, you look lovely today!!”. People on campus began to recognize me; sometimes I would walk to class only to read a message 20 minutes later saying:

This began to make me paranoid; these men recognized me, but I would not be able to pick any of them out of a lineup. I walked around campus, locking eyes with people on my way to class and wondering if they knew me. My roommate had ceased her part of the project after beginning to feel freaked out by the sheer number of men who were actively trying to meet her. I did not judge her for this intelligent course of action. After being picked out a few times on campus, I took a short hiatus from my swiping and did not message anyone back for a couple weeks. Some men were belligerent, insulting me and my attitude after a day or two of not messaging back. A few men were persistent, messaging days, sometimes hours, in a row in hopes that I would respond with some witty banter. With 2000 people, it was very difficult for me to keep track of who I was responding to and who was sending me new messages. Tinder’s infrastructure was literally unable to handle the amount of matches I had, showing that people had messaged me when they had not and losing some of my matches in the void. After my hiatus, I was a little sobered to the whole experiment; I had lost my initiative to continue swiping and accumulating more messages for SCIENCE. Although, not everything was terrible with this project since it allowed me to get to some really cool people faster by bypassing Tinder’s match algorithm/design.

In total, I gave my number to and/or met three of the matches I accumulated during my second run of the project. I hooked up casually with one man, talk continuously with another, and am casually dating my most recent, normal match. The struggle with this is, how do you tell someone that you swiped right on everyone, even them? Does this emotionally compromise the other person? Does it bring to question your sanity and way of living when they find out that you have been messing with men on a dating app for over two years? I have told two of the three men about my project, and they did not seem to have an issue with it, albeit maybe a twinge of judgment and pain at the initial reaction. And I feel bad, I really do. I know that many of these men are just looking for casual fun, or even serious relationships. One guy even told me that I was his first match after a few months of using the app, something I had never thought about over the time span of my experiment. But, it is hurtful, what I did and am currently doing. Something as simple as a right swipe is enough to be emotionally affecting to another person, and that sucks. BUT, a lot of these men are uncool, many of them making attempts to sexually harass me, ask for nude pictures, or find out where I live. It does not absolve me of guilt, or give me a reason to continue my swiping extravaganza.

The whole point of the experiment, for me, was to learn about the app, and the people on it. It is such a dark and mysterious topic, who uses Tinder, and what are they there for? No one wants to admit to using the app, but why? Why is our generation so afraid to admit that they don’t use “traditional” methods to find companionship? Is it because of past generations judging us for using these apps? Or is it because we feel ashamed or unable to find love in the ways our parents did? I still do not know the answer, and I do not know why most people use Tinder. Many men asked me, “so why are you here??” because there is no ONE answer to this question. Tinder is not defined in its usage as a casual dating app, or a serious one either. I have friends who have had long, fulfilling relationships from Tinder, and others who have vowed to never use the app again because of their experiences. We have reached a new age of dating, there is more criteria than ever before when looking for a possible partner. Politics, religion, values, ethics, academics, feminism, emotional/mental health, these factors now play a role in today’s age of companionship that they may not have previously. My mom is a liberal Democrat from Michigan, my stepfather a conservative Republican from Ohio. These two would most likely never be together today if their Tinder bios had been available up front with this information. I know, personally, I would never be able to date someone who was not a feminist or unwilling to stand with my social values. This information was not as readily available to past generations as it is to millennials. And that’s a good thing, being able to feel someone out before emotionally opening yourself. We have immediate access to Facebook likes, Instagram posts, tweets, and other things that can help us determine the personality of the person on the screen.

