#i should have pursued welding right out of high school

[m0thkiller]

ever since ive moved across the state ive been out of a job and coasting on savings. and among other things it has really put a lens on how my ass could never be an unemployed housewife. Every day im trying to come up with a labor intensive task. my ass belongs in a warehouse somewhere operating a machine that requires a license.

[umusicians]

UM Interview: Jimah, El Cézar & Quantum Flush

Many artists today are constantly evolving in their artistry, whether that be personally or musically, through their image and sound. This Atlanta trio is no different. The trio made up of Jimah, El Cézar, Quantum Flush are bringing a new sound into the music industry, creating music under a  genre of music, called "Afroton". A blend of Afrobeats and Reggaeton, which the trio introduced to the world with the release of their debut EP, 'Rice & Stew'.

Amandah Opoku sat down with Jimah, El Cézar, Quantum Flush to talk about their new record ‘Rice & Stew’, embarking on a solo career and more!

Amandah Opoku: Jimah, El Cézar & Quantum Flush, thank you for doing this interview today! Before we kick off please tell our readers about yourself and one random fact people do not know about you? JIMAH: Hey, my name is Jimah, I’m a Cameroonian artist based in Atlanta and it’s my pleasure to do this interview. As far as one random fact goes, I used to go to boarding school in Cameroon when I was younger which was a crazy experience.         EL CÉZAR: What’s up! To start off, I was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela.  I love to make music, i love to game and i love to eat good food. Me and the guys are gonna have our own food show when God permits. One fact about me that is not so known, is my day hustle when i’m not wearing the cape; i bartend for a living. I go to weddings and serve up to 200 people and no cap i make a good ass margarita.                                                                  FLUSH: I am a composer and producer of world music based in Atlanta.  I’ve been creating my entire life and I’m a believer in God.

Pictured: JIMAH

Amandah Opoku: What inspired you each to create music and pursue it as a career? JIMAH: When I was like 13 in boarding school, I used to write out song lyrics for my friends in class who wanted to know the words to songs. From doing that over and over I figured I should start writing my own lyrics, and that led to me getting into instrumentals and trying to make my own songs. I used to also battle rap some of the kids in older grades and it used to be a little thing we’d do to pass the time between studies. The way the people reacted to me and what I did was a rush. The more I did it I realized I didn’t want to do anything else in life but chase that feeling that making music gives me.  EL CÉZAR: What inspired me. My dad is a percussionist and had drums in the house at all times.  I remember being 5 years old when i got my first drum set and driving my mom nuts playing the hell out of it.  My grandfather was also a singer in a gaita group along with his brother, who played the cuarto, (basically a smaller guitar.)  I remember growing up in Venezuela.  Every time we had a family gathering, beer and live music was always involved.  My grandfather singing his chords out with by grandma, my dad banging his drums, my uncles joining in with claps.  It was overall great times.  As i grew in the States, I began to fall in love with hip-hop and the culture.  Around my junior year of high school, I quit drumline and started messing around with FL studio.  The rest is just history, well growth and history.  Music is all I know and love. FLUSH: I began this journey in sound my first trip to Africa and got inspired by what was around me. Good things always came out of the arts for me. It always felt good for me to share my sound with people. With music, more opportunities opened up for me and I felt it was the most natural path for me in life.

Amandah Opoku: What artists would you say inspire you both musically and personally? JIMAH: I listen to a wide variety of music, so I’d say Sade, Fela Kuti, Future, Wizkid, Bob Marley, and Kanye West to name a few.  There are so many others in Africa like the late DJ Arafat, and the late Manu Dibango, Flavour, and so many others. EL CÉZAR: Definitely, Wiz Khalifa because of his lifestyle.  It’s a carefree, luxurious lifestyle.  He preaches good energy, hard work, and that you can become a self-made boss on your own.  His old music was all I listened to.  My second inspiration is Bad Bunny.  He writes all his songs, his style is unmatched, and he’s always creating the wave.  A big thing for me and the guys is creating the wave and not riding it.  FLUSH: I’m really inspired by Bach, Beethoven And Debussy because of the passion and their ability to push music into a new era. They inspire me to play with chords and form when laying out my ideas.  Dub Reggae inspires me too. I really love King Tubby and Lee Scratch Perry.

Amandah Opoku: Who are artists that you look up to that you would like to work with or collab with in the future? JIMAH: I feel like Skepta and I would make a smash for sure.  Wiz and Burna would be crazy. Rema has been going crazy too.  I feel like we’d make something that would really shatter the boundaries of the sound. EL CÉZAR: Right now, I'm really praying and manifesting a feature from Fuego. He’s an innovator, a genre bender just like us. Another artist I really look forward to collaborating with is Rema. The guy is just a vibe wizard. Lastly, Nessly. Nessly is fye. FLUSH: There are so many to name.  But, I definitely want to make records with Oumou Sangare, Fatoumata Diawara, Gunna, Young Thug, Alfa Mist, and Yussef Dayes just to name few.

Amandah Opoku: If you could describe your music in three words. What words would you choose and why? JIMAH: I’d say my music is a “Futuristic Eclectic Medley” because we are really taking elements from cultures from all across the globe and implementing them into the music. From instruments to lingo, I just want everyone in the world to be able to relate to the music. EL CÉZAR: Three words: smooth, sensual, and at times enigmatic.  I feel like I’m a pretty chill guy so this type of music is what resonates with me.  Plus, I’m also a night owl.  Listen to my music at night and you’ll feel what i’m talking about.  With the guys though, I’m heavily influenced by the energy Flush is trying to emit with the beats.  Flush is an unpredictable man, so i have to adapt a lot.  I love it though.  FLUSH:  The words that best describe my sound would be diversity, eclecticism and originality.  I’m creating music that transcends cultures and language. I pull inspiration from all aspects of my life and create with the intent to weld different cultures together.  I’m born and raised ATL with parents from West Africa.  So when I think about creating, certain sounds make sense with others.

Amandah Opoku: You recently released your project, ‘Rice & Stew’. What was the writing and recording process like? JIMAH: Yeah Rice & Stew was a lot of fun to make.  Working with El Cezar and Flush was just a flawless process.  Flush and Cezar are always coming with some crazy production and once they press play on the beat, it doesn’t take long for the ideas to start flowing.  I typically do a mix of freestyling and writing, and we record ourselves.  I went to school for engineering and Cezar is a beast with engineering too; so all the recording, mixing, and mastering was done in house, handled mostly by Cezar. EL CÉZAR: Rice & Stew man, the process was great!  I’ll never forget those times.  I think Jimah and I have a similar process.  During Rice & Stew, it was always hard to figure out who would go first on the song unless Flush explicitly said who he felt like should start.  We played rock paper scissors sometimes for who would go first, LOL.  Once we figured that out, we just vibed on the beat.  We spit melodies, and sometimes words will come out so we get an idea of what the song will be about.  After that, we either knock out the song in one go and write it then and there, or we’ll vibe on like 3 or 4 more beats and pick the best one to finish.  FLUSH: The writing process is actually something similar to a therapy session. Jimah and El Cézar are my friends so we talk about what’s happening in our personal lives. They pretty much narrate my feelings into song form. We have inside jokes the somehow worked it’s way into the music. Everything we do is from the heart I swear.

Amandah Opoku: You are 3 individuals contributing your own visions, sounds and ideas to what ultimately became, ‘Rice & Stew’. How did you integrate your own personal ideas/views into the project? JIMAH: The one thing we realized when we all came together was that we all had very similar life stories but just on different sides of the world. We also realized that our music and cultures were very similar and were almost like cousins. On every record we tend to tell the same story just from our points of view, whether that be in our native language or with lingo that only people from our cultures would understand, we’re like 3 sides to the same coin. EL CÉZAR:  Being yourself is really easy when it comes to making music. You do what feels natural.  I feel like because we’re from different parts of the world, we’re even more encouraged to hone into our cultures.  In 17hrs, I talk about taking my girl to Maracaibo, comiendo cepillao’ por el lago. Maracaibo is known for many things, but a great attraction is the Lake walk, “La vereda del lago,” and we also eat special iceys with condensed milk called “cepillado.” Also, in Maracaibo we have a different dialect then pretty much the rest of Venezuela.  We use the “vos” instead of “tu,” which completely changes the language.  It feels forced when i try to speak with the “tu”, the “vos” just feels too natural to me. I definitely like to incorporate that in the songs, mainly because it’s what I write naturally, but I sometimes want to make it digestible for those who aren’t too familiar with the “vos” dialect.  FLUSH: We respect each other’s vision and also learn along the way. El Cézar definitely taught me a lot about Maracaibo to the point where I feel like I was there. This is what Rice and Stew is about. Creating a hot meal by bringing our own seasoning and mixing it together.

Amandah Opoku: What inspired you to come together and release this project together? JIMAH: We felt like there was an absence of Afro-Reggaeton collaborations, so we decided to really spearhead that movement by labelling the new genre AFROTON. Once we figured out the formula for blending the cultures sonically, we knew that we had to give the people a collection of music from that genre. EL CÉZAR:  Me and Jimah met during one of our studio internships and clicked the first day we met.  We spoke about Afrobeats and how it’s similar to Reggaeton.  We spoke about the similarities the genres shared, the emotion the genres give us and how we resonate with the sound.  We cooked up beats at the internship that same day and pretty much planned our first session together.  At the time, I wasn’t really behind the mic much.  I was just making beats.  Our first session, I played Jimah a beat and we recorded “Wahala,” our first track together.  I loved the vibe and i felt inspired to write something in Spanish.  This was my first Spanish verse ever.  When we finished the track we literally went nuts and knew we found something special.  We even shot a video to that song, but never dropped it.  After weeks of cooking up with Jimah, he finally introduced me to Flush.  That day, me and Flush cooked up a beat for a song called “Shayo.”   Great song man, humble beginnings.  After that, we knew we had to keep cooking up.  This was something truly special.  After months of cooking and just vibing, getting closer and growing together, we decided that maybe it was time for a project that would showcase this new sound that we’re bringing to the world.  We knew that this would bring people together and that’s all we ever wanted.  I see these guys as my brothers and this music really fortified that.  Now, the ultimate goal is to have the most diverse dance floor anybody has ever danced on.  FLUSH: We felt that the world was changing especially now that we have reached a new decade. The sound has to transform and reflect the new age we live in today. We are all experiencing something completely new some of these things being life threatening. It’s only right that the sound changes with the times.

Pictured: EL CÉZAR

Amandah Opoku: What inspired you to name the record ‘Rice & Stew’? JIMAH: Honestly it was a joke at first, but it eventually stuck. Rice & Stew is a staple household meal that most cultures eat in some form or fashion and we felt like people would be interested to hear what rice and stew would sound like sonically. EL CÉZAR:  EVERYONE EATS RICE & STEW. Flush named the “La Zorra” beat “Rice Stew” and that’s what truly inspired it.  That’s where the name came from.  FLUSH: The name came from a crazy beat I made.  After making the 4th record on the project, we noticed that rice and stew is a meal people all over the world can resonate with.

Amandah Opoku: If you had to choose one song from ‘Rice & Stew’ to introduce someone to your music, which song would you choose and why? JIMAH: I would probably show them La Zorra. That’s because that record really cuts across all cultural boundaries and has a lot of energy that is just undeniable. EL CÉZAR:  I would choose Outta Line as the song to show the first timers.  It’s the perfect blend of everything - vibes, emotion, story, theme, the BEAT.  This song is my fav from the project.  Me and Jimah go back and forth, passing the baton, and telling the story.  This man Flush went crazy on the beat as usual.  It’s just an overall digestible vibe.  Anybody can vibe to that song. FLUSH: I would choose La Zorra. That song is the one that makes me speed down the highway when it comes on.  I love the high energy in the drums mixed with the psycho synths and syncopation.

Amandah Opoku: In the future, do you think you’ll create a group name that your projects would be released under or do you think you’ll continue to release music credited as your individual selves? JIMAH: You know this is something we talk about very often and we just didn’t want to force a name that did not resonate with everyone. So, until we get the perfect name, we’ll keep crediting each other. EL CÉZAR:  We’ve actually thought about the group name A LOT.  If we get a name, we want it to be something that represents all of us.  We’re really not tryna force it so as of right now, I think we’re going as individuals.  To us, we’re still a group.  We’re still the Afroton trio.   FLUSH: I feel that we could have a name in the future, but as of now God hasn’t revealed that message to us yet. We are just trying to grown in our sound and through that it’ll manifest itself.

Amandah Opoku: What do you want people to take away from your music? And as an artist, what do you hope to achieve with your music career? JIMAH: The underlying message throughout my music is unity and cultural appreciation. We all have different things to learn from each other and appreciate so I really want to preach that. I want to be recognized as one of the greatest artists of all time for bringing cultures together and I want to really represent for my country Cameroon, and I want to change the lives of people back home with my music. EL CÉZAR: I want people to understand that we’re all brothers and sisters at the end of the day.  We want people to treat each other like family and really to share the dance floor together, metaphorically and literally.  As an artist, I want to be up there with the greats, just like any other artist. But not because we’re good at what we do, but because we are innovative and we brought something to the table that no one has ever thought to bring - something genuine built from love and passion.  FLUSH: I want to inspire people to express themselves. People should be free in thinking and shouldn’t be afraid to take their time in finding themselves. I find out more and more about myself through the sound and share it with my listeners.

Amandah Opoku: What has been your favorite track released this year and why? JIMAH: I released a song at the beginning of this year called “Fake Energy” and that song really set the tone for me this year in terms of my mental state and how I approach people and this music. Whenever I listen to it, it really inspires me to stay on my game. EL CÉZAR: La Zorra had to be my second best because there’s an unmatched emotion that i get when i listen to that. The song is just crazy. From another artist though, it has to be Ginger by Wizkid.  The production is impeccable and the mixing is on point. Burna boy did his thing, Wiz did his thing too.  The outro of the song where the key signature changes was just perfect.   FLUSH: My favorite track released is Right Mind because that is when we all came together for the first time. We created the song at a studio called Danny Vails and since then we’ve been rockin heavy. That was the first time I linked El Cézar.

Amandah Opoku: 2020 has been a very interesting year for all of us. How has the pandemic affected you as a musician? JIMAH: It’s just given me more time to create, and if not for the pandemic, I don’t think we would have been able to really lock in to make Rice & Stew.  It was a blessing in disguise.  EL CÉZAR: It was truly a blessing to just be able to sit at home and perfect my craft.  Every day was productive for me. I was either studying music business, learning new methods to master songs, or making new beats and songs.  It was great. It gave me time to really hone into this music.   Being able to dedicate my energy into just music felt amazing to me.  Rice & Stew would’ve probably came out in 2021, if not for the pandemic.  We literally cooked up weekly and pushed out about 30 songs in the span of 3 months. FLUSH: It sucks because we have been performing in clubs and can’t enjoy it like that cause of the masks. We are also on a virtual tour which is cool, but it would have been better if we could get on the road and physically interact with our fans. I pray everything clears up so we can really go crazy.

Pictured: QUANTUM FLUSH

Amandah Opoku: With ‘Rice & Stew’ out now, what can fans and music listeners expect from you next year? JIMAH: Expect more futuristic culture blending, culture bending vibes from all 3 of us.  EL CÉZAR: Rice & Stew was only the beginning. Expect more collaborative projects from the guys and I.  In 2021, I am planning to release my first solo EP to showcase what I can do as an individual.  Music from us as a trio is inevitable! Expect greatness in 2021.  FLUSH: This project is just the spark to a flame that leads to the dynamite going boom. We have so much music to share and many experiences to give our listeners. We are performing shows and collaborating with people all over the world, It’s just a time to be global.

Amandah Opoku: Jimah, El Cézar & Quantum Flush, thank you for sitting down with me! Before we close this interview is there anything you want to say to your fans and our readers? JIMAH: I appreciate you for interviewing us and to everyone reading keep your head down and chase your goals, don’t worry about what those on the outside have to say, and go stream Rice & Stew out now on all platforms and more vibes on the way! EL CÉZAR: To all of the readers and supporters, thank you for taking the time to read this. Thank you for listening to Rice & Stew, and for accepting this sound.  We don’t want it to be esoteric, but even if it’s that; I’m happy and thankful for those who resonate with the music. We love y’all and we want to keep growing with y’all.  Stay safe and don’t forget to just be yourself.  You’ll get further that way. Peace. FLUSH: I want to thank my fans for taking this journey with us into the new world. Thank you for reading and if you haven’t heard the project yet check it out and hop on the UFO. There is plenty of food to go around just take a bite of this Rice and Stew.

Stream ‘Rice & Stew’ here and connect with Jimah, El Cézar, Quantum Flush on the following websites: Jimah: @jimahlegar (Instagram), @Jimahlegar (Twitter) El Cezar: @elcezar_ (Instagram), @elcezar_ (Twitter) Quantum Flush: @quantumflush (Instagram), @quantumflush (Twitter)

[beyondconfessor]

The Infernal Contract [12/16]

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Lilith/Zelda Spellman

Summary: "And what does Faustus think of you?" she asked, snapping forward and grabbing Zelda's right wrist. "No, better yet, why don't you tell me what you think of him, of how high you must regard him to remove the very protection I provided."

N.B.: Also posted on AO3

Faustus delivered a modified version of his tenets, advising the school assembly with everything happening, a reversion to the traditional ways would be the only way to appease the Dark Lord.

It was a lie, but one Zelda wasn't above standing beside at this stage. There was little else she could do, and allowing some of his tenets to pass at least pacified Faustus for the moment, though they were like to stir complaints within the coven.

Witches were to pursue herbalism and other forms of healing magic before any extracurricular studies––warlocks, of course, could pursue whatever magic they desired. The other doctrines similarly followed, requesting witches to dress and act accordingly in the so-called image of Lilith, where warlocks should see their reflection in the Dark Lord.

Zelda's most considerable annoyance was that Faustus depiction of Lilith was of an otherwise helpless woman, capable of only the healing arts (as the Satanic Bible mentioned her magic explicitly only in service of Lucifer but failed to pick up the subtext between those moments). Intimately knowing the raw power that Lilith weld, especially with the higher forms of the Dark Arts, Zelda despised the comparison drawn of a woman who acutely mirrored the False God's Eve rather than that of a true Goddess capable of creating an exorcism that a witch could perform.

But Zelda knew when to bite her tongue. She had agreed to stand by and uphold the new doctrine fairly.

She may criticise it behind closed doors, maybe even lead her students to think about the Satanic Bible critically. Still, she would not openly defy the Anti-Pope. With everything going on, it would only create another problem, and she already had a few piling up.

As it was, those other problems were becoming the forefront thoughts in her mind, eclipsing that of the coven and the school. The prophecy was the most significant of her concerns, to the point she was now dreaming of reading the passage.

Zelda had gone over it a dozen times, each word to the context of each other. Prophecies were notoriously tricky. It was magic that stretched back to the early stages of most civilisations, and an imprecise one at that. Fortune-telling, tarot readings, prophecies, divination, even haruspicy were rarely used, given that their readings were often inaccurate and held a dozen vague meanings. It was why the tale of Oedipus was often a parable told to young witches who tried to peek into their future.

As it was, Mr Scratch had mentioned another prophecy in the Greendale Mines. It seemed a good idea to explore the prophecy from all angles, including one that used imagery instead of words, which was how Zelda ended up standing before the mines in the late hours of the evening, long after Faustus had retired to his room.

She stood before the mine shaft, listening as the wind howled through its tunnels. It had long been rumoured by mortals and witches alike that the mine shafts reached to the very gates of Hell. Standing here, Zelda could feel the magic crackle in the air, a magnetic draw pulling at her magic and knew why the witches had dug into the mines. It was almost like a siren song, singing out to her.

Lighting a cigarette, Zelda contemplated her strategy. She could try to summon the blasted prophecy, but it was likely that protective magic would envelop it. How the mortal children had found it, Zelda had no idea, but predictions had a way of hiding themselves until it was nearly too late to prevent it from occurring.

No, it seemed she would have to enter the mines—something she previously had no interest or plan in doing so before this evening.

"I wondered how long it would take you."

Zelda turned on her heel, looking to face Lilith. The woman stood on the outskirts of the trees, surrounded by shadows. It made the paleness of her face in the moonlight starker in contrast to her hair and clothes.

"What are you doing here?" Zelda asked, dropping her cigarette to the ground and snuffing it out before the woman had a chance to snatch it from her.

"The same thing you are, I imagine."

"I find it unlikely that we managed to cross paths here, of all places."

"Well, perhaps my arrival is not coincidental," Lilith admitted as she began walking towards her until they were side-by-side looking at the entrance to the mines. "You tripped my spell," she said and then pointed to a piece of silver string, and a bell that hung from a tree branch, likely set to summon Lilith should any person walk underneath. Though as Zelda squinted at the charm, she noticed that a single strand of hair had been tied to it, binding it to a specific person.

"Honestly," Zelda scoffed. "And just how did you know that I would come here?"

Lilith made a shrug, playing an attempt at innocence. "You mentioned another prophecy, so naturally I derived you'd eventually end up here."

"I certainly did not!"

"Oops. Then Sabrina must have mentioned it," Lilith said, her eyes flashing in mischievous amusement. Zelda looked away, glaring at the mines as she found herself regretting the fallen cigarette. She should have known that Sabrina would eventually make her way to her dearly favourite teacher and confess every secret.

Zelda would have done well to curse the memories of all the children, but it seemed that it was too late now. "Have you seen it?" she asked.

"I have. Would you like me to show you?"

Zelda wondered if there was any point. If Lilith had seen it, then there was little to be provided from herself viewing it. And yet, she knew it would haunt her if she refused. "I would."

"So be it," Lilith said before walking into the mines. She was enveloped by shadows, disappearing from all of Zelda's senses until a warm, golden light lit up the opening of the mines as she held up a lantern. Turning to face out of the mine-shaft, Lilith looked to Zelda and waited for her to follow.

"So be it," Zelda echoed. Exhaustion weighed on her shoulders as she slipped into the darkness of the mines.

There was a wet, damp smell to the tunnels and the only sound that filled the space was that of their heels clicking on the stone ground. Her shoes perhaps weren't the best footwear, but she had a steady-foot charm on all of her heels to prevent missteps (after all, a witch shouldn't stumble).

But the quiet was stifling. A considerable unease continued between them as Zelda wondered to their previous tryst and the way Lilith had looked at her when she held the book of prophecy.

Lilith had been furious, and then her eyes had looked to Zelda as if she'd discovered something quite fascinating. It weighed on Zelda's mind and sparked a strange yearning she couldn't allow herself to poke at (and yet did, like a child picking at a wound).

"Faustus has released a new set of tenets," she advised.

"Of course he has," Lilith responded. "And I take these tenets are to restrict the witches further from their ambitions to power?"

"Yes. With absolutely no consultation from the Dark Lord."

"Well, the Dark Lord is rather busy," Lilith said, there was a weariness to her voice as she said it, though there was a lazy attempted to mask it with irony.

"With Sabrina?" Zelda asked, but Lilith didn't respond.

No further words passed between them and Zelda wondered if the woman was deliberately trying to be dramatic with the silence, or if she genuinely had no biting comments to make.

Perhaps she was preparing them for some big reveal.

The tunnels twisted and sunk, and as they did, Zelda felt the pull of her magic, leading to her where she could only presume the Gates of Hell resided. Zelda's mother once spoke about how their grandmother had been digging through the hills with other local witches, seeking salvation in their Lord, until the Von Kunkle's had struck them down, causing the remaining coven to flee throughout the forest.

The mortals now owned the mines, but the magic sang out.

Lilith didn't lead her to where the magic pulled. Instead, she took a sharp turn down a shaft labelled marked with the number thirteen, and crept down a steady slope until they came to a crevice.

There she held up the lantern for Zelda to see.

"Here's your prophecy," Lilith said, with a nonchalant gesture. Zelda squinted in the dim light and looked over the artwork.

Wax candles stood scattered around the altar, their wicks snuffed, but Zelda knew they were not ordinary candles. With a snap of her fingers, the candles alit, casting warm light against the stonework (the flicker of power warming her as it did).

She looked over the artwork and felt her unease grow. From the immediate artwork, Zelda already knew it wasn't a happy prophecy.

She studied the iconography, glancing across the apparent symbolism. The picture of Sabrina was centred and definite with the crown of thorns, with little to doubt her likeness. The door represented Hell, the hanging tree representing Greendale, and as such the mortal realm. There were demons against either side, a corrupted version of cherubs, representing their guardianship of Sabrina and therefore her status as godhood (or at the very least Queen).

Zelda pulled back and crossed her arms. Likely the mosaic was not a separate prophecy, but a visual depiction of the footnote found by Mr Scratch. Which brought to question, why was the prediction a footnote?

"Someone wanted this hidden," she stated, glancing to Lilith.

"And someone wanted it found," Lilith responded. "I think we can both conclude as to who."

Zelda initial instinct was to raise suspicion against the woman herself, but it didn't marry up with her hesitation in the previous night. Lilith's fear and anger had been absolute before she attempted to conceal it with lust, and there was nothing to gain by her with Sabrina rising to the status of Queen.

Sabrina was to become something more significant, and this no less blindsided Lilith than any of them, it seemed.

Reaching out, she touched over the tiled pieces. There was a blue halo around Sabrina's head, the pigment created from crushed lapis lazuli.

"Mortals made this," Zelda said.

"What makes you think that?"

"A witch wouldn't have dyed and cut these tiles by hand," she touched over the jagged edges. There was frenzied energy to the creation as if it had compelled its artist to finish it. Drawing away, she pulled her hand back and dusted her fingers from the dirt that had accumulated over the stonework. It wasn't enchanted, but she could feel the compulsion coming from the prophecy. "And a witch would have made it much gaudier."

"I see," Lilith whispered, Zelda looked to her, catching the expression freezing as stared into the artwork, a frustration pressing in her brow before it smoothed to a neutral projection.

"What is it?" she asked.

Lilith turned and faced her, despite the composure, her eyes seemed alight with fury. "Why would a mortal depict a halo?"

"To represent holiness, her duality between mortal and..." Zelda trailed off, swallowing as she realised.

"And celestial," Lilith finished with a sharp, mirthless grin. "Perhaps the Dark Lord does not plan to marry her after all. Though I wouldn't put that past Him."

Zelda's heart sunk in her chest with the spoken revelation. Her niece, the girl she'd raised from a baby, was not her blood. "A Morningstar?" she whispered as if the Dark Lord might be in earshot (He might just be, she realised). "Surely not, she looked so much like Edward as a child."

"The Dark Lord has been known to possess men and enter their wives beds. Perhaps he obtained an offspring out of it this time."

Zelda shook her head, feeling her crossed arms tighten. Sabrina was a Spellman. She'd raised her from diapers to teens. Were she the Devil's daughter, there would have been some omen of it before her Dark Baptism, some great warning to Zelda.

Or perhaps she'd been blind to them all.

"What do we do?" Zelda asked, feeling the words slip out, a thousand smaller questions seemed to fill her mind, the fear of which beginning to grow massive and overwhelming in her head. Was she to tell Sabrina now? What did this mean for the Spellmans? Did she tell Ambrose and Hilda? Was the apocalypse to rise? Why hadn't Edward-

"What do you mean 'what do we do'? We follow the Dark Lord's plan," Lilith hissed. "If this is His will so be it."

Zelda shot her a look, watching the woman's facade splinter with her scrutiny. Lilith was as unsettled as she was. As fearful for what this meant for them both. "Is this what you want?"

Lilith hesitated, her eyes staring at the mosaic. "It doesn't matter what I want."

"Doesn't it?" Zelda asked. "Isn't this meant to be promised to you?"

"And what do you know of what was promised?" Lilith asked as she schooled her features, all doubts erasing from her face as if she was the very model of loyalty and devotion. "The Dark Lord grants us all that we deserve, and we are at His mercy for it. You'd be wise to heed to His will."

"Isn't Hell to be yours, since you left the Garden and found Him? Is that not what you were promised for servitude?" Zelda pushed and watched the carefully placed mask fracture further. Depths of desire sunk in Lilith's eyes, as if the very crown of Hell sat before her. "You know that this means He won't give it to you. He never planned to."

"And pray, tell how you could know of the Dark Lord's will? Of my relationship with Him?" Lilith inquired with a caustic tongue. "You're just some witch who's first marriage soured before she finished her vows."

Zelda flinched at the venom, and before she could think better of it, she was snarling back, "At least I got my crown, you'll only ever be a handmaiden to Him."

Lilith grinned at her, but there was no amusement in her eyes. Only a sharp coldness that reminded Zelda that she was not just speaking with any witch. "And what does Faustus think of you?" she asked, snapping forward and grabbing Zelda's right wrist. "No, better yet, why don't you tell me what you think of him, of how high you must regard him to remove the very protection I provided."

