#because until there's a complete dismantling of this two party system than its never going to be a deomcracy

[gentil-minou]

if i see one more post that tells me i have to vote biden i am going to lose my mind

[mirrormirrormag]

systems of racism in america

Over the last 244 years, the only consistent thing about America is our inability to change our society for the better. Despite the myriad of amendments and legislation, in 2020, we are still exactly where we started, just under a different and more politically correct name. The lynching of Black bodies hasn’t stopped. The brutalization and exploitation hasn’t stopped. The only thing we are innovative in is our modernization of slavery under the guise of public safety and this is because the preservation of America is contingent on the continuation of the oppression that Black people across numerous generations are familiar with. Not only are Black Americans living with generational trauma, but they are still forced to live the same realities as their ancestors, just through a different lens. These trends are no coincidence, and are simply a byproduct of the racism and anti-Blackness that is rooted in the intentions and ideals of the slave owners who created this country. 

The thing about systemic racism is that it has a propensity of cropping up in the least expected areas, even places where power dynamics are supposedly deconstructed to advocate for the equality of marginalized groups *cough* *cough* feminism *cough* *cough*. It’s a result of a centuries long effort to condition Americans to subconsciously think of others, and possibly themselves, as inferior. Since it’s so normalized, we cannot fathom a reality where our thought process isn’t directed in such a way making it difficult for people, even Black people themselves, to look into the way our society operates from a 3rd person point of view and realize how saturated American culture is saturated with racism.

How dense the topic of systemic racism itself should be enough to indicate to you how pervasive it is, and more importantly, how important it is to actively seek ways to dismantle any internalized racism you may have learned.

We are currently reliving a reality that America has just seen in 2015, in 2014, in 1992, in 1968, in 1831, all rooted from a same place of exhaustion and frustration of being forced to live a reality that is inferior and less than to others by virtue of the color of their skin. This pent up anger and frustration against those in places of power is nothing new, and the way we’ve reacted to them is not new either as history tells us, yet America has been unable to take this into account and consider that, perhaps, the meaningless lip service and futile legislation that has passed over the years have done little to nothing to liberate Black Americans.

I saw something on Twitter the other day that was discussing how the things that we get from politicians like the civil rights act for example, are only given because it doesn’t threaten their power or privilege. If it was in the interest of politicians to actually give minorities the equal rights they deserve, America wouldn’t exist as we know it. Over the years, the so-called progress that we have made were the result of desire to satiate citizens and satisfy them with a piece of legislation that ultimately wouldn’t change anything about their standards of living. For every step of progress we made, politicians were able to slip their agenda in there to not make it too easy for Black Americans. Though the passage of the Civil Rights Act was a milestone for racial equality, redlining and other unfair housing policies that still existed made it difficult for Black Americans to use the boost that the Act gave them to create a better life for themselves.

What this tells us is that America’s race relations aren’t reformable. As long as America exists in its current form, Black liberation will never be, which is an important realization to have to understand where to go next and where to target your advocacy. 

The two most notorious systems in America that are a direct result of systemic racism exists in our criminal justice system: the police and prisons. Throughout the Antebellum Era, Black Americans, especially Black men, were vilified and sexualized by white Americans to paint them as criminals who would stop at nothing to violate Southern Belles. This set a precedent for what would ultimately become the basis for the mass incarceration crisis we have today as well as the practices that police use for Black Americans. After slavery was abolished through the 13th Amendment, the clause that says “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” became a loophole that southerners heavily exploited, and all of America exploits to this day. The criminalization of Black Americans aided in the normalization of incarcerating Black Americans, even for the slightest infraction. The presumption of innocence until proven guilty has never applied to Black people for this reason because our society viewed them as criminal by their very nature, and over time, along with other various racist initiatives, America has managed to create a legalized institution of slavery. Prisoners, 34% of whom are Black, are forced to do labor at no pay, and privatized prisons, which are an especially heinous form of prisons, allow shareholders the ability to profit off of prisons and prison labor, thus profiting off of Black Americans which sounds exactly like slavery to me. 

The people assisting the highest rate of incarceration are the police which were initially known as slave patrols. They would catch runaway enslaved people who would often end up being brutalized and even killed by them in similar fashions to the way Black Americans continue to be murdered today. The history of the police is rooted in the perpetuation of racism and white supremacy which is why it comes to no surprise that their practices heavily promote racial profiling and unnecessary methods of violence and aggression to create peace in our neighborhoods. Today, the police have proven to exist solely to police majority Black and Brown communities, protect property, and incite violence. The police that operate in inner city neighborhoods as opposed to suburban police are two completely different methods of policing that prove that through the investment in community building and organizing, the job of the police becomes useless. It further highlights the stark contrast between the lives of white America and Black America and shows that if we really wanted to, that reality can be expended to all Americans (granted, there’s a lot of things wrong with suburbia too but you know what I mean).

America as a whole is archaic. It’s rooted in a mindset that promotes white supremacy and racism and if we want it to change or be better, we have to reinvent what we want America to mean for us as opposed to what we were forced to believe about it. We have to address the ugly side of it, because if we’re being honest, 95% of it is ugly anyways, in order to create a sustainable society for all.

[sonicrevival]

Ultimatum- Chapter 4 of 5: Raid

Oops, I’ve been slacking on the upload schedule here. Life’s been weird.

Still, here’s the next chapter:

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18500557/chapters/44004604#workskin

