#is minnesota a 1 party consent state

[cardedge7]

Workplace Mediation Solution.

Workplace Mediation, Manchester, Cheshire & North West.

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Speak With Those Who Have Utilized The Solution.

It can be viewed as an expensive process if an end result can not be gotten to. It is consequently just beneficial if both events are prepared to endanger.

These issues are gone over and also if you reach a contract the mediator will certainly write it down for you and also make sure it states what you both desire it to say. Everybody indicators the agreement and also you decide who else, if any person, need to see a duplicate. If you are unpleasant with sharing the joint arrangement with people who are not in the area after that a decision is made about what, if anything, to show the person or individuals that referred you to mediation. The major drawback of mediation is that there is no warranty of a resolution.

Company.

That usually leaves a circumstance where both individuals associated with the grievance need to proceed working together. Mediation can aid there by repairing the relationships so that the two can find a way to co-work efficiently. The mediation enabled both celebrations to explore where their working partnership was going wrong, as well as review what they both gotten out of each other. With their new understanding of the other events' viewpoint two contracts were drawn up. The 2nd agreement was for circulation to their supervisor and also it set out modifications in work techniques that they both wanted to see for the future. They remained in the same division and reported to the same department manager. Fiona had actually really felt under pressure from Jenni since she joined the company.

What can I expect at mediation?

The mediator does not take sides, make decisions, or give legal advice; their only role is to facilitate respectful conversation. The parties' lawyer may participate in the process and attend mediation meetings. Before the mediation process commences, parties may draft and sign a mediation agreement.

Some people wish to 'have their day in court' as well as feel a sense of injustice if the process is not translucented until completion. Although, an increasing number of of our consumers are making it clear that they anticipate their workers to act in a practical method to secure a positive resolution to a complaint or a complaint. If an agreement is gotten to through the mediation procedure, then a binding paper can be created for both events to participate in. The best-case circumstance in mediation is that all events concern a mutually concurred option to resolve the conflict, which will permit a good working relationship to be brought back.

Hear From Those Who Have Used The Service.

Generally, we would permit someday for every mediation session as well as there is likewise additional contact made with all parties, in the lead as much as and also adhering to mediation. It is vital that all individuals agree to join the mediation process, in order for mediation to take place. The dominating purpose of workplace mediation is to restore and maintain excellent and effective functioning relationships. The dispute centred around promo possibilities as well as arrangements between a manger and her supervisor.

The moderator will bring the conferences to a close, give a duplicate of the concurred statement to those involved and explain their duties for its application. If mediation services norwich is reached, various other treatments might later be utilized to attempt to solve the conflict.

Work Regulation.

To start with, the mediator meets with each celebration independently to comprehend their experience of the problem, their setting as well as interests and also what they wish to happen following. During these meetings, the arbitrator will certainly likewise look for arrangement from the celebrations to an assisted in joint conference. A qualified conciliator's function is to function as an unbiased 3rd party who helps with a meeting in between two or more individuals in disagreement to aid them get to an agreement. Although the arbitrator is in charge of the procedure, any kind of agreement originates from those in dispute.

Augsburg Staff Vote for a Union - Workday Minnesota

Augsburg Staff Vote for a Union.

Posted: Fri, 08 Jan 2021 17:24:00 GMT [source]

Every person will have had a possibility to be heard, which can assist to boost the understanding of both sides moving forward. Workplace mediation is an increasingly preferred technique embraced by several organisations as an alternative means of solving workplace disputes.

The moderator holds both of you to the ground rules and makes sure you have equal time to speak as well as to listen to every other. You will be advised by the arbitrator regarding the procedure as well as just how much time to publication out of your journal. Typically, for a two-person mediation you will be asked to allot a complete day for the mediation session. Private meetings usually begin at 9.30 am or 11am, the joint meeting usually start at 1pm and also continues till 4pm, nevertheless, timings can be versatile on the day. At the beginning of the mediation you are asked to authorize a Privacy and also Responsibility Arrangement. This record likewise advises you that the mediator can not provide legal suggestions which the material of the mediation conversation is personal, it can not be utilized in any future procedures or procedures that you might be associated with.

How do you talk during mediation?