Zelda tried to tug her hand out of Lilith's grip, only to feel the grip tighten as she was pulled forward towards the woman, barely a breath away.

"It was stolen," Zelda hissed. "I wouldn't have––" but she stopped herself from admitting any further. She could feel her chest tightening, a fear that she said too much to the woman already.

A strange look passed over Lilith's face, a hunger as she touched over the bare finger. "Do you love him?"

"No, I don't love him."

"Do you wish he was me?"

Zelda pressed her lips shut, refusing to answer such a question (and admit the truth). But the answer must have been as apparent as the moon in a cloudless night because Lilith eyes filled with mirth and then laughter was rupturing from between the red lips. "Oh, I see."

"You certainly do not!" Zelda said, finally snapping her hand away before her heels caught against a loose stone and tripped her backwards. She hit the wall of the tunnel. Her head thudded against the rock, stunning her long enough for Lilith to press against her.

Hissing from the pain, Zelda pushed herself to stand taller and not allow the intimidation to affect her as she looked into the woman's eyes (appearing silver in the dim lighting) and felt her anger ease, waiting for the next moment. She wanted to slap her, push her away with the same overwhelming desire to kiss her and draw her close against herself.

Instead, she remained frozen in place.

"You desire me, Zelda Spellman. I think you might even care for me."

Zelda's body shivered at the way Lilith said her name, but the anger returned at the accurate presumptions placed forward. "You may think quite highly of yourself, but outside of our tryst, I barely think of you at all," she lied.

"Not at all?"

"Not the slightest," Zelda sneered, feeling the woman's hands slide over her waist and down her hips.

"Not even in the sleepless nights?" Lilith asked as she leant forward. "When you're biting your tongue to hold back your gasps, as you lie in the guest room of your own home?"

Zelda felt the lips graze close to hers, the hands gripping at her hips in anticipation. "Are you spying on me, Lilith?"

"No," Lilith said, "But you're adjurations have a way of finding me."  

"I have spoken of no such thing," Zelda hissed, and then the woman's lips had moved to her ear, and Lilith's body was pressing against her. She heard her draw a slow intake of breath, the fingers curling against the material of Zelda's clothes.

And then Lilith keened in her ear, as if on the very edge of arousal.

Zelda felt her body still; her eyes flutter shut as the moan had more of an effect on her than it should, causing a sudden heat to glow warm in her belly.

But the exhibition didn't cease there. Lilith's lips touched over cheek before she began to repeat verbatim the very abjurations Zelda had solely whispered to the shadows of her room, between her sheets.

A part of her had known that it might reach her ears. After all, their contract had begun with a wishfully spoken prayer. If she was honest with herself, perhaps she'd even hoped that they would.

And yet to hear them. Feel the words in the exhale of breath was an entirely different thing. Zelda felt herself swallow thickly, her own hands turning to fists at her side as she tried to prevent herself from grabbing at the woman.

Lilith's gasps were hot in her ear, the words broken-up by sharp pants and moans meant to imitate her own, but if Lilith intended to mock her, they had an adverse reaction.

As Zelda felt Lilith begin to hitch up her dress, she turned her head, having enough of the performance. She tilted forward and caught the woman's lips, enjoying how Lilith anticipated it, snagging her tongue between her teeth, before letting it go with a laugh.

There was a mania about it as if Lilith was unravelling before her, eager to distract and pretend that this was just another tryst as she slid Zelda's underwear down her thighs and kissed her again with feverish temperament. Zelda responded in kind because the world was going to end, but it hadn't yet, and this might be their last moment together before it all fell apart.

The truth was that Sabrina was to be snatched away, and they were to return to their respected men, loyal and obedient with these changes. They had lost everything they'd built and worked towards. More than that, a deeper part of Zelda reminded her that this would be the end of them both. Their relationship could not continue if the new world order occurred. Lilith was to be Lucifer's handmaiden, and Zelda was to be Faustus' wife. They would become ships in the night.

Zelda tugged at Lilith's dress, undoing the zipper and slipping it down the woman's body before she drew her close again.

Her skin was warm against her own. If she held her close enough, it felt like time would stretch. That there was no home to return to, no encroaching deadlines, no prophecies of Nephilim children.

There was only the here and now. Only Lilith.

And yet her heart felt like it was breaking.

It ached to know that everything that had seemed so close in grasp was now disappearing from her sights, that Faustus would rule with an iron fist, squeezing every witch of their free will as the Dark Lord turned a blind eye to mould Sabrina into his Queen.

The Spellman family would be burned, Leticia and Prudence would be used and discarded at will, and Judas would be shaped into the perfect son with no mind of his own.

Where was Lilith to go?

Lilith nipped at her throat, snapping her back into the moment. In the dimness of the mines, she could see the woman's glare, demanding her attention.

She kissed at the woman's shoulder, slipping her hand under the lace underwear and touching over Liliths slit as she was fucked in return. The sex was frenziedness, building in a desperate need to touch and be touched and forget everything else.

And with it, Zelda wondered if the Dark Lord touched Lilith with the intent to admire and worship, or if He just consumed until there was nothing of Lilith left but a hollow version of herself?

Was that her path too, with Faustus, to bend until she snapped?

Zelda felt her anger grow again, a fury building in her as Lilith's mouth kissed down her throat.

"It matters," Zelda told her. "It matters what you want."

Lilith paused, pulling away to look at her in the darkness. "Zelda-" she whispered, the name purring as a warning to remind her of just how close to Hell they were.

"It matters to me," she urged. "Lilith, please, whatever you think of this, of me and everything else. It matters. Whatever it is that you want, I swear it, I'll abide by your will, even if it's to strike––"

Lilith kissed her mouth, hard and bruising to silence her. If the Dark Lord heard her, understood what she was proposing, they would be eviscerated for their seditious remarks. Perhaps it had been foolish for her to say it, but she wanted (needed) Lilith to know that they were more than the roles they played.

Lilith's hand came to her throat, wrapping around it tight enough that Zelda could barely draw her breath as she felt the woman's mouth move away from hers.

Then, very quietly, Lilith whispered, "I don't want your obedience, Zelda. It would ruin you. Do you understand?"

The hand eased, and as Zelda drew in a breath, she asked, "And what of your ruination?"

Lilith smiled in the dark. "It happened long ago." Zelda went to argue, only for Lilith's fingers to touch against her lips. "Forget your words, and be mine for this moment. Then we can separate to our own lives."

Zelda swallowed, understanding the subtext. Despite how it ached in her chest, this was to be their last time together.

Lilith's hand slipped under her jaw and tilted her head as she pressed forward and kissed her again. It was sweet, gentle, and then it grew with a passion, not unlike that evening in the moonlight that seemed so long ago. A yearning build in her chest, and all Zelda wanted was Lilith.

Their moments together were ending, and Zelda wished she could translate the growing need inside of into words, but it was all she could to do to kiss and not drown in the woman's touch. As Lilith kissed her, Zelda followed, stroking over the woman's sex in an attempt to appease her. It wasn't obedience she offered but something else. Something sacrilegious.

It wasn't enough. Zelda pulled away and dropped to her knees, grabbing Lillith's hips and tugging her to her mouth as she tore the lace down her legs.

"Zelda," Lilith coaxed, fingers drawing through her hair. The way she said her name was like a sigh, summoning something from the recesses of Zelda's mind. She couldn't see her face in the darkness, but she could feel the woman's legs shake and ease underneath her hands. Feel her rock over her tongue, fingers curling into her hair.

And then, for the first time, Lilith stopped holding back her vocalisation. For the first time, her moans rose (slowly at first, and then loud and unrestrained), echoing through the tunnels of the mines as she repeated Zelda's name over and over.

Never had her name sounded so sweet on someone's tongue (and she'd heard it spoken by many lovers).

Zelda didn't know if it was a reward for what she said or a distraction from their seditions, but the way the woman's fingers curled in her hair, the way her body trembled unlike a performance and more like unbridled eagerness, felt primal. It made her magic spark and reach out, and made the night stretch for a little longer.

It felt...

Zelda felt the word hush quietly in her mind, feeling centuries of propriety and religious education warn her against the very idea of thinking it.

...but it felt sacred in the way the satanic magic didn't.

Holy.

And with her perdition in mind, she thought to herself that Lilith tasted divine.

[somethingpoeticiguess]

Ohshc Au Idea

- Ohshc Au where they all go to art school (both performing and drawing and stuff y’know (is it called visual??))

- Sort of like the same vibe as that show on Netflix called Backstage

- The school would be one of those super prestigious art schools like the Juilliard of their universe

- Tamaki would obviously be there to study piano

- he’d spend hours in the practice rooms and all of the other pianists hate him because he’s got some sort of superhuman power when it comes to booking practice rooms before anyone else

- Kyoya would be vocal performance with a minor in Broadway type acting (help I don’t know the actual terms)

- here I go again rambling about my Kyoya can sing headcanon that I will go down with 

-Babey boy would probably be known as one of those people who can sing anything throughout the school

- Everyone from school can tell his voice apart from everyone else’s

- like if they walk past a practice room and hear him singing inside they can tell instantly that it’s him

- like picture this: a senior is giving a freshman a tour of the college and they walk past the practice rooms and inside practice room 3 the Freshman can hear someone singing in the best voice that they have ever heard. The freshman says to the senior with starstruck eyes “Who’s that??” “Ahh” the senior says “That’s Kyoya Ootori, he’s kind of a legend around here”

- Hikaru would be a Shakespearean type actor

- Like he has whole ass monologues on the tip of his tongue at any given moment

- He’s a super good actor however he can’t sing for shit so he could never be in a musical

- He’s secretly jealous because Kyoya can sing so well

- They’re secretly jealous of each other

-Kyoya wishes he could act as well as Hikaru and Hikaru wishes he could sing as well as Kyoya

- Kaoru would be the one to take over their mother’s business and would study fashion and clothing design 

- Even though Hikaru is the eldest he had no interest in the family business and decided to pursue acting instead 

- Luckily for the Hitachiin family Kaoru took to clothing design from a very early age

- He makes clothes for the rest of the hosts on a regular basis

-He makes all of the clothes that the hosts wear for their performances and art galleries and whatnot

- The drama department loves him because he makes all of their costumes

- Mori would be a sketch artist, a painter, and a sculptor

- He’d basically do everything in the art department from drawing to welding metal figures

- he doesn’t talk much so he communicates through his art as cheesy as that sounds

- He constantly has either paint on his clothes, clay under his nails, or both at the same time

- People in the general public are slightly concerned when he opens his bag and they see a blowtorch inside

- His metal sculptures are littered all across campus

- Some of these sculptures include but are not limited to: A giant replica of Mary Poppins, Patti Lupone (Kyoya legit cried when he saw this one), and a giant metal spider that the students have so aptly named Kenneth

- Kenneth lives on top of the Art building 

- Despite the fact that he’s an art student he really loves showtunes and gets really excited to see/hear Kyoya sing them

- Honey is a culinary arts student

- His specialty is (obviously) desserts

- He makes the prettiest cakes and the most delicious meals

- He has to stand on a step ladder to make those giant wedding type cakes

- He constantly smells like a bakery... like constantly

- Haruhi is a violinist

- she treats her violin like a baby. She even keeps it in the child seat part of the cart when she goes to the grocery store

- She goes to the school on a violin scholarship 

- She plays a cheap violin she got from a small music store when she was ten with her birthday/Christmas money that she had been saving for years 

- The way she plays that cheap little violin you’d think it was a super nice expensive one 

- She’s mostly self taught

- When she was young she couldn’t afford lessons so she taught herself to play

- She only began to take lessons when she got to high school

- I imagine when she isn’t playing classical for school her playing sounds a lot like Ada Pasternak

- Ada Pasternak Video: https://youtu.be/YQSzk44hBmk

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- when they don’t live in the dorms they rent a fairly large house that they all live in together (like that house that Sam Golbach, Colby Brock, Corey Scherer, Aaron Doh, Devyn Lundy, Jake Webber, and Elton Castee lived in together) 

- Tamaki has a whole ass grand piano in his room 

- Nobody’s really sure how he got it in there

- He also has a keyboard that he brings around the house for jam sessions with the other hosts

- They have jam sessions in the living room

- Tamaki brings down his keyboard or he plays the little theatre piano that sits in their living room

- Haruhi brings down her little violin that she loves with all of her heart Kyoya would sing with them

- They’d do stuff like that Ada Pasternak video I put earlier in this post except instead of Haruhi singing it would be Kyoya

- Mori’s room legitimately would not be a bedroom

- It would be an art studio with a Mori sized bed in the corner and a theatre style clothing rack next to it

- he has like four easels all around the room and a desk covered in drawing pads, pencils, ink markers, colored pencils, oil paint, and random multicolored stains

- In the middle of the room he has a raised platform with whatever sculpture he’s currently working on sitting on top of it

- He has a shelf with all sorts of supplies in it

- He has like three different blowtorches, a huge array of paint brushes, different sharp things for his clay sculptures, hammers, a bunch of books on the history of art, and a dirty paint and clay covered apron with random burn holes in it

- Kyoya has like a whole arsenal of throat coat teas and herbal things in his room as well as a kettle and a hot plate

- In the corner he built a small room that only has room for one average sized person to go inside and coated the inside with sound proof padding and that’s where he practices belting and other different vocal techniques 

- Kyoya absolutely loves their giant bathroom

- The acoustic qualities make him really excited he loves to sing in there 

- Kyoya, Tamaki, and Haruhi sometimes jam in their fantastically acoustic bathroom because they are attracted to good acoustics the same way a moth is attracted to a bright light

- Hikaru has a whole library of scripts in his room

- like his bookshelves are just overflowing with scripts from all the plays he’s been in 

- Some books on Shakespeare and the ins and outs of acting are scattered around the bookshelf too but it’s mostly scripts

- On his desk he keeps the script from the show that he’s currently in right in the middle of his desk with a pencil cup in the corner full of pens and highlighters 

- He has a huge bulletin board in his room filled with pictures from different shows and different print outs of his favorite monologues and whatnot

- Kaoru’s room is similar to Mori’s in the sense that it’s barely a bedroom at all

- He has a small bed and a small dresser and the rest of the space is filled with his work

- He has a huge desk that is covered in scraps of fabric, scissors, and measuring tape

- He has a HUGE pin cushion in the corner that would be an absolute hazard if it fell to the ground

- Above his desk is a giant bulletin board similar to Hikaru’s except his is less of a collage and more of an idea board

- It’s full of sketches for new designs and has the occasional magazine clipping or inspirational quote

- Honey basically lives in the kitchen 

- His room only has a bed and a dresser and a few ginormous bookshelves

- on these bookshelves are countless numbers of cookbooks

- 90% of what’s on these bookshelves is actually just regular notebooks and journal type things full of recipes that Honey has come up with himself 

- The kitchen is HIS domain none of the other hosts ever use it other than to get the occasional glass of water or snack here and there

- They basically eat gourmet every night

- He cooks all of their meals and uses them as his guinea pigs 

- Luckily for them 99% of the time his food is absolutely delicious

- Their house is full of just bits and pieces of what they do

- Mori’s artwork decorates the entire place

- The centerpiece for their table is a bouquet of metal flowers that Mori made

- His paintings decorate the walls and some of his sculptures sit as decorations in some of the different rooms

- There is sheet music literally all over the house

- nobody bats an eye when hey find the crescendo piece of a classical violin song on the kitchen table

- or when they find the lyrics to a classical opera song jammed in between the couch cushions

- Kaoru will often use Haruhi as his model for his dresses 

- he’ll have her put on a tank top and bike shorts and literally build a dress onto her body and by the end she’s walking around the house in a whole ass Victorian style ballgown

- God help their house if Kyoya gets sick before a performance

- The amount of throat coat tea he consumes is absolutely unreal

- He has a little table with shelves behind it in his room with a tea kettle and a hot plate on it

- on the shelves behind it are boxes upon boxes of throat coat and herbal tea and a whole arsenal of mugs

- The house always smells like cooking food because Honey lives in the kitchen and is always cooking something or other

-When it doesn’t smell like food it smells like burning metal because Mori is always working on some sort of metal sculpture with one of his countless blowtorches 

- This boy legit keeps a fire extinguisher in his bedroom in case he sets something on fire with said blowtorch

- Christmas season is absolutely wonderful in their house

- Tamaki and Haruhi are playing Christmas songs

- Kyoya is singing them

- Honey is making all sorts of festive dishes (You should see him on Thanksgiving he goes absolutely ham (pun intended))

- Kaoru is making festive outfits

- Mori makes each and every one of their Christmas decorations

- and Hikaru is practicing his lines for the production of A Christmas Carol that he’s in every year (This is his fourth time playing Scrooge!)

- But all in all this is a house where creativity flourishes and they all boost each other’s creativity to the max

- and of course they all graduate and become extremely successful and stay close knit forever

BONUS:

- Renge is also a vocalist she performs with Kyoya very often

- Kasanoda is a ballet student

- People are surprised he does something so graceful and elegant because he looks scary but when you really think about it it fits his personality 

- Nekozawa is a poet (Edgar Allan Poe 2.0)

[the-anon-2000-blog]

I don’t even know right now

I don’t know why I’m here, I just got the urge to type. Don’t ask about what, I really don’t know. It’s probably just going to be a bunch of jumble to help me feel not so depressed or blah right now. Which is absolutely stupid. I spent the majority of yesterday and today playing destiny. Like I got maybe 5 hours of sleep because I was up so late playing destiny when an hour after I got up, only that long so I could do other daily and morning tasks in other stupid games, I went straight to destiny and the only times I took a break was for food which was an hour here and there and to take a shower and have dinner which was at most 2 hours, maybe 3. Based off the fact that I spent about 38 of the last 48 hours playing video games, I shouldn’t be so depressed. Not that it really matters because nobody reads these anyways and that’s probably for the best because it’s just me venting and getting stuff out and off my chest, but by all accounts I should be more relaxed or at least not so blah with how the second half of my christmas break went. Yeah, it was only 4 days but it was a nice break to be all in a row and to still get paid for 2 of those days. I refuse to even think that I’m any sort of dependant on drinking, I haven’t had any liquor or even wine for 2 full days now but I doubt that’s any part of the cause. I hate myself and my life with or without any substances. I dunno past me, I wish we had done things even just a bit differently. Like had a job in high school, or went out with that cheerleader, or stayed in welding and really pursued it. Or got into comp science sooner or chose different and possibly better friends. I know I wouldn’t have had a kid if I could change anything, I didn’t want one then and I don’t want any now. I try to look at myself better, I’m really starting to like the beard, it’s new but it’s me and I refuse to shave it for anyone but myself this time. No girl will change that. I guess this is just a short ramble this time, I usually at least think a little bit about what I want to say but this was just a spontaneous garble. I was going to try chatting up strangers on omegle but I felt over it as soon as I started. I don’t even want to work on the new project but everything that has to be done at this point is audio recording and it feels a little late tonight to be doing that. Maybe if the walls weren’t so thin or if it was earlier in the day. I found a bunch of background pictures and background music yesterday before I jumped onto destiny but it only took a couple hours to go through everything. Now I feel like I’m pretty set and can just get the audio recorded which will definitely take a good hour or so to do and I guess I’m going to try and aim for 2 or 3 videos a month to start and then once I get better I’m going to go for a video a week. That was my original idea but I have absolutely no experience as a voice actor anymore, it’s been since high school so like 11 years since I’ve done anything and a rough go at it for myself showed that I am horribly out of practice which is no surprise and why I’ve been working on it the other week. It also doesn’t help that I stayed cooped up in the house the last 2 days but the temp got down to around -40 which I know is completely unheard of for past me but I wasn’t going out since I didn’t have to, I even ordered in my last pizza of the year because it was so damn cold out. I think part of this shitty mood is that I started talking to this new girl the other week and we spent a full day talking and then here and there which is fine but now she’ll message me and then just go complete radio silence for the rest of the day like wtf are we going to talk or are you just going to try and waste my time? That pissed me off more than anything but whatever I guess. I’d say there’s more girls out there but I’m having a hell of a time meeting anyone and I just don’t really know how to talk to new people outside of work anymore. I spent like 3 weeks trying to think of an opener for this one girl then she replied to my low effort message which is awesome but with horrible grammar and it was a total turn off. I know this whole post is one long as jumble with horrible formatting but I’m not even trying because I suck at english and nobody else is going to read this anyways but I at least know the difference between there their and they’re and to, too and two. I think there’s only been 2 words that should have gotten a capital at the start that I just didn’t care about and I should be spelling out little numbers instead of using the number but again, suck at english and at least know enough that I know parts of where I’m going wrong and know how to use proper spelling of words. But she’s really hot so as long as it’s not a constant thing, I’m willing to look the other way. Plus her hair is longer than mine and looks really good and I want to see that in person. Plus I’m a sucker for tattoos if done right and it turns out I have a thing for hazel eyes which she has so that’s cool too. Anyways this horribly formatted word jumble is going on too long now so it’s back to watching The Office. Thanks for being there for me to rant to, past me. Even if you’ll ever actually read any of this, it’s nice to get this all out and to feel like I’m not just writing this for myself.

[ladyfranfran14]

STOP THE STRAND DISCRIMINATION

This senior high (grade 11), I thought my new school was great. Well its actually great but.... the majority students here are not-so-great people(not generalizing everyone here). I thought that I would see mature people yet all I ever see was people who are not commited in their studies. Yet why did I put the title there here's why.. What is strand discrimination? - unjust treatment of the students because of their specialized track when in reality every strand has its equal and unique studies. Here in my country there are different kinds of strands: ©TRIVIA AND FACTS AND EDUKASYON PH© --- Accountancy, Business and Management (ABM) Strand °specialzes in bussiness and acounting.  is for those who plan on taking up Economics, Business Administration, Accountancy and Marketing in college. Those who are planning to take up HRM should choose this too. Humanities and Social Sciences Strand (HUMSS) °is for students who are eyeing Writing (particularly, novelists), Political Science, Sociology, Priesthood, Law and Community Studies. If you have a talent in public speaking, this strand is for you. General Academic Strand (GAS) °If you’re not yet sure what course to take in college, this strand is the same as you. It teaches Social Science, Humanities, Economics, Management and Disaster Readiness. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) °is the perfect track to choose if you are planning to study Pure and Applied Sciences, Engineering and Mathematics in college. You will be studying Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Calculus in this strand. This is not for the faint-hearted. Arts and Design Track.(AD) °This track is for those who are interested in pursuing careers on the performative and creative field. Get to discover your capabilities and stretch what you can do in industries of music, theatre, visual arts, media arts, and dance. You can gain various skills such as song composing, stage performing, illustrating, sculpting, photography, or choreography under this track. Arts and Design also aims not only to ensure that you can get a livelihood out of your interest in arts and design but also to help various regions in the country in preserving their local culture. Sports °This is not all about dance and just playing sports. Physical Education includes an understanding of human movements through anatomy and physiology. Part of the curriculum in the Sports Track is Safety and First Aid. This is to ensure that you have the life skills and competencies in safety, injury prevention and management in various sports and exercise settings for prompt and proper response during emergencies. Part of the career track in here is for you to learn the right ways in administering tests and programs for physical fitness and performance enhancement. Technical-Vocational Livelihood Track (Tech-Voc) °The Tech-Voc track is divided into four strands. This caters to those who want to work immediately after Senior High School a. Home Economics Stand This is our classic idea of the TLE subject. Those who are interested in housekeeping, tailoring, caregiving, food and beverage services, bread and pastry services, tourism and handicrafts should choose this. Take note though that this isn’t the correct strand for those who are planning to take Hotel and Restaurant Management (HRM) in college. Most students who choose this have plans to work in the aforementioned areas immediately after Senior High School. b. Information and Communication Technology Strand Interested in computers? The ICT Strand is the perfect choice. You’ll be taught how to write computer programs, websites and possibly apps. This includes Medical Transcription and Computer Animation. After taking this strand, you can then proceed to BSIT in college. You can also work immediately as a computer programmer, animator or medical transcriptionist but make sure you’ve already learned enough. c. Agri-Fisheries Strand This strand is for those who are interested in agriculture and aquaculture. Horticulture, Pest Management, Animal Production, Slaughtering and Fish Production are all tackled here. Graduates from this strand might be able to work in farms immediately but they can also proceed to related courses in college. d. Industrial Arts Strand The last strand under the Tech-Voc track is our classical idea of what tech-voc is – Carpentry, Automotive Servicing, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning, Electronics Repair, Electrical Installation, Welding (SMAW), Plumbing and Tile Setting. --- As you all read each track specialized certain fields respectively. The treatment though is different and not a good one. I tell you my story. I'm F, 17 years old choosing a track for my future. At first, I do not know which track should I choose cuz you know there's still college. I think first the pros and cons. Pro because it would be convenient especially if I would still choose that related career from my specialized track. Con because it is very expensive though education nowadays is all about money. I choose Arts and Design Track. Well, my parents was kinda dissappointed when I told them the track I chose because out of all things why that track. My father voiced out that 'it would lead you to know where.'I admit it I cried after my father leftvyou know why? That is my DREAM. I WANTED AND NEEDED that track because I may find there who I am. Now I do not regret it because not only that I found myself when I choose Arts and Design but I now have people who I consider as my family (my classmates). We considered ourselves as a family as if we are brothers and sisters. This is the first time in my school years that I have experience to having a united fam.Everyone in my class is equal. There is no fake personalities only we show our true colors to each other. Always having a good time spreading good vibes even if you are stress af. Yet there's a catch... Being united family there are still conflicts not in my class but in the other strands. When you thought everything is good. Someone will kill the joy. I do not when did the conflict/discrimination began.. Maybe is it because some of my subject teachers praised me and my classmates for the good behavoir yet noisy in a good way. Most of me and my classmates are mature becuz we do not want bashing and bullying people because we have conscience. Others maybe are jealous because me and my classmates are one but the are divided. Maybe its a mystery.. Most of my classmates heard the rumours/talks about our class.. Some people asked my classmates why they choose the track and they told my classmates 'You chose it because you suck at MATH and it is very easy track' Another asked and told that "why are you guys participating in specch choir competition, shouldn't you guys be in the decorations?" Really?! Just because we are Arts and Design doesn't mean you should treat us as if we are nothing to you. You treated as if you guys are suprior and ours are minority. When in reality, like life, NOTHING IS EASY. You sould treat us as equals because we are students our OBEJTIVE here is to learn and achieve our dream not having some competion and also tension that would tear us all apart. I hope that whatever problems you all have, you will find solutions for it. ~We have to be united branch not a divided branch!~

[kuwaiti-kid]

Unmasking the Armorer: Emily Swallow Talks About The Mandalorian, Fans, and Set Life

Emily Swallow has appeared on both stage and screen, lending her talents to roles on The Mentalist, SEAL Team, Castlevania, and most notably as “Amara” on Supernatural and as “The Armorer” on The Mandalorian. 

Maggie Lovitt (ML): When I told a couple of friends that I was going to interview you, they got super excited because you’re from the DMV like we are. Are you proud to be from this area?

Emily Swallow (ES): I am! When [my husband and I] were driving down to Florida we drove by the sign for Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which is where I was born, and I pointed it out to my husband. I love Virginia. I loved going back there for school. I mostly grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. We moved down here when I was seven. I went back up there for the University of Virginia. 

ML: How did you get into acting? You initially went to college for something entirely different, right? 

ES: UVA was where I made the decision to pursue acting as a career. I did theater in middle school and high school, and I also did community theater. When I was at UVA I was a Middle Eastern Studies major and I thought I was going to go into the foreign service. I was also very heavily involved in the drama department and I’m so grateful that the drama department there is so open to non-majors, because it meant I could do both things. Then I had a really wonderful acting teacher who encouraged me to think about pursuing acting. He helped me work on auditions for grad schools and I auditioned for several. I got into NYU and I knew it was a good one, so I figured I should take advantage of that opportunity. I’m so glad that I did. 

ML: How did you get your SAG card?

ES: You know, I was asked this question in another interview recently and I’m not entirely certain what my first SAG job was. I was trying to look back on my member page to see when I became a member, but it didn’t tell me. I think it was a movie that I did called The Lucky Ones a few years after I was out of NYU. I mostly did theater and then I did a little bit of TV. I feel like the television work that I did at first was back when SAG and AFTRA were two different unions. I think some of the work I did was AFTRA work. 

ML: Did you grow up as a fan of Star Wars? 

ES: I was a fan, but I don’t think I had any idea of the depth and the breadth of that universe. I definitely remember the movies being part of my childhood. I remember Ewoks dolls and I absolutely played Princess Leia in reenactments with my friends. I had seen the other movies since then, but the whole world of the Mandalorians was pretty new to me because I hadn’t seen The Clone Wars or any of the animated series. Now [that] I have gotten to watch them, I think they’re just so fun. Star Wars was something that was such a big part of my childhood, but now being reintroduced to it and getting to learn so much more about it has been cool. 