Sonic: Revival- Ultimatum Chapter 4 of 5: Raid Emerl and Silver stood back as Sonic, Tails, and Amy hugged Sally tightly, as Nicole floated over to join the two of them. “Not joining the group hug?” Emerl asked. “Oh, I had my turn already. Besides, no body,” Nicole replied, her avatar growing to normal size. “Is she safe now?” Silver didn’t avert his eyes from the quartet. “Yes, she is. Eggman’s programming has been purged from her systems, and the bomb has been completely disarmed. I think it’s safe to say this crisis is at an end. Or at least, it’s not a crisis anymore,” Nicole explained. “There’s still the matter of restoring her to normal, but I think I have a solution for that.” “You do? Those mods seemed pretty extensive. I’m not sure we can reverse them…” Emerl mused. “Yeah, I can’t imagine Eggman would keep her original parts after he removed them. I mean, I haven’t seen much of the guy, but he seems like that kind of monster,” Silver added. “True, but if we super-charge her repair systems, then we can just dismantle the ‘upgrades’ and let her fix herself!” Nicole beamed. “Will that work?” Silver tilted his head. “In theory, yeah,” Emerl nodded. “My repair unit does the same sort of thing for me, I was basically a skeleton when Nicole woke me up.” “Okay, next question, how do we do that? I mean, I’m gonna guess it’s not as easy as plugging her into the wall.” The grey hedgehog shrugged. “No… It will need to be a much more powerful charge… this needs to be completed quickly, and for injuries this extensive, I’m not sure if even Emerl’s core will be enough…” Nicole shook her head. “Fortunately, I think I might have a solution,” Sally walked over, followed by the others. “I couldn’t keep from overhearing, but I know that Eggman has another Chaos Emerald within the Death Egg. If we can recover that and combine its power with the one inside Emerl, that should do the trick.” “The Death Egg’s that big stupid-looking space station that’s landed in the distance, right?” Emerl asked, jabbing her thumb in its general direction. “That’s correct,” Tails nodded. “Are you guys in any condition to attack that thing?” “We don’t have a lot of choice, do we?” Sonic asked. “If we don’t go for it now, we might miss our chance, and that’s not an option.” “Alright then,” Emerl shrugged. “Group up, I’ll warp us in.” “Actually, you’ll have to settle for getting us close,” Sally shook her head. “Eggman has the whole thing shielded against teleportation.” “Well, alright then.” *** Having closed the distance within seconds, Sally led the impromptu party into the Death Egg. With Eggman several miles from the station and with no functioning technology to hand, the Robian squirrel still had full security clearance, and was able to simply lead them through the door. Of course, once they were inside, the security systems detected the presence of the rest of the group, deploying an array of sleek, white-armoured guard robots emerging from concealed doors within the walls, aiming automatic arm guns at them. “These are new,” Sonic commented, crushing the cranium of the nearest robot, bouncing to another, then another after that, leaving a trail of non-functioning droids in his wake. “Wow, more terrible robots,” Emerl’s fist tore through another, ripping out the core of the machine, slamming the shell into the squad behind it. “Isn’t this guy meant to be smart?” “He’s also insane,” Tails replied, cutting the legs and weapon arms away from the robots, as Amy batted them away with her hammer. “According to records, he has actually stopped his minions from claiming victory over Sonic because he wants to do it himself. These likely aren’t meant to be that dangerous, and were probably made to just slow Sonic and tire him out before Eggman would confront him personally,” Sally explained. “Of course, he isn’t here now, so that’s only going to work in our favour.” “Well, can’t complain about that,” Silver waved his hand, scattering the remainder. “I can,” Emerl growled, jogging over to the door. “I want a good fight, and so far, I haven’t had one.” “Maybe wait for that until we’re not on a time limit. We have to get this done before Sally’s charge runs out,” Nicole smiled slightly at her new friend’s grumpiness, then glanced at the control panel. “Hold on, I can get this open.” Before the lynx could make her move, however, Emerl slammed her fist into the sliding door, punching it clean off of its tracks and propelling it into the room on the other side. The hologram paused for a moment, shooting Emerl a look as she huffed and stomped through the doorway. “That door was tougher than the robots.” “They’ve known each other for a matter of hours and they already bicker like Sonic and Sally do,” Tails sighed. “Hey!” Sonic yelled. “I mean, he’s somewhat right…” Sally mumbled, scratching the back of her head slightly. *** Progress through the station wasn’t much different after that. The robots posed little threat to the group, even with four of them tired and a fifth barely able to fight in her current body. Sally continued to lead them toward the core of the station, where their quarry lay. As Emerl tore another set of doors away from their mountings, they stepped into the core chamber, the Emerald casting a blue light from pillar in the centre of the room, wires and cables extending out from it and disappearing into the walls, floor and ceiling. “There it is!” Amy beamed. “This looks too easy…” Silver mused, eyes flicking around the room. “You’re right, there’s something in here…” “Welcome, Sonic! I hope you’re enjoying your tour of my wonderful Death Egg!” “Eggman!?” “Unfortunately, this is a recording, and I’m not around to share some scintillating conversation with you. Poor timing on your part, of course. Still, I knew you would seek out the core of the Death Egg once you found it, and the Chaos Emerald therein, and I couldn’t leave it unguarded, so I hope you’re ready for a fight! Allow me to introduce the greatest of the Metal Series and Mecha Sally’s partner in crime… Mecha Sonic, kill him.” The base of the pillar opened, steam pouring out as the shape of a tall, broad-shouldered robot, vaguely in the shape of a hedgehog, appeared through the fog. An orange-red visor lit up, a bar of identical colour crossing its chest. It took a step forward, clanking heavily on the metal floor, as the cloud parted, exposing its blue armour. “Hedgehog: Priority One.” Its engine roaring into life. “Oh, that’s not good.” If Sally could’ve gulped, she would have. “That is actually not an awful design… Alright…” Emerl cracked her knuckles, dropping into a low stance, her arms wide, fingers spread. Her third optic opened, and her eyes narrowed, as if smiling with anticipation. “Let’s go!” Both robots launched forward, boosters carrying them over the ground. Emerl drew her fist back, winding up for a heavy punch… only for the newcomer to juke around her strike, accelerating past her and toward the rest of the group. “Hey!” “Scatter!” Sally commanded. She and Amy jumped to the sides, as Tails and Silver took off. Sonic lowered himself, and returned the charge in kind, curling up as he launched forward. His spinning form hit the robot’s forearm, only to bounce off, slamming into the back wall. Grunting in pain, he looked up to see a metal fist aiming straight for his face. His head ducked to the side as Mecha Sonic’s punch crumpled the wall where it had been just a moment before. “Hey, excuse me!” Mecha Sonic’s head glanced over its shoulder, just in time to see Emerl’s backhand crash against its temple, denting the armour slightly. The machine staggered and was seized in a cyan aura, suddenly disappearing across the room and crashing into the pillar. “You okay?” Emerl asked, as Sonic peeled himself off the wall. “Yeah. Seems like it’s fixated more on me than on the nearest threat, and I don’t think I can take another fight like this, so I’ll keep its attention, and you guys beat it down!” He straightened himself up. “Guys, hurry! I can’t hold it back much longer!” Silver shouted, visibly straining against Mecha Sonic’s strength. Nodding, Sonic launched himself forward, boosting into the paralysed robot, driving it through the generator. Mecha Sonic’s back scraped against the ground, kicking up sparks, as Sonic sprang off of it and began to run away. “Catch me if you can, tin-grin!” He jeered. It rolled onto its front, preparing to stand up, just as Amy brought her hammer down on its back. Its arm swung out, knocking her legs from under her. Rolling up into a spiked shell, it launched itself off the ground, homing in on Sonic. He just managed to evade it, leaving it to crash into the floor, cratering it. Uncurling, it reached out for him, as he turned on his heel and kicked the robot in the face. With a dull clang, Sonic stumbled back, clutching his foot, and received Mecha Sonic’s fist in his gut for his troubles. Hurled across the room, he thudded against the wall for a second time, wheezing for air. “Okay, bad idea,” He groaned, as Mecha Sonic stood up, stomping toward him. Its hand retracted, the barrel of a gun extending in its place, pointing it at him. It opened fire, but the bullet never found its mark, squashing against the forearm of Mecha Sally, the Robian glaring daggers at it. “Unit: Mecha Sally. Stand aside.” It spoke flatly. “Never.” She carefully moved herself forward, stance low. “Unit acting in violation of protocol and given orders. Unit has turned traitor. Unit will be destroyed. Priority system disabled.” It thrust its arm forward, fist reforming as the royal moved to dodge. The new weight threw her balance off, however, and she stumbled awkwardly, the attack just scraping against her armour. Unsteadily, she caught her balance for a moment, leaping forward to kick it. Her attack falling short, she felt the robot’s foot crash into her stomach, throwing her back against the wall. “Sal, are you okay!?” Sonic helped her stand. Even with the beating he’d already taken, he had elected to focus on her. “Agh… this body’s all wrong… the strength, the weight, none of it works.” She groaned. “I’m not sure how I’ll be able to fight like this…” “Well, you can’t be doing as badly as us,” Sonic smiled weakly, trying to steady himself. As if to illustrate his point, Tails’ attempt to slam his namesakes into the droid’s armour was halted when it grabbed hold of the attack and swung him into the floor. This time, it didn’t stop there, however, and brought up its foot to stomp on him. “Hey, get away from him!” Sonic yelled, boosting into his newest mechanical counterpart. Unsuspecting and balanced on one leg, Mecha Sonic was unable to prevent itself from being lifted off the ground and slammed into the column once again. Jolted for a moment, it raised its arms over its head, then swung them down onto Sonic, knocking him to the floor. It kicked him away, straightening up. As he scraped to a halt near Sally and Tails, Sonic spotted Amy charging toward the robot. Leaping up, she swung her hammer straight down toward its head, but it sidestepped, hand coming up to grasp the head of the weapon, stopping it dead with a loud clang. It twisted, swinging her into the remains of the column, then reached out with its free hand, grasping her neck. It roughly drove her into the floor, tearing the hammer from her grip in the same motion. Sally sprinted as best she could toward the Mecha Sonic. Despite her lack of agility with the awkward, heavy body, she was still in better shape than most of the others, and even if fighting was almost impossible like this, she could at least take hits that they couldn’t. Mecha Sonic’s head snapped toward her, and it threw Amy straight at her, forcing her to halt her charge and catch the hedgehog. The robot turned, hurling the stolen hammer into Silver, breaking his aura. Rolling into its shell again, it revved up and launched into the falling hedgehog, rebounding away and striking Sally’s back. Landing, Mecha Sonic turned to face the fallen group as its chestplate slid open, a squat barrel emerging from within. Sally gently set Amy down, forcing herself upright in time to see a harsh red light building within the newly exposed cannon. At this range, all of them would be hit by the blast, and most of them were unable to dodge. Raiding the Death Egg had been a bad idea, Sally decided. They could’ve gotten another Emerald, rather than just running in when most of her friends were running on empty. Just as Mecha Sonic braced to fire, Emerl landed behind it, wrapped her arms around its waist, and flipped it backwards, suplexing it headfirst into the floor. The cannon fired, a storm of plasma erupting from its open torso, completely destroying the central pillar and tearing through the wall of the chamber. Righting herself, she kicked it away, metallic spines scraping against the ground before it flipped over and came to a halt, lying on its front. “Nicole, jump into Sally. She needs you more than I do right now,” Emerl stated, squaring off with the Mecha Sonic as it stood up once again. “Are you sure?” “Yeah, she can barely fight, maybe you can help her. I’ll be just fine,” She nodded, punching her fists together. “This is just what I’ve been waiting for.” Both robots charged at each other, as Nicole nodded, retreating from Emerl’s systems and returning to Sally’s, settling in. “Is this a good idea? My processor is already rather taxed,” Sally asked, feeling the AI uploading herself. “I have an idea, actually. Your body isn’t suited for the way you normally fight, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do something with what we have to work with. I will just need to do some power re-routing, though…” Nicole replied. “Like Emerl said, you’d function a lot better with just the one pair of cannons and swords, though I suppose you only have one of those now. The others are relatively useless and just taking up energy. Once that’s done, I’ll just be aiding your muscle memory.” “Right, right…” Sally flexed her right arm, the blue blade extending from it. “Let’s try it...” Emerl ducked under Mecha Sonic’s first punch, driving an uppercut of her own into its midsection. It staggered, torso spinning at the waist as it stepped back, arm clubbing against the side of her head. Reeling away, she grunted slightly. “Huh, felt that. Nice,” Emerl charged, her engines firing, drawing her fist back. Mecha Sonic responded in kind, palming the Gizoid’s punch aside and slugging her in the chestplate, launching her back. Bouncing off the floor, she tumbled over, slamming her hands into the ground to bring herself to a halt. Mecha Sonic rolled up, spinning toward her. Emerl revved herself up, surging forward to meet its charge. Both robots rebounded off of each other, homing in again. The bladed shell dug into Emerl’s curled form, flicking her back and forcing her to unroll. Mecha Sonic opened again in the same moment, engines roaring to life as it barged into the smaller robot, driving her into the wall. Pressing its forearm against her chest, it flipped out the gun in its free arm once more, the barrel widening and pulling back to expose a small missile, which it aimed right for her face. Before it could fire, the larger machine jolted, rearing back as something sliced into its back armour. Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Emerl activated the laser beneath her crest, blasting it back, drawing her feet up and kicking both of them into its torso, sending it crashing to the floor. Sally flew up beside her, balancing carefully on her own engines. “Thanks for the save,” Emerl nodded to her, peeling away from the wall. “It’s tougher than it looks. I’m surprised that it’s one of Eggman’s.” “You’re welcome.” She smiled. “Nicole’s rerouting power from the useless weapons to the sword and arm guns, so I should be able to help.” “Alright, let’s finish this thing and get that Emerald!” She grinned, folding out her chainblades, and launching herself at Mecha Sonic. Sally followed, activating her left arm’s cannon. She curved around, opening fire from an angle where she wouldn’t shoot Emerl. Standing upright, Mecha Sonic raised its arm to shield itself from Sally’s gunfire, dodging Emerl’s diving thrust at the same time. It brought its elbow down sharply onto the Gizoid’s head, stopping her flight short as her face met the metallic floor. It turned, firing the missile at Sally, but a precise shot, aim guided by her AI comrade, destroyed the rocket. It exploded before it had even gained a lock, cutting off Mecha Sonic’s vision of her. Taking her chance, Emerl jumped back to her feet, slashing across its shoulder. It rounded on her, throwing a punch at her face, meeting the flat of her second blade with a tooth-grinding shriek. She chopped her free blade down, but it grasped her wrist, forcing her weapon away Seizing her chance, Sally lunged through the smoke, aiming her sword for the robot’s arm, slashing at its elbow. The arm buckled backwards, and Emerl wrenched her blade free, cutting across its midsection. The sword ground against its armour, but didn’t penetrate it, and Mecha Sonic rose up again, backhanding both of them aside. It leapt after them, grabbing Emerl’s ankle and slamming her into the floor, before hurling her away, into the wreckage of the central pillar. She stumbled to her feet, blades folding away as she shook her head, trying to clear her vision. As she steadied herself, a bright blue glow caught her eyes, filling her sight. As the light grew more intense, she raised her arms to shield her optics, but even with that, she felt the light pulling her in. Emerl stepped carefully closer to the light, spotting the source. Lying amongst the rest of the rubble sat a glowing blue gemstone, radiating boundless power. It must’ve been the Chaos Emerald they were looking for, freed from the generator. She wasn’t sure why, but she swore the glow shouldn’t be this intense… even though she didn’t recall ever seeing a Chaos Emerald in the past… More than that, it called to her. She stepped closer, slowly edging forward. Mesmerised by the Emerald, she carefully reached out for it, fingers closing around the stone, lifting it from the floor. Outside, Sally dodged away from Mecha Sonic’s fist. Considering how much of a fight this robot was putting up, she was starting to wonder why she had been sent out, and Mecha Sonic kept within the Death Egg. She supposed there was a certain logic to keeping a powerful sentinel within the base, but it was more likely that Eggman just wanted to taunt Sonic by using her. It pressed its assault, as she sidestepped it, slashing the sword across its back. As it turned toward her, she spied a gap in its plating, and buried the sword inside. Mecha Sonic let out a mechanical growl, as it folded its missile launcher into place once more, aiming it at Sally’s feet. The missile speared into the ground, exploding and hurling both robots apart from each other. Mecha Sonic landed on its feet, but Sally landed hard, forcing herself to stand as her opponent stalked toward her. Bringing her cannon arm up, she opened fire, shooting the larger robot in the chest. It paused, the beam holding it back for a moment, before it forced itself forward. The delay was enough for Sally to stand upright, however, and she moved to strike at the damaged area of its shoulder once again. Mecha Sonic’s hand caught the blade, and even with the boosted power, the armour on its palm held firm. Sally tried to wrench the sword free, but it wouldn’t budge. Its grip tightening, the cobalt droid shattered the weapon, leaving her with nothing but her guns and her fists. The cannon in her right arm locked into place, and she lifted off from the ground, firing a sustained beam from both arms into Mecha Sonic. Its arms crossed in front of it, planting one leg behind it to brace, shielding itself from the brunt of the blast. In an instant, it dodged to the side, leaping into the air and curling into its shell once more, diving toward her. Sally aimed the cannons at it, opening fire once again, but her beams deflected harmlessly off of the armoured ball, not even slowing its flight as it crashed into her, grinding against her plating as it bulled her across the room and rammed her into the wall, rebounding away to let her collapse to the ground. Sally groaned, straining to rise from her position, warning lights flashing across her HUD, Nicole pleading with her to get up and flee, but her body refused to obey her. Something had been jarred loose, and her systems were no longer responding. Mecha Sonic loomed over her, staring down at her, no emotion readable in its visor. It aimed the missile launcher at her head once more, when a shockwave rippled out from the wreckage in the centre of the chamber. It turned, just as a blue light flooded out from the ruined core. For a moment after touching the Emerald, the wrecked generator was quiet. Then, power exploded from the Emerald, energy streaming out from between Emerl’s fingers, enveloping her in a cyan aura. Automatically, her chestplate opened, exposing her core, as the Emerald almost flowed into the depths of her chest cavity, before the armour slammed shut again, the aura flaring up more violently. Her eyes widened, but all she could see was the Emerald itself, floating in front of her, before it was washed away by fire. She blinked- That was odd, she didn’t have eyelids, how was she blinking? But as her eyes opened again, she found herself above a burning city. Black towers and pyramids stretched as far as her eyes could see, flames consuming them, people fleeing, a flash of red metal streaking toward her. Her hand reached out, for a moment it looked wrong, too thin, without the joints visible, but she blinked again and it looked normal. “Wh-what..? What the hell…?” She gripped her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut, and shook her head. The screams stopped, the heat of the flames faded, and she felt her feet touching the floor once again. She was back in the Death Egg, wreathed in a warming blue glow. The Emerald was no longer in her hand, but she felt its power within her, flooding her, filling her… making her stronger. Stepping out of the rubble, all three of her optics fixed on Mecha Sonic. She slammed her fist against her open palm once more, popping her neck as it turned away from Sally, squaring off against her. “Alright, let’s try this again.”

[startrekvigilant]

So what was the 21st century in Star Trek.

 We spent the early 2000s recovering from The Augments and their very near-totalitarian rule over humans. We develop technology, like the Millennium Gate in 2012 (Star Trek: Voyager), a superstructure that would serve as a prototype for space colonization.

 By the mid-to-late 2020s we had continued our development of ships that would eventually surpass the model we banished Khan and his like in. But it was becoming increasingly clear that another world war was happening.

 In fact, World War III broke out in 2026, apparently due to an “Eastern Coalition” making a direct attack on the United States of America (Star Trek: First Contact). The ensuing years the war went on with differing levels of intensity and size, and the world became steadily more violent, as many famous riots and upheavals spread through Europe (Unified Ireland, The Next Generation, The Bell Riots, Deep Space Nine). 

In the 2030s earth made a few select manned missions to mars. (Apparently around this time the United States added two new states to their union, and why the hell not they were probably on the moon and on mars. I doubt this made other countries happy, it probably escalated the fighting and enveloped other nations, adding to the tensions the world had been experiencing since 1996, the end of the Eugenics War). 

The United Nations reshapes itself due to the changes on earth since its initial creation, and the New United Nations feebly tries to sort out our problems. It did not do very well for itself, obviously. World War III was a fact now and earth was in trouble. Space-faring technology is pursued with renewed fervor, with ships of people attempting to explore further and further out of our solar system. Perhaps these many attempts to further star ship tech was due to a spreading fear that things might be coming to a violent end on earth? Most likely.

 In the 2040s we see more colonies popping up on the moon, safe from the horrifying destruction that was breaking out on the planets surface. But it only continued to escalate. Now, whatever happened to the people on these off world colonies is not specified, but if the fighting is as bad as we think it is, and if it was fought primarily with nuclear weapons, maybe we stopped caring about these off-world colonies. Maybe sending them food and supplies was getting too bothersome. These colonies were most likely abandoned, or they scraped by on meager rations, waiting for the fighting to end. 

The years 2039 to 2050 don’t really have any significant events in official trek canon, but I’m going to go on record and say it was eleven years of complete global warfare. By 2050 things calmed down, and many thought the worst was over, but then the nuclear strikes began in earnest, destroying thousands of cities and millions of lives.  

Then in 2053 it suddenly stops. 

The war ended because there was nothing left, and all who perpetuated the violence were dead. There are attempts to pick ourselves back up again, but any form of government that existed before the outbreak of war was gone. Civilization actually crumbled, it was the end of the world. Just like in the movies! The death toll is set somewhere around 600 million officially…but I think it’s low. This was the first real nuclear war right? All the stockpiles of warheads collected over the cold war and beyond…this was the war where those missiles destroyed cities, wiped nations right off the map. How many nations have warheads? How many warheads do they have? The imagined damage is catastrophic.

The years following are every dystopian fiction writers dream! Scattered bands of irradiated wary humans, scraping by in tents on the fringes of giant holes in the ground that were once major cities. A lot of information about who we were before all the mindless fighting was lost. So that’s a good cop out reason to explain was the canon is so spotty? But pretty much by 2060 human civilization had taken a major turn. People lived nomadically, independently, in a strange sort of dazed anarchy. Like I dunno, I think a lot of people might have died, a lot of important people, so we really were at an all time low. 

But there were still scientists and scholars, entertainers and trades people. Humanity was still alive, but there wasn’t much left. Amongst them was Zefram Cochrane, the eventual inventor of warp drive on earth. Canon is once again spotty, he most likely started his physical experiments in 2060, but who knows how long he had been working on his calculations for.