How to Talk and Listen Effectively in Mediation 1. Strive to understand through active listening. In trial, litigants address juries in their opening statements and final arguments. 2. Avoid communication barriers. 3. Watch your nonverbal communication. 4. Be ready to deal with emotions at mediation. 5. Focus on the facts. 6. Use your mediator and limit caucuses. 7. Conclusion.

She increased the problem with her department manager; however, she really felt that absolutely nothing had actually changed. When both parties consented to mediation they were both charging the various other of bullying and harassment. Work Law Updates for very early is set to be a fascinating year, not the very least with Brexit day fast coming close to. In spite of the uncertainty that Brexit has created, HR specialists as well as entrepreneur still have to guarantee they are up-to-date with what's in store in employment law adjustments that we do recognize will certainly occur.

Following the exchange of the statements, the moderators facilitate private conversations between the celebrations. There are various designs or approaches of mediation that might appropriate relying on the context as well as organisational society. These array from a casual peer-based mediation to a more official mediation procedure with an independent mediator. If business mediation services portsmouth would certainly such as more information on workplace mediation, or to discuss a scenario that you really feel mediation might help in, please call Åsa Waring. The future has actually never ever been more unforeseeable, demanding or challenging.

HR experts, employment lawyers, trade union representatives, elderly and middle supervisors, team leaders and also people managing difficult and also sensitive concerns. Workplace Mediation is the procedure in which a mediator aids conversations in between a company, administration or employees, to get to an option that works for everybody. Mediation aids individuals solve distinctions to their common complete satisfaction and also to the fulfillment of the business making sure efficient teamwork going forward raising performance and lowering administration time. Mediation is cost and time effective and also generates lasting remedies to conflict. Workplace conflict can have a significant influence on your service, both in regards to monitoring time as well as efficiency. Being equipped with the best approach to take on these high-emotion as well as often multi-party cases can provide mediators an edge and also the appropriate method to support organisations in their times of problem. Workplace mediation can help to solve the position for example where a grievance has actually been handled.

The dispute had actually intensified to a factor where the department was no more able to operate successfully, as well as the manager was being paid to continue to be in your home pending further examination right into the issue. Mediation is a procedure designed to put the parties back in charge of the circumstance and also to choose based on the fullness of the circumstances. An expert conciliator's primary inspiration will certainly be guarantee that the process works by upholding the concepts of impartiality and also privacy, and that the celebrations are provided every possibility to get the most out of it. We will certainly be on your side through every step of a workplace conflict to help you solve the problem as promptly and friendly as possible, call us today on for more info.

The court supplied mediation service is complimentary and also you do not require to execute a great deal of preparation before the mediation occurs.

Generally the parties split the price of the conciliator as well as this joint investment in seeking a resolution includes in each event's dedication to the procedure.

Mediation has a superb success price implying that any type of party choosing to moderate has an excellent opportunity of the disagreement being settled there and afterwards.

If the case settles, you can prevent the anxiety and also time of the test and also preparing for it.

Never prior to has there been so much details to absorb, so many social and company networks to navigate, therefore several economic, political and social concerns to confront. Any documents of the conversations that take place during mediation are destroyed and remain confidential in between those taking part in the mediation unless they otherwise mutually accept share the activity plan with their manager. desires to provide a possibility to fix any concerns that arise with mediation. The second component of the certification requirements consists of written tasks. Delegates are called for to submit a thorough portfolio in feedback to set inquiries that cover a variety of concepts covered in the course. Locations covered include dispute theory in mediation, transformative mediation, individuals abilities in the mediation process and also assisting in mediation. Delegates have 14 days from completion of the fifth day of the training course to finish the composed jobs.

[nationaldvam]

Saturday, April 13, 2019                  

"Jenny Teeson was in the middle of a divorce when she found a video of her husband sexually assaulting her in her sleep. The discovery turned her into a leading advocate for overturning archaic laws that can make it nearly impossible to prosecute men for marital rape.

The footage appeared to have been shot two years earlier, on Jan. 1, 2015, hours after the couple had hosted a New Year’s party at their Minnesota home. It showed her husband forcibly penetrating her with an object as she slept in their bed, their 4-year-old son asleep beside her, according to a criminal complaint. She was motionless as he attacked her. She believes she had been drugged.