We have a lot to learn about these new apps as means of finding love or friendship. And while this experiment may prove futile in the face of emotions and statistics, I have learned a lot about myself and what I want in a potential partner. I know that I need someone who is willing to deal with my past of being emotionally abused, and I need to be willing to open myself more to someone. I have found out a lot through reading messages from men who were outright asking me for naked pictures in their first message. I have learned that a lot of men in college are unsure, unconfident, and very willing to put themselves on the line. I hope, from this project, that we can all learn, together, how our new age of dating works; but, for now, we are all trapped in the hell of “no labels” and constant wondering if we are normal in our ways. Let me be the first to say, there is NOTHING wrong with casually dating, hooking up, or one night standing it with someone. And it is OKAY to not want to do any of that, either. But, it is NOT okay to judge others in their search for themselves and their sexuality. We need to be understanding of each other as we move into the digital age of dating, and our first step needs to be erasing the stigma surrounding casual dating.

#tinder #writing #casual dating #dating app

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blogparadiseisland · 6 years ago

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Nature These Firms Say They Can Help Prevent School Shootings and Suicides. Do They?

Nature These Firms Say They Can Help Prevent School Shootings and Suicides. Do They? Nature These Firms Say They Can Help Prevent School Shootings and Suicides. Do They? http://www.nature-business.com/nature-these-firms-say-they-can-help-prevent-school-shootings-and-suicides-do-they/

Nature

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Employees at Social Sentinel in Burlington, Vt. “If a student is posting about shooting their teacher, we would hope we’d be able to find something like that,” said Gary Margolis, the company’s chief executive.CreditCreditHilary Swift for The New York Times

Hours after the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Fla., companies that market their services to schools began to speak up. “Governor, take pride that a Vermont-based company is helping schools identify the violence before it happens,” one company wrote on Twitter to Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont.

The chief executive of another company appeared on the news to boast of a “home run”: Its algorithms, he said, had helped prevent two student suicides.

To an anguished question that often follows school shootings — Why didn’t anyone spot the warning signs? — these companies have answered with a business model: 24/7 monitoring of student activity on social media.

Often without advance warning to students and parents, the companies flag posts like those of Auseel Yousefi, who was expelled in 2013 from his high school in Huntsville, Ala., for Twitter posts made on the last day of his junior year. “A kid has a right to be who they want outside of school,” he said later.

More than 100 public school districts and universities, faced with the prospect that the next attacker may be among their own students, have hired social media monitoring companies over the past five years, according to a review of school spending records. And each successive tragedy brings more customers: In the weeks after the Parkland attack, dozens of schools entered into such contracts, even though there is little evidence that the programs work as promised.

The customers have included districts reeling in the aftermath of shootings, like the Newtown Public Schools in Connecticut; some of the nation’s largest urban school systems, like Los Angeles and Chicago; and prominent universities like Michigan State and Florida State. The monitoring is one of a host of products and services, including active shooter insurance and facial recognition technology, that are being marketed to schools amid questions about their value.

“If it helps save one life, it’s worth every dollar spent on it,” said Chris Frydrych, the chief executive of Geo Listening, a California company whose website says, “Don’t miss out on the opportunity to listen.”

In many cases the monitoring contracts have not worked out as planned. There is little evidence the companies have helped ferret out brewing threats of violence, bullying or self-harm, according to a review of contracts, marketing materials and emails obtained through public records requests.

But in hiring them, schools expand the traditional boundaries of their responsibility, and perhaps, experts say, their liability. And, the documents show, they vacuum up hundreds of harmless posts, raising questions about student privacy.

One of the posts by Mr. Yousefi, now 22, said he was going to “chop” a teacher “in the throat,” which he said was an inside joke among the class, the teacher included. He believes his posts were brought to the school’s attention by a social media monitoring company seeking clients.

“It takes authority and extends it to an inappropriate extent in a way that’s truly terrifying,” he said. Shortly afterward, the district hired a firm to monitor posts, and more than a dozen students were expelled.

The monitoring programs have often been initiated without notifying students, parents or local school boards. Because of their relatively low cost — contracts typically range from a few thousand dollars to $40,000 per year — the deals can get buried in school board agendas.

In their advertising, the companies promise much, but when contacted, they declined to give details on specific incidents, citing nondisclosure agreements and student privacy laws. Many schools also declined to give details of instances in which they used the companies’ information.