2063 is when everything changed for the human race.

Zefram caught the attention of the vulcans! What a one in a million shot! It was mind blowing! It was astounding! It freaking changed the rotation of the planet, it boiled the oceans, it drove us all to madness, man it was BIG. Aliens! On earth! In front of humans! Talking to us! With language! That we were able to understand! And they us! My! God! 

Like, it doesn’t take much thinking to realize how much this changes everything. But it’s also hard, yanno? These aliens seem so like us, but everything we do confuses them and everything they do bewilders us. They see our smouldering planet, nearly destroyed, still fraying along the edges and think “my god, emotions will destroy everything.” we’re just confused. No emotions? How. We talk to them and are upset by their unchanging face, they give us no visual cues, and they hardly move their eyebrows. This is difficult!  

And on top of this we feel like small children around them. But by comparison our species is! They’ve been out in space doing the space thing for eons. Eons! They’ve actually traveled through space for so long that a very large fraction of their population split off and settled themselves in a different star system and stayed there so long they evolved into an entirely new species. Romulans! Those cunning cousins to the Vulcan race that will one day become one of our most notorious enemies. 

But we don’t meet them until the 23rd century. And you wanna know why? It’s cuz the vulcans don’t trust us and the vulcans hide a lot of their information from us because it’s unsafe to let a species as primitive as us in on their technologies and knowledge. It’s kind of dark, isn’t it? 

Some might feel like the vulcans are disgusted by us, but feel obligated to us. They might find us clingy and I really don’t think they’ve interacted with other species like they find themselves doing with us. Seriously, we’re dating. Or they’ve become our parents? Or like, our mentors? I don’t know but one year after first contact humanity finally sees itself getting back on its feet. We go from living on the fringes of nuclear waste sites to building universities and sending ships of people to explore the stars.

Large groups of people leave earth entirely, going off to discover new lands, and new peoples in the name of earth. Sometimes these encounters don’t end so well for us. We’re new to the space game. 

We meet a race of wolf-like creatures, the Kzinti, and they bully us until we fight back. These battles amount to no more than schoolyard antics, really. In 2065 the SS Valiant is launched on an interstellar mission to the furthest reaches of the galaxy. Almost as an omen for the years to come, the Valiant is lost and never heard from again (or at least not until 2265). 

So we don’t know how exactly it came to be formed, but by 2067 United Earth was sending probes out into space in order to learn more of the life out there. Vulcans would not share their technology or their information of space life, so it was up to us to get the ball rolling. 

The Friendship 1 was a probe like the ancient Voyager I, meant to inform extra-terrestrials of life on Earth, our language and customs. Basically we were already getting bored with the vulcans and their rules, and wanted to meet more fun aliens, aliens who were down to party.

By 2069, far away from Earth the Kzinti pick on us for the last time. Humans finally defeat the Kzinti and they finally agree to stop attacking us. It’s an important moment for humans in space. We’ve been out here for such a short time but we were finally able to stand up for ourselves. We governed and were listened to. It changed us, I guess. 

So now we’ve stretched our legs, we’ve been picked on by aliens and fought back; we’re ready to colonize. Well, the vulcans don’t think so, they’re still weirded out by us, think us too dramatic. And our home planet is still a mess. There’s still a weird sense of dystopian cruelty hanging in the air, and I guess a lot of people are looking to move out. 

We want to meet more aliens, but we can’t take them back to our place, it’s too embarrassing. So expeditions to find a kind of replacement earth begin. Our starships were still in their infancy, only capable of warp factor one. But we wanted people to get excited about this technology, so we began high-profile searches for New Earths. 

The SS Conestoga is launched to bring 200 colonizers on a nine-year mission to Terra Nova, where they would immediately dismantle the ship and use it to build their new colony. So you see, technology is still very limited. It’s faster than our previous technology, but it still takes a good while to reach our destination. 

Humanity is becoming spread thin is what I’m saying. 

Some humans go out to explore far reaches of space and are lost. Others venture out to meet new civilizations and are greeted with years of warfare with an alien race. Others still board starships to find home on new planets only to end up stranded. It’s a tumultuous time.  But still, we explore. We don’t let the hardships stop us because they never have before. 

The SS Conestoga reaches its destination in 2078, and the Terra Nova colonies of humans begin. Now we can clearly see a divide forming between space-exploring humans, off-world colonists and Earth-bound humans. And the rift will only widen from here on out. 

The mindset is that now we’re able to explore strange new worlds then why waste time cleaning up earth? Because everyone is busy dealing with official space business, earth is once again left to rot.

By 2079 in some parts of the globe, things are pretty much back to being dystopic shambles, and all “United Earth nonsense” is brushed off the table. Humanity forgot about earth! It’s supposed to be a new, bright era for humanity, but our home is still on fire. And the distain for earth is palpable.

By 2083 the United Earth space agency planned to send 200 more colonists off of wasteland earth to the new Terra Nova colony, but the original colonists had grown so fiercely independent they were now actively aggressive towards Earth. 

I bet vulcans watching from the sidelines were just amazed at the boundlessness of humans distrust of one another. Honestly. We’re our own worst enemy. We’re still shell shocked, we’re still not over the last centuries of violence and war with each other. And now we’re forced to deal with aliens? It’s a bad scene man; we’re not dealing well. 

Things are pretty quiet during most of the 2080s, but by 2090 we’ve started to industrialize more planets and moons in our solar system. 

The last decade of the 21st century is mostly filled with confusion and exploration, much of earth is still ungoverned, we’ve lost contact with our largest off-world colony and we’re realizing we know next to nothing about space and the aliens that populate it.

[emblem-333]

In Retrospect, William Jennings Bryan and the Election of 1896

What we are currently seeing in the infancy of the 2020 Presidential Election is the focusing of the electorate on economics rather than foreign policy or a less pressing issue, like “honesty” and “integrity” which usually dominate campaigns. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are the favorites to win the nomination in a hotly contested Democratic primary that isn’t yet finished fielding potential candidates. But these two specifically have declared unapologetic warfare against Wall Street. They put in simple terms explaining why the middle class is in its dilapidated state is the aristocratic class hoards all the capital amassed by the proletariat. While centrist candidates Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand dance around whether they’ll dismantle the private insurance industry, Sanders is the only one decisively saying yes, he would go as far to implement his Medicare-For-All legislation.

There are many imitators, but only one O.G. What we’re seeing is the beginning stages of the fruits of the labor the Sanders 2016 campaign planted turning over the establishments apple cart and paving the way for likeminded, younger representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and IIhan Omar to carry on the mantle for his various causes like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt did for William Jennings Bryan. Championing the cause for the downtrodden middle class and poor masses left behind by an oligarchic United States.

Before William Jennings Bryan the Democratic Party was made up of fiscal conservatives laissez-faire style of economics, strict adherent to the gold standard and primarily the party of big business. The Republicans of the late 19th century weren’t different in anyway besides treating black people objectively better than the Democrats. Though in this era Jim Crow laws ran rampant in the south and the GOP did little to resist the disengagement of blacks. Any progress accomplished by the Union winning the American Civil War, the subsequent Civil Rights Act of 1866 and 1875 and the concurrent Reconstruction Era in the South became undone completely in this time period of the 1890’s.

Just like their predecessors both parties kicked the can down the road when it came to the plight of blacks. As both parties stomaches fattened as a result of getting cozier with Wall Street, the railroad industry and the gold standard, the southern and midwestern farmer wasted away thanks to rampant inflation and bearing the brunt of the various panics and depressions in the 1870’s and 1890’s. Historians rather assume flatly Reconstruction ended because of the American people’s and the Republican Party losing collective interest in protecting blacks in the Deep South, when in actuality the Panic of 1873 cost the U.S serious capital and thus by 1877 federal troops were withdrawn from the Confederate states.

Debates ragged on whether the United State should do the unthinkable: become the first country to abandon the gold standard for a currency system favoring silver. The topic arose multiple times since the 1870s. You’d find silver leaning men in both the Republican and Democratic parties. Populist James B. Weaver won 8.5 percent of the popular vote campaigning on the free coinage of silver. But the movement truly came of age under the man William Jennings Bryan. The 36-year-old former Nebraskan representative commanded the Democratic Party and held a tight grip around its throat from 1896 up until his retirement in 1915. In those sixteen-years Bryan transformed the Democrats from a party of fiscal conservatism to pro-labor with more emphasis on aiding the yeomen farmer. While Bryan himself would never see the White House, his likeminded followers Woodrow Wilson and F.D.R carried the torch for him.

Playing the ultra-boring, but simultaneously fun “Campaign Trail” choose your own adventure game on AmericanHistoryusa.com I played as Bryan and in order to win I toned down the radical rhetoric somewhat. Instead of advocating on the unlimited free coinage of silver, I pivoted to a moderate stance of coinage at a 30-to-1 ratio to allow the treasury time to adjust to the effects of bimetallism and to avoid another run on the hoards of gold the U.S held. Taking home 248 electoral votes and 51.8 percent of the popular vote Bryan steals Illinois from the establishment candidate William McKinley to secure the presidency. The is the text the game reads upon victory.

Congratulations! You have won the 1896 election.

"The Great Commoner" will soon be President of the United States! Nobody with your political views has ever sniffed the Presidency, let alone won it, and with that in mind your supporters are rioting frenziedly in the streets. The sweetest speech of all will be your victory speech tomorrow in Lincoln, Nebraska. Prepare to enact your reform agenda and most importantly the free coinage of silver.”

Yup. I sure will. If only the game allowed you to be president after securing the Oval Office then I can try out this radical departure from the norm. But, alas, somethings are meant to be left to the imagination.

So, Jennings Bryan is President. Instantly the United States financial sectors panic and rally around opposition to halt Bryan’s measures. In the midterm election of 1898 the Democrats, fully taken over by Silverites, wrangler control of the House from the Republicans and a moderate, but nonetheless, radical change to our currency system is implemented. By 1899 the United States is off of the gold standard. Soon, Japan, Great Britain and France follows. Albeit reluctantly. This is how it happened in real life. Only the United States was the last to be brought to heel eventually in 1933 when Franklin Roosevelt did what Bryan dreamt of for so long.

Even in defeat Bryan’s hold on the party became so strong he purged the gold standard Democrats out of the party solidifying his silver coalition of politicians sympathetic towards the farmer and laborers. No reason to believe this doesn’t happen if Bryan is elected President. In fact, it probably happens sooner than it did in real-life.

Bryan was a staunch advocate of a federal income tax, which fully was realized in the certification of the sixteenth amendment in 1909 under William Howard Taft. Initially, Bryan opposed the creation of the Federal Reserve, which happened under Woodrow Wilson. Bryan worries the Fed it gave bankers too much control of the monetary system. The bill was promptly rewritten to suit Bryan’s needs and he voted for the creation of the Federal Reserve. I think this still happens in a timeline which Bryan is election and probably sooner. Swept into office amidst populistic fervor unseen since the days of Andrew Jackson Bryan, though a novice, most likely utilizes the bully pulpit and we see Henry Teller lead the charge on the Republican side and we are witnessed to the most eventful first term of a U.S President in the country’s history.

Bryan calls for the direct election of senators once in office, subtlety supports women’s suffrage and usually this is the part in alternate history articles where the radical, moralistic protagonists falls for his idealism. Except this is all happening during the Spanish-American War and Bryan could have been blind, deaf and dumb while serving in office and the U.S still decisively runs the imperials out of Cuba and the Philippians. Only Bryan had little interest in cultivating an American Empire. An anti-imperialist and pacifist, Bryan saw war as necessary but never actively sought a fight. He saw the United States as the moral arbiter in the Cubans fight for independence. If elected there is no subsequent Philippine-American War and no further bloodshed. The United States gains serious credit among future generations.

Hawaii is not annexed and probably never really is. For all the good I can say about Bryan he was an anti-imperialist, but since he and his party didn’t want to absolve any country not made up of predominantly Whites. Hawaii therefore becomes the smallest independent country on Earth... until a later administration absorbs it or some other imperialist country, like Russia, Japan or Great Britain does it. Most likely Japan. So Bryan inadvertently washes away U.S military involvement in World War Two.

The war carries Bryan to a second-term of the presidency... only to be cut short by a bullet months after his inauguration. His vice-President former Silver Republican Henry M. Teller succeeds him.

If the United States were to abandon the gold Standard, thirty-five-years prior to Japan were the first to do it, this helps the farmer and for a brief time the country recognizes Jefferson’s dream of a country built and supported off the backs of the Yeomen farmer. Again, for a brief time. The loss of their vigorous champion Bryan farmers cannot find a suitable replacement to rally around and this allows for the big business friendly, gold standard leaning Democrats to repopulate the party nominating New York judge Alton B. Parker. A moderate trust busting advocate for labor, Parker benefits from the meteoric rise of Theodore Roosevelt and swings into the presidency since both of the main parties are fractured in the aftermath of Bryan’s effects on the political scene.

No Roosevelt means no William Howard Taft. Meaning no splitting of the Republican Party in 1912. With neither close enough to sniff the presidency Wisconsin senator Robert La. Follette is nominated in 1912 and defeats Democratic Speaker of the House Champ Clark and becomes America’s first President to serve two consecutive terms since Ulysses S. Grant. Since Wisconsin is populated with German immigrants, La Follette interferes into World War One on the side of the Central Powers. Theodore Roosevelt is given the role of Secretary of State and the German Empire crushes the Allied Powers at the Marne near Paris with the help of the United States.

A victorious Germany means no rise of Adolph Hitler. No Third Reich. No Holocaust. Great Britain’s awesome power is greatly diminished, never to recover. The ninetieth century is the German century. As it originally was supposed to be.

Back to the gold versus silver debate. I am sorry.

Eventually the gold standard is readopted and the silver versus gold issue goes on until Richard Nixon flatly ditches gold in favor of neither metal backed currency. Still you see Bryan’s ideas infecting the parties for decades after his death.