Photo credit Diana Ragland

ML: Supernatural and Star Wars which both have massive fan bases. What has that experience been like?

ES: It’s such a gift. One of the things I miss when I’m doing film work is the connection to the audience. It’s part of theater that’s just so immediate. It’s so wonderful to get to feel that connection that so often you miss out on with TV. Doing these conventions and getting to meet these fans and find out what kind of impact the shows have had on them, what moment stood out, and what they like or don’t like about your character has been really cool. 

I feel that the Supernatural fan base is just beyond anything I had ever experienced before and now, getting to meet the Star Wars fan base, it is another level beyond that. Star Wars has forty years of fans and you get entire families that watch it together. I love that. I will say that there is this incredible feeling of joy that I’ve experienced from all of the Star Wars fans. They’re just giddy with happiness to get to cosplay characters and get to meet the different actors. Both communities really watch out for each other. I love the community that they have built. 

ML: A fan created a custom-made Armorer helmet for you, didn’t they?

ES: Yes! I didn’t get to keep mine because they’re holding onto that for future use. A fan who does his own stuff for cosplay and makes things for other people showed up at this convention and handed me the helmet. I was like “Wow, this is incredible!” and then he told me it was for me. I just lost it. I couldn’t believe it. I was just so excited. I brought it down to Florida with me to show my nephews. This is the only thing I’ve ever done that they’re actually interested in. 

ML: It seems like a great time to have an Armorer mask.

ES: The Armorer was just setting the trend before it was even necessary. 

ML: Both Pedro Pascal and Gina Carano have mentioned that they were sort of handpicked for their roles. What was the process for you? Did you have to audition? 

ES: I did audition. This was one of the characters that they didn’t have a specific actor in mind for. Actually, when they were first looking for people they were auditioning British women in their fifties and sixties. I am not either of those things. 

It was incredibly lowkey. I knew that it was something to do with Star Wars, but I knew so little about it. I didn’t know if it was a big deal or not. The audition itself was just me in the room with the casting associate and a video camera. I just had the scenes that they had given me and very little information because it was so secretive. 

ML: Did they tell you that she was masked? 

ES: They did. Which influenced my audition a little bit. But since I wasn’t actually wearing a mask in the audition, it didn’t really change the way I did it too much. I think I paid more attention to how I moved my body and communicated more that way. 

ML: Is that where the British accent came from?

ES: It was the casting associate that suggested that I do it with a little bit of British accent, because they had been seeing Brits for it. We just did it a few times and that was that. Then I got the call from my agent. I was still so unsure about what the show was. I didn’t know how many episodes I was going to be in. It was very shrouded in mystery. 

ML: Were you provided with any information about the Armorer’s backstory? 

ES: I wasn’t given anything specific about where she came from or what her origins were. It was mostly about how she functioned within this clan of Mandalorians. The function that she served as their spiritual leader, the one who keeps the history, and obviously the one who makes their armor. 

Jon Favreau mostly talked about images and the feeling of a lot of old [Akira] Kurosawa films. How the Mandalorians were like a samurai order of warriors. [He discussed] the formality and the regal feeling that some of those characters have. It felt like the Armorer needed to move very simply. He described her as a very zen-like person. She’s someone who has a lot of authority but doesn’t need to put it on display, which I really liked about her. 

ML: Did you come up with a backstory to work with? 

ES: This is not confirmed by anyone else in the production, but in my mind I felt that she knew Din Djarin when he was younger. So she knew a little bit about his origin and the path that he had been on. How he’s become this lone ranger. How he’s really lost touch with where he comes from. I feel like when he comes back to see her in that first episode, it’s like he’s coming back to his roots and starting to step into who he really is. 

ML: Do you think we might eventually get the Armorer’s backstory?

ES: It’s entirely possible. But there’s so many parts of the story to tell. 

ML: With so many of the roles on The Mandalorian requiring actors to wear full armor, what was that like? Did you all bump into each other a lot? 

ES: Oh my gosh, yes! It was ridiculous for those of us that were in the Mandalorian helmets. You don’t have a lot of peripheral vision. We realized very quickly that any extraneous movement was distracting because when you can’t look at someone’s face to see what they’re expressing, you find yourself looking that much more closely at their mannerisms. So anything extraneous took away from the story we were trying to tell. Just walking across a room, you can’t look down to see where you’re walking. That had to be stepping forward on faith that you weren’t going to fall on your face. But then in between takes, when we were trying to get situated and get into place, we were bonking heads and tripping over things. I would drop all of my tools for my welding and my forging. 

I keep saying that I hope they’re going to release a blooper reel because I think it would be pretty entertaining. 

ML: Watching the Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian program, it really showcased what a fun and creative set environment the series has. 

ES: I think that Jon [Favreau] and Dave [Filoni] really set the tone. Everything was very well communicated; the feel of the story and the overall arc of the story. Jon really encouraged the directors to lean into their own styles. There was such a feeling of trust. I feel that it relaxed and inspired everyone to work really hard to do their best. 

Everyone working on the show has so much love for the Star Wars world. All of us felt like this was our childhood dream come true. I was amazed every day at the level of artistry in my forging tools, all the little details in the sets and costumes. In my experience, it was a really joyful place to be. My work was limited to my forging studio and I’m sure it was a lot more physically exhausting to do some of the stuff in the desert settings. But everyone just gave it their all. Everyone was willing to pour their hearts into it and that just absolutely came across. 

ML: You have done voice acting on Castlevania, did that help you prepare for the Armorer when all of the dialogue is done with a mask on? 

ES: I think so. I think that it did come in handy. The voice is one of the first ways that I am able to connect with a character. My background before acting was in music, which might have had something to do with it too. My preparation for a voice acting character isn’t dissimilar from my preparation for other roles. I’m still trying to connect to the characters. Having that physicality, even if you’re only going to hear my voice still informs my voice. But it’s really fun to be in a voice-over booth, you have so much freedom to move how you want. You can do anything you want to do to connect to the character.

ML: Did you have to do any of the combat for the scene where the Armorer takes on the Stormtroopers? 

ES: I did a very little bit of it. I wanted to do it so badly, but the level of skill that the woman who did do combat was not a level that I could achieve in the time we had to film it. But I did train in a martial art style called Kali, which is what a lot of the fight was based in. I did some of the ends and outs and some of the transitions. The coolest parts of it were someone who is much more skilled than I am. I have to give credit where credit is due. That also was a moment that, even though I knew what happened in the scene, when I watched [the episode] it was just so incredible to see. 

ML: What were your favorite scenes to shoot? 

ES: I loved shooting the scenes prior to that one, where I get to reveal that The Child is in the line of the Jedi warriors. There was something so cool about getting to say “Jedi” and introducing that to the story, since it hadn’t been mentioned before that. It gave me the shivers. I like that scene for all of the action in it. Din finds out that he’s in charge of this child-being. I love getting to give him the jetpack. So many cool things happen in that scene. 

ML: That puppet. What was it like seeing the Child in action? 

ES: I didn’t realize just what an impact the Child was going to have. I didn’t get to read all of the scripts. I had the scripts for the episodes I was in and I also got to read six or seven. I didn’t have the entire story. I didn’t realize what a huge role he had. I was getting to experience a lot of the story at the same time as everyone else was watching it for the first time. I knew so little when we were shooting the series. It was really fun to get to be an audience member. 

ML: If you could choose your own sigil, like the Mudhorn sigil the Armorer crafted for the Mandalorian, what would you choose?

ES: Oh man! I think it would probably be my dog Norma. She would look pretty good. She’s half French Bulldog, half Boston Terrier. She’s got these incredible ears. I think her silhouette would look pretty good as a Beskar seal. 

Photo credit Disney/Lucasfilm

  ML: How heavy was the armor? 

ES: The armor wasn’t so bad. It was leather and a kind of canvas material. The leather was pretty supple, so it moved fairly easily. I wouldn’t say that I would love to wear it every day of my life, but it was very easy to move around in. The one thing that was challenging was the gloves that they made me. They looked great, but they were too big for me. It was very challenging to handle my welding tools. What turned into these beautiful forging sequences, were anything but that when we were filming them. I had trouble picking things up and I kept dropping things. I couldn’t tell if I was holding things right. That’s one of the times where you’re glad that you’re doing it on screen. They can just edit it to look great. You can’t do that in theater in front of the audience. 

ML: As a second teamer myself, I would love to know if the stand-ins ever had to wear pieces of the armor during camera rehearsal or just stunt doubles.

ES: We didn’t really have a lot of rehearsals outside of shooting. Most of the time we were dressed and ready to go. Especially for Pedro [Pascal] there were a number of stunt doubles and body doubles that were dressed up in the full Mandalorian armor. Most of us were just hanging out in our armor all the time, which was a great bonding experience. 

ML: Now, I thought I’d ask some fun questions. What is the earliest call time you’ve ever had?

ES: I don’t think I’ve ever been called before 4 AM. I was on the CBS show SEAL Team for a lot of this last season and most of my scenes were first up. Most of my mornings there started at 5:18. 

ML: What was your longest day on set? 

ES: I’ve had some sixteen and seventeen-hour days. I had some really long days on the set of Supernatural. Not the season eleven finale, but the episode before that. I was involved with fighting these angels and demons. My character got really beat up so I had a lot of prosthetics and make-up put on for blood, scarring, and burns. I had to get there early to get all of that put on, then there were long days of shooting, and it took awhile to get out of it [after wrap]. 

ML: I love Vancouver. It's one of my favorite cities.

ES: It’s a great city. I had never been there before I started working there. It’s my favorite place to go to work. I just love that it’s so easy to get out into the mountains or to the beach. It’s just beautiful up there. 

ML: I always joke that I got into acting because I love set catering. Which set had the best catering?

ES: Oh no! I think Supernatural. That might be because it’s the most recent in my memory, but the guys who cater for them have been there for years. First of all, they’re so kind. They’ll make you whatever you want. I’m somebody who likes to have a big creative salad and they always had great salad fixings. 

ML: What is your greatest weakness at crafty?

ES: Doritos! It’s so simple. 

ML: I bet the wardrobe loves that. 

ES: You can’t really hide when you’ve been eating Doritos. 

ML: There’s a great debate on sets about which is the best sparkling water. La Croix, Bubbly, or another brand? 

ES: I’m a fan of La Croix’s pamplemousse. It’s the grapefruit flavor, but it’s so much more fun to say “pamplemousse”. 

ML: What is something you always need to have with you in your trailer? 

ES: I always live in fear of having nothing to do on set, which is sort of ridiculous because there’s always something to keep you occupied. But I like to bring a book with me. 

I always bring my journal because if I have to wait a long time after hair and make-up, it helps me keep focused on the character and the work I’m doing that day. I love having good music in my trailer. One of the things I dislike about film is how much time you spend in your trailer. It’s a tiny space without much to do. I like to have some music in there. 

We wrap up the interview by discussing the uncertainties of this new world we’re living in. Her husband, Chad Kimball, is part of the cast of Come From Away on Broadway, where there’s a question about when they’ll return. 

“We can worry and fret, or we can assume that things will work out for the best. We might not know what the future looks like, but sometimes when things fall apart they might come back better than they were before.” 

The post Unmasking the Armorer: Emily Swallow Talks About The Mandalorian, Fans, and Set Life appeared first on Your Money Geek.

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[vinayv224]

The 6 Democrats running for president and everything else you should know about 2020

The biggest questions about the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, answered.

The 2020 presidential primary campaign field is winnowing down quickly now that the votes are being cast.

Any Democrat with dreams of occupying the Oval Office saw Donald Trump is a vulnerable president who hasn’t broadened his appeal beyond his base. A lot of them decided to run for their party’s nomination to be its standard-bearer in the 2020 election.

Two candidates look stronger than the rest: former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who rose to join the top of the field but then faded, and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who has risen in national polls, are the other two candidates in the race with the support and the infrastructure to make a splash in the race. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, after a strong third-place finish in New Hampshire, has faded in Nevada and South Carolina.

At this point, most candidates have dropped out: the latest is former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who won the Iowa caucuses and finished a close second in New Hampshire. Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Cory Booker, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, entrepreneur Andrew Yang and others departed after the first two states.

The Democratic field included a record number of women and nonwhite candidates, a mix of high-wattage stars and lesser-known contenders who believe they can navigate a fractured field to victory. The debates started in June, with most candidates getting a chance to appear on stage, but the number of participants started to shrink in the third debate in September. The next Democratic debate will be held on March 15.

Whoever emerges from the Democratic primary will face Trump, who along with the Republican National Committee has already raised more than $300 million for his reelection campaign. Recent history tells us Americans usually give their presidents another four years, which should lend Trump an advantage. But the president has been historically unpopular during his first term, and Biden and Sanders look competitive in a hypothetical general election match-up.

The past few months have demonstrated that really anything can happen. It’s silly to pretend anybody knows how this contest is going to end, and the 2016 election should have humbled all political prognosticators. Still, the 2020 campaign is well underway. Here is what you need to know to get oriented.

Who is running for president in the 2020 election?

On the Republican side, there is of course President Donald Trump.

A few prominent Republican officials — namely, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and popular Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan — had hinted they might challenge the president, though that’s very unlikely now. Any primary challenger would be a huge underdog against the sitting president. Republican leaders have said they want to protect Trump by having state parties change the rules for their primaries to guard against an insurgency.

The GOPer trying to supplant him is former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, a libertarian-leaning Republican. Two others dropped out of the race: Onetime radio host and former Rep. Joe Walsh, who has apologized for saying racist things on Twitter, and former Rep. Mark Sanford, an ideological conservative who was a member of the Freedom Caucus while he was in the House. No other Republican is going to topple Trump, we can safely say.

On the Democratic side, the field is finally starting to shrink with candidates dropping out. The contenders, in rough order of standing, are:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT): The 2016 runner-up is running again. He has the biggest grassroots base of any potential candidate and has led the push to move the party leftward. A more competitive field has presented Sanders with a very different race this time. The senator recently had a heart attack while on the campaign trail; while he’s recovering, he has openly said he won’t be able to get back to the breakneck speed of events he once had. Still, for many on the Democratic left, Sanders is the only candidate with the credibility to pursue their top-tier issues, like Medicare-for-all.

Former Vice President Joe Biden: Biden thought hard about running in 2016, but he decided against it, being so soon after his son Beau’s death and with the party establishment uniformly behind Hillary Clinton. He’s still very popular with Democratic voters, and the former veep apparently wasn’t sure any of the other potential candidates would beat Trump. Though surely inflated by name recognition, Biden had a sizable early lead in the early Democratic national polls that has since dropped sharply.

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg: Bloomberg had toyed with a Democratic presidential run, even though he governed the country’s biggest city as an independent, for a while. Late in the game, he finally decided to take a shot, filing for the primary in Alabama ahead of the deadline there. He has a few policy wins that he can tout to Democratic voters, most notably on guns, but a centrist billionaire with some policy ideas that are anathema to the progressive base may struggle to unite the party behind him.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): The Massachusetts senator is proudly progressive, though she tends to position herself as wanting to fix capitalism rather than replace it. She wants to outflank Trump on trade, give workers seats on corporate boards, and tax extreme wealth. Warren got on the ground early in Iowa and other early states and, like Sanders, is not seeking money from high-dollar donors. (You also might have heard about her releasing a DNA test in an attempt to prove she had Native American roots — a poorly executed early attempt to rebut Trump’s “Pocahontas” taunts.)

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): She will look to blend her folksy, Midwestern manner with some crossover appeal, given her history of working across the aisle with Republicans and winning elections handily in a purplish state. Klobuchar is also known for her willingness to crack down on big tech firms on privacy and antitrust issues. She struggled for much of the race with a lack of name recognition, however, and she has been the subject of several reports about her alleged harsh treatment of staff.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI): Gabbard fires up a certain strain of antiwar progressive. She’s faced tough questions, though, about her apparent friendliness with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and her past comments on LGBTQ rights.

Who has dropped out of the 2020 presidential campaign?

Quite a few Democrats have already given up the ghost, with some of the big names withdrawing once they faltered in the primaries.

Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg: Something of a viral political star, though he leads a city of “just” 100,000 people, Buttigieg is a military veteran and a Rhodes scholar, and he would have been the first openly LGBTQ president in American history. Redevelopment and infrastructure projects have been staples of his tenure as mayor, but he also got plenty of questions about how he handled racial issues in South Bend.

Tom Steyer: The billionaire Democratic donor decided to enter the arena. He first rose to political prominence for his focus on combating climate change, and started a crusade to convince congressional Democrats to impeach Trump. Steyer positioned himself as a (well-funded) outsider running against a host of lifelong politicians.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): The former Newark, New Jersey, mayor and part-time firefighter failed to break out of the low single digits in polls, despite early predictions that he could be a major contender in the race. He was a fresh face with big ideas like savings accounts for newborns, but his work promoting charter schools (not a favorite of the teachers unions) and the perception that he’s close with Wall Street both posed challenges to his candidacy from the start, and his message of love and unity never quite caught on with voters.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA): The former California attorney general started generating White House hype almost as soon as she got to the Senate in 2017. As a younger black woman, she personified the Democratic Party’s changing nature. She had endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major middle-class tax credit, though her days as a prosecutor presented problems with the progressive grassroots. Harris made a big splash in early polls, but she dropped after stumbles over health care and never recovered.

Andrew Yang: A humanitarian-minded entrepreneur who also served in the Obama administration, he ran on a policy platform that includes, among other things, a universal basic income that would pay out $1,000 a month to every American over 18.

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke: The former Texas Congress member was once 2020’s biggest wild card. O’Rourke built a historically successful fundraising apparatus during his losing 2018 Senate run against Ted Cruz. He’s young, and he gives a good speech. Obama’s old hands seemed to like him. The open question was whether his self-evidenced political talents were matched by policy substance.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio: De Blasio, the mayor of America’s biggest city and already the unlikely victor of a contentious Democratic primary to get there, touted his progressive achievements in the Big Apple as a model for the nation: enacting universal pre-K, ending stop-and-frisk, and creating an ambitious local health care program.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY): Gillibrand had evolved over the years from a centrist Democrat in the House to a progressive. She endorsed Medicare-for-all and universal paid family leave; a pillar of her Senate career has been cracking down on sexual assault in the military. Gillibrand was presenting herself as a young mom in tune with the Me Too era and the Democratic women who powered the party to historic wins in the 2018 midterms.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO): Bennet is a well-regarded but nationally little-known senator. He tacks toward the center ideologically. The passion that fuels his candidacy is a fervent frustration with the way Washington works now. Bennet believes Americans are not nearly as divided as the parties in Washington and is positioning himself accordingly.

Former San Antonio mayor and HUD Secretary Julián Castro: Castro got VP buzz in prior elections; this time, he ran in his own right after serving in Obama’s Cabinet on an aspirational message as the grandson of immigrants.

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper: Hickenlooper is a moderate ex-governor who pitched his ability to work across the aisle. On the issues, he touted his record on gun violence, environmental regulations, and expanding Medicaid. He conveyed an everyman persona, having founded a Denver brewery before he ever ran for public office. He decided to run for the Democratic nomination to challenge GOP Sen. Cory Gardner in 2020 instead.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee: Inslee centered his work on environmental issues and the threat of climate change. He has pushed a bill to get his home state off coal energy and all other carbon-producing energy sources by 2045. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing — voters in Washington rejected an Inslee-supported carbon fee in 2015 — but the governor hoped to quickly build a profile by focusing relentlessly on the dire threat to humanity. He has opted instead to seek a third term as governor.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA): Another Nancy Pelosi skeptic who helped lead the unsuccessful rebellion to stop her from becoming House speaker again in 2016. The Massachusetts representative, who is an Iraq War veteran, positioned himself as a moderate in contrast to the socialist energy animating the left and seeking to take over his party.

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH): The Ohio Congress member pitched himself as the Democratic answer for Trump country, arguing he can connect with the blue-collar workers the party has lost in the Midwest. He cited the closure of the Lordstown GM plant in his home state as part of his motivation for running. Ryan has a history of long-shot bids: He challenged Pelosi for the House Democratic leader post in 2016.

Former Sen. Mike Gravel: The 88-year-old former senator, famed for reading the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record, ran 2020’s oddest campaign. Two teenagers convinced Gravel to launch a protest candidacy targeting the center left and the forever wars of mainstream American foreign policy. He endorsed Gabbard and Sanders after he exited the race.

Miramar, Florida, Mayor Wayne Messam: The mayor of a Miami suburb, Messam had perhaps the lowest name recognition of any Democrat in the race. The son of Jamaican immigrants, he’s raised wages for city workers as mayor and confronted the Republican-led state government over gun control.

Former Rep. Joe Sestak: The retired three-star admiral and former Pennsylvania representative in Congress was a late entry to the race, announcing his campaign three days before the first Democratic debates. Sestak pitched himself heavily on his naval experience — his campaign logo prominently features the moniker “Adm. Joe” — and the global leadership experience he says it provides.

Marianne Williamson: A self-proclaimed “bitch for God” who has been a spiritual adviser to Oprah. Her previous political experience was a failed run for Congress as an independent in 2014.

Former Rep. John Delaney: The most notable thing about Delaney was he ran for president for over two years, more or less living in Iowa, the first state on the presidential calendar. But he rarely polled above 1 percent there or anywhere else.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick: Patrick had sworn off a presidential bid months ago, but he reversed course and jumped into the campaign. He never made a mark.

When are the next 2020 Democratic presidential primary election debates?

The Democratic National Committee announced it would hold 12 debates, starting in June 2019 and extending into 2020.

The next Democratic debate is March 15 and will be held in Phoenix, Arizona. To date, candidates must either have won a Democratic National Convention delegate in Iowa or hit a certain percentage in national or early-state polls to qualify, but the qualifying thresholds for the next debate have not yet been set.

When are the 2020 Democratic presidential primary election and caucus nights?

Early momentum is always critical, especially in a big field with so many candidates trying to prove that they’re viable. With that in mind, here are the next two months of the primary schedule:

March 3 (“Super Tuesday”): Alabama, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Vermont primaries

March 7: Louisiana primary

March 10: Michigan, Mississippi and Missouri primaries; North Dakota caucuses

March 12: Virgin Islands

March 14: Guam, Northern Mariana

March 17: Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio primaries

March 24: Georgia, American Samoa

March 27: North Dakota

March 29: Puerto Rico

April 4: Alaska, Hawaii, Louisiana, Wyoming

April 7: Wisconsin

April 28: Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island

How do you win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination?

The short version is you have to win a majority of the delegates.

Every state has different rules for its primary elections or caucuses in terms of allocating delegates. Candidates win delegates proportional to where they finish in the results, though they generally have to hit a minimum threshold of 15 percent to be awarded any delegates.

In terms of numbers, there will be an estimated 3,979 delegates for the 2020 Democratic National Convention (where the nominee will be formally selected) up for grabs during the primary elections. One candidate needs to win at least 1,991 delegates to be nominated.

You might hear talk of a “brokered” or “contested” convention if no candidate gets the necessary delegates to win on the first ballot. That could definitely happen in 2020; the FiveThirtyEight forecast thinks it’s a 2-in-3 chance. If that should happen, all bets are off. There hasn’t been a brokered convention in decades.

Democrats have made one major change from the 2016 primary on “superdelegates” — elected officials, party leaders, and other prominent Democrats who have votes in addition to the regular delegates awarded by state elections. In the past, superdelegates didn’t have to follow any rules and could back whichever candidate they desire and make up their minds at any point in the process. When most of them endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, it gave her a built-in delegate advantage over Bernie Sanders, though she still won enough votes independent of the superdelegates to secure the nomination.

In a series of reforms, the DNC has stripped superdelegates of a vote on the first ballot. So unless the convention has to move to second or third votes because no candidate has a sufficient number of delegates — something that hasn’t happened since the 1950s — superdelegates won’t matter in 2020. (Arguably, they never did. Many pointed out it was unlikely for superdelegates to use their power to overturn the outcome of the primary system, but it nevertheless created consternation within the party.)

Okay. So who will be the next president?

Ha! You almost got me.

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The 19 Democrats still running for president and everything else you should know about 2020

The number of 2020 Democratic candidates who are running for president has passed two dozen. | Javier Zarracina/Vox. Getty Images

The biggest questions about the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, answered.

The 2020 presidential primary campaign field has started to winnow down, but there are still new candidates jumping into the race four months to go until the first states vote.

Any Democrat with dreams of occupying the Oval Office can see Donald Trump is a vulnerable president who hasn’t broadened his appeal beyond his base. A lot of them are running for their party’s nomination next year to be its standard-bearer in the 2020 election.

There is a clear top tier of four candidates: former Vice President Joe Biden — the early, if unimposing, frontrunner; Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has steadily risen to the top of the field; Sen. Bernie Sanders with his solid base of left voters; and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has been trending upward lately. After an early boomlet, Sens. Kamala Harris is down in the polls. Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, and Andrew Yang have also been in the fray for months. A fair number of candidates have left the race: former US Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, among others.

But the field isn’t set yet. Ex-NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg filed for the Alabama primary right a headline of the deadline. Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is entering the race. Even Hillary Clinton is taking calls encouraging her to run again, though she says it is exceedingly unlikely she’d seek the White House for a third time.

The Democratic field includes a record number of women and nonwhite candidates, a mix of high-wattage stars and lesser-known contenders who believe they can navigate a fractured field to victory. The debates started in June, with most candidates getting a chance to appear on stage, but the number of participants started to winnow in the third debate in September. The fifth Democratic debate will be held on November 20.

Whoever emerges from the Democratic primary will face Trump, who along with the Republican National Committee has already raised more than $300 million for reelection to a second term. Recent history tells us Americans usually give their presidents another four years. That should lend Trump an advantage. But the president has been historically unpopular during his first term, and he’s now mired in an impeachment inquiry after an explosive scandal in which he asked the Ukrainian president for political dirt on Biden. Impeachment polling doesn’t look great for Trump.

The last few months have demonstrated really anything can happen. It’s silly to pretend anybody knows how this campaign is going to end, and the 2016 election should have humbled all political prognosticators. Still, the 2020 campaign has already started. Here is what you need to know to get oriented.

Who is running for president in the 2020 election?

On the Republican side, there is of course President Donald Trump.

A few Republican officials — former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and popular Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan — have hinted they might challenge the president in a primary. But any primary challenger would be a huge underdog against the sitting president. Republican leaders have said they want to protect Trump by potentially having state parties change the rules for their primaries to guard against an insurgency.

The GOPers trying to supplant him are former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, a libertarian-leaning Republican who has officially entered the race former radio host and former Rep. Joe Walsh, who has apologized for saying racist things on Twitter. Former Rep. Mark Sanford, an ideological conservative who was a member of the Freedom Caucus while he was in the House, briefly pursued a primary challenge but he has already dropped out. No other Republican is going to topple Trump, we can safely say.

On the Democratic side, the field is mostly set after these unexpected late entries, and candidates have started to drop out. The contenders, in rough order of standing, are:

From left: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Jay Inslee, Beto O’Rourke, John Hickenlooper, Michael Bennett, Julián Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, John Delaney, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson.

Former Vice President Joe Biden: Biden thought hard about running in 2016, but he decided against it, being so soon after his son Beau’s death and with the party establishment uniformly behind Hillary Clinton. He’s still very popular with Democratic voters, and the former veep apparently wasn’t sure any of the other potential candidates would beat Trump. Though surely inflated by name recognition, Biden had a sizable early lead in the early Democratic primary polls. However, Warren recently (albeit very narrowly) surpassed him.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): The Massachusetts senator is proudly progressive, though she tends to position herself as wanting to fix capitalism rather than replace it. She wants to outflank Trump on trade and give workers seats on corporate boards and tax extreme wealth. Warren got on the ground early in Iowa and other early states, and like Sanders, is rejecting money from high-dollar donors. (You might have also heard about her releasing a DNA test in an attempt to prove she had Native American roots — a poorly executed early attempt to rebut Trump’s “Pocahontas” taunts.)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT): The 2016 runner-up is running again. He has the biggest grassroots base of any potential candidate, and he has been the leader of the push to move the party leftward. A more competitive field has presented Sanders with a very different race this time. And Sanders recently had a heart attack while on the campaign trail; while he’s recovering, he has openly said he won’t be able to get back to the breakneck speed of events he once had. Still, for many of the Democratic left, Sanders is the only candidate with the credibility to pursue their top-tier issues, like Medicare-for-all.

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg: Something of a viral political star, though he leads a city of “just” 100,000 people, Buttigieg is a military veteran and a Rhodes scholar, and he would be the first openly LGBTQ president in American history. Redevelopment and infrastructure projects have been staples of his tenure as mayor, but he’s also gotten plenty of questions of how he handled racial issues in South Bend.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA): The former California attorney general started generating White House hype almost as soon as she got to the Senate in 2017. As a younger black woman, she personifies the Democratic Party’s changing nature. She’s endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major middle-class tax credit, though her days as a prosecutor may present problems with the progressive grassroots. Harris made a big splash in early polls, but she’s now languishing in the second tier of candidates and hoping her campaign can reset in Iowa.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): The former Newark, New Jersey, mayor and part-time firefighter is another fresh face with big ideas like savings accounts for newborns, and he’s also running in a Democratic primary with a lot of black voters. He’ll have to contend, though, with his work promoting charter schools (not a favorite of the teachers unions), the perception that he’s close with Wall Street, and the fact he can’t seem to break out of low single digits in the polls.