Ms. Teeson, now 39, told the police about the video when she found it. But under a state law known as the 'voluntary relationship defense,' some of the most serious sex crimes charges cannot be brought against an accuser’s spouse or domestic partner. Her husband ended up being charged with a misdemeanor, not a felony.

While marital rape has been a crime in all 50 states since 1993 — a milestone achieved after years of dogged campaigning by women’s rights activists — the overwhelming majority of states still have loopholes on the books that can make it difficult, or even impossible, to prosecute such cases, according to data compiled by AEquitas, a nonprofit in Washington that assists prosecutors in gender-based violence cases.

Those loopholes can take many forms, involving the statute of limitations, use of force, age or the victim’s capacity to consent. In Minnesota, sex with someone who is physically helpless, as Ms. Teeson was, cannot be prosecuted as rape if the two people are married or domestic partners.

Though she was devastated to learn of the arcane law in Minnesota, Ms. Teeson quickly threw herself into the fight to change it, meeting with lawmakers and testifying at the State Capitol.

In February, her campaign scored a major victory. A bill to repeal the voluntary relationship defense unanimously passed the state House. Lawmakers gave Ms. Teeson a standing ovation.

'It felt very powerful to be able to speak, because I’ve been silent for so long,' she said."

Read the full article here.

[newyorkprelawland-blog]

The Intoxication Loophole in Sexual Assault Legislation

By Emma Babashak, Columbia University, Class of 2024

June 21, 2022

A national study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice determined that more than a third of rape victims were under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Eight percent of women (9.5 million) in the United States have experienced alcohol/drug-facilitated rape in their lifetime.[1] However, a majority of states, including New York, currently allow for a felony rape conviction only if the victim became incapacitated against his or her will. If the victim had voluntarily consumed alcohol or drugs, it may be difficult to convict perpetrators for higher offenses or even press charges, since the victim is not deemed “mentally incapacitated”. Such legal loopholes have profound impacts for college students, who are more likely to be victims of sexual violence.

The complications of this loophole can be seen in specific court cases in Minnesota. In May 2017, a woman who took five shots of vodka and a prescription narcotic was denied entry into a bar in Minneapolis for being too intoxicated. She and a friend were approached by three men, who invited them to a “house party”. The woman “blacked out” once at the house, but recalled waking up momentarily to find a man assaulting her. The next day, the woman went to Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota, for a rape examination. Within the next couple of days, she reported the assault to the Minneapolis Police Department. The perpetrator was ultimately convicted for felony third-degree criminal sexual conduct, which requires a victim to be mentally incapacitated. However, the Minnesota Supreme Court overturned that conviction. Because the victim voluntarily chose to consume those drinks, she could not be considered “mentally incapacitated” under the Minnesota law’s definition. The perpetrator later pleaded guilty to a smaller offense, resulting in a reduced punishment.[2]

“If the Legislature’s intended meaning is clear from the text of the statute, we apply that meaning and not what we may wish the law was or what we think the law should be,” Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Paul Thissen wrote. “We hold that the definition of ‘mentally incapacitated' … is susceptible to only one reasonable interpretation; namely, that alcohol causing a person to lack judgment to give a reasoned consent must be administered to the person without the person’s agreement.” In other words, defining “mentally incapacitated” has involuntary results in legal complications that supersede a court’s moral feelings.[3]

The complications of this legal loophole does not only apply to cases involving female victims. According to one male victim, after consuming alcohol at a 2012 college party at the University of Minnesota, he was assaulted by an upperclassman. A few years later when trying to pursue charges, he was told that he could not pursue rape charges unless he had concrete supporting evidence. The fact that he voluntarily drank before this incident allegedly took place created additional obstacles for this man.

As a population vulnerable to sexual violence in environments with alcohol, college students must be made aware of this legal loophole of the definition of mental incapacitation. According to Sara Wilf, a doctoral student and a member of the Survivors and Allies organization at the University of California, Los Angeles, “College students have higher rates of drinking alcohol than the general population. Colleges often have extremely harsh punishments for students who drink underage, and so that can stop survivors from coming forward.” This environment, combined with a potential lack of awareness of legal repercussions, creates potential consequences for current and future college students.