Instead of Bryan’s ideas manifesting themselves in Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, they do so in Robert La Follette. The U.S becomes an economic power house rather a military one. Perhaps we’re all better off because of this.

[patriotsnet]

What Republicans Voted Against The Repeal Of Obamacare

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What Republicans Voted Against The Repeal Of Obamacare

Latest Partial Repeal Effort Dies Before Deadline

A breakdown of the moment John McCain voted against repealing Obamacare

Another Senate attempt to repeal portions of the Affordable Care Act has ended, this time before going to a vote.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced a GOP-led health care bill would not go to a vote after three Republican senators said the bill did not have their support. In July, a similar partial-repeal effort died when Sens. John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voted against it.

The latest bill, spearheaded primarily by Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La. and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., ;would have taken funding that is used under current law for Medicaid expansion and insurance subsidies and used it to fund block grants to states. A preliminary analysis by the Congressional Budget Office said the bill would have reduced the deficit by $133 billion by 2026 as well as resulted in millions more uninsured people compared to the current health care law.

McCain and Collins, along with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., publicly voiced their opposition to the Graham-Cassidy bill.

Proponents of the bill only had a few weeks to gain enough support before a temporary process that allows health care legislation to pass in the Senate with 50 votes rather than the usual 60 ends on Sept. 30. Graham called it the GOP’s “best and only chance” to meet its goal of repealing Obamacare.

Until we see new movement on his promise to repeal Obamacare, we’ll continue to rate this Stalled.

Republicans Plan Healthcare Vote; Obama And Tv Host Denounce Bill

6 Min Read

WASHINGTON Senate Republicans announced plans to vote next week on their latest bid to scuttle Obamacare even as a popular comedian who has become part of the U.S. healthcare debate denounced the bill and former President Barack Obama on Wednesday warned of real human suffering.

President Donald Trump, who has expressed frustration at the Senates failure thus far to pass legislation dismantling Obamas signature legislative achievement, said 47 or 48 Republicans back the bill, which needs 50 votes for passage in the 100-seat Senate, which his Republican Party controls 52-48.

We think this has a very good chance, Trump, who made replacing Obamacare a top 2016 campaign promise, told reporters during an appearance with Egypts president in New York.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul opposes the bill. At least five other Republicans are undecided on it: Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, John McCain of Arizona and Jerry Moran of Kansas.

Republican Senator John Thune on Fox News said: Were a handful of votes short of having the 50 that we need.

As they worked to gather enough votes to win, after prior legislation failed in July, congressional Republicans and the White House were on the defensive after Jimmy Kimmel used his late-night TV show to blast the proposal and call Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, one of its two sponsors, a liar.

Related Coverage

Why Do Republicans Oppose Obamacare

Patrizia Rizzo, SEO Reporter

11:10 ET, Nov 11 2020

Patrizia Rizzo, SEO Reporter

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REPUBLICANS have campaigned against Obamacare ever since it was signed into law in 2010.;

But with a change in presidency ahead, the Supreme Court is likely to leave in place the bulk of Obamacare, including;key protections for pre-existing health conditions.

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Republicans Have A Health Plan Finally

The House Republican Study Committee has come out with a viable plan.

Getty

For the past ten years Republicans in Congress have been largely AWOL on health care.

If memory serves, there has never been a hearing to showcase the victims of Obamacare. Nor has there been a hearing to show how sensible reforms could make the lives of those victims better.

When it came to legislation, the GOP only had two ideas: either abolish Obamacare entirely or toss it to the states. Neither approach actually solved a health care problem. They just allowed Republicans in Washington to wash their hands of the issue and pass the problems along to someone else.

Until now.

The House Republican Study Committee has accepted the challenge and delivered. In a 68-page document, it identifies the worse problems in our health care system and shows how they can be solved.

The proposals are bold, impactful and easy to understand. Here is a quick summary.

Personal and portable health insurance. In an ideal world, if people like the insurance they get from an employer, they would be able to take it with them from job to job and in and out of the labor market. Under the Obama administration, this practice was not only illegal, employers who bought individually owned insurance for their employees faced huge fines.

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Republicans On The Affordable Care Act

In the 2012 Republican Part Platform, Republicans spoke out against the Affordable Care Act, stating that the Democrats used it more as an assertion of power than they used it to improve health care conditions in this country, and in doing so they detrimentally damaged the health of this nation. The Republican Party views the requirement for United States citizens to purchase health insurance as an attack on the Constitution. They believe that the financial burden it would bring upon the country, and specifically on individual states, through the expansion of Medicaid is unsustainable, and will harm the nation as a whole. The act was so firmly opposed by the Republican Party that not a single Republican voted for the final version that Obama signed into law.

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Obamacare Repeal Requires Replacement After 2016 Election

Republicans had spent eight years trashing the Democratic health care overhaul, but now that they were in power, they ran up against the same political winds that forced ObamaCare tolook like such a political Frankensteins monster to begin with. Conservatives wanted a complete and total repeal of the law; moderative Republicans wanted to protect certain pieces of it.

Changes Required By The Affordable Care Act After 180 Days

Seniors are entitled to a $250 rebate to close the Medicare Part D coverage gap.

A government website is created to allow people to search for information about health insurance companies, available plans, and other essential facts.

Insurers are not permitted to exclude pre-existing conditions from coverage for children.

eHealth publishes its;first in a series;of resources to help uninsured children navigate differences in individual states.

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What Now For Obamacare

There are not thought to be any further plans for a new bill to repeal Obamacare because the skinny repeal was seen as the only measure Republicans could get through Congress.

However, lawmakers could revive the issue and take it up later in the year.

Following the vote, President Trump tweeted: “As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal.”

Mr Trump’s position on healthcare reform has varied – he has spoken out at various points for Obamacare being repealed, repealed and replaced, or being allowed to collapse by itself.

In his statement, Mr McCain said Obamacare was in a state of “collapse”, with healthcare premiums “skyrocketing” and providers “fleeing the marketplace”.

He criticised the way Obamacare had been passed by Democrats using their Obama-era majority and called for senators to “return to the correct way of legislating” with input from both parties.

“We must do the hard work our citizens expect of us and deserve,” he said.

But Texas Senator Ted Cruz insisted the fight was not over.

“Mark my words, this journey is not yet done,” he said.

Gop Senators Announce Final Chance For Obamacare Repeal

Republicans vote to repeal Obamacare

On the same day that Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a single-payer health care bill, four senators on the Republican side of the aisle unveiled what they called their last attempt to roll back portions of the Affordable Care Act.

The bill, spearheaded by Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Dean Heller, R-Nev., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., would replace federal funding currently being spent on Medicaid expansion, tax credits and subsidies with block grants, which state leaders could decide how to allocate. It would also end the medical device tax as well as Obamacare’s individual and employer mandates.

Graham, in reference to Obamacare repeal efforts, told congressional Republicans during a Sept. 13 press conference, “This is your best and only chance to make it happen.”

To pass the bill, the senators face a fleeting window of time. A temporary process that Republicans have been relying on to advance health care legislation in the Senate with 50 votes rather than the usual 60 votes will end on Sept. 30.

That process didn’t quite work on July 28, when a bill to repeal portions of Obamacare died on the Senate floor after Republican Sens. John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voted against it.

President Donald Trump applauded the new bill in a statement released after the press conference.

The bill is not a full repeal of Obamacare.

It is not yet clear if the bill has enough votes to pass the Senate, so for now we continue to rate this promise Stalled.

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Affordable Health Care For America Act

This article is part of a serieson

The Affordable Health Care for America Act was a that was crafted by the United States House of Representatives of the 111th United States Congress on October 29, 2009. The bill was sponsored by Representative Charles Rangel. At the encouragement of the Obama administration, the 111th Congress devoted much of its time to enacting reform of the United States health care system. Known as the House bill, HR 3962 was the House of Representatives chief legislative proposal during the health reform debate.

On December 24, 2009, the Senate passed an alternative health care bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act . In 2010, the House abandoned its reform bill in favor of amending the Senate bill rel=nofollow>reconciliation process) in the form of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

Democrats Sought To Put Gop Colleagues On Record With Symbolic Vote

Democratic congressional campaigns have already made health care an early focus of their 2020 messaging, and House Democrats bolstered that effort Wednesday with a symbolic vote that sought to once again put Republicans on record on the issue.

Eight Republicans sided with Democrats on the nonbinding resolution, which the House adopted, 240-186.;The measure condemned;the Trump administrations support for invalidating the 2010 health care law in its entirety.;The Department of Justice, in a new filing last week, backed a Texas judges decision to strike down the law.;

Three Republicans; New Yorks;Tom Reed and John Katko and Pennsylvanias Brian Fitzpatrick had voted in January to authorize the House general counsel to intervene in the lawsuit to defend the health care law. All three also voted for the resolution Wednesday.

One Democrat 15-term Minnesota Rep. Collin C. Peterson bucked his party and voted against the resolution. Hes one of the last Democrats remaining in the House who opposed the 2010 health care law and is likely the last Democrat who can hold his heavily agricultural 7th District seat.

Democrats were otherwise united in supporting the resolution, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launched positive Facebook ads touting their vulnerable members votes to protect families with pre-existing conditions.

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First Steps To A Repeal Are Under Way In Congress

The quest to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act began even before Donald Trump was sworn in as president.

More than two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, the Senate made its first move, approving a procedural motion on Jan. 4 to start debate on a budget resolution.

Passing a budget resolution is a key step in repealing President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. It allows the Republican majority in Congress to repeal sweeping portions of the law with just 51 votes in the Senate. This process, known as reconciliation, saves the majority from having to round up the 60 votes required to break a filibuster — a much tougher challenge.

On Jan. 12, the Senate passed the budget resolution itself, 51-48. Every Democrat voted against it . The only Republican to cross party lines to vote with Democrats was Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who had expressed concerns about repealing the law without a replacement ready to go.

The budget resolution includes instructions that provide the tools necessary to repeal the law.

Among other things, it instructs the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to submit legislation to the Senate Budget Committee by Jan. 27.

Still, using reconciliation to repeal the Affordable Care Act has its challenges. While the ACA has a multitude of provisions, the reconciliation process can only address matters related to federal spending and taxes.

Still, this is enough to rate this promise In the Works.

Premium Subsidies And Affordability

The ACAs premium subsidies were designed to keep health insurance affordable for people who buy their own coverage in the individual market. Premiums for individual market plans increased alarmingly in 2017 and 2018, although they were much more stable in 2019 and 2020, and rate changes for 2021 appear to be mostly modest. But premiums for people who arent eligible for premium subsidies can still amount to a substantial portion of their income.

The individual market is a very small segment of the population, however, and rate increases have been much more muted across the full population .

Democrats have proposed various strategies for making coverage and care affordable. Joe Bidens healthcare proposal includes larger premium subsidies that would be based on the cost of a benchmark gold plan and based on having people pay only 8.5% of their income for that plan . Bidens proposal would also eliminate the ACAs income cap for premium subsidy eligibility and provide subsidies to anyone who would otherwise have to pay more than 8.5% of their income for a benchmark gold plan. This would eliminate the subsidy cliff that currently exists for some enrollees.

The 2020 Democratic Party platform calls for a public option health plan that would compete with private health insurance carriers in an effort to bring down prices, and lowering the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 60.

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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.

Directive Ending Key Subsidy Threatens Obamacare’s Viability

After failing in several attempts to pass legislation overturning the Affordable Care Act, the Trump administration took a big step toward undercutting the law Oct. 12 when it said it would no longer continue funding a class of widely used subsidies without congressional appropriations.

The payments in question are known as “cost-sharing reductions.” They were intended to ease copayments and deductible costs for millions of low-income Americans who have purchased insurance coverage on the Affordable Care Act online marketplaces. The estimated cost of the payments was $9 billion next year and nearly $100 billion over the next decade.

The payments have been subject to a legal dispute since House Republicans sued in 2014, arguing that the Obama administration was improperly paying the subsidies when no money had been appropriated for that purpose by Congress. The House Republicans’ lawsuit was initially upheld in federal district court, but the case has continued to work its way through the courts.

In its announcement, the White House specifically cited the legal case as the reason for ending the payments. Insurers had been expecting a new round of payments on Oct. 18.

Health policy specialists agreed that the impact could be serious.

Experts said that lower-income Americans would be hurt the most by the change.

But ending the subsidies could have other indirect impacts, experts said.

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Republicans Fail Again To Kill Off Obamacare In Senate

By Susan Cornwell

5 Min Read

WASHINGTON – U.S. Republicans on Tuesday fell short yet again in their seven-year drive to repeal Obamacare, in a bitter defeat that raises more questions about their ability to enact President Donald Trumps agenda.

The party was unable to win enough support from its own senators for a bill to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act and decided not to put it to a vote, several Republicans said. The bills sponsors vowed to try again, but face steeper odds after Sunday, when special rules expire that allow them to pass healthcare legislation without Democratic support.

We basically ran out of time, said Senator Ron Johnson, a co-sponsor of the measure with Senators Bill Cassidy, Lindsey Graham and Dean Heller.

Republicans have now repeatedly failed to deliver on their longtime promise to roll back former Democratic President Barack Obamas signature domestic accomplishment.

They have yet to achieve any major domestic policy successes in Congress this year, which could hurt their efforts to retain control of the Senate and House of Representatives in the November 2018 congressional elections.

Republicans widely view Obamacare, which provides coverage to 20 million Americans, as a costly government overreach. Trump vowed frequently during the 2016 election campaign to scrap it. Democrats have fiercely defended it, saying it has extended health insurance to millions.

Related Coverage

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[statetalks]

What Republicans Voted Against The Repeal Of Obamacare

Latest Partial Repeal Effort Dies Before Deadline

A breakdown of the moment John McCain voted against repealing Obamacare

Another Senate attempt to repeal portions of the Affordable Care Act has ended, this time before going to a vote.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced a GOP-led health care bill would not go to a vote after three Republican senators said the bill did not have their support. In July, a similar partial-repeal effort died when Sens. John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voted against it.