Andrew Yang: A humanitarian-mind entrepreneur who also served in the Obama administration. He’s running on a policy platform that includes, among other things, a universal basic income that would pay out $1,000 a month to every American over age 18.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): She will look to blend her folksy, Midwestern manner with some crossover appeal, given her history of working across the aisle with Republicans and winning elections handily in a purplish state. Klobuchar is also known for her willingness to crack down on big tech firms focused on privacy and antitrust issues. She is struggling with a lack of name recognition, however, and she has been the subject of several reports about her alleged harsh treatment of staff.

Former San Antonio mayor and HUD Secretary Julián Castro: Castro got VP buzz in prior elections; now he’s running in his own right after serving in Barack Obama’s Cabinet, on an aspirational message as the grandson of immigrants.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI): Gabbard fires up a certain strain of antiwar progressive. She’ll face tough questions, though, about her apparent friendliness with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and her past comments on LGBTQ rights.

Tom Steyer: The billionaire Democratic donor has decided to enter the arena himself. He first rose to political prominence for his focus on combatting climate change and lately he has been on a crusade to convince congressional Democrats to impeach Trump. Steyer is positioning himself as a (well-funded) outsider running against a host of lifelong politicians.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Bloomberg had toyed with a Democratic presidential run, even though he governed the country’s biggest city as an independent, for a while now. Late in the game, he seems to have decided to finally take a shot, filing for the primary in Alabama ahead of the deadline there. He has a few policy wins that he can tout to Democratic voters, mostly notable on guns, but a centrist billionaire with some policy ideas that are anathema to the progressive base has not been a successful model in 2020 so far.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick: Patrick had sworn off a presidential bid months ago, but he’s reversed course and jumped into the campaign. The ex-gov is a longtime friend and ally of Barack Obama, and he’s trying to position himself as a candidate who can maintain unity within the party and country while still trying to tackle the big problems that have given the more left candidates such lift in the campaign. Whether he’ll succeed is another story: Cory Booker has a similar profile and hasn’t caught on so far, Democratic voters said they were already with the candidates they had before Patrick joined in, and he arguably lacks a signature progressive policy achievement despite eight years governing a liberal state with a Democratic legislature.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO): Bennet is a well-regarded but nationally little-known senator. He tacks toward the center ideologically. The passion that fuels his candidacy is a fervent frustration with the way Washington works now. Bennet believes Americans are not nearly as divided as the parties in Washington and is positioning himself accordingly.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock: Bullock, a two-term Democratic governor in a Trump-friendly state, is campaigning as a Washington outsider who will confront moneyed interests and reform the campaign finance system. He can also claim the successful expansion of Medicaid, with the buy-in of a Republican legislature, to showcase his bipartisan bona fides.

Former Rep. John Delaney: The most notable thing about Delaney is he’s been running for president for over two years, more or less living in Iowa, the first state on the presidential calendar. He was the first choice of just 1 percent of Iowa Democrats in a December 2018 poll.

Former Rep. Joe Sestak: The retired three-star admiral and former Pennsylvania representative in Congress is a late entry to the race, announcing his campaign three days before the first Democratic debates. Sestak is pitching himself heavily on his naval experience — his campaign logo prominently features the moniker “Adm. Joe” — and the global leadership experience he says it provides.

Marianne Williamson: A self-proclaimed “bitch for God” who has been a spiritual adviser to Oprah. Her previous political experience is a failed run for Congress as an independent in 2014.

Miramar, Florida, Mayor Wayne Messam: The mayor of a Miami suburb, it seems safe to assume Messam has the lowest name recognition of any Democrat in the race. The son of Jamaican immigrants, he’s raised wages for city workers as mayor and confronted the Republican-led state government over gun control.

Who has dropped out of the 2020 presidential campaign?

Quite a few Democrats have already given up the ghost.

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke: The former Texas Congress member is maybe 2020’s biggest wild card. O’Rourke built a historically successful fundraising apparatus during his losing 2018 Senate run against Ted Cruz. He’s young, and he gives a good speech. Obama’s old hands seem to like him. The open question is whether his self-evidenced political talents are matched by policy substance.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio: De Blasio, mayor of America’s biggest city and already the unlikely victor of a contentious Democratic primary to get there, touted his progressive achievements in the Big Apple as a model for the nation: enacting universal pre-K, ending stop-and-frisk, and an ambitious local health care program.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY): Gillibrand had evolved over the years from a centrist Democrat in the House to a progressive. She endorsed Medicare-for-all and universal paid family leave; a pillar of her Senate career has been cracking down on sexual assault in the military. Gillibrand was presenting herself as a young mom in tune with the #MeToo era and the Democratic women who powered the party to historic wins in the 2018 midterms.

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper: Hickenlooper is a moderate ex-governor who pitched his ability to work across the aisle. On the issues, he touted his record on gun violence, environmental regulations, and expanding Medicaid. He conveyed an everyman persona, having founded a Denver brewery before he ever ran for public office. He decided to run for the Democratic nomination to challenge GOP Sen. Cory Garder in 2020 instead.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee: Inslee centered his work on environmental issues and the threat of climate change. He has pushed a bill to get his home state off coal energy and all other carbon-producing energy sources by 2045. It hasn’t always been smooth — voters in Washington rejected an Inslee-supported carbon fee in 2015 — but the governor hoped to quickly build a profile by focusing relentlessly on humanity’s direst existential threat. He has opted instead to seek a third term as governor.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA): Another Pelosi skeptic who helped lead the unsuccessful rebellion to stop her from becoming House Speaker again in 2016. Moulton, who represents a district in Massachusetts and is an Iraq War veteran, positioned himself as a moderate in contrast to the socialist energy animating the left and seeking to take over his party.

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH): The Ohio congressman is pitching himself as the Democratic answer for Trump Country, arguing he can connect with the blue-collar workers the party has lost in the Midwest. He cited the closure of the Lordstown GM plant in his home state as part of his motivation for running. Ryan has a history of long-shot bids: He challenged Nancy Pelosi for the House Democratic leader post in 2016.

Former Sen. Mike Gravel: The 88-year-old former senator, famed for reading the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record, ran 2020’s oddest campaign. Two teenagers convinced Gravel to launch a protest candidacy targeting the center-left and the forever war of mainstream American foreign policy. He endorsed Gabbard and Sanders after he’d exited the race.

Who else might run for president in the 2020 election?

Well, never say never but the field might finally be set with Bloomberg and Patrick. There were a handful of names we were still watching throughout the summer — former senator, Secretary of State and presidential nominee John Kerry and Georgia state senator Stacey Abrams chief among them — but both have since said they will not run. Hillary Clinton would shake up the race if she decided to join, but she continues to tamp down on the speculation she could run again. People are going to start voting soon. We should have all the candidates we’re going to get.

When do candidates have to decide whether or not to run?

Each state has its own filing deadline for federal candidates. A couple states — Alabama and Arkansas — have already had their deadlines pass. South Dakota, on the other hand, doesn’t close the door on candidates until the end of March.

More realistically, it’s difficult to imagine a candidate being viable if they don’t start competing, at the absolute latest, in California or Texas on Super Tuesday, March 3, when they’ll already have missed the first four primary states. Nine other states vote on Super Tuesday too. California’s filing deadline is December 13 and Texas’s is December 9. We are in the final stretch for any other candidates to get off the sidelines and make a run.

When are the next 2020 Democratic presidential primary election debates?

The Democratic National Committee announced it will hold 12 debates, starting in June 2019 and extending into 2020.

The next Democratic debate is November 20 and will be held in Atlanta, Georgia. It could be a much more intimate affair than the 12-candidate extravaganza at the fourth debate in October. Candidates must secure at least 165,000 individual donors, including 600 individual donors from 20 states. Or they must reach 3 percent in the polls in four Democratic National Committee (DNC) approved surveys, or 5 percent in two DNC approved polls from the four earliest primary and caucus states — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.

As Vox’s Li Zhou reports, the candidates who have met the polling and donor thresholds are:

Former Vice President Joe Biden

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders

California Sen. Kamala Harris

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker

South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang

Billionaire and climate advocate Tom Steyer

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Two candidates have met just the donor requirement:

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard

When are the 2020 Democratic presidential primary election and caucus nights?

The votes that matter won’t be cast for another six months. We have months of formal announcements, speeches, policy rollouts, campaign gossip, unpredictable polling, and some debates before any elections happen, when candidates start collecting the delegates they’ll need to claim the nomination.

Early momentum is always critical, especially in a big field with so many candidates trying to prove that they’re viable. With that in mind, the first two months of the primary schedule:

February 3: Iowa caucuses

February 11: New Hampshire primary

February 22: Nevada caucuses

February 29: South Carolina primary

March 3 (“Super Tuesday”): Alabama, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Vermont primaries

March 7: Louisiana primary

March 10: Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio primaries; North Dakota caucuses

March 17: Arizona, Florida, Illinois primaries

There are at least three more months of primaries and caucuses after that. But the candidates will focus their attention and organizing on the earlier states, and we should know a lot more about the field and the strongest candidates once the first sprint is over.

How do you win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination?

The short version is you have to win a majority of the delegates.

Every state has different rules for its primary elections or caucuses in terms of allocating delegates. Candidates win delegates proportional to where they finish in the results, though they generally have to hit a minimum threshold of 15 percent to be awarded any delegates.

In terms of numbers, there will be an estimated 3,768 delegates for the 2020 Democratic National Convention (where the nominee will be formally selected) up for grabs during the primary elections. One candidate needs to win at least 1,885 delegates to be nominated.

You might hear talk of a “brokered” or “contested” convention if no candidate gets the necessary delegates to win on the first ballot. But that hasn’t happened for decades, and it’s way too early to think that will happen in 2020. That doesn’t mean it’s not a possibility, but let’s wait for some votes to come in before we start up that parlor game.

Democrats have made one major change from the 2016 primary on “superdelegates” — elected officials, party leaders, and other prominent Democrats who have votes in addition to the regular delegates awarded by state elections. In the past, superdelegates didn’t have to follow any rules and could back whichever candidate they desire and make up their minds at any point in the process. When most of them endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, it gave her a built-in delegate advantage over Bernie Sanders, though she still won enough votes independent of the superdelegates to secure the nomination.

In a series of reforms, the DNC has stripped superdelegates of a vote on the first ballot. So unless the convention has to move to second or third votes because no candidate has a sufficient number of delegates — something that hasn’t happened since the 1950s — superdelegates won’t matter in 2020. (Arguably, they never did. Many pointed out it was unlikely for superdelegates to use their power to overturn the outcome of the primary system, but it nevertheless created consternation within the party.)

Okay. So who will be the next president?

Ha! You almost got me.

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The 19 Democrats still running for president and everything else you should know about 2020

The number of 2020 Democratic candidates who are running for president has passed two dozen. | Javier Zarracina/Vox. Getty Images

The biggest questions about the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, answered.

The 2020 presidential primary campaign field has started to winnow down, but there are still new candidates jumping into the race four months to go until the first states vote.

Any Democrat with dreams of occupying the Oval Office can see Donald Trump is a vulnerable president who hasn’t broadened his appeal beyond his base. A lot of them are running for their party’s nomination next year to be its standard-bearer in the 2020 election.

There is a clear top tier of four candidates: former Vice President Joe Biden — the early, if unimposing, frontrunner; Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has steadily risen to the top of the field; Sen. Bernie Sanders with his solid base of left voters; and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has been trending upward lately. After an early boomlet, Sens. Kamala Harris is down in the polls. Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, and Andrew Yang have also been in the fray for months. A fair number of candidates have left the race: former US Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, among others.

But the field isn’t set yet. Ex-NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg filed for the Alabama primary right a headline of the deadline. Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is entering the race. Even Hillary Clinton is taking calls encouraging her to run again, though she says it is exceedingly unlikely she’d seek the White House for a third time.

The Democratic field includes a record number of women and nonwhite candidates, a mix of high-wattage stars and lesser-known contenders who believe they can navigate a fractured field to victory. The debates started in June, with most candidates getting a chance to appear on stage, but the number of participants started to winnow in the third debate in September. The fifth Democratic debate will be held on November 20.

Whoever emerges from the Democratic primary will face Trump, who along with the Republican National Committee has already raised more than $300 million for reelection to a second term. Recent history tells us Americans usually give their presidents another four years. That should lend Trump an advantage. But the president has been historically unpopular during his first term, and he’s now mired in an impeachment inquiry after an explosive scandal in which he asked the Ukrainian president for political dirt on Biden. Impeachment polling doesn’t look great for Trump.

The last few months have demonstrated really anything can happen. It’s silly to pretend anybody knows how this campaign is going to end, and the 2016 election should have humbled all political prognosticators. Still, the 2020 campaign has already started. Here is what you need to know to get oriented.

Who is running for president in the 2020 election?

On the Republican side, there is of course President Donald Trump.

A few Republican officials — former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and popular Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan — have hinted they might challenge the president in a primary. But any primary challenger would be a huge underdog against the sitting president. Republican leaders have said they want to protect Trump by potentially having state parties change the rules for their primaries to guard against an insurgency.

The GOPers trying to supplant him are former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, a libertarian-leaning Republican who has officially entered the race former radio host and former Rep. Joe Walsh, who has apologized for saying racist things on Twitter. Former Rep. Mark Sanford, an ideological conservative who was a member of the Freedom Caucus while he was in the House, briefly pursued a primary challenge but he has already dropped out. No other Republican is going to topple Trump, we can safely say.

On the Democratic side, the field is mostly set after these unexpected late entries, and candidates have started to drop out. The contenders, in rough order of standing, are:

From left: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Jay Inslee, Beto O’Rourke, John Hickenlooper, Michael Bennett, Julián Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, John Delaney, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson.

Former Vice President Joe Biden: Biden thought hard about running in 2016, but he decided against it, being so soon after his son Beau’s death and with the party establishment uniformly behind Hillary Clinton. He’s still very popular with Democratic voters, and the former veep apparently wasn’t sure any of the other potential candidates would beat Trump. Though surely inflated by name recognition, Biden had a sizable early lead in the early Democratic primary polls. However, Warren recently (albeit very narrowly) surpassed him.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): The Massachusetts senator is proudly progressive, though she tends to position herself as wanting to fix capitalism rather than replace it. She wants to outflank Trump on trade and give workers seats on corporate boards and tax extreme wealth. Warren got on the ground early in Iowa and other early states, and like Sanders, is rejecting money from high-dollar donors. (You might have also heard about her releasing a DNA test in an attempt to prove she had Native American roots — a poorly executed early attempt to rebut Trump’s “Pocahontas” taunts.)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT): The 2016 runner-up is running again. He has the biggest grassroots base of any potential candidate, and he has been the leader of the push to move the party leftward. A more competitive field has presented Sanders with a very different race this time. And Sanders recently had a heart attack while on the campaign trail; while he’s recovering, he has openly said he won’t be able to get back to the breakneck speed of events he once had. Still, for many of the Democratic left, Sanders is the only candidate with the credibility to pursue their top-tier issues, like Medicare-for-all.

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg: Something of a viral political star, though he leads a city of “just” 100,000 people, Buttigieg is a military veteran and a Rhodes scholar, and he would be the first openly LGBTQ president in American history. Redevelopment and infrastructure projects have been staples of his tenure as mayor, but he’s also gotten plenty of questions of how he handled racial issues in South Bend.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA): The former California attorney general started generating White House hype almost as soon as she got to the Senate in 2017. As a younger black woman, she personifies the Democratic Party’s changing nature. She’s endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major middle-class tax credit, though her days as a prosecutor may present problems with the progressive grassroots. Harris made a big splash in early polls, but she’s now languishing in the second tier of candidates and hoping her campaign can reset in Iowa.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): The former Newark, New Jersey, mayor and part-time firefighter is another fresh face with big ideas like savings accounts for newborns, and he’s also running in a Democratic primary with a lot of black voters. He’ll have to contend, though, with his work promoting charter schools (not a favorite of the teachers unions), the perception that he’s close with Wall Street, and the fact he can’t seem to break out of low single digits in the polls.

Andrew Yang: A humanitarian-mind entrepreneur who also served in the Obama administration. He’s running on a policy platform that includes, among other things, a universal basic income that would pay out $1,000 a month to every American over age 18.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): She will look to blend her folksy, Midwestern manner with some crossover appeal, given her history of working across the aisle with Republicans and winning elections handily in a purplish state. Klobuchar is also known for her willingness to crack down on big tech firms focused on privacy and antitrust issues. She is struggling with a lack of name recognition, however, and she has been the subject of several reports about her alleged harsh treatment of staff.

Former San Antonio mayor and HUD Secretary Julián Castro: Castro got VP buzz in prior elections; now he’s running in his own right after serving in Barack Obama’s Cabinet, on an aspirational message as the grandson of immigrants.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI): Gabbard fires up a certain strain of antiwar progressive. She’ll face tough questions, though, about her apparent friendliness with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and her past comments on LGBTQ rights.

Tom Steyer: The billionaire Democratic donor has decided to enter the arena himself. He first rose to political prominence for his focus on combatting climate change and lately he has been on a crusade to convince congressional Democrats to impeach Trump. Steyer is positioning himself as a (well-funded) outsider running against a host of lifelong politicians.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Bloomberg had toyed with a Democratic presidential run, even though he governed the country’s biggest city as an independent, for a while now. Late in the game, he seems to have decided to finally take a shot, filing for the primary in Alabama ahead of the deadline there. He has a few policy wins that he can tout to Democratic voters, mostly notable on guns, but a centrist billionaire with some policy ideas that are anathema to the progressive base has not been a successful model in 2020 so far.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick: Patrick had sworn off a presidential bid months ago, but he’s reversed course and jumped into the campaign. The ex-gov is a longtime friend and ally of Barack Obama, and he’s trying to position himself as a candidate who can maintain unity within the party and country while still trying to tackle the big problems that have given the more left candidates such lift in the campaign. Whether he’ll succeed is another story: Cory Booker has a similar profile and hasn’t caught on so far, Democratic voters said they were already with the candidates they had before Patrick joined in, and he arguably lacks a signature progressive policy achievement despite eight years governing a liberal state with a Democratic legislature.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO): Bennet is a well-regarded but nationally little-known senator. He tacks toward the center ideologically. The passion that fuels his candidacy is a fervent frustration with the way Washington works now. Bennet believes Americans are not nearly as divided as the parties in Washington and is positioning himself accordingly.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock: Bullock, a two-term Democratic governor in a Trump-friendly state, is campaigning as a Washington outsider who will confront moneyed interests and reform the campaign finance system. He can also claim the successful expansion of Medicaid, with the buy-in of a Republican legislature, to showcase his bipartisan bona fides.

Former Rep. John Delaney: The most notable thing about Delaney is he’s been running for president for over two years, more or less living in Iowa, the first state on the presidential calendar. He was the first choice of just 1 percent of Iowa Democrats in a December 2018 poll.

Former Rep. Joe Sestak: The retired three-star admiral and former Pennsylvania representative in Congress is a late entry to the race, announcing his campaign three days before the first Democratic debates. Sestak is pitching himself heavily on his naval experience — his campaign logo prominently features the moniker “Adm. Joe” — and the global leadership experience he says it provides.

Marianne Williamson: A self-proclaimed “bitch for God” who has been a spiritual adviser to Oprah. Her previous political experience is a failed run for Congress as an independent in 2014.

Miramar, Florida, Mayor Wayne Messam: The mayor of a Miami suburb, it seems safe to assume Messam has the lowest name recognition of any Democrat in the race. The son of Jamaican immigrants, he’s raised wages for city workers as mayor and confronted the Republican-led state government over gun control.

Who has dropped out of the 2020 presidential campaign?

Quite a few Democrats have already given up the ghost.

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke: The former Texas Congress member is maybe 2020’s biggest wild card. O’Rourke built a historically successful fundraising apparatus during his losing 2018 Senate run against Ted Cruz. He’s young, and he gives a good speech. Obama’s old hands seem to like him. The open question is whether his self-evidenced political talents are matched by policy substance.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio: De Blasio, mayor of America’s biggest city and already the unlikely victor of a contentious Democratic primary to get there, touted his progressive achievements in the Big Apple as a model for the nation: enacting universal pre-K, ending stop-and-frisk, and an ambitious local health care program.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY): Gillibrand had evolved over the years from a centrist Democrat in the House to a progressive. She endorsed Medicare-for-all and universal paid family leave; a pillar of her Senate career has been cracking down on sexual assault in the military. Gillibrand was presenting herself as a young mom in tune with the #MeToo era and the Democratic women who powered the party to historic wins in the 2018 midterms.

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper: Hickenlooper is a moderate ex-governor who pitched his ability to work across the aisle. On the issues, he touted his record on gun violence, environmental regulations, and expanding Medicaid. He conveyed an everyman persona, having founded a Denver brewery before he ever ran for public office. He decided to run for the Democratic nomination to challenge GOP Sen. Cory Garder in 2020 instead.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee: Inslee centered his work on environmental issues and the threat of climate change. He has pushed a bill to get his home state off coal energy and all other carbon-producing energy sources by 2045. It hasn’t always been smooth — voters in Washington rejected an Inslee-supported carbon fee in 2015 — but the governor hoped to quickly build a profile by focusing relentlessly on humanity’s direst existential threat. He has opted instead to seek a third term as governor.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA): Another Pelosi skeptic who helped lead the unsuccessful rebellion to stop her from becoming House Speaker again in 2016. Moulton, who represents a district in Massachusetts and is an Iraq War veteran, positioned himself as a moderate in contrast to the socialist energy animating the left and seeking to take over his party.

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH): The Ohio congressman is pitching himself as the Democratic answer for Trump Country, arguing he can connect with the blue-collar workers the party has lost in the Midwest. He cited the closure of the Lordstown GM plant in his home state as part of his motivation for running. Ryan has a history of long-shot bids: He challenged Nancy Pelosi for the House Democratic leader post in 2016.

Former Sen. Mike Gravel: The 88-year-old former senator, famed for reading the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record, ran 2020’s oddest campaign. Two teenagers convinced Gravel to launch a protest candidacy targeting the center-left and the forever war of mainstream American foreign policy. He endorsed Gabbard and Sanders after he’d exited the race.

Who else might run for president in the 2020 election?

Well, never say never but the field might finally be set with Bloomberg and Patrick. There were a handful of names we were still watching throughout the summer — former senator, Secretary of State and presidential nominee John Kerry and Georgia state senator Stacey Abrams chief among them — but both have since said they will not run. Hillary Clinton would shake up the race if she decided to join, but she continues to tamp down on the speculation she could run again. People are going to start voting soon. We should have all the candidates we’re going to get.

When do candidates have to decide whether or not to run?

Each state has its own filing deadline for federal candidates. A couple states — Alabama and Arkansas — have already had their deadlines pass. South Dakota, on the other hand, doesn’t close the door on candidates until the end of March.

More realistically, it’s difficult to imagine a candidate being viable if they don’t start competing, at the absolute latest, in California or Texas on Super Tuesday, March 3, when they’ll already have missed the first four primary states. Nine other states vote on Super Tuesday too. California’s filing deadline is December 13 and Texas’s is December 9. We are in the final stretch for any other candidates to get off the sidelines and make a run.

When are the next 2020 Democratic presidential primary election debates?

The Democratic National Committee announced it will hold 12 debates, starting in June 2019 and extending into 2020.

The next Democratic debate is November 20 and will be held in Atlanta, Georgia. It could be a much more intimate affair than the 12-candidate extravaganza at the fourth debate in October. Candidates must secure at least 165,000 individual donors, including 600 individual donors from 20 states. Or they must reach 3 percent in the polls in four Democratic National Committee (DNC) approved surveys, or 5 percent in two DNC approved polls from the four earliest primary and caucus states — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.

As Vox’s Li Zhou reports, the candidates who have met the polling and donor thresholds are:

Former Vice President Joe Biden

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders

California Sen. Kamala Harris

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker

South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang

Billionaire and climate advocate Tom Steyer

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Two candidates have met just the donor requirement:

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard

When are the 2020 Democratic presidential primary election and caucus nights?

The votes that matter won’t be cast for another six months. We have months of formal announcements, speeches, policy rollouts, campaign gossip, unpredictable polling, and some debates before any elections happen, when candidates start collecting the delegates they’ll need to claim the nomination.

Early momentum is always critical, especially in a big field with so many candidates trying to prove that they’re viable. With that in mind, the first two months of the primary schedule:

February 3: Iowa caucuses

February 11: New Hampshire primary

February 22: Nevada caucuses

February 29: South Carolina primary

March 3 (“Super Tuesday”): Alabama, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Vermont primaries

March 7: Louisiana primary

March 10: Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio primaries; North Dakota caucuses

March 17: Arizona, Florida, Illinois primaries

There are at least three more months of primaries and caucuses after that. But the candidates will focus their attention and organizing on the earlier states, and we should know a lot more about the field and the strongest candidates once the first sprint is over.

How do you win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination?

The short version is you have to win a majority of the delegates.

Every state has different rules for its primary elections or caucuses in terms of allocating delegates. Candidates win delegates proportional to where they finish in the results, though they generally have to hit a minimum threshold of 15 percent to be awarded any delegates.

In terms of numbers, there will be an estimated 3,768 delegates for the 2020 Democratic National Convention (where the nominee will be formally selected) up for grabs during the primary elections. One candidate needs to win at least 1,885 delegates to be nominated.

You might hear talk of a “brokered” or “contested” convention if no candidate gets the necessary delegates to win on the first ballot. But that hasn’t happened for decades, and it’s way too early to think that will happen in 2020. That doesn’t mean it’s not a possibility, but let’s wait for some votes to come in before we start up that parlor game.

Democrats have made one major change from the 2016 primary on “superdelegates” — elected officials, party leaders, and other prominent Democrats who have votes in addition to the regular delegates awarded by state elections. In the past, superdelegates didn’t have to follow any rules and could back whichever candidate they desire and make up their minds at any point in the process. When most of them endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, it gave her a built-in delegate advantage over Bernie Sanders, though she still won enough votes independent of the superdelegates to secure the nomination.

In a series of reforms, the DNC has stripped superdelegates of a vote on the first ballot. So unless the convention has to move to second or third votes because no candidate has a sufficient number of delegates — something that hasn’t happened since the 1950s — superdelegates won’t matter in 2020. (Arguably, they never did. Many pointed out it was unlikely for superdelegates to use their power to overturn the outcome of the primary system, but it nevertheless created consternation within the party.)

Okay. So who will be the next president?

Ha! You almost got me.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/33NKqNM

[timalexanderdollery]

The 19 Democrats still running for president and everything else you should know about 2020

The number of 2020 Democratic candidates who are running for president has passed two dozen. | Javier Zarracina/Vox. Getty Images

The biggest questions about the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, answered.

The 2020 presidential primary campaign field has started to winnow down, but there are still new candidates jumping into the race four months to go until the first states vote.

Any Democrat with dreams of occupying the Oval Office can see Donald Trump is a vulnerable president who hasn’t broadened his appeal beyond his base. A lot of them are running for their party’s nomination next year to be its standard-bearer in the 2020 election.

There is a clear top tier of four candidates: former Vice President Joe Biden — the early, if unimposing, frontrunner; Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has steadily risen to the top of the field; Sen. Bernie Sanders with his solid base of left voters; and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has been trending upward lately. After an early boomlet, Sens. Kamala Harris is down in the polls. Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, and Andrew Yang have also been in the fray for months. A fair number of candidates have left the race: former US Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, among others.

But the field isn’t set yet. Ex-NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg filed for the Alabama primary right a headline of the deadline. Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is entering the race. Even Hillary Clinton is taking calls encouraging her to run again, though she says it is exceedingly unlikely she’d seek the White House for a third time.

The Democratic field includes a record number of women and nonwhite candidates, a mix of high-wattage stars and lesser-known contenders who believe they can navigate a fractured field to victory. The debates started in June, with most candidates getting a chance to appear on stage, but the number of participants started to winnow in the third debate in September. The fifth Democratic debate will be held on November 20.

Whoever emerges from the Democratic primary will face Trump, who along with the Republican National Committee has already raised more than $300 million for reelection to a second term. Recent history tells us Americans usually give their presidents another four years. That should lend Trump an advantage. But the president has been historically unpopular during his first term, and he’s now mired in an impeachment inquiry after an explosive scandal in which he asked the Ukrainian president for political dirt on Biden. Impeachment polling doesn’t look great for Trump.