Interviews and marketing materials help paint a picture of the companies’ basic approach. Some apply and pay for access to social media companies’ public data, such as Twitter’s so-called data fire hose, which gives users the ability to access and analyze public tweets in bulk.

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Auseel Yousefi was expelled from his high school in 2013 for posting Twitter messages he insists were a joke but the school viewed as threatening.CreditAudra Melton for The New York Times

Rather than asking schools for a list of students and social media handles, the companies typically employ a method called “geofencing” to sweep up posts within a given geographic area and use keywords to narrow the pool. Because only a small fraction of social media users share their locations, the companies use additional clues, like a user’s hometown, to determine whose content is worth flagging.

School officials are alerted to flagged posts in real time or in batches at the end of each day. Burlington High School in Massachusetts typically receives two to six alerts per day from Social Sentinel, the company based in Vermont, according to a list of alerts from 2017. Many consisted of normal teenage banter.

“Ok so all day I’ve wanted my bio grade up online and now that it’s up I’ve decided I want to die,” one Twitter post said.

“Hangnails make me want to die,” said another.

By its count, Social Sentinel has contracts in more than 30 states.

“We’re a carbon monoxide detector,” said Gary Margolis, the company’s chief executive and a former campus police chief. “If a student is posting about not liking their teacher, that’s not what we pay attention to. If a student is posting about shooting their teacher, we would hope we’d be able to find something like that.”

Mark Pompano, the security director for the school district that includes Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, has vetted hundreds of school safety products since the mass shooting there. In 2015, impressed by Social Sentinel’s pitch, he gave the company a try for a few months, but it never caught anything serious, he said.

Social Sentinel struggled to weed out posts from the Twitter account of a nearby liquor store, records show.

“I cannot recall a single incident that we used Social Sentinel to pursue some type of security threat or anything like that,” Mr. Pompano said. “If something doesn’t work, we’re not going to stick with it.”

Today, Mr. Pompano said, the district relies mostly on tips from students, a system that works well if there is an atmosphere of trust. “It goes back to human intelligence, where kids have at least one trusted adult,” he said, “knowing what they’re telling them is confidential.”

In a few cases, school administrators said, monitoring services have helped them identify students who appeared to be at risk of harming themselves. More rare were instances in which an imminent threat to others was thwarted. In 2015, as the first anniversary of a shooting at Florida State approached, a post expressing sympathy for the gunman and an intent to visit the campus was intercepted by Social Sentinel, the campus police chief said. The man was stopped on campus and warned to stay away. When he returned, he was arrested.

Patrick Larkin, an assistant superintendent in Burlington, Mass., said he receives alerts on his phone in real time from Social Sentinel. “Nineteen out of 20” come from people who are not even his students, he said earlier this year.

Real threats, administrators said, are more often flagged by vigilant users, as was the case with the Parkland gunman, whose troubling comments on YouTube were reported to the F.B.I.

Mr. Larkin said Social Sentinel helps him sleep easier at night. And because it can track only public posts — nothing that requires a “friend” request — he doesn’t see it as an intrusion.

“My concern was, what if it’s some odd hour and some kid tweets something I don’t see?” he said.

Mr. Margolis said it is hard to demonstrate that harm has been averted. “How do you measure the absence of something?” he said, adding that Social Sentinel’s algorithms have improved in recent months.

One client, Michael Sander, the superintendent of Franklin City Schools in Ohio, said he had planned to contact the police about a Twitter message that read, “There’s three seasons: summer, construction season and school shooting season.” But the poster appeared to attend school in Franklin, Wis. — not Ohio.

Some companies have backed off from early promises, including creating watch lists that tracked specific people. LifeRaft, based in Nova Scotia, told the Salem-Keizer Public Schools in Oregon that it could help the district find “behavioral information” on “individuals of concern.” The company also vowed to monitor the conversations of “groups and networks” connected with those individuals.