The latest bill, spearheaded primarily by Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La. and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., ;would have taken funding that is used under current law for Medicaid expansion and insurance subsidies and used it to fund block grants to states. A preliminary analysis by the Congressional Budget Office said the bill would have reduced the deficit by $133 billion by 2026 as well as resulted in millions more uninsured people compared to the current health care law.

McCain and Collins, along with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., publicly voiced their opposition to the Graham-Cassidy bill.

Proponents of the bill only had a few weeks to gain enough support before a temporary process that allows health care legislation to pass in the Senate with 50 votes rather than the usual 60 ends on Sept. 30. Graham called it the GOP’s “best and only chance” to meet its goal of repealing Obamacare.

Until we see new movement on his promise to repeal Obamacare, we’ll continue to rate this Stalled.

Republicans Plan Healthcare Vote; Obama And Tv Host Denounce Bill

6 Min Read

WASHINGTON Senate Republicans announced plans to vote next week on their latest bid to scuttle Obamacare even as a popular comedian who has become part of the U.S. healthcare debate denounced the bill and former President Barack Obama on Wednesday warned of real human suffering.

President Donald Trump, who has expressed frustration at the Senates failure thus far to pass legislation dismantling Obamas signature legislative achievement, said 47 or 48 Republicans back the bill, which needs 50 votes for passage in the 100-seat Senate, which his Republican Party controls 52-48.

We think this has a very good chance, Trump, who made replacing Obamacare a top 2016 campaign promise, told reporters during an appearance with Egypts president in New York.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul opposes the bill. At least five other Republicans are undecided on it: Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, John McCain of Arizona and Jerry Moran of Kansas.

Republican Senator John Thune on Fox News said: Were a handful of votes short of having the 50 that we need.

As they worked to gather enough votes to win, after prior legislation failed in July, congressional Republicans and the White House were on the defensive after Jimmy Kimmel used his late-night TV show to blast the proposal and call Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, one of its two sponsors, a liar.

Related Coverage

Why Do Republicans Oppose Obamacare

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11:10 ET, Nov 11 2020

Patrizia Rizzo, SEO Reporter

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REPUBLICANS have campaigned against Obamacare ever since it was signed into law in 2010.;

But with a change in presidency ahead, the Supreme Court is likely to leave in place the bulk of Obamacare, including;key protections for pre-existing health conditions.

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Republicans Have A Health Plan Finally

The House Republican Study Committee has come out with a viable plan.

Getty

For the past ten years Republicans in Congress have been largely AWOL on health care.

If memory serves, there has never been a hearing to showcase the victims of Obamacare. Nor has there been a hearing to show how sensible reforms could make the lives of those victims better.

When it came to legislation, the GOP only had two ideas: either abolish Obamacare entirely or toss it to the states. Neither approach actually solved a health care problem. They just allowed Republicans in Washington to wash their hands of the issue and pass the problems along to someone else.

Until now.

The House Republican Study Committee has accepted the challenge and delivered. In a 68-page document, it identifies the worse problems in our health care system and shows how they can be solved.

The proposals are bold, impactful and easy to understand. Here is a quick summary.

Personal and portable health insurance. In an ideal world, if people like the insurance they get from an employer, they would be able to take it with them from job to job and in and out of the labor market. Under the Obama administration, this practice was not only illegal, employers who bought individually owned insurance for their employees faced huge fines.

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Republicans On The Affordable Care Act

In the 2012 Republican Part Platform, Republicans spoke out against the Affordable Care Act, stating that the Democrats used it more as an assertion of power than they used it to improve health care conditions in this country, and in doing so they detrimentally damaged the health of this nation. The Republican Party views the requirement for United States citizens to purchase health insurance as an attack on the Constitution. They believe that the financial burden it would bring upon the country, and specifically on individual states, through the expansion of Medicaid is unsustainable, and will harm the nation as a whole. The act was so firmly opposed by the Republican Party that not a single Republican voted for the final version that Obama signed into law.

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Obamacare Repeal Requires Replacement After 2016 Election

Republicans had spent eight years trashing the Democratic health care overhaul, but now that they were in power, they ran up against the same political winds that forced ObamaCare tolook like such a political Frankensteins monster to begin with. Conservatives wanted a complete and total repeal of the law; moderative Republicans wanted to protect certain pieces of it.

Changes Required By The Affordable Care Act After 180 Days

Seniors are entitled to a $250 rebate to close the Medicare Part D coverage gap.

A government website is created to allow people to search for information about health insurance companies, available plans, and other essential facts.

Insurers are not permitted to exclude pre-existing conditions from coverage for children.

eHealth publishes its;first in a series;of resources to help uninsured children navigate differences in individual states.

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What Now For Obamacare

There are not thought to be any further plans for a new bill to repeal Obamacare because the skinny repeal was seen as the only measure Republicans could get through Congress.

However, lawmakers could revive the issue and take it up later in the year.

Following the vote, President Trump tweeted: “As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal.”

Mr Trump’s position on healthcare reform has varied – he has spoken out at various points for Obamacare being repealed, repealed and replaced, or being allowed to collapse by itself.

In his statement, Mr McCain said Obamacare was in a state of “collapse”, with healthcare premiums “skyrocketing” and providers “fleeing the marketplace”.

He criticised the way Obamacare had been passed by Democrats using their Obama-era majority and called for senators to “return to the correct way of legislating” with input from both parties.

“We must do the hard work our citizens expect of us and deserve,” he said.

But Texas Senator Ted Cruz insisted the fight was not over.

“Mark my words, this journey is not yet done,” he said.

Gop Senators Announce Final Chance For Obamacare Repeal

Republicans vote to repeal Obamacare

On the same day that Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a single-payer health care bill, four senators on the Republican side of the aisle unveiled what they called their last attempt to roll back portions of the Affordable Care Act.

The bill, spearheaded by Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Dean Heller, R-Nev., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., would replace federal funding currently being spent on Medicaid expansion, tax credits and subsidies with block grants, which state leaders could decide how to allocate. It would also end the medical device tax as well as Obamacare’s individual and employer mandates.

Graham, in reference to Obamacare repeal efforts, told congressional Republicans during a Sept. 13 press conference, “This is your best and only chance to make it happen.”

To pass the bill, the senators face a fleeting window of time. A temporary process that Republicans have been relying on to advance health care legislation in the Senate with 50 votes rather than the usual 60 votes will end on Sept. 30.

That process didn’t quite work on July 28, when a bill to repeal portions of Obamacare died on the Senate floor after Republican Sens. John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voted against it.

President Donald Trump applauded the new bill in a statement released after the press conference.

The bill is not a full repeal of Obamacare.

It is not yet clear if the bill has enough votes to pass the Senate, so for now we continue to rate this promise Stalled.

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Affordable Health Care For America Act

This article is part of a serieson

The Affordable Health Care for America Act was a that was crafted by the United States House of Representatives of the 111th United States Congress on October 29, 2009. The bill was sponsored by Representative Charles Rangel. At the encouragement of the Obama administration, the 111th Congress devoted much of its time to enacting reform of the United States health care system. Known as the House bill, HR 3962 was the House of Representatives chief legislative proposal during the health reform debate.

On December 24, 2009, the Senate passed an alternative health care bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act . In 2010, the House abandoned its reform bill in favor of amending the Senate bill rel=nofollow>reconciliation process) in the form of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

Democrats Sought To Put Gop Colleagues On Record With Symbolic Vote

Democratic congressional campaigns have already made health care an early focus of their 2020 messaging, and House Democrats bolstered that effort Wednesday with a symbolic vote that sought to once again put Republicans on record on the issue.

Eight Republicans sided with Democrats on the nonbinding resolution, which the House adopted, 240-186.;The measure condemned;the Trump administrations support for invalidating the 2010 health care law in its entirety.;The Department of Justice, in a new filing last week, backed a Texas judges decision to strike down the law.;

Three Republicans; New Yorks;Tom Reed and John Katko and Pennsylvanias Brian Fitzpatrick had voted in January to authorize the House general counsel to intervene in the lawsuit to defend the health care law. All three also voted for the resolution Wednesday.

One Democrat 15-term Minnesota Rep. Collin C. Peterson bucked his party and voted against the resolution. Hes one of the last Democrats remaining in the House who opposed the 2010 health care law and is likely the last Democrat who can hold his heavily agricultural 7th District seat.

Democrats were otherwise united in supporting the resolution, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launched positive Facebook ads touting their vulnerable members votes to protect families with pre-existing conditions.

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First Steps To A Repeal Are Under Way In Congress

The quest to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act began even before Donald Trump was sworn in as president.

More than two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, the Senate made its first move, approving a procedural motion on Jan. 4 to start debate on a budget resolution.

Passing a budget resolution is a key step in repealing President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. It allows the Republican majority in Congress to repeal sweeping portions of the law with just 51 votes in the Senate. This process, known as reconciliation, saves the majority from having to round up the 60 votes required to break a filibuster — a much tougher challenge.

On Jan. 12, the Senate passed the budget resolution itself, 51-48. Every Democrat voted against it . The only Republican to cross party lines to vote with Democrats was Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who had expressed concerns about repealing the law without a replacement ready to go.

The budget resolution includes instructions that provide the tools necessary to repeal the law.

Among other things, it instructs the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to submit legislation to the Senate Budget Committee by Jan. 27.

Still, using reconciliation to repeal the Affordable Care Act has its challenges. While the ACA has a multitude of provisions, the reconciliation process can only address matters related to federal spending and taxes.

Still, this is enough to rate this promise In the Works.

Premium Subsidies And Affordability

The ACAs premium subsidies were designed to keep health insurance affordable for people who buy their own coverage in the individual market. Premiums for individual market plans increased alarmingly in 2017 and 2018, although they were much more stable in 2019 and 2020, and rate changes for 2021 appear to be mostly modest. But premiums for people who arent eligible for premium subsidies can still amount to a substantial portion of their income.

The individual market is a very small segment of the population, however, and rate increases have been much more muted across the full population .

Democrats have proposed various strategies for making coverage and care affordable. Joe Bidens healthcare proposal includes larger premium subsidies that would be based on the cost of a benchmark gold plan and based on having people pay only 8.5% of their income for that plan . Bidens proposal would also eliminate the ACAs income cap for premium subsidy eligibility and provide subsidies to anyone who would otherwise have to pay more than 8.5% of their income for a benchmark gold plan. This would eliminate the subsidy cliff that currently exists for some enrollees.

The 2020 Democratic Party platform calls for a public option health plan that would compete with private health insurance carriers in an effort to bring down prices, and lowering the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 60.

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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.

Directive Ending Key Subsidy Threatens Obamacare’s Viability

After failing in several attempts to pass legislation overturning the Affordable Care Act, the Trump administration took a big step toward undercutting the law Oct. 12 when it said it would no longer continue funding a class of widely used subsidies without congressional appropriations.

The payments in question are known as “cost-sharing reductions.” They were intended to ease copayments and deductible costs for millions of low-income Americans who have purchased insurance coverage on the Affordable Care Act online marketplaces. The estimated cost of the payments was $9 billion next year and nearly $100 billion over the next decade.

The payments have been subject to a legal dispute since House Republicans sued in 2014, arguing that the Obama administration was improperly paying the subsidies when no money had been appropriated for that purpose by Congress. The House Republicans’ lawsuit was initially upheld in federal district court, but the case has continued to work its way through the courts.

In its announcement, the White House specifically cited the legal case as the reason for ending the payments. Insurers had been expecting a new round of payments on Oct. 18.

Health policy specialists agreed that the impact could be serious.

Experts said that lower-income Americans would be hurt the most by the change.

But ending the subsidies could have other indirect impacts, experts said.

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Republicans Fail Again To Kill Off Obamacare In Senate

By Susan Cornwell

5 Min Read

WASHINGTON – U.S. Republicans on Tuesday fell short yet again in their seven-year drive to repeal Obamacare, in a bitter defeat that raises more questions about their ability to enact President Donald Trumps agenda.

The party was unable to win enough support from its own senators for a bill to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act and decided not to put it to a vote, several Republicans said. The bills sponsors vowed to try again, but face steeper odds after Sunday, when special rules expire that allow them to pass healthcare legislation without Democratic support.

We basically ran out of time, said Senator Ron Johnson, a co-sponsor of the measure with Senators Bill Cassidy, Lindsey Graham and Dean Heller.

Republicans have now repeatedly failed to deliver on their longtime promise to roll back former Democratic President Barack Obamas signature domestic accomplishment.

They have yet to achieve any major domestic policy successes in Congress this year, which could hurt their efforts to retain control of the Senate and House of Representatives in the November 2018 congressional elections.

Republicans widely view Obamacare, which provides coverage to 20 million Americans, as a costly government overreach. Trump vowed frequently during the 2016 election campaign to scrap it. Democrats have fiercely defended it, saying it has extended health insurance to millions.