The last few months have demonstrated really anything can happen. It’s silly to pretend anybody knows how this campaign is going to end, and the 2016 election should have humbled all political prognosticators. Still, the 2020 campaign has already started. Here is what you need to know to get oriented.

Who is running for president in the 2020 election?

On the Republican side, there is of course President Donald Trump.

A few Republican officials — former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and popular Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan — have hinted they might challenge the president in a primary. But any primary challenger would be a huge underdog against the sitting president. Republican leaders have said they want to protect Trump by potentially having state parties change the rules for their primaries to guard against an insurgency.

The GOPers trying to supplant him are former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, a libertarian-leaning Republican who has officially entered the race former radio host and former Rep. Joe Walsh, who has apologized for saying racist things on Twitter. Former Rep. Mark Sanford, an ideological conservative who was a member of the Freedom Caucus while he was in the House, briefly pursued a primary challenge but he has already dropped out. No other Republican is going to topple Trump, we can safely say.

On the Democratic side, the field is mostly set after these unexpected late entries, and candidates have started to drop out. The contenders, in rough order of standing, are:

From left: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Jay Inslee, Beto O’Rourke, John Hickenlooper, Michael Bennett, Julián Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, John Delaney, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson.

Former Vice President Joe Biden: Biden thought hard about running in 2016, but he decided against it, being so soon after his son Beau’s death and with the party establishment uniformly behind Hillary Clinton. He’s still very popular with Democratic voters, and the former veep apparently wasn’t sure any of the other potential candidates would beat Trump. Though surely inflated by name recognition, Biden had a sizable early lead in the early Democratic primary polls. However, Warren recently (albeit very narrowly) surpassed him.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): The Massachusetts senator is proudly progressive, though she tends to position herself as wanting to fix capitalism rather than replace it. She wants to outflank Trump on trade and give workers seats on corporate boards and tax extreme wealth. Warren got on the ground early in Iowa and other early states, and like Sanders, is rejecting money from high-dollar donors. (You might have also heard about her releasing a DNA test in an attempt to prove she had Native American roots — a poorly executed early attempt to rebut Trump’s “Pocahontas” taunts.)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT): The 2016 runner-up is running again. He has the biggest grassroots base of any potential candidate, and he has been the leader of the push to move the party leftward. A more competitive field has presented Sanders with a very different race this time. And Sanders recently had a heart attack while on the campaign trail; while he’s recovering, he has openly said he won’t be able to get back to the breakneck speed of events he once had. Still, for many of the Democratic left, Sanders is the only candidate with the credibility to pursue their top-tier issues, like Medicare-for-all.

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg: Something of a viral political star, though he leads a city of “just” 100,000 people, Buttigieg is a military veteran and a Rhodes scholar, and he would be the first openly LGBTQ president in American history. Redevelopment and infrastructure projects have been staples of his tenure as mayor, but he’s also gotten plenty of questions of how he handled racial issues in South Bend.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA): The former California attorney general started generating White House hype almost as soon as she got to the Senate in 2017. As a younger black woman, she personifies the Democratic Party’s changing nature. She’s endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major middle-class tax credit, though her days as a prosecutor may present problems with the progressive grassroots. Harris made a big splash in early polls, but she’s now languishing in the second tier of candidates and hoping her campaign can reset in Iowa.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): The former Newark, New Jersey, mayor and part-time firefighter is another fresh face with big ideas like savings accounts for newborns, and he’s also running in a Democratic primary with a lot of black voters. He’ll have to contend, though, with his work promoting charter schools (not a favorite of the teachers unions), the perception that he’s close with Wall Street, and the fact he can’t seem to break out of low single digits in the polls.

Andrew Yang: A humanitarian-mind entrepreneur who also served in the Obama administration. He’s running on a policy platform that includes, among other things, a universal basic income that would pay out $1,000 a month to every American over age 18.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): She will look to blend her folksy, Midwestern manner with some crossover appeal, given her history of working across the aisle with Republicans and winning elections handily in a purplish state. Klobuchar is also known for her willingness to crack down on big tech firms focused on privacy and antitrust issues. She is struggling with a lack of name recognition, however, and she has been the subject of several reports about her alleged harsh treatment of staff.

Former San Antonio mayor and HUD Secretary Julián Castro: Castro got VP buzz in prior elections; now he’s running in his own right after serving in Barack Obama’s Cabinet, on an aspirational message as the grandson of immigrants.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI): Gabbard fires up a certain strain of antiwar progressive. She’ll face tough questions, though, about her apparent friendliness with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and her past comments on LGBTQ rights.

Tom Steyer: The billionaire Democratic donor has decided to enter the arena himself. He first rose to political prominence for his focus on combatting climate change and lately he has been on a crusade to convince congressional Democrats to impeach Trump. Steyer is positioning himself as a (well-funded) outsider running against a host of lifelong politicians.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Bloomberg had toyed with a Democratic presidential run, even though he governed the country’s biggest city as an independent, for a while now. Late in the game, he seems to have decided to finally take a shot, filing for the primary in Alabama ahead of the deadline there. He has a few policy wins that he can tout to Democratic voters, mostly notable on guns, but a centrist billionaire with some policy ideas that are anathema to the progressive base has not been a successful model in 2020 so far.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick: Patrick had sworn off a presidential bid months ago, but he’s reversed course and jumped into the campaign. The ex-gov is a longtime friend and ally of Barack Obama, and he’s trying to position himself as a candidate who can maintain unity within the party and country while still trying to tackle the big problems that have given the more left candidates such lift in the campaign. Whether he’ll succeed is another story: Cory Booker has a similar profile and hasn’t caught on so far, Democratic voters said they were already with the candidates they had before Patrick joined in, and he arguably lacks a signature progressive policy achievement despite eight years governing a liberal state with a Democratic legislature.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO): Bennet is a well-regarded but nationally little-known senator. He tacks toward the center ideologically. The passion that fuels his candidacy is a fervent frustration with the way Washington works now. Bennet believes Americans are not nearly as divided as the parties in Washington and is positioning himself accordingly.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock: Bullock, a two-term Democratic governor in a Trump-friendly state, is campaigning as a Washington outsider who will confront moneyed interests and reform the campaign finance system. He can also claim the successful expansion of Medicaid, with the buy-in of a Republican legislature, to showcase his bipartisan bona fides.

Former Rep. John Delaney: The most notable thing about Delaney is he’s been running for president for over two years, more or less living in Iowa, the first state on the presidential calendar. He was the first choice of just 1 percent of Iowa Democrats in a December 2018 poll.

Former Rep. Joe Sestak: The retired three-star admiral and former Pennsylvania representative in Congress is a late entry to the race, announcing his campaign three days before the first Democratic debates. Sestak is pitching himself heavily on his naval experience — his campaign logo prominently features the moniker “Adm. Joe” — and the global leadership experience he says it provides.

Marianne Williamson: A self-proclaimed “bitch for God” who has been a spiritual adviser to Oprah. Her previous political experience is a failed run for Congress as an independent in 2014.

Miramar, Florida, Mayor Wayne Messam: The mayor of a Miami suburb, it seems safe to assume Messam has the lowest name recognition of any Democrat in the race. The son of Jamaican immigrants, he’s raised wages for city workers as mayor and confronted the Republican-led state government over gun control.

Who has dropped out of the 2020 presidential campaign?

A few Democrats have already given up the ghost.

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke: The former Texas Congress member is maybe 2020’s biggest wild card. O’Rourke built a historically successful fundraising apparatus during his losing 2018 Senate run against Ted Cruz. He’s young, and he gives a good speech. Obama’s old hands seem to like him. The open question is whether his self-evidenced political talents are matched by policy substance.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio: De Blasio, mayor of America’s biggest city and already the unlikely victor of a contentious Democratic primary to get there, touted his progressive achievements in the Big Apple as a model for the nation: enacting universal pre-K, ending stop-and-frisk, and an ambitious local health care program.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY): Gillibrand had evolved over the years from a centrist Democrat in the House to a progressive. She endorsed Medicare-for-all and universal paid family leave; a pillar of her Senate career has been cracking down on sexual assault in the military. Gillibrand was presenting herself as a young mom in tune with the #MeToo era and the Democratic women who powered the party to historic wins in the 2018 midterms.

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper: Hickenlooper is a moderate ex-governor who pitched his ability to work across the aisle. On the issues, he touted his record on gun violence, environmental regulations, and expanding Medicaid. He conveyed an everyman persona, having founded a Denver brewery before he ever ran for public office. He decided to run for the Democratic nomination to challenge GOP Sen. Cory Garder in 2020 instead.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee: Inslee centered his work on environmental issues and the threat of climate change. He has pushed a bill to get his home state off coal energy and all other carbon-producing energy sources by 2045. It hasn’t always been smooth — voters in Washington rejected an Inslee-supported carbon fee in 2015 — but the governor hoped to quickly build a profile by focusing relentlessly on humanity’s direst existential threat. He has opted instead to seek a third term as governor.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA): Another Pelosi skeptic who helped lead the unsuccessful rebellion to stop her from becoming House Speaker again in 2016. Moulton, who represents a district in Massachusetts and is an Iraq War veteran, positioned himself as a moderate in contrast to the socialist energy animating the left and seeking to take over his party.

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH): The Ohio congressman is pitching himself as the Democratic answer for Trump Country, arguing he can connect with the blue-collar workers the party has lost in the Midwest. He cited the closure of the Lordstown GM plant in his home state as part of his motivation for running. Ryan has a history of long-shot bids: He challenged Nancy Pelosi for the House Democratic leader post in 2016.

Former Sen. Mike Gravel: The 88-year-old former senator, famed for reading the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record, ran 2020’s oddest campaign. Two teenagers convinced Gravel to launch a protest candidacy targeting the center-left and the forever war of mainstream American foreign policy. He endorsed Gabbard and Sanders after he’d exited the race.

Who else might run for president in the 2020 election?

Well, never say never but the field might finally be set with Bloomberg and Patrick. There were a handful of names we were still watching throughout the summer — former senator, Secretary of State and presidential nominee John Kerry and Georgia state senator Stacey Abrams chief among them — but both have since said they will not run. Hillary Clinton would shake up the race if she decided to join, but she continues to tamp down on any speculation she’d run again. People are going to start voting soon. We should have all the candidates we’re going to get.

When do candidates have to decide whether or not to run?

Each state has its own filing deadline for federal candidates. A couple states — Alabama and Arkansas — have already had their deadlines. South Dakota, on the other hand, doesn’t close the door on candidates until the end of March.

More realistically, it’s difficult to imagine a candidate being viable if they don’t start competing, at the absolute latest, in California or Texas on Super Tuesday, March 3, when they’ll already have missed the first four primary states. Nine other states vote on Super Tuesday too. California’s filing deadline is December 13 and Texas’s is December 9. We are in the final stretch for any other candidates to get off the sidelines and make a run.

When are the next 2020 Democratic presidential primary election debates?

The Democratic National Committee announced it will hold 12 debates, starting in June 2019 and extending into 2020.

The next Democratic debate is November 20 and will be held in Atlanta, Georgia. It could be a much more intimate affair than the 12-candidate extravaganza at the fourth debate in October. Candidates must secure at least 165,000 individual donors, including 600 individual donors from 20 states. Or they must reach 3 percent in the polls in four Democratic National Committee (DNC) approved surveys, or 5 percent in two DNC approved polls from the four earliest primary and caucus states — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.

As Vox’s Li Zhou reports, the candidates who have met the polling and donor thresholds are:

Former Vice President Joe Biden

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders

California Sen. Kamala Harris

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker

South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang

Billionaire and climate advocate Tom Steyer

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Two candidates have met just the donor requirement:

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard

When are the 2020 Democratic presidential primary election and caucus nights?

The votes that matter won’t be cast for another six months. We have months of formal announcements, speeches, policy rollouts, campaign gossip, unpredictable polling, and some debates before any elections happen, when candidates start collecting the delegates they’ll need to claim the nomination.

Early momentum is always critical, especially in a big field with so many candidates trying to prove that they’re viable. With that in mind, the first two months of the primary schedule:

February 3: Iowa caucuses

February 11: New Hampshire primary

February 22: Nevada caucuses

February 29: South Carolina primary

March 3 (“Super Tuesday”): Alabama, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Vermont primaries

March 7: Louisiana primary

March 10: Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio primaries; North Dakota caucuses

March 17: Arizona, Florida, Illinois primaries

There are at least three more months of primaries and caucuses after that. But the candidates will focus their attention and organizing on the earlier states, and we should know a lot more about the field and the strongest candidates once the first sprint is over.

How do you win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination?

The short version is you have to win a majority of the delegates.

Every state has different rules for its primary elections or caucuses in terms of allocating delegates. Candidates win delegates proportional to where they finish in the results, though they generally have to hit a minimum threshold of 15 percent to be awarded any delegates.

In terms of numbers, there will be an estimated 3,768 delegates for the 2020 Democratic National Convention (where the nominee will be formally selected) up for grabs during the primary elections. One candidate needs to win at least 1,885 delegates to be nominated.

You might hear talk of a “brokered” or “contested” convention if no candidate gets the necessary delegates to win on the first ballot. But that hasn’t happened for decades, and it’s way too early to think that will happen in 2020. That doesn’t mean it’s not a possibility, but let’s wait for some votes to come in before we start up that parlor game.

Democrats have made one major change from the 2016 primary on “superdelegates” — elected officials, party leaders, and other prominent Democrats who have votes in addition to the regular delegates awarded by state elections. In the past, superdelegates didn’t have to follow any rules and could back whichever candidate they desire and make up their minds at any point in the process. When most of them endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, it gave her a built-in delegate advantage over Bernie Sanders, though she still won enough votes independent of the superdelegates to secure the nomination.

In a series of reforms, the DNC has stripped superdelegates of a vote on the first ballot. So unless the convention has to move to second or third votes because no candidate has a sufficient number of delegates — something that hasn’t happened since the 1950s — superdelegates won’t matter in 2020. (Arguably, they never did. Many pointed out it was unlikely for superdelegates to use their power to overturn the outcome of the primary system, but it nevertheless created consternation within the party.)

Okay. So who will be the next president?

Ha! You almost got me.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/33NKqNM

[gracieyvonnehunter]

The 19 Democrats still running for president and everything else you should know about 2020

The number of 2020 Democratic candidates who are running for president has passed two dozen. | Javier Zarracina/Vox. Getty Images

The biggest questions about the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, answered.

The 2020 presidential primary campaign field has started to winnow down, but there are still new candidates jumping into the race four months to go until the first states vote.

Any Democrat with dreams of occupying the Oval Office can see Donald Trump is a vulnerable president who hasn’t broadened his appeal beyond his base. A lot of them are running for their party’s nomination next year to be its standard-bearer in the 2020 election.

There is a clear top tier of four candidates: former Vice President Joe Biden — the early, if unimposing, frontrunner; Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has steadily risen to the top of the field; Sen. Bernie Sanders with his solid base of left voters; and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has been trending upward lately. After an early boomlet, Sens. Kamala Harris is down in the polls. Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, and Andrew Yang have also been in the fray for months. A fair number of candidates have left the race: former US Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, among others.

But the field isn’t set yet. Ex-NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg filed for the Alabama primary right a headline of the deadline. Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is entering the race. Even Hillary Clinton is taking calls encouraging her to run again, though she says it is exceedingly unlikely she’d seek the White House for a third time.

The Democratic field includes a record number of women and nonwhite candidates, a mix of high-wattage stars and lesser-known contenders who believe they can navigate a fractured field to victory. The debates started in June, with most candidates getting a chance to appear on stage, but the number of participants started to winnow in the third debate in September. The fifth Democratic debate will be held on November 20.

Whoever emerges from the Democratic primary will face Trump, who along with the Republican National Committee has already raised more than $300 million for reelection to a second term. Recent history tells us Americans usually give their presidents another four years. That should lend Trump an advantage. But the president has been historically unpopular during his first term, and he’s now mired in an impeachment inquiry after an explosive scandal in which he asked the Ukrainian president for political dirt on Biden. Impeachment polling doesn’t look great for Trump.

The last few months have demonstrated really anything can happen. It’s silly to pretend anybody knows how this campaign is going to end, and the 2016 election should have humbled all political prognosticators. Still, the 2020 campaign has already started. Here is what you need to know to get oriented.

Who is running for president in the 2020 election?

On the Republican side, there is of course President Donald Trump.

A few Republican officials — former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and popular Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan — have hinted they might challenge the president in a primary. But any primary challenger would be a huge underdog against the sitting president. Republican leaders have said they want to protect Trump by potentially having state parties change the rules for their primaries to guard against an insurgency.

The GOPers trying to supplant him are former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, a libertarian-leaning Republican who has officially entered the race former radio host and former Rep. Joe Walsh, who has apologized for saying racist things on Twitter. Former Rep. Mark Sanford, an ideological conservative who was a member of the Freedom Caucus while he was in the House, briefly pursued a primary challenge but he has already dropped out. No other Republican is going to topple Trump, we can safely say.

On the Democratic side, the field is mostly set after these unexpected late entries, and candidates have started to drop out. The contenders, in rough order of standing, are:

From left: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Jay Inslee, Beto O’Rourke, John Hickenlooper, Michael Bennett, Julián Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, John Delaney, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson.

Former Vice President Joe Biden: Biden thought hard about running in 2016, but he decided against it, being so soon after his son Beau’s death and with the party establishment uniformly behind Hillary Clinton. He’s still very popular with Democratic voters, and the former veep apparently wasn’t sure any of the other potential candidates would beat Trump. Though surely inflated by name recognition, Biden had a sizable early lead in the early Democratic primary polls. However, Warren recently (albeit very narrowly) surpassed him.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): The Massachusetts senator is proudly progressive, though she tends to position herself as wanting to fix capitalism rather than replace it. She wants to outflank Trump on trade and give workers seats on corporate boards and tax extreme wealth. Warren got on the ground early in Iowa and other early states, and like Sanders, is rejecting money from high-dollar donors. (You might have also heard about her releasing a DNA test in an attempt to prove she had Native American roots — a poorly executed early attempt to rebut Trump’s “Pocahontas” taunts.)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT): The 2016 runner-up is running again. He has the biggest grassroots base of any potential candidate, and he has been the leader of the push to move the party leftward. A more competitive field has presented Sanders with a very different race this time. And Sanders recently had a heart attack while on the campaign trail; while he’s recovering, he has openly said he won’t be able to get back to the breakneck speed of events he once had. Still, for many of the Democratic left, Sanders is the only candidate with the credibility to pursue their top-tier issues, like Medicare-for-all.

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg: Something of a viral political star, though he leads a city of “just” 100,000 people, Buttigieg is a military veteran and a Rhodes scholar, and he would be the first openly LGBTQ president in American history. Redevelopment and infrastructure projects have been staples of his tenure as mayor, but he’s also gotten plenty of questions of how he handled racial issues in South Bend.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA): The former California attorney general started generating White House hype almost as soon as she got to the Senate in 2017. As a younger black woman, she personifies the Democratic Party’s changing nature. She’s endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major middle-class tax credit, though her days as a prosecutor may present problems with the progressive grassroots. Harris made a big splash in early polls, but she’s now languishing in the second tier of candidates and hoping her campaign can reset in Iowa.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): The former Newark, New Jersey, mayor and part-time firefighter is another fresh face with big ideas like savings accounts for newborns, and he’s also running in a Democratic primary with a lot of black voters. He’ll have to contend, though, with his work promoting charter schools (not a favorite of the teachers unions), the perception that he’s close with Wall Street, and the fact he can’t seem to break out of low single digits in the polls.

Andrew Yang: A humanitarian-mind entrepreneur who also served in the Obama administration. He’s running on a policy platform that includes, among other things, a universal basic income that would pay out $1,000 a month to every American over age 18.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): She will look to blend her folksy, Midwestern manner with some crossover appeal, given her history of working across the aisle with Republicans and winning elections handily in a purplish state. Klobuchar is also known for her willingness to crack down on big tech firms focused on privacy and antitrust issues. She is struggling with a lack of name recognition, however, and she has been the subject of several reports about her alleged harsh treatment of staff.

Former San Antonio mayor and HUD Secretary Julián Castro: Castro got VP buzz in prior elections; now he’s running in his own right after serving in Barack Obama’s Cabinet, on an aspirational message as the grandson of immigrants.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI): Gabbard fires up a certain strain of antiwar progressive. She’ll face tough questions, though, about her apparent friendliness with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and her past comments on LGBTQ rights.

Tom Steyer: The billionaire Democratic donor has decided to enter the arena himself. He first rose to political prominence for his focus on combatting climate change and lately he has been on a crusade to convince congressional Democrats to impeach Trump. Steyer is positioning himself as a (well-funded) outsider running against a host of lifelong politicians.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Bloomberg had toyed with a Democratic presidential run, even though he governed the country’s biggest city as an independent, for a while now. Late in the game, he seems to have decided to finally take a shot, filing for the primary in Alabama ahead of the deadline there. He has a few policy wins that he can tout to Democratic voters, mostly notable on guns, but a centrist billionaire with some policy ideas that are anathema to the progressive base has not been a successful model in 2020 so far.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick: Patrick had sworn off a presidential bid months ago, but he’s reversed course and jumped into the campaign. The ex-gov is a longtime friend and ally of Barack Obama, and he’s trying to position himself as a candidate who can maintain unity within the party and country while still trying to tackle the big problems that have given the more left candidates such lift in the campaign. Whether he’ll succeed is another story: Cory Booker has a similar profile and hasn’t caught on so far, Democratic voters said they were already with the candidates they had before Patrick joined in, and he arguably lacks a signature progressive policy achievement despite eight years governing a liberal state with a Democratic legislature.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO): Bennet is a well-regarded but nationally little-known senator. He tacks toward the center ideologically. The passion that fuels his candidacy is a fervent frustration with the way Washington works now. Bennet believes Americans are not nearly as divided as the parties in Washington and is positioning himself accordingly.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock: Bullock, a two-term Democratic governor in a Trump-friendly state, is campaigning as a Washington outsider who will confront moneyed interests and reform the campaign finance system. He can also claim the successful expansion of Medicaid, with the buy-in of a Republican legislature, to showcase his bipartisan bona fides.

Former Rep. John Delaney: The most notable thing about Delaney is he’s been running for president for over two years, more or less living in Iowa, the first state on the presidential calendar. He was the first choice of just 1 percent of Iowa Democrats in a December 2018 poll.

Former Rep. Joe Sestak: The retired three-star admiral and former Pennsylvania representative in Congress is a late entry to the race, announcing his campaign three days before the first Democratic debates. Sestak is pitching himself heavily on his naval experience — his campaign logo prominently features the moniker “Adm. Joe” — and the global leadership experience he says it provides.

Marianne Williamson: A self-proclaimed “bitch for God” who has been a spiritual adviser to Oprah. Her previous political experience is a failed run for Congress as an independent in 2014.

Miramar, Florida, Mayor Wayne Messam: The mayor of a Miami suburb, it seems safe to assume Messam has the lowest name recognition of any Democrat in the race. The son of Jamaican immigrants, he’s raised wages for city workers as mayor and confronted the Republican-led state government over gun control.

Who has dropped out of the 2020 presidential campaign?

A few Democrats have already given up the ghost.

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke: The former Texas Congress member is maybe 2020’s biggest wild card. O’Rourke built a historically successful fundraising apparatus during his losing 2018 Senate run against Ted Cruz. He’s young, and he gives a good speech. Obama’s old hands seem to like him. The open question is whether his self-evidenced political talents are matched by policy substance.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio: De Blasio, mayor of America’s biggest city and already the unlikely victor of a contentious Democratic primary to get there, touted his progressive achievements in the Big Apple as a model for the nation: enacting universal pre-K, ending stop-and-frisk, and an ambitious local health care program.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY): Gillibrand had evolved over the years from a centrist Democrat in the House to a progressive. She endorsed Medicare-for-all and universal paid family leave; a pillar of her Senate career has been cracking down on sexual assault in the military. Gillibrand was presenting herself as a young mom in tune with the #MeToo era and the Democratic women who powered the party to historic wins in the 2018 midterms.

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper: Hickenlooper is a moderate ex-governor who pitched his ability to work across the aisle. On the issues, he touted his record on gun violence, environmental regulations, and expanding Medicaid. He conveyed an everyman persona, having founded a Denver brewery before he ever ran for public office. He decided to run for the Democratic nomination to challenge GOP Sen. Cory Garder in 2020 instead.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee: Inslee centered his work on environmental issues and the threat of climate change. He has pushed a bill to get his home state off coal energy and all other carbon-producing energy sources by 2045. It hasn’t always been smooth — voters in Washington rejected an Inslee-supported carbon fee in 2015 — but the governor hoped to quickly build a profile by focusing relentlessly on humanity’s direst existential threat. He has opted instead to seek a third term as governor.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA): Another Pelosi skeptic who helped lead the unsuccessful rebellion to stop her from becoming House Speaker again in 2016. Moulton, who represents a district in Massachusetts and is an Iraq War veteran, positioned himself as a moderate in contrast to the socialist energy animating the left and seeking to take over his party.

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH): The Ohio congressman is pitching himself as the Democratic answer for Trump Country, arguing he can connect with the blue-collar workers the party has lost in the Midwest. He cited the closure of the Lordstown GM plant in his home state as part of his motivation for running. Ryan has a history of long-shot bids: He challenged Nancy Pelosi for the House Democratic leader post in 2016.

Former Sen. Mike Gravel: The 88-year-old former senator, famed for reading the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record, ran 2020’s oddest campaign. Two teenagers convinced Gravel to launch a protest candidacy targeting the center-left and the forever war of mainstream American foreign policy. He endorsed Gabbard and Sanders after he’d exited the race.

Who else might run for president in the 2020 election?

Well, never say never but the field might finally be set with Bloomberg and Patrick. There were a handful of names we were still watching throughout the summer — former senator, Secretary of State and presidential nominee John Kerry and Georgia state senator Stacey Abrams chief among them — but both have since said they will not run. Hillary Clinton would shake up the race if she decided to join, but she continues to tamp down on any speculation she’d run again. People are going to start voting soon. We should have all the candidates we’re going to get.

When do candidates have to decide whether or not to run?

Each state has its own filing deadline for federal candidates. A couple states — Alabama and Arkansas — have already had their deadlines. South Dakota, on the other hand, doesn’t close the door on candidates until the end of March.

More realistically, it’s difficult to imagine a candidate being viable if they don’t start competing, at the absolute latest, in California or Texas on Super Tuesday, March 3, when they’ll already have missed the first four primary states. Nine other states vote on Super Tuesday too. California’s filing deadline is December 13 and Texas’s is December 9. We are in the final stretch for any other candidates to get off the sidelines and make a run.

When are the next 2020 Democratic presidential primary election debates?

The Democratic National Committee announced it will hold 12 debates, starting in June 2019 and extending into 2020.

The next Democratic debate is November 20 and will be held in Atlanta, Georgia. It could be a much more intimate affair than the 12-candidate extravaganza at the fourth debate in October. Candidates must secure at least 165,000 individual donors, including 600 individual donors from 20 states. Or they must reach 3 percent in the polls in four Democratic National Committee (DNC) approved surveys, or 5 percent in two DNC approved polls from the four earliest primary and caucus states — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.

As Vox’s Li Zhou reports, the candidates who have met the polling and donor thresholds are:

Former Vice President Joe Biden

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders

California Sen. Kamala Harris

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker

South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang

Billionaire and climate advocate Tom Steyer

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Two candidates have met just the donor requirement:

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard

When are the 2020 Democratic presidential primary election and caucus nights?

The votes that matter won’t be cast for another six months. We have months of formal announcements, speeches, policy rollouts, campaign gossip, unpredictable polling, and some debates before any elections happen, when candidates start collecting the delegates they’ll need to claim the nomination.

Early momentum is always critical, especially in a big field with so many candidates trying to prove that they’re viable. With that in mind, the first two months of the primary schedule:

February 3: Iowa caucuses

February 11: New Hampshire primary

February 22: Nevada caucuses

February 29: South Carolina primary

March 3 (“Super Tuesday”): Alabama, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Vermont primaries

March 7: Louisiana primary

March 10: Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio primaries; North Dakota caucuses

March 17: Arizona, Florida, Illinois primaries

There are at least three more months of primaries and caucuses after that. But the candidates will focus their attention and organizing on the earlier states, and we should know a lot more about the field and the strongest candidates once the first sprint is over.

How do you win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination?

The short version is you have to win a majority of the delegates.

Every state has different rules for its primary elections or caucuses in terms of allocating delegates. Candidates win delegates proportional to where they finish in the results, though they generally have to hit a minimum threshold of 15 percent to be awarded any delegates.