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Mr. Margolis of Social Sentinel said it was difficult to demonstrate that harm had been averted. “How do you measure the absence of something?” he said.CreditHilary Swift for The New York Times

Mary Jane Leslie, the vice president of LifeRaft, acknowledged that the language was “creepy,” saying, “To be frank, I don’t think the software ever really did that.”

She added that the company no longer markets its services to schools.

To use social media data, monitoring companies must agree to specific rules, which were tightened after multiple companies were condemned by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2016 for helping police clients surveil activists in the Black Lives Matter movement. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram cut off the firms’ data access. Some, like Social Sentinel, dropped their police contracts to concentrate on serving schools.

The A.C.L.U. called out Media Sonar, an Ontario firm that recommended that its police clients monitor hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter, #DontShoot and #ImUnarmed. In late 2015, around the one-year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown in an encounter with the police in Ferguson, Mo., Media Sonar briefly contracted with the Ferguson-Florissant School District, which asked for alerts on the terms “protest” and “walkout.”

Kevin Hampton, a spokesman for the district, said the service was used strictly for safety purposes. Media Sonar did not respond to interview requests.

But privacy advocates questioned whether safety was the companies’ only motive. “The companies seem to dance back and forth” between marketing themselves for public health and student discipline, said Kade Crockford, director of the A.C.L.U. of Massachusetts’ Technology for Liberty program. “Those two goals seem fairly at odds and somewhat contradictory.”

In 2013, the Huntsville City Schools in Alabama enlisted a consulting firm for a surveillance program that led to the expulsion of 14 students, 12 of them African-American.

Casey Wardynski, the district’s former superintendent, told local news organizations that the program had helped break up a local gang, and some students were expelled for wielding guns on Facebook.

One student had been accused of “holding too much money” in photographs, an investigation by the Southern Poverty Law Center found, and one was suspended for an Instagram post in which she wore a sweatshirt with an airbrushed image of her father, a murder victim. School officials said the sweatshirt’s colors and the student’s hand symbol were evidence of gang ties, according to the investigation.

Monitoring students’ lives off campus is untested terrain. School lawyers are advising administrators to be “very cautious,” said Sonja Trainor, the managing director of legal advocacy for the National School Boards Association. Districts “tend to find that they’re inundated with information, and it becomes very difficult to establish parameters for issuing warnings to the community,” she said.

In 2013, the Glendale Unified School District in California hired the company Geo Listening in response to student suicides in which online bullying had been cited as a factor.

Lilly Leif, a 2017 graduate of Glendale’s Crescenta Valley High School, said she was summoned to the assistant principal’s office after using an expletive in a post about her biology class. The assistant principal showed her a printed copy and asked her to change her account settings to private, she said.

“She said it reflected poorly on my high school and my teacher,” said Ms. Leif, 19, now a college sophomore.

In another instance, Ms. Leif said, an administrator asked students to delete a message promoting a school fund-raiser at “Blaze Pizza” and “Baked Bear” — actual pizza and ice cream establishments — because of the apparent allusions to marijuana.

Rene Valdes, the district’s former director of student support services, said the program included teaching students online etiquette. “The conversation with the kid would be, ‘Realize that companies are now monitoring social media before they hire people,’” Mr. Valdes said.

After an outcry in Glendale, the State Legislature passed a 2014 law requiring California schools to notify students and parents if they are even considering a monitoring program. The law also lets students see any information collected about them and tells schools to destroy all data on students once they turn 18 or leave the district.

That’s no longer a concern for Glendale, which dropped its contract with Geo Listening last year.

“We discovered more and more kids were using Instagram and Snapchat, and those were not being monitored by Geo Listening,” Mr. Valdes said. “It seems like the kids are always two steps ahead of the adults.”

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Nature These Firms Say They Can Help Prevent School Shootings and Suicides. Do They?, in 2018-09-06 14:17:37

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Nature These Firms Say They Can Help Prevent School Shootings and Suicides. Do They?

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