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source https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-republicans-voted-against-the-repeal-of-obamacare/

[mfmagazine]

Nightshift NYC

Article by Star Noor

Photo by Corey Hayes

When they first moved to the Big Apple ten years ago writers Russell Leigh Sharman and Cheryl Harris Sharman were renting an apartment in East Harlem from a man who was landlord by day and a custodian in a Times Square hotel by night. It was during this time that the Sharmans began to find an understanding for those who work the graveyard shift in the city that never sleeps. Through the years whether it was because of trying to stay quite during the day in respect of the man who’d been working the night away or because of the countless other graveyard shift workers they’d met in immigrant dominated East Harlem where 24 hour businesses are a commodity, the Sharmans developed a need to explore and expose the rarely noticed but ever present crew of workers who toil away in NYC, going to work when the rest of us are at play. Nightshift NYC is the story of transformation where the changing of the hours from light to dark transcends vice in an eternal game of role reversal. It is the story of suspension when the rules of the day no longer apply and the men and women who scratch their living within these hours. Drunk Train At 3:30 am on a brisk November night, dozens of bodies are strewn about the waiting area of the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) in Penn Station. Couples lie passed out in each other’s arms, young women sulk in clusters of three and four, and young men vomit into trashcans. These are the casualties of Manhattan nightlife waiting for the nightly “drunk train” to carry them back to the Long Island suburbs. A backlit board of train routes and their track numbers shines overhead, and the few alert passengers wait impatiently to learn the track number for the next train to Long Beach. Several strands of white twinkle lights hang overhead, premature holiday decorations. Metropolitan Transit Authority and state police officers stand nearby, bemused by the display of semipublic drunkenness, especially the young women who’ve long since ceased to care whether or not their tiny dresses are covering anything important. One young woman passes by, talking to her friends about her high heels, “I’m seeing stars but I’m not taking mine off.” Penn Station, on the west side of Manhattan just south of Times Square, is a city within the city. There is a main street with its row of shops, half of which stay open around the clock. There is a police station and a small army of officers on patrol. There is even a plaza, a place to gather if not actually interact. And there is, of course, plenty of transportation—it is the busiest train station in North America. There is all of this, and despite the baroque muzak piped into speakers throughout the warren of passageways, there are few places more deadening to the senses in the nighttime city. It was not always so. New Yorkers of a certain age knew Pennsylvania Station as a stone temple to transportation. Starting in 1902, it took nearly a decade for legions of laborers to complete, and when it was finished it had consumed a half million cubic feet of granite, hundreds of buildings, and eight acres of real estate. From 1911 to 1965, Penn Station welcomed travelers to New York City with soaring columns and the full force of the sun piercing a web of iron and glass 150 feet overhead. Built to last for generations, it barely made it past the age of 50. The efficiency of air transportation undermined the dominance of railroads at midcentury, and office space was at a premium. It took less than a year to dismantle the old building and only three to sink the new one into the ground. The destruction of Penn Station outraged many New Yorkers, and inspired the founding of the Landmarks Preservation Commission that would eventually save Grand Central Station from a similar fate. Pete Hamill, in his book Downtown, writes of what it was like to pass by the demolition in 1965. “I was not alone,” he writes, “gazing at this immense act of municipal vandalism and whispering, You bastards. You stupid goddamned bastards.” Now Penn Station is a maze of underground platforms serving Amtrak, the LIRR, and the New York City subway system. Low-slung corridors serve the various levels, connected by a range of chain stores and eateries, a handful of which stay open all night. A diverse crew of nightshift workers keeps the trickle and flow of off-hour commuters fed and entertained until the last train whisks them away. A number appears on the big board in the LIRR waiting area, the 3:49 to Long Beach, track #14. The lifeless partygoers miraculously rouse themselves and herd down the steps and onto the departing train. The train itself is overcrowded and already starting to smell of sweat, liquor, and the pungent odor of alcohol-infused vomit. Young women sit on their dates’ laps, and dozens stand in the aisles. Some are jostled into sleep again; others recount the misadventures of a night on the town. “Where ya been? In the city? Whadya do?” “Fuckin’ clubbed it up. It fuckin’ sucked.” A girl of no more than twenty coughs into her mobile phone a few minutes past 4 am, “I think I’m gonna call it a night.” The train rolls out into the night air just past Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn and continues out to the edge of Queens, stopping here and there along the way. Conductors make their way down the crowded aisles, doing their best to check for tickets and collect the fare from those who did not purchase a ticket in the station. Inevitably, someone refuses to pay. This time it’s Vince, a thickset young man still pulling from his last beer in a brown paper bag. Two more conductors appear from either end of the car, large men who somehow look even larger in their boyish uniforms and pert conductor hats. Vince unwisely challenges their authority. The train makes an unscheduled stop and the three conductors manhandle Vince off the train, along with a couple of his friends. The conductor explains, “He didn’t have a ticket and he didn’t want to pay for it. That’s what happens when you get a little beer in you.” With the excitement over, the conductor is able to laugh about it. “It’s alright,” he says. “We don’t like to throw them off but he wanted to get thrown off. Usually they’re just blah blah blah, but if they get up,” he pauses, then adds simply, “He got in my face.” The train rolls past the edge of the city, out onto Long Island. The crowd thins and quiets down with each stop. Valley Stream, 4:23 am. Lynbrook, 4:26 am. Beer, pizza crusts, and other detritus litter the floor, along with a fair amount of bodily fluids. A few guys standing near the door recount some of their favorite drunk train stories, most involving sex on the train. Like the couple who stripped bare and had sex in the seats of a crowded train. The reaction of the crowd? “They threw money at them.” Two couples in their forties sit near the end of one of the cars, scandalized by the carnival on display. They are on their way back to Oceanside from a fortieth birthday party in Manhattan. One of the women tries to speak, but hiccups violently, the other describes the scene back at Penn Station: the couples passed out on the floor, the young kids getting sick, and one girl she remembers in particularly bad shape, “A Chinese girl, oh, excuse me, Oriental.” The men accompanying them say nothing, amused grins on their faces. Oceanside, 4:32 am. The train pulls into Long Beach at 4:45 am with only a few passengers. The others disembarked all along the line, trudging home to sleep off the night. After a few minutes, a new train pulls out of the station heading back into Manhattan. Cups of coffee replace cans of beer, and the clubbing clothes have been changed for briefcases and hard hats. Jill, a bright-eyed, red-haired conductor in her forties, makes her way down the aisle of the jarringly quiet train punching tickets and greeting passengers. “Good morning,” she says with a smile. It’s the end of her nightshift on the LIRR and she is looking forward to a day off. With a laugh she says, “I say ‘Good Morning’ all night long. It’s morning twenty-four hours a day!” Jill’s been on the job for seven months and does not seem to mind the nightshift hours. “It took me awhile to get my train legs,” she says, standing firm against the swaying of the fast-moving train, “but I have them now.” Before this she worked days for a large company and never worked a weekend. “It was a normal job. I wore suits, stockings.” But according to Jill, there was no future and, as a single mother, the job at the LIRR offered opportunities for advancement. “I wanted stability and look what I got,” she says laughing. Her shift varies day to day, but she works six and sometimes seven days a week. As winter approaches, conductors who’ve been on the job longer will return from vacation and her shifts will become even more unpredictable. Usually she works the overnight shift, or the occasional “half night,” 5 am to 1 pm. She admits this variability can wear on her. “I lose track of days, hours.” But she can always tell when its approaching 4 am, especially on the weekends. “I heard the kids were pukin’ all night,” she says, referring to the train that pulled in from Penn Station. She also heard about the incident with Vince. None of it seems surprising, she’s seen it all herself. “Halloween. That was the night you had to ride the train! That was the best night to ride the train. It was like a circus train.” She laughs and recounts stories to rival those of fellow passengers. “I’ve seen girls helping out their boyfriends,” she says. “She just holds up the ticket.” She shakes her head and says, “I mean, we all like to do that in the privacy of our own homes, but . . .” The train rolls through the same stations it passed on the way out before it plunges into darkness beneath the East River. Penn Station is moments away.

[mikemortgage]

AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s half-truths on court case, economy

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump gloated about a court case that didn’t offer him the vindication he implied in his triumphant tweet. That capped a week of distortions, half-truths and swerves in his declarations on the economy, North Korea and other issues of the time.

A week in review:

TRUMP: “Just won lawsuit filed by the DNC and a bunch of Democrat crazies trying to claim the Trump Campaign (and others), colluded with Russia. They haven’t figured out that this was an excuse for them losing the election!” — tweet Friday.

THE FACTS: Trump is wrong in saying the Democratic National Committee filed the lawsuit. If he’s suggesting that the outcome of the case exonerates his campaign on allegations that Trump associates colluded with Russia, that’s off-base, too.

In the suit, two Democratic donors and a former chief of staff of the DNC’s finance office alleged that the Trump campaign and Trump associate Roger Stone conspired with Russian agents and WikiLeaks to publish hacked Democratic emails.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle dismissed the suit, saying it was filed in the wrong jurisdiction and was faulty for other technical reasons. But she did not weigh in on the merits of the complaint.

In fact, she wrote that “it bears emphasizing that this Court’s ruling is not based on a finding that there was no collusion between defendants and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.”

——

TRUMP: “Just out that the Obama Administration granted citizenship, during the terrible Iran Deal negotiation, to 2,500 Iranians – including to government officials. How big (and bad) is that?” — tweet Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Trump’s claim, which he repeated from a Fox News report, is baseless. The report said Hojjat al-Islam Mojtaba Zolnour, a hardline member of Iran’s parliament, had made the allegation in an interview with a local newspaper. He is a vocal critic of the nuclear agreement.

The agreement was signed in July 2015 to significantly limit Tehran’s nuclear ability in exchange for lifting international oil and financial sanctions. Nothing in the agreement addresses the naturalization or immigration of Iranians.

Rather than increase, the number of Iranians naturalized in the U.S. declined after the deal was signed, from 10,344 in 2015 to 9,507 in 2016, according to the Department of Homeland Security. In 2014, the number of Iranians who were made citizens was 9,620. There are about a million Iranians living in the U.S., many with green cards, representing a wide pool of residents who can eventually become citizens.

Trump backed out of the Iran nuclear accord in May, describing it as a flawed deal.

——

TRUMP: “The OPEC Monopoly must remember that gas prices are up & they are doing little to help. If anything, they are driving prices higher as the United States defends many of their members for very little $’s. This must be a two way street. REDUCE PRICING NOW!” — tweet Wednesday.

TRUMP: — “OPEC is manipulating” the oil market. — Fox News interview July 1.

THE FACTS: Trump is glossing over the broader reality behind increased prices. Oil prices were already rising on growing demand and expectations that a sharp pullback in new investment by oil companies would reduce the oil supply.

OPEC is the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Members of the cartel, led by Saudi Arabia, and other big producers including Russia have contributed to reversing the plunge in crude oil prices that started in 2014. They have shown discipline in limiting production since the start of last year. Last month, members of OPEC agreed to pump an additional 1 million barrels of crude daily, a move that should help contain global energy prices.

But there are other significant factors affecting oil output.

Some estimates put the reduction in investment by major oil companies such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron and BP at more than $1 trillion — akin to eliminating the fourth-largest oil producer in the world.

In addition, output from Venezuela, a major oil exporter to the U.S., has plunged as the South American country goes through a political and economic crisis, while fighting in Libya over control of that country’s oil infrastructure has disrupted oil supplies.

Also impacting gas prices is Trump’s decision in May to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal and re-impose sanctions on Iran, OPEC’s third-biggest producer. Iran had boosted production after the U.S. lifted sanctions in 2016. Trump has urged European leaders to unite behind him on sanctions even as the countries seek to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal without U.S. co-operation. Analysts expect output to fall when Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement takes full effect later this year.

——

TRUMP: “Many good conversations with North Korea-it is going well! In the meantime, no Rocket Launches or Nuclear Testing in 8 months. All of Asia is thrilled. Only the Opposition Party, which includes the Fake News, is complaining. If not for me, we would now be at War with North Korea!” — tweet Tuesday.

TRUMP: “We signed a wonderful paper saying they’re going to denuclearize their whole thing. It’s all going to happen …Eight months, no nuclear testing, no missiles, no anything.” — remarks at rally Thursday in Great Falls, Montana.

THE FACTS: Trump’s view that his administration’s plan to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons is “going well” isn’t shared by nonproliferation experts.

While North Korea has halted nuclear and missile tests, a full dismantling of weapons is a different matter. North Korea leader Kim Jong Un committed to “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula during his June 12 summit with Trump in Singapore, but experts say there is no proof that a freeze in testing means the North will take concrete steps to give up such weapons.

Most North Korea experts say the U.S. has an unrealistic approach to the North’s denuclearization.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the United States wants North Korea to take “major” nuclear disarmament steps within the next two years — before the end of Trump’s first term in January 2021. Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, recently publicized a more ambitious one-year plan.

Both of those timelines are viewed as bullish by nonproliferation experts considering the scale of the North’s weapons program and its history of evasion and reluctance to allow verification of disarmament agreements. They say any solid deal will require Kim to be completely transparent about his program — at a time when intelligence reports suggest he will try to deceive the United States about the extent of his covert weapons or facilities.

——

TRUMP: “We’ve become a nation that is exporting energy for the first time.” — Montana rally.

THE FACTS: That’s not true. The U.S. has exported many forms of energy for decades, while importing even more. And it’s not true that the U.S. has become a net exporter of energy. The U.S. Energy Information Agency projects that the U.S. will start exporting more energy than it imports in the next decade, primarily because of a boom in oil and gas production that began before Trump’s presidency. The Trump White House has predicted that could happen sooner, by 2020. But Trump is wrong to say the U.S. has “become” that nation.

——

TRUMP: “I won Montana by so many points I don’t have to come here. You know a lot of people from states where we have these crazy big leads, we had 42 and 44 — we won by 44 points over a Democrat. Over a Democrat. We won — won by 44 points over a Democrat.” — Montana rally.

THE FACTS: He won two states by more than 40 points, Wyoming (46 points) and West Virginia (42). He won Montana by 21 points.

——

TRUMP: “It’s time to retire liberal Democrat Jon Tester … A vote for Jon Tester is a vote for Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and the new leader of the Democrat Party, Maxine Waters.” — remarks Thursday at Great Falls rally.

THE FACTS: Trump suggests that Tester votes in full lockstep with Democrats such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, but the senator worked closely with Republicans on two pieces of veterans legislation cited by Trump as major accomplishments of his administration.

One was a compromise bill Tester co-sponsored with Republican Sens. Johnny Isakson and Marco Rubio to make firing employees easier for the Department of Veterans Affairs; his support as the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee smoothed the way for congressional passage despite the objections of federal unions and some House Democrats such as Pelosi. Tester also helped craft a bill to give veterans more freedom to see doctors outside the VA system, an effort aimed at fulfilling Trump’s campaign pledge to reduce wait times and improve care by steering patients to the private sector. Pelosi and several Democrats voted against that bill as posing a risk to greater “privatization” at the VA.

On Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders cited in part Tester’s support for VA Secretary nominee Robert Wilkie as reason for the closely divided Senate to act quickly in confirming him to the position.