In terms of numbers, there will be an estimated 3,768 delegates for the 2020 Democratic National Convention (where the nominee will be formally selected) up for grabs during the primary elections. One candidate needs to win at least 1,885 delegates to be nominated.

You might hear talk of a “brokered” or “contested” convention if no candidate gets the necessary delegates to win on the first ballot. But that hasn’t happened for decades, and it’s way too early to think that will happen in 2020. That doesn’t mean it’s not a possibility, but let’s wait for some votes to come in before we start up that parlor game.

Democrats have made one major change from the 2016 primary on “superdelegates” — elected officials, party leaders, and other prominent Democrats who have votes in addition to the regular delegates awarded by state elections. In the past, superdelegates didn’t have to follow any rules and could back whichever candidate they desire and make up their minds at any point in the process. When most of them endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, it gave her a built-in delegate advantage over Bernie Sanders, though she still won enough votes independent of the superdelegates to secure the nomination.

In a series of reforms, the DNC has stripped superdelegates of a vote on the first ballot. So unless the convention has to move to second or third votes because no candidate has a sufficient number of delegates — something that hasn’t happened since the 1950s — superdelegates won’t matter in 2020. (Arguably, they never did. Many pointed out it was unlikely for superdelegates to use their power to overturn the outcome of the primary system, but it nevertheless created consternation within the party.)

Okay. So who will be the next president?

Ha! You almost got me.

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[davidcdelreal]

How To Make Money: Everything You Need To Know

How can you earn more money?

You’d think a question this simple would have a simple answer.

Yet experts’ attempts to explain the nuances of earning — whether disguised as personal finance, business management, or the importance of education — could fill a file server.

You could read all the articles, watch all the how-to videos, listen to all the podcasts, and even attend the right business school, but still not know the best ways to make money.

Why is it all so complicated?

I have an idea: It’s because only you are qualified to answer the question of how you can make more money.

Think about it:

Just like our relationships, our time, our food preferences, and even our financial choices are personal.

What works for me may not work for you.

Likewise, I might not survive a day doing something you’d excel at.

And while education, knowledge, and experience matter a lot, they are only the ingredients.

You have to get into the kitchen to cook up your own recipe for financial success and independence:

Are you a people person? Then you should flavor your recipe with face-to-face interactions.

Are you an introvert? Maybe you need a dash of stay-at-home independence.

Are you short on time? Find a recipe with a short prep-time but an abundant yield.

Do you need a flexible schedule? Sprinkle in some freelance work — something like real estate or ad hoc computer programming, for example.

Whatever the case, your recipe must reflect the reality of your personal preferences, your daily challenges, and the way you live.

You can find ideas (and hopefully some valuable advice) in posts like the one you’re reading right now, but you’re the expert on you.

With that in mind, let’s get cooking (especially if you can make money doing it!).

Different Paths, But One Common Goal: Earning More Money!

As you know, finding your own path is essential, but let’s also make sure your path leads where we all want to go: a more profitable and financially secure future.

To do that, get to know more about your local economy (or the broader national or international economy) so you’ll know what skills or products are in demand right now and into the future.

In a dynamic economy like ours, any list of ways to earn money comes with an expiration date.

And, I could spend days listing all the possibilities for earning more money and still not include the one thing you’re looking for.

Still, we need some kind of order for organizing possible paths to earning power.

I like the following three categories:

Entrepreneurship

Education-related

Side hustles

Let’s explore these categories as you determine where to begin or continue your journey toward making more money.

Earning Through Entrepreneurship

To earn your living by owning your own company: It’s part of the American Dream.

And we’ve all heard the legendary success stories about people such as:

Sam Walton, whose family barely survived the Great Depression. He opened his own tiny grocery store after World War II with financial help from his father in law. The store, of course, grew into Walmart (and Sam’s Club and a few other variations).

Oprah Winfrey, who was raised in poverty and became one of the most successful TV stars of all time, and who also offers reading advice to millions.

Andrew Carnegie who, as a child, worked as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill (before child labor laws prohibited it). He earned billions in steel and helped transform our economy for the industrial age.

Steve Jobs, a college dropout who likely invented the phone or the computer you’re holding right now.

You may be thinking: But these people are the exceptions.

Nobody ever mentions the thousands of inventors, industrialists, retailers, and entertainers who fell flat on their faces.

You’d be right, of course.

More importantly, though, I also didn’t mention the thousands of people who have enjoyed success on a more moderate scale — all the people who went from living paycheck-to-paycheck at a job they hated to supporting their families by owning a business.

This list is longer than you may think, and it’s full of people like you and me — ordinary people who had a vision for a better future and worked hard to make it happen.

I’ll spare you the motivational speech about how you can’t succeed without the possibility of failure, and about how even today’s billionaires can tell you about their ever-growing lists of failures.

Instead, let’s look at some possible paths to entrepreneurial success, all of which allow you to be your own boss and, in most cases, to make your own rules:

Franchising

Let’s say you love Five Guys Burgers & Fries, an East Coast hamburger place, but the chain doesn’t have a location near you.

As you drive along looking for someplace to eat, you may tell your significant other: “You know, somebody really ought to open a Five Guys on this side of town. They’d make a killing.”

Well, that “somebody” may be you.

You could look into franchising requirements for Five Guys (or whatever your favorite store or restaurant actually is) and open your very own location.

Most stores require some personal investment, and they may have some other requirements, too. You also wouldn’t have total freedom over every decision you make since the corporation you’re partnering with will have its own set of standards.

But if you have a flair for business management but not necessarily a niche product that’s all your own, this could be your path.

Selling Stuff Online

If you need a lower bar for admission into entrepreneurship than opening a franchise, online sales may be your thing. It’s not all knitted scarves or unneeded football tickets these days.

People shop all the time on Craigslist, eBay, Amazon, and countless other sites for used and new products.

To succeed, you need to be an expert on a product so you can make a profit by connecting others with exactly what they’re looking for.

If you’re an expert on guitars, for example, you could spend your weekends shopping garage sales, estate sales, and auctions. You’d see a lot of junk.

But since you know your product line, you’d also recognize the vintage Gibson J-200 someone is selling for a song, and you’ll know how easy it will be to find a premium buyer online.

Along with expertise in your product lines, you’ll need great customer service chops and some patience as you get your business rolling.

Selling Your Advice

It’s not all about tangible products.

You can also sell your expertise, whether you are an expert in business, the arts, engineering, industry, retail, etc.

Thanks to Skype, FaceTime, Google Hangouts and similar services, you can even offer advice online, whether you’re teaching painting lessons or showing someone how to integrate a drone into their wedding videography business.

Just look at YouTube.

Whether you’re fixing a washing machine or changing your spark plugs, chances are you can find a video of someone else doing the same thing.

What do you know an awful lot about?

Whatever it is, someone else may need your advice. Whether you charge for one-on-one sessions or cast a wider net with more general videos, you can turn your smarts into a source of income.  

Offering a Service

Do you cut your own grass?

Shop for your own groceries?

Pick up your own dry-cleaning?

More and more people are turning to services to do these sorts of things, which means there may be a growing market in your community for someone to perform these services.

By developing a steady clientele and setting some reasonable limits (no 2 a.m. runs to Taco Bell, perhaps?) you can have your own courier service.

Start by placing an ad in your community’s newspapers or free weeklies, and mix in some patience, some flexibility, and a pricing plan that’s fair to you and your customers.

Other Entrepreneurial Ideas

We’ve hit some high points, but this is by no means an all-inclusive list. If you have a business idea, you’ve already caught the entrepreneurial spirit.

Maybe it’s time to start looking into financing, business partners, or marketing strategies.

Not everyone is destined for business ownership though.

Keep reading to learn about other routes to financial success.

Using Education to Unlock Earnings

For several generations it was almost a given: A college degree would open doors for the rest of your career.

Federal labor statistics showed (and still show) higher earning power for people with a four-year degree. So college became a rite of passage across the country.

But what happens if you’re not in a position to pursue higher education?

What if you already have a family and a full-time job?

Or what if taking a bunch of English and philosophy courses just isn’t your thing?

There’s good news for you, too.

You can still unlock higher earnings through education without going the traditional college route.

Let’s take a look at some traditional and alternative educational paths to show what I mean:

Certificate Programs

College can teach critical thinking skills, helping you succeed in a variety of professions.

However, a four-year degree may not teach specific trade skills.

In many professions, employers value specific, hands-on skills over more general thinking skills.

I think it’s best to have both, but to provide employers with skilled employees, many community and technical colleges offer certificate programs for professions such as:

Welding

Dental assistants

HVAC

Web design

Nursing assistants

Plumbing

Electrical work

Auto technicians

Information technology

Cosmetology

Manufacturing.

Certificate programs usually cost a lot less than traditional college courses, and they may require less of your time.

It’s also possible the community college in your area offers night classes and other ways to accommodate classes to your work schedule.

In many professions, getting “certified” unlocks higher wages.

Traditional College Degrees

Of course, skilled trades aren’t for everybody.

Some of us need more time to figure out a suitable profession.

One of the neat things about traditional, four-year college programs is the opportunity to learn a little bit about a lot of things, which means you may come across the right fit when you least expect it.

I remember a friend who started college with no firm plans for the future. She signed up for classes, got her parking pass, and all that.

Then, on the first day of classes, she became enamored with the whole concept of chemistry. She declared chemistry her major, graduated with a degree, and started a successful (and high-paying) career as an industrial chemist.

Most of us will need more than one day of college to find our calling. For some people, it takes two years to decide on a major. Others may go all four years without finding the answer.

For those folks, graduate school for advanced degrees may be on the horizon.

Advanced Degrees

Physicians, high-level business executives, researchers, college professors, and most lawyers have one thing in common, and it’s not necessarily their tax bracket: They hold advanced degrees in their fields of study.

Advanced degrees offer a level of specialization (and earning power) beyond what a four-year diploma or a certificate can give you.

People who research the effects of school nutrition on academic performance or who diagnose medical conditions using a microscope most likely have advanced degrees.

Usually, you need a bachelor’s degree before starting on an advanced degree and expect to spend upwards of $100,000 in tuition for some advanced degrees.

It could all be worth it, financially, when you land your first degree-specific job.

Little or No Post-Secondary Education

What happens if education beyond high school just hasn’t worked out for you?

All is not lost. Recent data shows 72 percent of people with only high school degrees had jobs in 2017.

You could start your own business, as I discussed above, or you could apply for more general labor jobs which don’t necessarily require a certificate or a diploma — jobs in traditionally labor-heavy fields such as:

Restaurant work

Assisting in construction sites

General manufacturing

Custodial work

Retail sales

Expect to start out in the lowest level at a company and with a lower pay rate. With hard work and by becoming a reliable employee, you may be able to start climbing the wage ladder.

But statistics tell a discouraging tale. Recent Pew Research data says people with a college education will earn, on average, $1 million more over the course of their careers than people with only a high school education.

What’s worse is that automation in manufacturing and the transition to online retail has made competition for these kinds of jobs more fierce.

Simply put, the economy is growing less friendly toward workers with little or no training.

Side Hustling Your Way to Greater Success

Let’s say you have a job, or you own your own business, and you’re pretty happy with what you earn.

Except, you just can’t seem to stay ahead of the curve financially. In August, when the kids need school supplies, your whole budget gets knocked out of whack.

And at year’s end you have to decide whether to contribute to your IRA or buy your wife a Christmas present.

Maybe it’s time for a side hustle.

What is a Side Hustle?

When you start marshaling your free time toward making extra money, you’re working your side hustle.

My favorite side hustles make the best use of your existing habits so you don’t have to think about work all the time.

For example, let’s say you work at a bank downtown and you paint houses as a side hustle. City Hall is near your bank branch.

So on your lunch break, you stop by City Hall to see who has taken out building permits for remodeling their homes. Someone who is remodeling, you think, may need to hire a painter.

In other words, you’d be able to generate job leads for your side hustle without going out of your way or making special trips.

That level of scheduling elegance isn’t a necessity, though. It matters more to be good at the services you’re offering, whatever they may be:

Real estate

Multi-level marketing

Contracting

Consulting

Freelance writing or editing

At-home manufacturing

At-home data entry or billing

Interior decorating

Video editing.

This list could go on for days, but you get the general idea: Find something you like to do and find a way to fit it into your schedule.

Here are some other tips to remember:

Create business cards, which you can do easily online. You never know when you’ll come across someone who needs (or knows someone who needs) a service you provide.

Set boundaries to preserve your work-life balance. When things get rolling, it can be hard to tell a potential client “no.” But if you say “yes” to everybody, you may find yourself working around the clock.

Be upfront with your steady gig. Make sure your full-time employer or your business partners know about your side hustle to avoid misunderstandings. Avoid treating your co-workers like a built-in customer base, and don’t use your company’s copying machines or other office equipment to support your side hustle unless you’ve made prior arrangements.

Be transparent with your side hustle customers, too. Let them know you have a full-time job and not necessarily available 24/7.

Keep up with your expenses and your earnings via receipts, invoices, or 1099 forms so you can report your figures properly at tax time. Ask a tax professional for advice before you start spending your earnings.

I also recommend setting some earnings goals.

How much you’d like to earn should influence the kind of job and the ferocity level of your side hustling.

For example…

If You’d Like to Earn an Extra $100 a Week

You could probably earn an extra $100 a week through Multi-Level Marketing (I’m not a huge fan, but hey, maybe it’s your thing) or by selling a line of products to your friends (think candles, beauty products, or environmentally friendly weed spray).

This kind of work takes an outgoing personality. If that’s not you, keep looking.

Some sort of at-home clerical work or light home repair, maybe.

Be careful about up-front costs, though. A lot of these opportunities — especially at-home clerical work or Multi-Level Marketing — require an investment, and if thing don’t go well you won’t recoup those costs.

Before spending any of your own money make sure you’ve talked to some other people who have given it a try. Online message boards can also give you some insight into the real cost of doing business.

Other ideas for earning about $100 a week:

Become a tutor: So you’re good at math or you’re a history buff? Put those interests to use by helping students in your neighborhood excel. Ask the staff at your local schools, put some cards out at the library, or put an ad on Craigslist or Facebook to get started.

Sell your stuff: Do you have boxes of books or DVDs you don’t really need? Find a used book store and sell your extra stuff. If you run out of stuff, go to some yard sales to get more or offer to help your neighbors go through and sell their extra stuff for a commission. You can also sell clothes, yard equipment, children’s toys. The list goes on and on.

Clean someone’s house: Cleaning up isn’t much fun, but earning extra money is. If you can get a couple regular customers, you’ll likely earn $100 or so a week. Be sure to factor in the cost of cleaning supplies.

Become a mystery shopper: Do you have a keen sense for detail? Put it to use as a mystery shopper. Essentially, you’re sharing your experiences as a customer with retail store managers. 

If You’d Like to Earn $1,000 a Month

We’re getting more into part-time job territory here, but with side-hustling, you’re limited mainly by your time and determination.

You can take the $100-a-week ideas above and do them more aggressively — tutor more children, clean more houses, sell more stuff, etc.

Or, you could…

Start a blog about a topic you enjoy, be it cooking, yard work, interior design, reading, train travel, computer networking, music, appliance repair, electronics reviews, mountain climbing, parkour, gardening, water conservation — you get the idea! Develop an audience and monetize it. See my post about starting a blog here.

Be someone’s virtual assistant. Not all administrative support staff work on site and take notes in-person at meetings. You can also help an executive from the comfort of your home by scheduling appointments, typing letters, ordering supplies, and preparing presentations. Zirtual may be able to connect you with someone who needs your help, though it may ask for a fee to get you started. You could also send some emails to companies near you offering your services.  

Become a substitute teacher. It’s a tough job, but if you like variety in your schedule and work locales, and you enjoy working with children and teens, check with your local school district; most districts have frequent openings. If you can find six or so hours a couple times a week, it could be worth your time.

If You’d Like to Earn an Extra $10,000 a Month

There comes a point when a side hustle becomes your main hustle. If you’re shooting for $10,000 a month, maybe you’ve reached that point.

If you’re serious about it, though, here’s something to keep in mind: To earn this kind of money on the side, you may need more inspiration than perspiration.

Can you think of a new way to do something which will make an existing process more efficient?

If so, your new knowledge will be worthwhile to others:

Can you develop an app to make car shopping more seamless?

Can you find a chemical process to make composting easier and more efficient?

Can you add a new layer of automation to an existing manufacturing process?

Innovations like these — combined with good business sense and the right kind of marketing — can put you on the map as an earner/entrepreneur

Sometimes, You Just Need More Money

For most of us, more money equals more freedom.

Some people can cut costs to come up with more flexibility in their monthly budgets. You can do things like:

Getting a basic phone to avoid cellular data charges.

Cutting the cable TV bill and getting a cheaper streaming service.

Putting off that new car to avoid a regular payment and higher auto insurance.

Keeping the AC set to 75 degrees to reduce energy bills.

Sometimes, though, you just need more money, plain and simple.

If your need is immediate, a side hustle may be the way to go.

Who knows? Your side hustle may turn into your full-time business.

If you’re planning the next 10 years and have some career goals, consider mixing in some education. Getting the right certification, diploma, or advanced degree should open some doors.

And, of course, if you’ve caught that entrepreneurial spirit, you may already have the skills you need.

Maybe it’s just a matter of getting the right financing to start your business growing.

Whatever your case, make sure you’re making a plan to meet your specific needs — financially, personally, and professionally.

I’ve heard it said, and I’ve found it to be true: Once you find your true calling, you no longer feel like you’re working.

Instead, you’re just turning what you enjoy doing into a steady flow of earned income.

The post How To Make Money: Everything You Need To Know appeared first on Good Financial Cents.

from All About Insurance https://www.goodfinancialcents.com/how-to-make-money/

[oselatra]

Visionary Arkansans 2017

A celebration of Arkansans with ideas and achievements of transformative power.

It's time again for our annual Visionaries issue, a celebration of Arkansans with ideas of transformative power. This year's class is filled with people who are devoted to making Arkansas better. They’re working to understand the social media forces that may have helped tilt the presidential election for Donald Trump (Nitin Agarwal), advocating on behalf of the most vulnerable homeless population (Penelope Poppers) and investing in projects that make Northwest Arkansas a healthier and cooler place to live (Tom and Steuart Walton). They’ve ensured the preservation of the heritage of the Arkansas Delta (Ruth Hawkins), been at the vanguard of an electronic music subgenre (Yuni Wa) and made solar work for Arkansas municipalities and companies (Bill Halter). Craighead County Judges David Boling and Tommy Fowler took on a predatory private probation company that was putting citizens of their community in a cycle of debt. Joshua Asante is simultaneously the leader of two of Little Rock’s best bands, a sensitive portrait photographer and a budding filmmaker. All 20 are people with bold visions.

Jason Macom Paralympic hopeful

The story of Jason Macom's career as an internationally ranked cyclist began at the moment a lot of other athletes' careers would have ended: with the amputation of his leg below the knee. A BMX bicycle racer since he was young, Macom took a tumble while playing bike polo in the summer of 2009 and shattered a bone in his right ankle. Over the next six years, he would endure several surgeries to try and correct the issue, leaving him in near constant pain. In the summer of 2015, however, a bone infection led to a long-delayed decision to amputate. Macom took what could have been seen as a devastating blow as an opportunity.

"I remember just trying to create a file in my head of all the things I could be able to do once we swapped over and I was able to get a prosthetic and start using that," Macom said. "What could I do? Bike racing was back on the table as something I could do. I started looking into that more and more." During the three-month recovery time following the amputation, Macom dove headlong into researching all he could about para-cycling: prosthetics, record times and the top-ranked disabled cyclists in the world.

"I sort of made it a mission to figure it out: looking at all the world record times, learning who the competition guys are, really getting into it from all those different angles. As soon as I got a prosthetic, I went straight home and put on cycling shoes and jumped on my bike."

Macom soon realized that the walking prosthetic with which he had been fitted wasn't right for cycling. After reviewing video of his "good" leg as he worked the pedals of a bike on a stand, Macom got to work developing a series of ever-more-sophisticated racing prosthetics, eventually working with friends in the local cycling community and a Little Rock machine shop to get the parts and pieces right on both the leg and his specially modified bike. These days, his racing leg looks a lot like a carbon fiber fan blade. "It's very aero," he said.

When he spoke to the Arkansas Times in October, Macom had just received his 2018 contract to join the Team USA Paralympic cycling team, and was practicing for December's Para-Cycling National Championship in Colorado Springs, Colo. Though he has a contract with Team USA, he doesn't have a spot on the Team USA roster yet.

"I have to race for that spot," he said. "Everything is earned on Team USA. It's all based on previous results. It's all, 'If you're fit at the time and the weeks leading up to the big race, you have to prove it and earn your spot on the roster.' That's the goal at the moment: to earn a spot on the roster to go to the world championships." The selection race will be in held in February, with the World Championships in Rio next March. If he makes the Team USA roster, he can compete in what are known as World Cup events in countries around the world, including Japan, New Zealand and the U.K. The results of those races will determine which Team USA members will represent the United States in the 2018 Paralympic Games, which will be held in Tokyo in 2020.

"A lot of racing has to be done between now and then," he said.

—David Koon

Tina and Trina Fletcher One plus one, working for better schools in the Delta.

Twins Tina and Trina Fletcher were raised in Morrilton by their single mother. "We did not have the easiest childhood," Trina said. "We were poor, working-class, living check to check. Most days when we came home from school, there was no one there; mom was working until 7 p.m."

That history helps Tina and Trina relate to many of the students they meet in their work in the Delta with Forward Arkansas, an education initiative created by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and the state Department of Education. They tell the students they meet, you can be like us. You can be first-generation college students. You can go on and get graduate degrees.

The Fletcher twins, 31, did: Tina holds a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Arkansas and a master's degree in secondary teacher education from Harvard University. Trina holds a bachelor's degree in applied engineering from UA Pine Bluff, a master's degree in operations management from the UA, a second master's from George Washington University and a doctorate in engineering education from Purdue University. Tina interned with programs in the office of first lady Michelle Obama. Trina interned with Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar and Kellogg's. One could go on; their accolades are many.

Here's what happened to bring them to work together: About 10 years ago, Tina said, Morrilton High School invited them to speak to students about their success. "After that experience, we said, 'We have really interesting stories. We think we could be valuable, to kids like us, first-generation college students, [from homes] with single parents,' " Tina said.

The twins joined up to become inspirational speakers, going to high schools, nonprofits, churches, telling kids to "take advantage of opportunities" offered by education. They are "blunt and honest," Trina said, about their own struggles. They also talk about beloved teacher mentors who made the difference in their lives.

Then, last January, Forward called, asking Tina and Trina, now incorporated as Fletcher Solutions, to work with Crossett and Lee County as they talk about what they want their school systems to look like. Their job is to help bring people together to talk about what they want from their schools.

"A lot of it is just connecting the dots," getting the community together. "There are resources right in the towns, like access to grant money," Trina said.

For example, Trina said, on her visit to Crossett last week, a meeting brought together folks who may not have been in the same room before: parents, the mayor, the president of the bank, a representative from the community college, all asking, "How do we improve our partnership?"

"It's fascinating, the work that these communities are doing," Tina said.

Trina and Tina hope to improve students' motivation to get an education, to help "plant a seed." To that end, they connected students from Lee County with the UA's Skilled Trades Camp. The students learned about careers in welding and HVAC, for example; they got to drive 18-wheelers. They also went to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Trina's hope was that they would then share their experiences with friends back home: There is a big world out there.

Forward "is not the magic dust," Trina said. But she and Tina are helping people in the communities write down what they want to achieve, how they can achieve it and how they can sustain the achievement.

Talk about buy-in: The Fletchers provided to school administrators in Crossett and Marianna surveys including 35 questions about what goals for education should be. The surveys, posted on the Crossett school website and distributed on paper in Marianna — with students inputting the results into a computer — elicited 400 responses from Lee County and 375 from Crossett. It's not known how many downloaded the surveys or were provided the surveys, but the number appeared substantial to the Fletchers.

"Even though Forward is education-focused, it's really an initiative in building community," Tina said. Noting that Lee County schools have lost 1,000 students in the past 10 years, Tina said she's discovered a passion for rural education, and is considering pursuing a doctorate in education, studying the impact of consolidation on small communities — an impact that can kill small towns.

Trina's passion is to get students — girls and students of color especially — interested in STEM studies. And so a future chapter in the twins' lives: "The 12th Street Collab," a co-working space for people of all ages to grow their businesses. "That's a wild animal of its own," Trina said. The dream has foundations: The twins have bought property on 12th Street in Little Rock zoned commercial.

Stay tuned.

— Leslie Newell Peacock

Bill Halter From political to solar power.

When Clarksville Light and Water Co. decided to think about powering the city-owned utility with solar energy, it first looked to Missouri municipal systems. It next investigated the Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp.'s solar power purchasing agreements.

Then, in early 2016, CLW General Manager John Lester said, the utility started talking to Scenic Hill Solar's CEO Bill Halter. Halter, the former lieutenant governor of Arkansas (2007-11) whose political career included challenges to former U.S. Rep. Blanche Lincoln and his position as COO of the Social Security Administration, incorporated Scenic Hill Solar in 2015.

"Bill was more flexible, which accommodated our needs better," Lester said. Scenic Hill's solar panel technology was another attraction: Like the compass plant, a prairie sunflower, Scenic Hill's solar panels follow the sun as it moves across the sky, rather than staying in one position. How the panels move is determined by weather stations that compute the positions in which the panels can best absorb the sunlight.

Halter's firm was based in Arkansas, as well. "We do business locally, if not with the state, whenever we can," Lester said. And because Halter is well known in several circles, technological as well as political, some 300 nationwide periodicals wrote about Clarksville's contract with Scenic Hill, Lester said, giving the town a great "bang for our buck" in public relations.

The solar plant, being built on 42 acres owned by the city, will when complete in the middle of next year provide 5 megawatts of alternating current, enough to power 25 percent of Clarksville's households, Lester said.

The biggest splash Halter's company, which does commercial work only, has made was in September 2016, when international cosmetics company L'Oreal announced it was partnering with Scenic Hill to build solar power plants at the Maybelline plant in North Little Rock and another L'Oreal plant in Kentucky. The Kentucky plant is the largest commercial solar array in that state. Maybelline's is the third largest commercial project in Arkansas. The North Little Rock project, which took only 49 days to construct, covers 8 acres and provides 10 percent of the overall energy needs.

The projects are like "bookends," Halter said. Scenic Hill designed and built the solar plant for L'Oreal, which the company then bought. Scenic Hill owns the plant in Clarksville, which is buying power from Scenic Hill at a fixed rate of 5.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for 30 years. It can lower that price by purchasing the plant from Scenic Hill in seven years, when Scenic Hill's tax credits expire.

The reasons companies are turning to solar power are many, Halter said. They can save money by owning their own plants or entering long-term contracts at fixed prices and not being vulnerable to the vagaries of electric grid price volatility. There are environmental reasons, because sunlight is a sustainable source of power. There are multiple tax incentives. There are public benefits, too, in the form of property tax revenues.

But more than the power of the sun or the declining cost of solar plants, a factor that determines how much a state turns to this cleaner, sustainable energy source is policy. North Carolina for example, which produces 2,000 megawatts of solar energy (compared to Arkansas's 20 mw), requires utilities to produce a fraction of their electricity from renewable sources and awards state solar tax credits.

Solar power growth in Arkansas could be affected by two policies being debated at the state and national level.

The Arkansas Public Service Commission will hold a hearing Nov. 30 on its net metering rules that regulate the price utilities pay when they buy excess energy produced by independently owned solar power plants. Entergy wants to pay at a lower rate that Halter says would reduce the benefit — but not zero it out — of generating solar power.

In September, the International Trade Commission ruled that Chinese solar panel imports are a threat to American manufacturers, which would allow the U.S. to impose tariffs on the panels, making the panels more costly to purchase. That might benefit U.S. solar panel manufacturers but harm the industry as a whole.

Still, thanks to New Market Tax Credits available from the federal government, Halter and Clarksville Water and Light are making plans for the future, Lester said. "It's highly likely we're building a second solar facility on a different property," Lester said, thanks to the credits, created to stimulate the economy.

— Leslie Newell Peacock

Penelope Poppers Helping the most vulnerable.

From a new office and drop-in center on the seventh floor of a building at 300 Spring St. downtown, Lucie's Place director Penelope Poppers can see the streets where many of the clients who come to her organization for help are forced to live.

Lucie's Place — named in memory of Little Rock transgender resident Lucille Marie Hamilton, who died in 2009 — was established as a nonprofit in 2012 to provide services for some of the state's most vulnerable homeless people: LGBT youths, the majority of whom were kicked out of their homes by religious parents.

"There are still a lot of religions that have very anti views on LGBT folks," Poppers said. "Parents here in Arkansas might hear from their pastors that their LGBT kids are going to hell, or shouldn't deserve to exist or whatever they say from the pulpit. The parents hear that and they repeat the same things to their kids. A lot of times, they either end up kicking their kid out of the home for being LGBT, or the parent ends up making it so bad that the kid just has to leave."