——

TRUMP: “Congress must pass smart, fast and reasonable Immigration Laws now. Law Enforcement at the Border is doing a great job, but the laws they are forced to work with are insane…Congress – FIX OUR INSANE IMMIGRATION LAWS NOW!” — tweets Thursday.

THE FACTS: Trump is sending more conflicting messages regarding immigration legislation that would end family separations, now saying the Republican-led Congress should act immediately.

Two weeks ago, he had urged Republicans to wait on acting on a bill, tweeting that they should “stop wasting their time on Immigration until after we elect more Senators and Congressmen/women in November.”

Trump later tweeted that House Republicans should approve the “STRONG BUT FAIR” bill even though Democrats wouldn’t allow it to pass the Senate, before changing his tune again a week ago, saying he “never pushed” Republicans in the House to vote for an immigration bill.

His contradictory statements come in the aftermath of highly publicized images and cries from young immigrant children being separated from their parents at the southern border. Trump has sought to blame Democrats for failure to pass legislation.

——

Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

——

Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

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EDITOR’S NOTE — A look at the veracity of claims by political figures

from Financial Post https://ift.tt/2MWw3hn via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

[alissaselezneva]

Meet the Modern CIO: Partner, not Pedagogue

By Matthew O’Keefe, corporate technologist in Oracle's converged infrastructure division 

The modern digital enterprise relies on technology more than ever before, but that reliance won’t automatically equate to a more strategic role for the internal IT function. In this digital business and cloud computing era, the CIO’s greatest challenge is to forge a new role for the IT organization that focuses much more on adding value and driving competitive advantage and much less on operating and maintaining legacy systems, says Margaret Miller, whose 30-year career in IT includes leadership roles in the private and public sectors, most recently as CIO of New York State until the spring of this year.

Among the modern CIO’s strategic imperatives, according to Miller:

• Serve as the champion of the customer’s digital experience. Working closely with the chief customer officer and/or marketing, IT must create a model of the experience we’d like our customers to have, whether online, by phone, or in person, from the first interaction to purchase to post-purchase support. This model can then be translated into a technology strategy required to realize this vision.

• Demonstrate a deep understanding of, and ability to respond to, rapidly changing business demands. In order to respond to, or ideally anticipate, business change, it’s vital that the CIO be a member of the top executive team, included in all strategic discussions.

• Drive down legacy IT costs. Savings gained here can free up valuable resources to invest in meeting increasing demand for IT resources.

• Integrate the increasingly complex web of legacy and new, in-house, and third-party IT services. Integration (including data services) provides a consistent customer experience while mitigating operational and cyber risk.

• Ensure that business colleagues are well-informed. They should know about cyber and operational risks and should be engaged in decisions regarding mitigation.

I recently sat down with Miller, who I met at an IT conference in Albany, New York, where she delivered the keynote address. I was intrigued by her viewpoint and experience, and wanted to further discuss the changing role of the CIO in this always-on, never-stand-still business and technology environment. Here are the highlights of that discussion.

Get Busy Living…

“IT leaders need to choose whether to lead the change or be victims of it,” Miller says. “CIOs need to mature into leading the evolution of the customer’s end-to-end digital experience by dismantling ‘fortress IT,’ making the boundaries of IT more elastic and porous, and ceding control back to business leaders within a clear framework. We can lead the debate and encourage our C-suite colleagues to recognize and plan for the inevitable changes.”

Miller sees a range of possible outcomes for the CIO and the corporate IT team. None of them tolerates business as usual.

• Industrial artifact. The professional CIO and most of his or her team become artifacts of the pre-digital age. The role of corporate IT is split among business functions, including finance and purchasing.

• Integration, BI team. The internal IT function evolves into a small group of technology experts focused on data integration and business intelligence. With the deconstruction of the IT organization, whereby enterprises rely on a complex web of external providers, the task of providing BI presents significant challenges.

• Strategist/service broker/integrator/procurement manager. In this scenario, the internal IT function is recognized for its vendor-management skills, as well as for providing technology and data services. It retains responsibility for the integration and management of this complex web of relationships.

• Chief operating officer. At the other end of the continuum, the CIO—with deep skills in strategy, program management, vendor management, and process optimization—takes on leadership of the transactional back office: finance, HR, supply chain. Small, specialist teams in these areas develop strategy.

“In my view, the first two of these would be a very bad choice for any business,” Miller says. “The IT team’s view must always be end-to-end and medium- to long-term, which sometimes sets it at odds with others on the executive team. However, this can lead to productive debate and better decisions for the business. If the CEO doesn’t think his CIO can communicate at the right level, then the organization needs to get a new one.

“Whether COO or IT strategist/service broker is the right role for the CIO will depend on the business and the individual. Too many businesses are wasting a huge source of competitive advantage by limiting the role of the CIO. There is significant talent waiting to be tapped and innovative solutions just waiting to be given a hearing.”

Prioritizing Demands

I asked Miller about the different demands that compete for a CIO’s attention, such as security and customer intimacy. How do CIOs go about striking the right balance?

CIOs must constantly ask themselves and their colleagues a series of questions, she says. Is a tactical solution that satisfies the immediate demands of corporate partners more important than the long-term goals of driving out complexity, risk, and cost? Is the lure of that cloud-based “best of breed” service worth the long-term lock-in to that vendor, the duplication of data, and possible compromise to the overall customer experience? Is it more important to invest in securing legacy systems built for a simpler, more secure world and on which today’s profits depend, or to invest in building new capabilities?

More broadly, is security more important than access? Is privacy more important than customer intimacy? Just because something is technically possible, does that mean it should be done?

“The answers are, of course, situational,” Miller says. “A clear and agreed model of the end customer experience, and guidelines for cybersecurity and operational resilience can prove invaluable. However, all such decisions are best made in consultation with a well-informed business partner.”

She offers the example of one organization she worked with that created a cybersecurity advisory board comprising external experts as well as senior IT and business leaders. The board, which had the explicit support of the CEO, not only raised the profile of cybersecurity within that organization, but it also provided key engagement and education forums.

‘Uncompromising Customer Perspective’

We also talked about how CIOs can help their organizations adapt to the digital world.

“The first imperative is to ensure that our strategies are informed by an uncompromising customer perspective,” Miller emphasizes. “In this mission our marketing colleagues can, if we’re lucky, be our greatest allies.”

Some organizations, she notes, have designated a “chief customer officer” with whom the IT organization can partner. In other organizations there’s someone who, de facto, functions in that role.

“We have to create an explicit vision of the full lifecycle and 360-degree experience each customer should have with our organization,” Miller says. “This needs to be not an IT vision, but an organizational one that informs and guides everything we do, including the often-unstated imperatives of security and reliability.

“There must be agreement that this is a priority and a clear vision for what that means for our organization. Only by understanding this vision, and understanding the gaps between our current capabilities and this vision, can we create the technical and organizational strategies we need at every level.”

IT Is Everyone’s Job

I asked Miller about the responsibility of senior business leaders and government officials to understand digital technologies, given the fact that they’re so central to their organizations’ success.

“Given the strategic importance of IT, it’s far too important to be left to the IT department alone,” she says. “This requires business-focused IT executives with a mission and passion to explain, but also effort on the part of their partners in the business departments.

“No program of business education would be considered complete without a thorough grounding in finance. In today’s world, it’s just as crucial that all business executives make the effort to educate themselves in IT and play an active role in decision-making on IT topics. Every CIO I know would be more than happy to spend time with their business colleagues offering a ‘Cliff Notes’ introduction to key topics such as cybersecurity. My suggestion: Just ask them.”

  https://blogs.oracle.com/meet-the-modern-cio%3A-partner%2C-not-pedagogue

from WordPress https://reviewandbonuss.wordpress.com/2017/08/28/meet-the-modern-cio-partner-not-pedagogue/

[mrandyzavala]

The Middle Flipper Is...(Part 16)

…a dolphin who helps herself to her lunch.  And maybe other people’s lunches.

STOP IT

This has got to be something anyone training animals has experienced with any tangible reinforcer*.  I wrote about this a while back, featuring an amazing lady sea lion named Tina.  It may not surprise many people that animals who can easily move around the land occasionally pull some lightning-fast ninja moves and wind up with their face in a bucket, cooler, pouch, whatever.   Also can we pause a moment to just acknowledge how STRONG Asian small-clawed otters are when they are using their tiny alien hands to grab their food bowls?  You’d need some kind of industrial-grade lever system and/or a nuclear bomb to loosen their grip before they are good and finished.  ASCOs are undoubtedly the masters of bucket-diving.

But I mean, their hands can be used for good, too.

BUT, perhaps the wild card of the Bucket Diving World Champions are dolphins.  Yeah.  

If you work with dolphins, you get it.  But if you don’t, you are probably sitting there wondering a) how stupid the trainers are for leaving buckets close enough to the edge of the water for a dolphin to nab OR b) you are trying to imagine how it is physically possible for a dolphin to let themselves into a closed container of food but your brain keeps flashing the THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE message.  So let me shed light onto both of these points.

People who work with dolphins tend to keep fish in one of two types of containers: stainless steel buckets, or Igloo-type coolers**.  Because dolphins are ginormous animals and eat a good amount, these containers usually contain around 3 to 10 pounds of fish, depending on the facility, the animal, and the type of session.  Many facilities feed lots of capelin, or smaller fish like mullet or the dreaded silversides (Godspeed to those of you feeding those little MFers).  

This is the feeling of gazing into a bucket full of silversides.  HOW MANY ARE IN THEREEEEE

What that means is there are like 67,000 fish in a bucket (plus or minus), not to mention lots of ice.  That means the buckets are pretty heavy and not easily wielded (although have you seen a dolphin trainer’s arms? STACKED).  Unlike animals whose training food requires something cute and simple like a little belt, or clip-on pouch, dolphin trainers do not typically move their buckets around as often as THEY themselves move.  You leave it somewhere, do your thing, and come back to it.  

And this is where the problems begin.

When I was at Marineland, Roxy was the known bucket-diver (I’m assuming she is still doing this).  Now, Roxy was not really a risk-taker when it came to helping herself to snacks.  That is to say, if you carelessly left your bucket/cooler on the edge of the habitat, she was going to come up a foot or so out of the water, use her rostrum to knock the bucket into a free spin resulting in it crashing into the water. 

Roxy (photo cred to Jess Aditays, an amazing human being with endless talent)

This is usually how dolphins (in my experience) take their buckets.  They see a perfect opportunity, and take it.  Usually, it spills a good amount of fish into the water (67,000ish) and the other dolphins zoom over and chow down, regardless of what else is going on.  This is annoying for a few reasons: 1) You have to figure out how much food each animal got, so you can get everyone’s daily diet back into equilibrium.  This is basically impossible unless you have really slow dolphins (ha ha!), or if there is less than three, because otherwise you basically have a maelstrom of marine mammal eating fish and there aren’t enough eyeballs in your head or neurons in your brain to keep track of that much stimuli. 2) Depending on what kind of session it is, or how long you have left in the session, you may have like zero snacks left over.  This really sucks in interaction programs, because you can’t get people out quickly.  You can barely get them out of the water for an emergency, like HEY THERE IS LIGHTNING AND ALSO THERE IS A SERIAL KILLER STANDING BEHIND YOU WITH A LOADED SHOTGUN SO GET OUT OF THE WATER RIGHT NOW.  And the guests are like “BUT I PAID TO SWIM WITH DOLPHINS” 3) It is yet another reminder of how stupid we are and how smart the dolphins are.

I've been looking for that everywhere!

So what do we do? Well, we have our obligatory Staff Meeting where we declare that Never Again Shall Roxy (or whoever) Steal The Bucket, and we come up with training plans and make a blood oath that we will not leave our buckets within one foot of the pools’ edges.  And Roxy just waits until we screw up, because SHE knows we will (but we humans are still in denial about this).   Sometimes, you get REAL smart, and you close the lid to your Coleman cooler nice and tight after every time you use it, so when Roxy knocks it in, she just gets a floating cube impenetrable to her handless body.  And you celebrate how intelligent and cunning you are as a human being.

….until you meet Delilah.  

The Grand Empress herself

Delilah, she knows how to open coolers.  She removes lids in ways that I still cannot understand.  She eats all the snacks.  And then she brings you back the empty cooler, and the lid (if she completely removed it).  I don't have anything else to add to this, because her methods are a mystery.  All I know is that she figured this out and acts calmly, almost bored, because she is that effing smart.

But there is a dolphin who gets buckets no matter where they are.  And her name is Spirit.

Remember this photo

Spirit lives at National Aquarium (Nani’s daughter) and is one of the sharpest women I have ever met.  She is a keen observer of human behavior, she is always 10 steps ahead of any training plan you can come up with, she figures out your games and exploits you.  GOD I LOVE HER.

I was told Spirit was a bucket diver when I started working at the aquarium.  I figured at that point, with 10+ years of experience, I had seen lots of bucket divers.  I also figured that after watching Delilah dismantle coolers, I couldn’t be surprised anymore.  Now, don't read that as me saying that I somehow thought Spirit would never grab a bucket during one of our sessions.  I had learned that lesson long ago; it was just a matter of time before I experienced that.  But I figured I wouldn’t be surprised by it.  It would just be Another Smart Dolphin Taking What She’s Owed.

HA! My hubris was steamrolled yet again by a slippery critter.

This is now my permanent facial expression

The first time Spirit took her bucket (a stainless steel one), it was 100% my fault.  It was on the edge, I left to get some toys, and I took my eye off of her for a second.  Rookie mistake, and boom, she got it.  She got a couple other trainer’s buckets in other sessions over the next couple of days, becoming bolder and bolder at how far she would come up out of the water to get it.  But again, this wasn’t surprising to any of us.  We just tried to be more vigilant in keeping our buckets away from her.

So this one session, I was standing on a slide out on the side of the main habitat during a presentation.  I was about shin-deep in the water, loving on Spirit and another dolphin named Jade.  It seemed like we were having a jolly time, with both dolphins soliciting rubs and playing wildly with their toys.  I placed their buckets high up on the wall, at the end of a set of stairs leading into the slide out, because Spirit would basically need to re-evolve her legs or defy the laws of gravity in order to reach it.  Therefore, I felt perfectly comfortable moving to the front of the habitat, near their underwater viewing windows.