Since starting the nonprofit, Poppers has learned the harsh reality of life on the streets for LGBT youths. Though some shelters in town will accept LGBT people, Poppers said others that are connected to churches with anti-LGBT views won't. In the past, she's been forced to tell kids looking for shelter to hide the fact they are gay — no rainbow T-shirts, no mentioning a boyfriend or girlfriend — just so they can find a dry place to sleep.

The organization got a big publicity and fundraising boost in 2014, after a #DoubleTheDuggars campaign against the Duggar family's $10,000 donation toward repealing Fayetteville's LGBT civil rights ordinance went viral, including a mention by national syndicated columnist and LGBT activist Dan Savage. The group has raised $24,000 because of the Duggars' anti-gay efforts.

Lucie's Place recently moved into the larger, 1,000-square-foot office and day center. It's also earned tentative approval to open a group home on Main Street. It expects to close on the property in a month. In the new Main Street home, Lucie's Place will have 12 beds where young people can stay for up to six months before transitioning to a longer-term independent living home or their own apartment. The process of getting those beds hasn't been easy, however. An earlier attempt to establish a home in the Leawood neighborhood was met by protest from a neighbor, leading Lucie's Place to withdraw the plan. Poppers said the backlash was "disappointing, but maybe not surprising."

"People still have these sort of backward ideas about LGBT people," she said. "It was just a couple loud people. But that leaves me feeling very positive about the state of things. There weren't a hundred people saying, 'No, we don't want this.' It was just one or two. That's not my favorite thing, but it's better than it could be. We could have a hundred people saying they don't want this."

While Poppers said that attitudes are changing, she hopes a generation doesn't have to pass away for life to get truly better for LGBT youths. Whatever the case, she believes she's part of that change, and necessary for now.

"My concern is that it's just not getting better quick enough for the people that we see that need things right now," she said. "That's why we exist: to catch them when we need to, when the world has been terrible to them." — David Koon

Ruth Hawkins Heritage champion.

The Arkansas Delta would be a much less interesting place without the almost two decades of work put in there by Arkansas State University's Ruth Hawkins. Director of ASU's Arkansas Heritage Sites program since it started in 1999, Hawkins has been instrumental in spearheading ASU's efforts to save, renovate and preserve historically important sites all over East Arkansas, including the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center in Piggott, where the writer Ernest Hemingway wrote sections of "A Farewell to Arms"; the Southern Tenant Farmer's Museum in Tyronza; the Rohwer Relocation Camp, where over 8,000 Japanese-American citizens were incarcerated during World War II; Lakeport Plantation in Lake Village; and the recently restored Johnny Cash Boyhood Home in the town of Dyess.

An employee of ASU for 39 years, Hawkins was originally a vice president for institutional advancement in the late 1990s, when the university turned its attention to preserving the heritage of the area. "We were looking at ways to match up the needs of the Delta region with education programs at the university," Hawkins said. "One of the things we became aware of was the National Scenic Byway program. We felt like creating a route along Crowley's Ridge, starting up in Clay County and going down to Phillips County, would be a way to link a number of the assets in the region together." Working with mayors, county judges and volunteers in the eight counties Crowley's Ridge passes through, Hawkins and her team eventually succeeded in getting the National Scenic Byway designation. Once that was accomplished, however, they were faced with another problem: What could they direct people to see along the route?

"We knew we had the Delta Cultural Center anchoring the southern end [of the scenic byway, in Helena/West Helena]. We had Arkansas State University in the middle, and we had five state parks and a national forest along the route," she said. "But the problem was, when you got up to the north end, up near Piggott, there wasn't really a developed attraction up there." At that point, Hawkins began looking at the ties writer Ernest Hemingway, who married into the Pfeiffer family near Piggott, had to the region. Eventually, ASU was able to acquire and restore the barn Hemingway sometimes used as a writing studio, as well as the home that belonged to his in-laws, and turn them into a museum.

From there, the Heritage Sites program has seen a whirlwind of activity, including the full restoration of Lakeport Plantation. Students use the projects as a kind of laboratory to learn about the restoration and research that goes into historic preservation. It is the restoration of the Cash boyhood home, however, that Hawkins is maybe most proud of. Hawkins said the leaning and neglected house, which the Cash family moved into in 1935, sent a mistaken message to visitors.

"People were driving by that and thinking that was what Johnny Cash lived in. They thought he'd lived like that," she said. "The truth of the matter is that when he lived there, it was a brand-new house. ... I really wanted it restored back to the way it looked when the family actually lived there. His mother was very proud of that house. It was the first new house she'd ever lived in."

Purchased by ASU in 2011 and opened to the public in 2014, the Cash house now sends a more correct message about the efforts of FDR's New Deal in the area, providing visitors with what Hawkins called an "authentic" experience. That authenticity is what restoring old places can provide all over the Delta.

"To the extent that a structure can help tell a story, to me, that's what's important about preservation," she said. "That's true particularly here in the Arkansas Delta. For some reason, the stories are not recorded. We're beginning to lose so many stories from the Great Depression and the New Deal, the era the Johnny Cash house represents and the Southern Tenant Farmers Museum represents. Many of those people are no longer with us, and the ones who are with us were children when a lot of this happened. So, to me, preservation is important in being able to utilize a structure to help tell the stories that would be lost otherwise."

— David Koon

Maria Meneses DREAMER, fighting.

Maria Meneses is counting on the idea that America will keep her promises.

Brought to the United States from Guatemala at age 2, Meneses, 19, who formerly served as chairwoman of the Progressive Arkansas Youth PAC and works as the United Arkansas Community Coalition's Central Arkansas Organizer, is a beneficiary of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows undocumented people brought to the United States as minors to stay and legally work. Meneses said the election of Donald Trump has brought a wave of fear in the state's community of approximately 5,000 DACA recipients, both that the program might be abolished and that the information they gave the government might be used against them and their families.

"It's very worrisome," she said. "You don't know what ICE is going to do with all the information, what the Department of Homeland Security is going to do. They know where we live, where we work, they know where we go to school. We are Americans, and we have dreams of wanting to better ourselves and wanting to better the United States."

In her work with the UACC, she has talked to Arkansas lawmakers tasked with coming up with a replacement. Sitting in a coffee shop near downtown, she cried as she described her frustration.

"I'm a 4.0 [GPA] bio-chem pre-med student," she said. "I want to be a doctor. There's many people like me who want to be nurses, police officers, teachers. They want to contribute. I know this. I've spoken with them. I told [Arkansas 1st District U.S. Rep.] Rick Crawford that I wanted to be in the Navy. He said, 'We'll help you in your case.' I said, 'What about the other [DACA recipients]? Why don't you help them as well?' He is supposed to represent the masses, not just one person."

Meneses resigned as chair of Progressive Arkansas Youth PAC to serve on the campaign of Democrat Gwendolynn Combs, who is running against Rep. French Hill in the 2nd District. She's also going to college full time and working a waitressing job while continuing her outreach efforts with the UACC. If DACA recipients are forced to leave the country, Meneses said, we will all be poorer.

"I know one DACA recipient who is the mother of a U.S. citizen — a toddler," she said. "Let's say she was to be taken away? What happens to that child if she's not prepared? He goes into the foster system. Things like that. Not only does the removal of DACA affect the recipients and their families, but it also indirectly affects American citizens as well. We pay taxes, none of which we can receive back in return, or any of the benefits they provide."

As for herself, Meneses is at a dark crossroads, having to imagine two futures simultaneously: one in which she serves as a doctor in Arkansas, and another in which she could be deported to a country she can't remember. Either way, she said, she will face the future with the adaptability immigrants show every day.

"Wherever I end up going, whether it's here in the United States or back to Guatemala, I know that as an immigrant I can adjust quickly and get it together," she said. "If I can do it here in the United States, I can do it anywhere in the world, as long as I'm willing and dedicated to do it for myself and for those I care about."

— David Koon

Joshua Asante Multihyphenate talent.

It seemed like Joshua Asante became the closest thing Little Rock has to a rock star almost overnight. Or maybe you saw it coming. Maybe you saw him nine years ago when he was relatively new to town, tall and taciturn and hanging out at open mic nights. That's when he says he started singing out loud again for the first time in decades. (He'd stopped when he was 5 or 6; his father and he had fought about him singing. "I was/am stubborn," he says by way of a partial explanation.) The poems he'd been delivering in front of the mic morphed into songs that his friends cheered. Before long, he'd cut an EP and started Velvet Kente, a band full of accomplished players who synthesized a broad swath of black music — '70s-era funk/soul, West African chants, electric blues. The 2009 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase was the first time many in Little Rock had seen Velvet Kente, and that battle-of-the-bands served as a sort of coronation for Asante and his soul-stirring vocals, powerful enough to quiet a noisy bar. Velvet Kente won handily and went from a band that few people knew to the most in-demand one in town, the rare local act capable of consistently filling Little Rock venues. Then in 2010, Asante joined up with another group of veteran Little Rock musicians and formed Amasa Hines, a similarly genre-bending unit that pulls as freely from sprawling psychedelic rock as it does Afro-beat. As Velvet Kente began to play out more sporadically, Amasa Hines took its place as the band Little Rock celebrated above all others.

Now, almost seven years later, Amasa Hines has done all the things a promising band does en route to broader success: It's toured the country widely, playing the likes of SXSW and the Newport Folk Festival. It cut an excellent debut LP, "All the World There Is," in 2014. It secured a national booking agent and management company based in New York and Nashville. That none of that has translated into broader fame or significant remuneration doesn't strike Asante as a reason to hang it up.

"I feel like a lot of bands don't make it. That five-year mark is like, 'Whoa, man, we've been at this for a long time.' " But if you have been making good moves and good music, you should be patient with it." Success in music is like making a half-court shot, Asante added. "But I've made a few of those," he said with a smile. The band just completed a new EP that Erik Blood, a Seattle producer/engineer most known for collaborating with Shabazz Palaces, is mastering. Asante expects the band to shop it to national labels for release next year. (Meanwhile, Velvet Kente continues to play Little Rock shows sporadically, often with a massive ensemble, including multiple horn players and percussionists on stage. Velvet Kente is slated to play South on Main on New Year's Eve, debuting many new songs.)

But music is only part of Asante's creative life. He's long been an accomplished photographer and his reputation has grown in recent years. His tender treatment of his subjects, especially of black women, often accented by shadows or resplendent in colorful dresses or jewelry, has earned him empathetic praise: Consistently, the people he shoots tell him, before he took their picture, no one had ever photographed them the way they saw themselves.

Hearne Fine Art has hosted an exhibition of his photographs, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center has acquired several shots, Coulson Oil commissioned a series of cityscapes from him, and next year, Little Rock's Et Alia Press will publish a book of his photographs. See his work @joshua_asante on Instagram or at churchofchaos.com. Moreover, he's been able to carve out a meaningful revenue stream from his work. Despite never advertising himself as a commercial photographer, he shoots portraits for pay about three times a week.

"I've been obsessing over photography way before I ever picked up a guitar or started writing songs," he said. "I've always been more confident as a photographer. For one thing, I'm framing photographs and portraits in my mind's eye all the time. It never turns off."

His creative work extends further. He's laying out a book for celebrated artist Delita Martin, formerly of Little Rock and now of Hufffman, Texas. And he's the sound engineer on a documentary about the Elaine massacre. Asante, who had a peripatetic childhood throughout the Delta and South, had not visited Elaine in 20 years before going along on the shoot earlier this year. "The black people were terrified that we were there, and the white people were incensed that we were there," he said. The filmmaker, Michael Wilson of the San Francisco Film Institute, told Asante about a new initiative at the school to recruit nontraditional students into the film program. "I had film school in my 2025 plan," Asante said. But he said he might jump on the opportunity if it emerges earlier. It's all part of a broader goal of doing meaningful and financially sustainable work, Asante says.

"I want to be in those conversations along with the people I admire, eventually, and I want a level of comfort that comes from my own creative output, rather slaving for somebody else."

— Lindsey Millar

Laura Shatkus Spearheading experimental theater in Benton County.

The last time this reporter spoke with Laura Shatkus, she was holed up in preparation for an adaptation of "1984" by Lookingglass Theater Artistic Director Andrew White. She included the following dispatch: "Just survived my first hurricane by sleeping inside a movie theatre inside a theatre-theatre in Florida. For my job. Life is an adventure!" It is, particularly if you're an actor and the founder of the Northwest Arkansas-based theater group ArkansasStaged. The floating theater collective kicked off the year with an Inauguration Day reading of Lauren Gunderson's "all-female political farce" ("The Taming") and ended its 2017 lineup with a fully staged Halloween performance of "Empanada Loca," a macabre take on the legend of Sweeney Todd starring Guadalupe Campos, with the occasion marked by specialty empanadas courtesy of famed chef Matt McClure of The Hive restaurant.

Shatkus described the women at that "theatre-theatre in Florida," The Hippodrome, as "scrappy, strong" and "badass," and the Arkansas Times couldn't help but think, upon hearing those words, that she must have fit right in. An aspiring English teacher who jumped ship on her career plans when she discovered she hated student teaching, Shatkus dove headlong into the Chicago acting world without any formal theater training — and actually managed to get work. For a whole decade, even. "I used to joke," she said, "if somebody said something technical to me in a rehearsal, I would say, 'Oh, I don't know what that means. I didn't go to theater school.' Brought down the house." Though her M.F.A. in acting from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville means she's had to put that quip on the shelf, Shatkus still embraces the idea of demystifying theater-speak in favor of connecting with an audience — and, despite the title of "artistic and managing director" that precedes her name these days, erring on the side of uncertainty. "I love saying, 'I don't know. What do you think?' " she said. "And giving people permission to say that, because this art form is totally collaborative."

Collaboration is exactly how ArkansasStaged got going — and how Shatkus ended up at its helm. The company was founded in 2013 by Sabrina Veroczi and Kris Stoker, and after founding a longform improv troupe, made up mostly by women and called 5 Months Pregnant, taking over ArkansasStaged was a natural fit for Shattkus. "In some ways, I was functioning as an artistic director of that little improv group, and I really liked it. And I was pretty good at it! So, when I graduated and started looking at my opportunities it wasn't a strange fit to go, 'Hey, here's a company that has a little bit of some traction already, and a name. And I took over and I started doing the work."

That work includes stagings of "everything from Pulitzer Prize-winning contemporary American plays to the poems of Baudelaire and the absurd musings of Gertrude Stein," it says on the company's 2018 season fundraising website. The ArkansasStaged performance of Lauren Gunderson's aforementioned political farce (which generated $1,000 in proceeds for Planned Parenthood) opened at 21c Museum Hotel with a note from the playwright, who waived her royalties for any companies that would perform "The Taming" on President Trump's Inauguration Day. It ended as follows: "Theatre isn't supposed to be a safe place, it's supposed to be a brave place, so let's be brave together." As if in accordance with that mantra, ArkansasStaged has made the most of being without a brick-and-mortar performance space, transforming rooms at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and 21c into sites for George Brant's "Grounded," UA professor John Walch's "Craving Gravy," Steve Martin's "Picasso at the Lapin Agile," Donald Margulies' "Collected Stories" and David Ives' "Venus in Fur," an erotic two-person comedy.

"I'm very interested in telling stories that are not being told here," Shatkus said. "Stories about women, very contemporary theater. Not to say that The Rep [the Arkansas Repertory Theatre] and TheaterSquared aren't doing that, too, but maybe being independent means I can take more risks," a couple of those, she said, being "Empanada Loca" and the S&M-heavy "Venus in Fur." "It's definitely an R-rated play," Shatkus told me, "but some of my oldest patrons, who I was afraid were going to be horrified by it, were like: 'That was the best play ever. I love that woman. Where is she? How can I tell her I love her?"

For Shatkus and ArkansasStaged, who are devoted not only to producing plays that amplify and explore the stories and voices of women, but to doing so with a donation-based admission, it turns out that not being beholden to the trappings of a facility (or a board, or a historic legacy) comes with its own set of challenges, but also its own freedom. "I'm just adding to the conversation," Shatkus said, "with my unique background of appreciation of theater in Chicago, appreciation of experimental theater, appreciation of site-specific theater — using the site to inform the play. And really just giving opportunities to wonderful people that I know are capable of doing the work." A lot of what's been done at ArkansasStaged, she said, was a matter of good timing. "Part of being a producer is seeing who should be put together, who makes sense together. How can you bring these forces together to make something good?"

— Stephanie Smittle

Tom and Steuart Walton Heirs with a vision.

As a kid growing up in Northwest Arkansas in the era of bike-centric movies like "Rad" and "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure," there weren't many places to follow up on that cinematic inspiration in real life. In fact, there weren't any bike shops at all. There was the flagship Wal-Mart in Bentonville, where you could stare at rows of Huffy cruisers hanging from hooks in neat rows overhead, adorned with the essentials: Disney-themed decals, handlebar streamers, neon plastic spoke beads. Now, though, over a dozen high-end cyclist outfitters dot a curve along Interstate 49 between Bella Vista and Fayetteville. Thanks to networks of bicycle trails like Slaughter Pen, piloted by Walmart heirs Steuart and Tom Walton, the area has become a darling of a destination for cyclists around the world. The brothers, grandsons of Walmart founders Helen and Sam Walton, are expanding on the company's mid-aughts recruitment efforts with a network of stellar singletrack bike trails and projects like the Momentary, a 63,000-square-foot arts space in a defunct Kraft cheese factory.

"Cultural experiences are not isolated," Tom Walton said in an Aug. 31 announcement on the Walton Foundation's website. "With its proximity to the Razorback Regional Greenway and the recently opened culinary school, Brightwater, the Momentary will be a space where cyclists, foodies, artists and the entire community converge." Under the direction of Lieven Bertels, formerly the director of the Sydney Festival in Australia and the year-long Leeuwarden-Fryslân 2018 European Capital of Culture in The Netherlands, the industrial space — slated to open in 2020 — will be repurposed to house art that might not fit so neatly into the fine-art focus of the nearby Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, its exposed pipework and warehouse walls in keeping with the contemporary, experimental nature of the art within its walls.

"Art is transforming lives in Northwest Arkansas," Tom Walton said. Before projects like the Momentary can make a life-changing impact, though, people have to be able to get to it. And, by way of another one of Tom's experiments, residents won't necessarily have to do that by car. The Momentary sits at 507 SE E St., about a mile south of Crystal Bridges and right on top of the Razorback Regional Greenway, a 36-mile off-road, shared-use trail that stretches from Bella Vista to south Fayetteville. According to data the Walton Family Foundation collected in 2015 by placing pneumatic tubes and pyro counters along its pathways to calculate cyclist and pedestrian traffic, Northwest Arkansas residents have taken to it in droves. Pretty quickly after the development of Slaughter Pen, Steuart Walton told Bike Magazine, "Tom was thinking about how we go from 5 to 15 miles and then from 15 to 50 miles, so it was a progressive effort."

As it stood in 2015, pedestrian and cyclist activity peaked in the late afternoon and early evening on weekdays, suggesting that use was primarily recreational. Still, the per capita usage of the paved trails clocked in at rates comparable to cities with much longer histories of trail development, like San Francisco and Portland, and it's not far-fetched at all to imagine once-sequestered corners of Bentonville connected to one another. In fact, a Google Maps search will tell you that it only takes about five minutes longer to bike between Crystal Bridges and the Momentary than it does to drive, and future trail networks are bound to narrow that gap even further.

As for Steuart Walton, when his focus isn't on the trajectory in front of the handlebars, his thoughts lean skyward. Game Composites, an aircraft company founded in England in 2013 by Walton and Phillip Steinbach, finished construction on its Bentonville production facility in August 2016. There you can take entry-level classes in aerobatics — or, if you've got an extra $400,000 kicking around, customize your own brand-new GB1 Gamebird, a sleek two-seat monoplane that cruises at around 230 mph.

For those of us with shallower pocketbooks, we'll settle for enjoying the fruits of the efforts that earned Tom Walton the title of 2016's Arkansas Tourism Person of the Year: world-class museums and green spaces to be enjoyed by everyone — even those of us who aren't heirs to a dime-store fortune.

— Stephanie Smittle

Cheryl Roorda and Zachary Smith Sunny entrepreneurs.

You might call Cheryl Roorda and Zachary Smith Hot Springs' low-power couple. That would describe the solar-powered radio station, KUHS-FM, 97.9, that Smith directs and Roorda is involved with in her role as president of the board of Low Key Arts, the licensee of the nonprofit station.

But you wouldn't call Roorda and Smith low power. The couple, also known as the polka duo The Itinerant Locals, has invested lots of wattage into their adopted home of Hot Springs. Since moving to the Spa City 14 years ago, they have fulfilled Smith's longtime dream of creating a community radio station, rehabbed a building at 240 Ouachita Ave. that Roorda says was on its last legs, and are finally on the verge of opening their own restaurant, SQZBX (Roorda plays the accordion), where they'll serve beer they've brewed in their spare time while running a radio station, rehabbing a building, playing every Friday night at the Steinhaus Keller restaurant and beer garden and raising two children.

Smith said he was "underemployed and hanging out in a coffee shop talking philosophy with other underemployed people" in Seattle many years ago when he began to think about creating a radio station that would give musicians and artists access to media. But he didn't have the resources. In 2013, when the Federal Communications Commission finally promulgated its rules for such low power stations, all the elements were in place: Smith, Roorda, a nonprofit to hold the license — Low Key Arts — and the experience of broadcast engineer Bob Nagy. The community rallied around, especially after it was decided the station would be solar-powered, Smith said, participating in Kickstarter and other fundraisers. The station, which has a license for low power FM, with an equivalency of 100 watts, went online in August 2015.

KUHS has 70 volunteers a week — including Smith — who run the station and DJ. The volunteers are from all walks of life — from Karl Haire, a sales rep at Car-Mart, who DJs the "Dad's House" program (playing "music I would hear when I spend time with my dad just talking or sharing our life experiences"), to Jane Browning, executive director of the United Way, who DJs "the Heart Beat" ("exploring our community's needs, challenges and solutions, pulling resources together in volunteer service"), to pastor Mark Maybrey, who DJs the "Blues and Roots Review" ("featuring blues music of all types, roots of rock 'n' roll, Americana and a special interest in the grooving, soul, bluesy sounds from Muscle Shoals both past & present.") The station's reach is 5.6 miles (though there are gaps), but its programing is streamed online. The station will move up the dial next year, to 102.5, which has less interference.

The couple hopes to open the SQZBX restaurant and brewery, in the same building as KUHS-FM, in a month to six weeks. The restaurant will feature six of the Roorda-Smith family brews and cider on tap, along with pizza, sandwiches and salads. "We're keeping it real simple," Smith said. The beers will be German-style, "easy to drink" beers "that let you get up and go to work the next morning," he said.

That puts the opening at just about the time that Smith and Roorda will be honored at Preserve Arkansas's 2017 Arkansas Preservation Awards dinner with the Excellence in Personal Projects — Commercial award for their work on the Ouachita Avenue building. The event is scheduled for Jan. 19 at the Albert Pike Memorial.

— Leslie Newell Peacock

Onie Norman Delta activist.

Onie Norman doesn't tell her age, but her career of public service in the Delta does. A resident of Dumas, Norman traces her community work back to the 1980s, when she won a Volunteer of the Year Award from Gov. Bill Clinton. In the 1990s and early 2000s, she worked with the Kellogg Foundation on community-building and get-out-the vote programs. She served as a justice of the peace in Desha County for eight years, and ran for mayor twice and once for county judge, winning neither seat but showing, she believes, that an African-American woman has every much right to seek office as a white person of any sex. She ran a childcare center for 27 years to earn her living, but volunteered, then and now, with the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences' College for Public Health and the Delta Citizens Alliance. In 2009, she won an Arkansas Democratic Black Caucus President's Award for her activism.

"She's unabashed. She'll ask questions of anybody. She may make people in power uncomfortable, but she's not intimidated," said Bill Kopsky, executive director of the Public Policy Panel.

"I'm just trying to make a difference in my community," Norman said.

Recently, Norman worked with the mayor of Winchester to bring attention to the town's sewage problems. Residents of the tiny town of 167 or so who either couldn't afford to install or keep septic systems in good repair were piping their sewage straight into neighborhood ditches, Norman said. The soil of Winchester, a nonporous clay, also made septic systems problematic. The problem has been long-running; help from the state has been expected for years. Mayor General Alexander told Norman he'd "run up against a brick wall" after a grant in 2016 did not get funded, and took Norman on a tour of the town, where she learned the smell was so bad that people were being made nauseous; they could not even sit outside. Norman started making phone calls and writing emails. The state Department of Health, legislators from Drew County, Governor Hutchinson, U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. No luck.

Then, she said she thought, "We've got to bring this to the public." TV stations KLRT, Fox 16, and KARK, Channel 4, took up the cause in August, shooting footage of the raw sewage and interviewing residents. In September, the deputy director of the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission announced the commission would provide Dumas with $3.9 million to bring Pickens and Winchester into the system and another $2.3 million to connect to Dumas' drinking water system. The towns are still working out the agreement.

Norman also serves on the Housing Authority for Dumas, which recently opened The Woodlands, a renovated apartment complex in an area Norman described as previously blighted. She is pushing for the creation of a Boys and Girls Club in Dumas that would serve the children of Gould as well. "She has good ideas," Dumas Mayor Johnny Brigham said. "Sometimes she gets in a little bit of a hurry" to see them funded, he added.

Tangible results of Norman's activism, like an apartment building or a sewer project, may be limited, but she believes simply bringing the problems of the Delta to light — its lingering "Jim Crow" mentality that has kept the African-American residents, which represent more than half the population, impoverished; fear of a change in the status quo by decision-makers; laws in the legislature on food stamps and the like — is accomplishment in itself. She is proud of her work with the Public Policy Panel, helping people understand how the political system works, that the public has a voice and should use it. "When I served on the Quorum Court, I tried to empower people. People would say, 'You can marry people now.' She told them that there was far more to being a justice of the peace than that.

Her unsuccessful runs for mayor — the first black woman to run — and for county judge "opened doors and minds for people. I did it to show that any African American can do this."

Norman said people from the community have helped outsiders — "we've trained the researchers" — to understand to whom they should be talking to address needs, and it's not just the entrenched power structure. For example, the efforts to promote tourism, like creating the bike trail down the Mississippi levee, are fine, she said — but most people who actually live in Delta towns won't be enjoying those trails.

"I think our elected officials let us down," Norman said. "I would like to see people hold them accountable. ... We've had people on the Quorum Court for 30 or 40 years. Now look, let's be real. That's a long time. ... You don't have that energy anymore. They're good people, but once they get in, they don't have an opponent."

— Leslie Newell Peacock

Nitin Agarwal Researcher studies how social media legitimizes disinformation.

The same day the Arkansas Times spoke to Nitin Agarwal in his office at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, three major Internet media companies — Facebook, Twitter and Google — testified before Congress. Each company was grilled on its failure to regulate a massive disinformation and misinformation campaign committed by Russia during last year's presidential election on their platforms.

While some questions veered into the political milieu of the point of the cyber deception (to elect Donald Trump, according to U.S. intelligence), it was also a much broader moment. An "initial public reckoning," according to The New York Times, as a question, and fear, lingered over the preceding: How does democracy work in a world dominated by social media?

Since 2009, Agarwal, professor of information sciences, has been paid by, among others, the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research and now the Department of Defense — with a massive $7.5 million, five-year grant — to study the dissemination of information on social media. He's looking at the effect of social media on human behavior, human behavior on social media and then how that new social media affects ... well, it just keeps going. "It's kind of a co-evolution, how the behavior is changing and how the social media platforms are changing," he said, creating a cycle of influence. His research tries to suss out this push and pull to create a "sort of a digital ethnography" of information online.

In creating these ethnographies, Agarwal said his team looks "at that from the entire range of good, bad and ugly."

But, lately, it's been the ugly: how bots help cloud and haze messaging to dismantle truth; the way radicalization works in online communities, especially with ISIS; how fringe narratives go from blogs to mainstream sources.

For someone tasked with picking at the things that keep some of us up at night, Agarwal was surprisingly chipper, and positive, when a reporter walked into the office; offering him almond chocolates from a recent trip to Turkey because, he said, he's been "going through them faster than I should."

Agarwal came to studying social media before the doomsday proclamations of the death of truth were infused into the zeitgeist. In 2003, when he graduated from the prestigious Indian Institute of Information Technologies and began applying for graduate programs in the United States, Mark Zuckerberg had not yet created Facebook. By the time he graduated six years later with a doctorate from Arizona State University, "social [media] was just gaining momentum," he said.

His background and work had largely been in investigating large sets of data from a mechanical background. He looked at the burgeoning internet as a "viable data collection platform" to harvest huge amounts of information about "how human behavior in society evolves," he said. With this in mind, in August 2009, Agarwal came to UALR as a professor and "found a home here," he said.

After a few years studying blogs, Agarwal started seeing the effect of tweets and bots on human behavior.

In, 2013 Russia annexed Georgia and waged "regular warfare as well as cyber warfare ... disseminating false narratives ... trying to inject this narrative so that they can influence the local population and the local people are thinking," he said. The Russian government, just as governments have done for years, hoped to use propaganda to legitimize the effort. "This is not a new problem. Look at what happened during WWII. Instead of pamphlets being dropped from the airplanes, now it is tweets," Agarwal said. "[Social media] has made the dissemination much faster, the content travels much faster."

In part, this speed was because of the new "menace of the bots," another weapon in cyber warfare's arsenal.

Agarwal has a large graphic of a group that uses bots on social media: ISIS. The swirling graphic depicts 80,000 to 100,000 Twitter account estimated to be linked together to spread a certain message.

Whereas ISIS may use a chatroom to recruit users, bots help distort truth. Users will program bots to, for example, pick a certain hashtag and flood it with tweets, often coded with misinformation from both sides of the issue. "The goal is not to have a certain outcome — the higher goal is to create divisions in the society, to polarize discussion in society; to unravel the fabric of democracy in the free world," Agarwal said. This deluge of mass information muddles the truth. "Social media has done tremendous damage in that aspect," he said.

But, Agarwal and his group COSMOS — Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavior Studies, composed of graduate students from around the world — see a system that has been created and can be changed.

"The entire goal is to find out what kind of models can be used to counter this information," he said.

"We can take one of the two paths. We can just completely ignore, deny what is out there. Which," he says immediately, "is not an option." Or, "we get involved in these discussions," he continues, "and the community can rally around this issue."

— Jacob Rosenberg

Sens. Joyce Elliott and Jim Hendren Making a rare bipartisan case for considering race in policy.

In September, state Sens. Joyce Elliott (D-Little Rock) and Jim Hendren (R-Sulphur Springs) proposed an eight-member bipartisan panel — composed equally of Republicans and Democrats — to discuss how race affects policy and life in Arkansas and look for ways the legislature could work to address race relations in the state. The Arkansas Legislative Council soundly rejected their proposal.

But Hendren and Elliott say they want to continue to discuss race, because of the unrecognized role it plays in politics and Arkansans' lives, including their own. They talked about their proposal and their desires to keep talking about race relations at a recent Political Animals Club meeting in Little Rock.

Growing up in South Arkansas, "I was uncannily aware of the savage inequalities," Elliott said. "I loved hanging around the old people and listening to what they were saying. That's when I learned so much about people being afraid and knowing things just were not equal. And, eventually knowing it was all embedded in race." She recalled going to a school that was not integrated and saying the Pledge of Allegiance or reading the founding documents "knowing it was not true" based on her experiences with racism. "That just became part of a bedrock for me, of knowing someday I'm going to do something about race. Because it shouldn't be this way. And I was a child, but I never lost that desire," she said.

As a legislator, Elliott has been a dogged champion for policies that push back against structural racism. Especially in recent years, with Republicans in control of the legislature, that has been an uphill battle.

Hendren said he grew up going to a school that was "100 percent white" in Northwest Arkansas.

"I guess I would say I was naive and uninformed about the world that many people live in," he said, "and also, even our own history." After college at the University of Arkansas, Hendren joined the Air Force and "that's where I really started to have my eyes opened."

"I can tell you, I may have been taught the Little Rock Nine and what happened at Central High, but it certainly didn't sink in and I didn't understand it," he said. "As a National Guardsman for 15 years, to think that the governor would activate the Guard to come and keep kids out of the school. ... And then to have the president nationalize them and say, 'No you're not, you're going to protect those kids.' That's such an amazing thing.

"I think so many kids — all across our state — don't fully understand the period from 1865 to the present and what happens in our country with regard to race relations," he said.

For Elliott, racism is structural. She pointed to a structural column in the room where the Political Animals were meeting. "It's like it's embedded in that column, you don't know what's holding that column up and something is. You take for granted it's going to stand. You don't go around wondering what's holding it up," she said. "It's structured into the systems we have."

Hendren said he agreed that bias was built into some systems and they "need to be fixed." But, Hendren said he did not want to discuss the "abstract" nature of racism. He wanted "facts and figures." And, he added, "What I will not agree is that there is a unanimous effort to be racist."

"I don't just have the time and desire to do that, if we're just going to talk about stuff, if things are not going to change," he told the Arkansas Times. "Let's look at the facts, let's define that problem. Then, how do we fix it?" he said.

The idea of considering these issues is not an unusual idea — or a new one — to deal with a country's "original sin," Elliott said. She talked about South Africa's reconciliation councils after apartheid and the commissions established after genocide in Rwanda. "That is a beacon of an example of how you confront tough issues and do something about [them]. When something becomes unacceptable, you do something," she said.

Hendren and Elliott promised to continue the discussion and will push the committee forward in the future.

— Jacob Rosenberg

Judges Tommy Fowler and David Boling Taking on a private probation company.

When Tommy Fowler and David Boling ran for separate district judge positions in 2016, both talked about a problem in Craighead County District Court: The Justice Network. The for-profit, Memphis-based organization had run probation services for more than 20 years in the county and had been known to keep people convicted of misdemeanor offenses locked in a cycle of debt fueled by high fines and fees.

"In our courts, we have three options we can do," Boling told The Jonesboro Sun in 2016 during his campaign. "You can do probation, you can do community service and you can do fines. And I think one of the mistakes that is occurring is that oftentimes people are being caught up in the cycle because they are being hammered with all three ... . Oftentimes these people ... they're the working poor, that are on the margins."

Fowler also talked to the Sun about the company. "It's not a money-making arm of the government ... . If it's privatized, that's what's left. It's to make sure enough people are coming through to meet the bottom line."

An Arkansas State University student researching the subject told the Sun about a man who was selling his plasma each day to afford the fines. Another probationer, after not paying a $25 seatbelt ticket, saw the charges blossom to $2,400 in fines, 40 hours of community service and 10 days in jail, the Sun reported.

In January 2017, both men took office and promised to kick The Justice Network out by July 2017. In the meantime, they have worked on stopgap amnesty programs to help people pay fines or have them waived. It was a move meant to fundamentally change the court system in Craighead County for the better. To give an idea of scale of the problem, according to the nonpartisan news organization The Marshall Project: In August 2016, Boling had 34 people come before him; only six were accused of crimes while the rest were there to address issues stemming from The Justice Network.

The Justice Network sued the judges in June. It said it was contractually obligated to receive the money from the imposed fines and fees. No court date has been set for the lawsuit. (Fowler and Boling declined to be interviewed by the Arkansas Times, citing the pending lawsuit.)

— Jacob Rosenberg

Yuni Wa Producer trying to make sense of a digital world.

In YouTube comments for Yuni Wa's "So 1989" (which had 998,858 views in early November), no one talks about Little Rock, or the legacy of the Stifft Station neighborhood where he lives with his grandmother in a house across from the old Woodruff Elementary School, making beats on a Dell Inspiron desktop computer. The commenters do not try to guess his real name (which is Princeton Coleman; he chose Yuni Wa because it means "universal" in Japanese in a shortened form, and "it's a cool language, literally an artform," he said). They don't call him, at 20 years old, a wunderkind. And they don't talk about how he has already put out 25 "projects" — LPs and EPs mostly, some beat tapes. Instead, they write things like, "I need a 10-hour version of this," and "I'd rather live in this video than my own life" and "I'M IN LOVE."

Yuni Wa is a sound and force from their computer. "It's very personal and impersonal at the same time," the soft-spoken Wa said of his music.

As Wa, he has jam-packed his consciousness into his music. "It's a lot of emotion," he said. "Because, I grew up in poverty and ... ." He trailed off for a moment. Then Wa began to discuss a few things vaguely, including, but not limited to, absent parents and lost siblings. "I really speak with my music," he said. "Because technology can allow for people like me ... I just think about sound. I just know sound. You know when you know what you're doing? You can't always conceptualize it in words."

Wa's songs don't have specific references to personal tragedies. Instead, he conveys his emotions through elegant electronic pulsations. His music has been called Vaporwave, though thinks he's more expansive.

Vaporwave is an attempt at nostalgic reconstruction of consumer-first music from the '80s and '90s. It's a sub-sub-sub-genre of electronic music. Imagine remixed Muzak into a slow, smooth heartfelt jam.

Unlike the classic model of local sensation, who climbs the ladder of the scene, he went global before going local.

"My relationship with Little Rock isn't too, too good," he told me. Mostly he's achieved success online. His album covers are made by a guy who lives in the Netherlands, he said. His 20,000-plus monthly Spotify listeners, 9,336 followers on SoundCloud and the 233,587 who have viewed his YouTube channel are not concentrated in Little Rock. Sometimes he even struggles to book shows. "We're still facing the local gatekeepers now," he said.

The "we" is a growing creative collective that regularly meets at Paramount Skate Shop in North Little Rock, trying to create an "in-house society of creatives," he says, so they can photograph and film and produce away from the current structures of art in Little Rock. The group includes rappers Goon Des Garcons, Solo Jaxon and Fresco Grey. Wa creates beats for them. Sort of like BROCKHAMPTON, they've revolted against joining other scenes or systems, creating their own instead. Some of them have moved to Los Angeles, and Wa said he's considering moving, too.

— Jacob Rosenberg

Visionary Arkansans 2017

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o Kitchen Redecorate: when transforming a kitchen, it’s miles excellent to maintain the whole lot moderately. There’s definitely cash to be made from updating an outdated kitchen. However, when you add in luxurious enhancements like eating place satisfactory appliances and excessive end custom cabinets, you can no longer make your money back.

O Toilet Redecorate: Toilet remodels almost continually earn an outstanding go back on investment, regardless of excessive high-quality improvements. Bathrooms are one area of the house in which buyers sincerely appreciate improvements and current conveniences.

O Attic Bedroom Redesign: In case your attic is huge sufficient, it makes sense to complete the distance right into a large Bedroom. It adds cost and because you’re finishing existing space as opposed to developing new area it’s far very value effective.

O Basement Redesign: extra than in other parts of u. S ., maximum New England houses have existing basements. If yours is unfinished, finishing it can be an easy way to feature a few additional rectangular pictures without the cost of an addition. Further to including an attic Bedroom, the gap is already current, that is tons more value powerful than beginning from scratch.

O Upscale Siding Substitute: Upgrading siding to preservation-loose siding is a great investment and may be an awesome selling factor. you can achieve a reasonably affordable return with vinyl, or even extra so with the higher give up and nicer searching fiber cement.

when to Save:

o Own family Room or home Workplace Addition: while Those spaces are nice to have, they don’t make or destroy a domestic buy and typically price extra than the cost they upload to the home. Except you can streamline to constructing technique of a Circle of relatives room or home Office addition with a panelized or modular addition, you will most likely Store enough cash to make it well worth the attempt.

O Window & Roofing Replacement: Windows and roofs are luxurious to update, and it is frequently unnecessary to replace them if they may be functioning nicely.

O Bathroom Addition: For terribly small spaces, Bathrooms positive are expensive to add because they require electrical and plumbing contractors.

O custom Additions (Wine Cellars, domestic Theaters, and many others.): because custom additions are simply that – custom – they not often have the equal cost to some other character as they do to you. it’s far unlikely that you will recoup your spend on Those upgrades. A higher option is to build a panelized or modular addition to Store expenses and streamline the process.

O custom Services (Swimming Pools, Tennis Courts): Further to the custom additions above, custom Services are a lifestyle choice and won’t be universally appealing. In fact, a few Amenities, like swimming Swimming pools, may additionally truly detract from the fee of your house with a few capacity customers.

A way to Determine:

o Take a look at Comparables: See what else is in your area. whilst master suite and Lavatory additions don’t generally make accurate investments, you may consider them if all the other homes for your location have them. It brings your house Up to par and levels the playing subject.

O To Stay or to head? Ask yourself how lengthy you are planning on staying in your modern-day domestic. in case you plan on staying 5 years or extra, it may be worth making improvements. If no longer, ask yourself what the return on your funding is going to be.

O funding vs. Resale: Are you seeking to Remodel your home as a funding or are you trying to enhance it to make it greater attractive at resale? if you’re planning on selling, stay with the suggestions above and bypass the relaxation.

O excellent of Lifestyles: Once in a while, it’s really worth spending the cash on an improve even in case you realize you won’t get it again. As an instance, how an awful lot is having a further Lavatory or swimming pool well worth to you? For some human beings, it’s priceless.

The opposite day I was informed approximately a hardcore gamer that battles video games and beat hemorrhoid in actual Lifestyles. it’s a pal’s son who goes to university. He has been a severe hardcore gamer since he turned into going to high school. The video games he performs the maximum are Magazine, Dark Void, and Dante’s Inferno. Being a gamer had in no way been a trouble in the beyond, outdoor of him not keeping up what he changed into supposed to do to assist around the house. It truly is standard with teenagers which might be usually linked to the net, gaming, or connecting with human beings on social networks.

His first 12 months in college hit him tough. He turned into taking a complete schedule of classes and nevertheless trying to get in as many hours as he could playing the video games Dark Void, Mag, and Dante’s Inferno. Many proctologists agree that pressure can motive external hemorrhoids to broaden. I’ve acknowledged the younger man in view that he changed into in high faculty. He is always been rather aggressive within the world of gaming and growing apps. it’s far a natural desire he is pursuing a diploma in computer science. It should have been the pressure sooner or later brought on his digestive gadget to tighten.

The scary second in his Existence befell when he become having hassle passing bowel moves typically. The brand new strain of college and his hardcore video gaming classes had prompted bad constipation (additionally called costiveness, dyssynergia defecation, and dyschezia) that become becoming painful. teenagers Occasionally will maintain matters to themselves that they feel are too embarrassing. He by no means spoke approximately it to his dad and mom. Constipation and straining in the course of bowel actions are connected to being a chief reason of hemorrhoids.

As past hemorrhoid affected person it is horrifying and surprising to recognize you have got a painful outside hemorrhoid. This university pupil and hardcore gamer in no way predicted that at his younger age hemorrhoids were a scientific condition he would get. He was terrified whilst cleaning himself that he felt a mass outdoor of his anus and there had been traces of blood. This will make all people’s coronary heart pound faster. He, in the end, advised his dad and mom what he had discovered. After meeting with a physician this hardcore gamer and university scholar became instructed he had outside hemorrhoid that had ruptured developing bleeding.

The outside bleeding hemorrhoid became stuck earlier than it had grown too massive, so hemorrhoid surgical treatment changed into not needed. What his health practitioner did propose turned into the usage of a cold treatment uses controlled intense bloodless to kill hemorrhoid at its base. That is carried out via freezing hemorrhoid causing it to die and lightly fall off.

For healing ache remedy and to stop future bleeding at the same time as selling restoration he turned into told to take a sitz bath on a daily basis till the broken tissue around the anal cavity become absolutely healthy. This has been a treatment that has been used for centuries with incredible results. it’s miles a secure and natural technique to provide remedy from the situations of hemorrhoids and hemorrhoid healing.

One of the maximum helpful and lower priced consolation products counseled via the doctor to this hardcore gamer turned into to apply hemorrhoid cushion or seat when sitting for lengthy durations. This would provide at ease support, sell appropriate circulation, and save you hemorrhoids from returning. If he changed into going to spend hours analyzing and gaming he wanted proper elevate and support. I no longer be afflicted by piles, However nevertheless use a hemorrhoid cushion at domestic, paintings, and when riding. My pal’s hardcore gamer son completely healed from his outside hemorrhoid and yet again playing what he loves, learning about PC science and gaming pain loose.

He in no way told his buddies approximately having external hemorrhoid, However, a few of them noticed he was continually sitting on a fab looking cushion whilst gaming that become amazingly comfortable and now they’re using them. There is concrete evidence that severe hardcore game enthusiasts that play Dante’s Inferno, Magazine, and Darkish Void gets piles. However, the use of a cushion with remarkable lift and help to take a seat on will cut the danger of nasty piles developing.

[vinayv224]

The biggest questions about the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, answered.

The 2020 presidential primary campaign field is winnowing down quickly now that the votes are being cast.

Any Democrat with dreams of occupying the Oval Office saw Donald Trump is a vulnerable president who hasn’t broadened his appeal beyond his base. A lot of them decided to run for their party’s nomination to be its standard-bearer in the 2020 election.

Two candidates look stronger than the rest: former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who rose to join the top of the field but then faded, and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who has risen in national polls, are the other two candidates in the race with the support and the infrastructure to make a splash in the race. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, after a strong third-place finish in New Hampshire, has faded in Nevada and South Carolina.

At this point, most candidates have dropped out: the latest is former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who won the Iowa caucuses and finished a close second in New Hampshire. Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Cory Booker, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, entrepreneur Andrew Yang and others departed after the first two states.

The Democratic field included a record number of women and nonwhite candidates, a mix of high-wattage stars and lesser-known contenders who believe they can navigate a fractured field to victory. The debates started in June, with most candidates getting a chance to appear on stage, but the number of participants started to shrink in the third debate in September. The next Democratic debate will be held on March 15.

Whoever emerges from the Democratic primary will face Trump, who along with the Republican National Committee has already raised more than $300 million for his reelection campaign. Recent history tells us Americans usually give their presidents another four years, which should lend Trump an advantage. But the president has been historically unpopular during his first term, and Biden and Sanders look competitive in a hypothetical general election match-up.

The past few months have demonstrated that really anything can happen. It’s silly to pretend anybody knows how this contest is going to end, and the 2016 election should have humbled all political prognosticators. Still, the 2020 campaign is well underway. Here is what you need to know to get oriented.

Who is running for president in the 2020 election?

On the Republican side, there is of course President Donald Trump.

A few prominent Republican officials — namely, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and popular Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan — had hinted they might challenge the president, though that’s very unlikely now. Any primary challenger would be a huge underdog against the sitting president. Republican leaders have said they want to protect Trump by having state parties change the rules for their primaries to guard against an insurgency.

The GOPer trying to supplant him is former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, a libertarian-leaning Republican. Two others dropped out of the race: Onetime radio host and former Rep. Joe Walsh, who has apologized for saying racist things on Twitter, and former Rep. Mark Sanford, an ideological conservative who was a member of the Freedom Caucus while he was in the House. No other Republican is going to topple Trump, we can safely say.

On the Democratic side, the field is finally starting to shrink with candidates dropping out. The contenders, in rough order of standing, are:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT): The 2016 runner-up is running again. He has the biggest grassroots base of any potential candidate and has led the push to move the party leftward. A more competitive field has presented Sanders with a very different race this time. The senator recently had a heart attack while on the campaign trail; while he’s recovering, he has openly said he won’t be able to get back to the breakneck speed of events he once had. Still, for many on the Democratic left, Sanders is the only candidate with the credibility to pursue their top-tier issues, like Medicare-for-all.

Former Vice President Joe Biden: Biden thought hard about running in 2016, but he decided against it, being so soon after his son Beau’s death and with the party establishment uniformly behind Hillary Clinton. He’s still very popular with Democratic voters, and the former veep apparently wasn’t sure any of the other potential candidates would beat Trump. Though surely inflated by name recognition, Biden had a sizable early lead in the early Democratic national polls that has since dropped sharply.

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg: Bloomberg had toyed with a Democratic presidential run, even though he governed the country’s biggest city as an independent, for a while. Late in the game, he finally decided to take a shot, filing for the primary in Alabama ahead of the deadline there. He has a few policy wins that he can tout to Democratic voters, most notably on guns, but a centrist billionaire with some policy ideas that are anathema to the progressive base may struggle to unite the party behind him.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): The Massachusetts senator is proudly progressive, though she tends to position herself as wanting to fix capitalism rather than replace it. She wants to outflank Trump on trade, give workers seats on corporate boards, and tax extreme wealth. Warren got on the ground early in Iowa and other early states and, like Sanders, is not seeking money from high-dollar donors. (You also might have heard about her releasing a DNA test in an attempt to prove she had Native American roots — a poorly executed early attempt to rebut Trump’s “Pocahontas” taunts.)

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): She will look to blend her folksy, Midwestern manner with some crossover appeal, given her history of working across the aisle with Republicans and winning elections handily in a purplish state. Klobuchar is also known for her willingness to crack down on big tech firms on privacy and antitrust issues. She struggled for much of the race with a lack of name recognition, however, and she has been the subject of several reports about her alleged harsh treatment of staff.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI): Gabbard fires up a certain strain of antiwar progressive. She’s faced tough questions, though, about her apparent friendliness with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and her past comments on LGBTQ rights.

Who has dropped out of the 2020 presidential campaign?

Quite a few Democrats have already given up the ghost, with some of the big names withdrawing once they faltered in the primaries.

Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg: Something of a viral political star, though he leads a city of “just” 100,000 people, Buttigieg is a military veteran and a Rhodes scholar, and he would have been the first openly LGBTQ president in American history. Redevelopment and infrastructure projects have been staples of his tenure as mayor, but he also got plenty of questions about how he handled racial issues in South Bend.

Tom Steyer: The billionaire Democratic donor decided to enter the arena. He first rose to political prominence for his focus on combating climate change, and started a crusade to convince congressional Democrats to impeach Trump. Steyer positioned himself as a (well-funded) outsider running against a host of lifelong politicians.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): The former Newark, New Jersey, mayor and part-time firefighter failed to break out of the low single digits in polls, despite early predictions that he could be a major contender in the race. He was a fresh face with big ideas like savings accounts for newborns, but his work promoting charter schools (not a favorite of the teachers unions) and the perception that he’s close with Wall Street both posed challenges to his candidacy from the start, and his message of love and unity never quite caught on with voters.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA): The former California attorney general started generating White House hype almost as soon as she got to the Senate in 2017. As a younger black woman, she personified the Democratic Party’s changing nature. She had endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major middle-class tax credit, though her days as a prosecutor presented problems with the progressive grassroots. Harris made a big splash in early polls, but she dropped after stumbles over health care and never recovered.

Andrew Yang: A humanitarian-minded entrepreneur who also served in the Obama administration, he ran on a policy platform that includes, among other things, a universal basic income that would pay out $1,000 a month to every American over 18.

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke: The former Texas Congress member was once 2020’s biggest wild card. O’Rourke built a historically successful fundraising apparatus during his losing 2018 Senate run against Ted Cruz. He’s young, and he gives a good speech. Obama’s old hands seemed to like him. The open question was whether his self-evidenced political talents were matched by policy substance.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio: De Blasio, the mayor of America’s biggest city and already the unlikely victor of a contentious Democratic primary to get there, touted his progressive achievements in the Big Apple as a model for the nation: enacting universal pre-K, ending stop-and-frisk, and creating an ambitious local health care program.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY): Gillibrand had evolved over the years from a centrist Democrat in the House to a progressive. She endorsed Medicare-for-all and universal paid family leave; a pillar of her Senate career has been cracking down on sexual assault in the military. Gillibrand was presenting herself as a young mom in tune with the Me Too era and the Democratic women who powered the party to historic wins in the 2018 midterms.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO): Bennet is a well-regarded but nationally little-known senator. He tacks toward the center ideologically. The passion that fuels his candidacy is a fervent frustration with the way Washington works now. Bennet believes Americans are not nearly as divided as the parties in Washington and is positioning himself accordingly.

Former San Antonio mayor and HUD Secretary Julián Castro: Castro got VP buzz in prior elections; this time, he ran in his own right after serving in Obama’s Cabinet on an aspirational message as the grandson of immigrants.

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper: Hickenlooper is a moderate ex-governor who pitched his ability to work across the aisle. On the issues, he touted his record on gun violence, environmental regulations, and expanding Medicaid. He conveyed an everyman persona, having founded a Denver brewery before he ever ran for public office. He decided to run for the Democratic nomination to challenge GOP Sen. Cory Gardner in 2020 instead.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee: Inslee centered his work on environmental issues and the threat of climate change. He has pushed a bill to get his home state off coal energy and all other carbon-producing energy sources by 2045. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing — voters in Washington rejected an Inslee-supported carbon fee in 2015 — but the governor hoped to quickly build a profile by focusing relentlessly on the dire threat to humanity. He has opted instead to seek a third term as governor.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA): Another Nancy Pelosi skeptic who helped lead the unsuccessful rebellion to stop her from becoming House speaker again in 2016. The Massachusetts representative, who is an Iraq War veteran, positioned himself as a moderate in contrast to the socialist energy animating the left and seeking to take over his party.

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH): The Ohio Congress member pitched himself as the Democratic answer for Trump country, arguing he can connect with the blue-collar workers the party has lost in the Midwest. He cited the closure of the Lordstown GM plant in his home state as part of his motivation for running. Ryan has a history of long-shot bids: He challenged Pelosi for the House Democratic leader post in 2016.

Former Sen. Mike Gravel: The 88-year-old former senator, famed for reading the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record, ran 2020’s oddest campaign. Two teenagers convinced Gravel to launch a protest candidacy targeting the center left and the forever wars of mainstream American foreign policy. He endorsed Gabbard and Sanders after he exited the race.

Miramar, Florida, Mayor Wayne Messam: The mayor of a Miami suburb, Messam had perhaps the lowest name recognition of any Democrat in the race. The son of Jamaican immigrants, he’s raised wages for city workers as mayor and confronted the Republican-led state government over gun control.

Former Rep. Joe Sestak: The retired three-star admiral and former Pennsylvania representative in Congress was a late entry to the race, announcing his campaign three days before the first Democratic debates. Sestak pitched himself heavily on his naval experience — his campaign logo prominently features the moniker “Adm. Joe” — and the global leadership experience he says it provides.

Marianne Williamson: A self-proclaimed “bitch for God” who has been a spiritual adviser to Oprah. Her previous political experience was a failed run for Congress as an independent in 2014.

Former Rep. John Delaney: The most notable thing about Delaney was he ran for president for over two years, more or less living in Iowa, the first state on the presidential calendar. But he rarely polled above 1 percent there or anywhere else.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick: Patrick had sworn off a presidential bid months ago, but he reversed course and jumped into the campaign. He never made a mark.

When are the next 2020 Democratic presidential primary election debates?

The Democratic National Committee announced it would hold 12 debates, starting in June 2019 and extending into 2020.

The next Democratic debate is March 15 and will be held in Phoenix, Arizona. To date, candidates must either have won a Democratic National Convention delegate in Iowa or hit a certain percentage in national or early-state polls to qualify, but the qualifying thresholds for the next debate have not yet been set.

When are the 2020 Democratic presidential primary election and caucus nights?

Early momentum is always critical, especially in a big field with so many candidates trying to prove that they’re viable. With that in mind, here are the next two months of the primary schedule:

March 3 (“Super Tuesday”): Alabama, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Vermont primaries

March 7: Louisiana primary

March 10: Michigan, Mississippi and Missouri primaries; North Dakota caucuses

March 12: Virgin Islands

March 14: Guam, Northern Mariana

March 17: Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio primaries

March 24: Georgia, American Samoa

March 27: North Dakota

March 29: Puerto Rico

April 4: Alaska, Hawaii, Louisiana, Wyoming

April 7: Wisconsin

April 28: Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island

How do you win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination?

The short version is you have to win a majority of the delegates.

Every state has different rules for its primary elections or caucuses in terms of allocating delegates. Candidates win delegates proportional to where they finish in the results, though they generally have to hit a minimum threshold of 15 percent to be awarded any delegates.

In terms of numbers, there will be an estimated 3,979 delegates for the 2020 Democratic National Convention (where the nominee will be formally selected) up for grabs during the primary elections. One candidate needs to win at least 1,991 delegates to be nominated.

You might hear talk of a “brokered” or “contested” convention if no candidate gets the necessary delegates to win on the first ballot. That could definitely happen in 2020; the FiveThirtyEight forecast thinks it’s a 2-in-3 chance. If that should happen, all bets are off. There hasn’t been a brokered convention in decades.

Democrats have made one major change from the 2016 primary on “superdelegates” — elected officials, party leaders, and other prominent Democrats who have votes in addition to the regular delegates awarded by state elections. In the past, superdelegates didn’t have to follow any rules and could back whichever candidate they desire and make up their minds at any point in the process. When most of them endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, it gave her a built-in delegate advantage over Bernie Sanders, though she still won enough votes independent of the superdelegates to secure the nomination.

In a series of reforms, the DNC has stripped superdelegates of a vote on the first ballot. So unless the convention has to move to second or third votes because no candidate has a sufficient number of delegates — something that hasn’t happened since the 1950s — superdelegates won’t matter in 2020. (Arguably, they never did. Many pointed out it was unlikely for superdelegates to use their power to overturn the outcome of the primary system, but it nevertheless created consternation within the party.)

Okay. So who will be the next president?

Ha! You almost got me.

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