Everything is fine, I got it

I did this because it was part of our plan to bring the dolphins to the windows so our guests in the amphitheater could see the animals better.  I brought Jade’s bucket with me, after putting some of Spirit’s food in there, so I didn’t have to schlep two big buckets back and forth to the windows, especially because I wasn’t going to be there longer than a few behaviors.  Oh…oh Cat.

We did a few behaviors, having a great time.  Spirit and Jade got a good amount of snacks for it, since we didn’t do it super often.  I also figured it would be a good idea to give Spirit a heavier ratio of reinforcement at the windows because she was away from her bucket and, even though she couldn’t reach it, she was not over at the slideout trying to get it.  THis is something I am sure most of you trainers out there would’ve done, because it is, according to the books, What Works.

Suddenly, Spirit shot away.  Towards the slideout.  Towards the stairs.  

Me. Dolphin (not Spirit).  Stairs are behind me, bucket in the place I am describing.  You get the picture.

Oh god, I thought.  She is going to try in vain to get that bucket.  What a mess, I thought as I watched her make her way to the bucket.

Then, with the grace and agility of a freakin’ killer whale, she somehow CLIMBED UP THE STAIRS WITH HER FLIPPERS, grabbed her bucket, then threw her body, which was now well over 1/2 way out of the water, back onto the slideout.  And a dolphin party ensued, ruining the presentation segment, leaving me standing mouth-agape at what I just witnessed.

She tried to turn back into this thing

The best part? None of the staff who knew Spirit well was surprised.  They calmly informed me that really, the only way to prevent Spirit from getting a bucket was to secure it in a bucket rack on one of the decks of the habitat, or hang it 35 feet from the ground like a freaking camping trip where bears hang out.

In fact, they further informed me of Spirit’s ability and Little Mermaid-esque affinity to Be Where The People Are in ways that do not make sense for a bottlenose dolphin.  My favorite story involve a trainer in The Pit, a small (and AMAZINGLY COOL) observation area located below the main pool’s deck.  The entrance to the pit is like nine feet away from the water’s edge, and is up on a low grade “hill” of sorts. 

The pit is in the middle of this photo; its roof-top door is open.  That is how far back it is.

The trainer was watching animals in another pool, when they felt drops of water falling on them.  This wasn’t unusual, because if the animals splashed a lot, you might feel a couple of droplets as a result.  But for some reason, this trainer looked up.  And there, peering down at her, was Spirit. 

This dolphin had slid up well over a body length UPHILL, and scooted herself so that she could literally crane her head over the edge of the pit to see what was happening down there.  Like NBD. 

AHHHH

Despite the momentary anxiety bucket diving can cause, it ultimately is a really cool thing to witness.  As animal caregivers, we need to be humbled by the animals in our care.  We have to have reminders that no matter what stage in our career we are at, or what kind of day we are having, we ultimately work for the animals.  It cannot be any other way.  If they want to exploit our momentary lapse of judgment regarding food receptacle placement, so be it.  Let them feel free to do so.  Let them always remind us that humans are not the be-all, end-all.  And let them eat their snacks. 

_________

If not, you need to start your own workshop and charge like $500 per person and maybe give me 10% of your earnings for you know, a founder’s fee.

** I know some of you guys wear fanny-pack pouches when you are in the water, but no one is impressed with a dolphin who steals fish from a container UNDER water.

from The Middle Flipper http://ift.tt/2tEgGo0

[game-refraction]

Game Review: Vikings - Wolves of Midgard (Xbox One)

Released among the gaming blockbusters Persona 5 and the latest Mass Effect; Vikings: Wolves of Midgard may not get the attention it deserves. While the title does little to innovate within its own genre, Wolves of Midgard is a satisfying experience even if it is a bit of technical mess from time to time.

Whereas a game like Diablo III dove into the battle between heaven and hell, Vikings: Wolves of Midgard deals with attempting to stop Ragnarok, the end of the world. You’ll travel to Midgard, Utgard, Niflheim, Dvergheim and interact with a fair size cast of characters that can share in as equally weird names as those legendary locales.

While Vikings: Wolves of Midgard can come off as a bit of a Diablo clone, although, let’s be honest, Diablo is also a clone of other games as well, it just happened to be the most recent one to do the genre any real good, Wolves of Midgard does find its footing in offering its own spin on a few things to its players. When you drop the body of a frost giant or cleave the head off of a small imp-like creature, each of the fallen will drop orbs of blood, the game’s resource for leveling experience, and can be the source of a few grins in co-op, which I’ll get into a bit later. You can pull of multi-enemy kills to earn bonus blood orbs or equip better gear to increase the amount of blood earned.

The environments are also another part of the game that offers up something new; temperatures and status effects. Certain locations will be cold, hot, poisonous or electrocute you should the exposure meter fill up, and you’ll need to rely on safe zones to escape to and take a few seconds for the meter to go back down before venturing out again. You can equip items or spec your character out to create a stronger resistance to these effects, and while those effects occur in many of the game’s levels, it wasn’t until a level near the end did the electricity effect ever really bother me.

You play as the Chieftain to the Ulfung clan, creating either a male warrior or a female shieldmaiden. You’ll race into your village to find it under attack and once you rebuild, the story of stopping Ragnarok begins. Wolves of Midgard can at times feel incredibly generic; you have your two smith’s for armor and weapons, the shopkeeper, and an old man and a young woman who help out with runes and rings, not to mention the crazy old person who claims to see visions of death and chaos. You’ll be sent on quests from time to time from a few of them and you’ll even find items needed to level each of those vendors up and gain access to better gear.

You’ll need money and resources to buy better gear and while splitting a troll in half will net you a nice bit of blood, you’ll also want to smash and destroy your surroundings and leave no barrel, box or chest behind. One thing the game really impressed me with was the number of destructible items in the environment. You’ll gather wood and iron that are needed to craft most of the gear in shops, as well as a few other resources that will be needed in the late game. During the almost 30 hours of play, you will track down fragments of artifact gear; purple colored weapons that have amazing stats, and look pretty sweet as well. I constantly found new and exciting gear throughout many of my adventures to far off locations that I was constantly changing the look of my character with armor ranging from basic iron and leather to crystal and bone. While it may seem like something fairly trivial to critique, I found it rather unfortunate that I couldn’t favorite certain items of gear and this lack of a feature lead me to accidently dismantle or sell a high-end piece of gear more than once.

Vendors are not the only locations that you’ll upgrade as you also have an altar to enhance your skills with. Apart from using the blood you’ve earned to level up, you can upgrade your altar a few times and this will allow you to put more points into certain skills. I tend to play more with the bow and so I would put points into attacks that favored that weapon. You pick a deity at the start of the game to earn instant favor with; Thor, Loki, Odin, etc.. and that will set you on the path based on what weapon you tend to use most. You can, if you want, put points into another deity as well and have a balance of both, just don’t expect to fully level out a character during a standard playthrough if you tend to mix and match.

This system of advancement lacks a lot of depth to that of something like Diablo III, a game that the genre is currently weighed heavily against, but that’s simply because Diablo III is nothing short of brilliant. Blizzard’s giant of a game had a vastly deeper skill system that is just far more rewarding, more experimental and just better designed. While the skill system here isn’t bad in any drastic way, it lacks the variety needed to really set this game apart from the would-be Diablo clones. I do prefer what developer Game Farm have done here to make the game very easy to get into unlike something like Sword Coast Legends which can feel bogged down with stats and menus.

The skills you earn can be pretty satisfying to use but can border on being somewhat bland and uninspiring as well. As the archer you have a close combat kick that is pretty much useless later on, a powered shot that can cleave through mobs, a multi-shot arrow that is good for crowd control, a fire from above attack that launches down dozens of arrows to cause some pretty good damage, and finally an electrical shot that is just.. ok. While some of these attacks are great in practice, I’ve pretty much seen every single one of these skills in other games. There is also a rage meter that builds up and grants you a bit more power, but frankly, I hardly used it as it didn’t seem to be that effective, other than pausing any of the status effects from adding to the meter for a crucial few seconds as you race to one of the many safe zones across the map.

Apart from skills, you’ll have access to special items that are based on traits of characters like Thor or Odin and offer special abilities that any class can use. You can turn enemies into tiny pigs, become invulnerable for a few crucial seconds or lay down an area effect healing spell and just stand your ground. I found these fairly fun and while a few are present in other games of this genre, a small few are fairly original to this title.

The game also offers replayable levels called Hunts that have a specific enemy type to kill and can also net you rewards of more resources as well should you complete certain objectives. These objectives, like killing a specific amount of enemies, smashing certain objects or finding iron skulls, are also present in the story levels and can net you the same types of rewards as well. I did find a bit of confusion on what certain objectives were as some of the shrines you have to smash can pretty much look like half the rocks in the game and finding them all in dark levels can be quite the chore.

Hack and slashing your way through much of the Norse mythology here can be pretty fun as who wouldn’t want to play a Thor-flavored Diablo game and what that would entail. The game works rather well on the controller in terms of combat and with the right stick offering a fairly impressive dodge roll, it can be a very fast paced game depending on your play style. The speed in which combat is offered here, and not to mention just how fluid the action is, can make this feel like an arcade experience for all the good reasons. You have your typical assortment of weapons; axes, staves, swords, shields and a bow. Picking certain weapons will put you at the mercy of a specific skill tree to be able to use skills related to those weapons, as I have mentioned. You can swap weapon sets with a simple tap of up on the d-pad and pull off some fairly good combo attacks. I found that while the game offers the bow that it was the only weapon that didn’t have some cool camera shot when I pulled off a certain type of kill and that the range you could shoot would vary drastically. I also found several instances of where my bow just would not fire and I’ll point out that I never had one issue with attacking with melee based weapons.

You can have a friend join in via online co-op as there isn’t any form of local combat, a mode that would have easily made this game far more attractive. The co-op sadly feels tacked on and not fleshed out in any regard. The person joining you cannot save their story progress nor can they trade weapons or items with you either. My co-op partner experienced several disconnects and despite putting my game to private, it would change it to a public match whenever they disconnected, and put a random player into my party, even if my friend was already loading into my game.  We also had several glitches where my co-op companion would see visual oddities in the level, but only on their screen, of things that are present in the village but are only supposed to be there much later on in the game like several NPC’s and visual effects from a portal that shouldn’t be there yet. I did find it rather amusing that should you become separated from your co-op companion, you need only to follow the blood orbs indicating the chaos that went on without you. What I rather liked about the orbs was as while you were not there for the battle, you can still collect in on the experience earned as if you participated in that battle. You never feel like you missed out on anything.

I would say that the weakest part of the game visually is your character themselves as I found them blurry unless you zoomed in or viewed them from the character select screen. Despite this, they just came across as far too blurry and lacking crisp detail. Environments look great and offer a fairly decent amount of variety to hack and slash through that are also fairly large scale in size. I did find that the game does artificially make itself longer by having you travel back to certain locations and I would have preferred a random level generator for the hunt levels as traversing the same levels again and again can lead to boredom. The enemy designs are fairly interesting and some of the boss encounters are rather impressive, with some of them having some very interesting mechanics behind them as opposed to just being creatures that are there solely to take damage, which of course the game does contain far too many of those kinds of fights. I did find the final encounter to be lacking as I didn’t even come close to being challenged and I took down the final foe without even dropping much in health. The battle lacked variety in its design and the ending that follow was sadly disappointing.

I can’t recall much of the music in the game as is the way to say there isn’t a single piece of memorable music what-so-ever here and the voice acting itself borders on ok to just downright cringe. NPC’s and bosses can have some entertaining dialogue and the occasional good bit of voice over, but your main character, oh my, what a pain they are to listen to. I played as the shieldmaiden and nearly all her dialogue was “Oh, stop your rambling old woman, just tell me what I have to kill.” or “Blah blah blah, just point me in the direction of where to go” and more amazing bits of dialogue like that. Nearly any interaction with my character and someone who would push the plot along was met with that type of response and it just made my character feel like someone who was bored of this game, which I rarely ever was. You’ll select various bits of dialogue in the game and while your answer may sound fairly innocent, be rest assured that they will answer back in the rudest way possible.

I had various glitches throughout my 27 hours with the game, apart from what I have already listed off, but none of them really blocked me from anything I couldn’t just reload from. I’ve had doors not let me pass, arrows not fire from my bow, enemies not take damage or mini-bosses just flat out disappear unless I stood in a certain area and let them come closer to me. Again, any of those issues were solved with me just reloading the game. The most bizarre glitch was losing all collectible progress in an early level and having to complete the level with no items found, which sucked as it prevented me from earning an achievement.

I do feel that co-op was tacked on late in development as some of the issue surrounding it feels lazy and the least amount of effort given to a mode like this. I hate the fact that if my co-op partner wants to use their character in a single player game that they lose everything story-wise they have experienced in my game. I’ve read articles talking about how they may add local co-op and that will certainly get this game more attention, but until they allow co-op to save the progress of each player, It’s hard to recommend unless you only play the game with someone else, or make a character for both single player and multiplayer, like I did.

I personally loved Vikings: Wolves of Midgard far more than my initial few hours with the title would have suggested and with how generic the game can totally feel. Sure, it can be a bit of a technical mess from time to time but the gameplay itself is solid and enjoyable, even if my character themselves isn’t. Combat, earning gear and slashing down enemies inspired by Norse mythology is satisfying here and the game is just fun to play, and that is a very important factor that is often overlooked. No, Wolves of Midgard isn’t as visually impressive as it could have been and yes it lacks some of the enjoyment found in the mechanics of something like Diablo III, but as for a tale about Ragnarok, it’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

Vikings: Wolves of Midgard was played with a retail copy of the game on Xbox One and all screenshots were captured and acquired from the Xbox One App on Windows 10.

Game Review: Vikings – Wolves of Midgard (Xbox One) was originally published on Game-Refraction