In New York, Assembly Bill A5519A, if passed, would prohibit “the use of intoxication of the victim as a defense in sex crimes”. The bill’s summary states, “Prohibits the use of intoxication of the victim as a defense in sex crimes where the victim is under the extreme influence of any substance which renders them incapable of appraising or controlling his or her conduct and incapable of clearly expressing lack of consent.” In addition, the legislation “would amend the Penal Code to add sexual misconduct, rape in the third degree, and criminal sexual act in the third degree as offenses in which voluntary intoxication, not exclusively involuntary intoxication, is covered under the state’s ‘inability to consent’ statute.”[4] By passing this bill, a loophole in current legislation regarding mental incapacity in sexual assault cases would be addressed.

______________________________________________________________

Emma Babashak is currently a rising junior attending Columbia University. She is majoring in Operations Research - Engineering Management Systems and minoring in both Economics and Psychology.

______________________________________________________________

[1] “Now NY Urges Assembly to Close Intoxication Loophole”, https://nownyc.org/press-releases/now-ny-urges-assembly-to-close-intoxication-loophole/

[2] What last week’s Supreme Court ruling actually said – and didn’t say – about sexual assault and drinking in Minnesota”, https://www.minnpost.com/state-government/2021/04/what-last-weeks-supreme-court-ruling-actually-said-and-didnt-say-about-sexual-assault-and-drinking-in-minnesota/

[3] “Majority of states’ laws treat sexual assault perpetrators differently if victims drank”, https://www.yahoo.com/news/majority-states-laws-treat-sexual-100026060.html

[4] “Assembly Bill A5519A”, The New York State Senate, https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/A5519

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

At about 11:15 this morning, an hour or so after Leeann Tweeden published an allegation that Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota had groped and kissed her without her consent in 2006, I assumed that Franken was headed toward resignation. I didn’t necessarily expect Franken to resign immediately or without putting up a fight. But barring some highly exculpatory evidence, I expected Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other prominent Democrats to be pushing Franken out the door.

Here’s why I thought that. First, the timing. The accusations against Franken came in the midst of a major scandal involving Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for Senate in Alabama, who has been accused of sexual misconduct toward multiple girls and young women. And it comes on the heels of scandals involving sexual assault or sexual harassment by some of the biggest names in Hollywood and the media business: Harvey Weinstein, Roger Ailes, Kevin Spacey and Louis C.K., to name some of many examples. It also comes about a year after Donald Trump was elected president even though he was accused of sexual misconduct by many women and was caught on tape bragging about grabbing women by their genitals. The conduct Franken is accused of is just the sort of behavior that he has condemned, potentially making he and other Democrats look hypocritical.

Second, there was the photograph that Tweeden published with her article. It appeared to show Franken groping Tweeden’s breasts while she was sleeping — not providing a lot of room for “if true” statements about Franken’s conduct.

I’ve decided it’s time to tell my story. #MeToohttps://t.co/TqTgfvzkZg

— Leeann Tweeden (@LeeannTweeden) November 16, 2017

And third, there was political expediency. If Franken were to resign, it probably wouldn’t cost Democrats a Senate seat. Instead, an interim replacement would be named by Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton — a Democrat who would almost certainly appoint another Democrat. Then, a special election would be held next year to elect someone to serve the final two years of Franken’s term, which expires after the 2020 election. Next year’s midterms are likely to be blue-leaning (perhaps even a Democratic wave election), and Democrats are likely to hold Senate seats in states as blue as Minnesota under those circumstances. And Democrats have a deep and relatively diverse bench in Minnesota, with plausible candidates including State Auditor Rebecca Otto, Attorney General Lori Swanson, Lt. Gov. Tina Smith, U.S. Reps. Keith Ellison, Tim Walz and Collin Peterson, former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and others.1

In other words, I thought the Democrats had an opportunity to maintain the moral high ground without having to pay a political price for it. They could keep the pressure up on Moore, who has put Republicans in a no-win situation in Alabama. And they could help to establish a precedent wherein severe instances of sexual harassment warrant resignation. In the long run, that might create more of a problem for Republicans than for Democrats, because the overwhelming majority of sexual harassment is conducted by men, and there are 265 Republican men in Congress compared with 164 Democratic ones.2

Instead, Democrats basically punted on the question. Here’s what Schumer said, which echoes the statements made by many other Democrats:

Sexual harassment is never acceptable and must not be tolerated.

I hope and expect that the Ethics Committee will fully investigate this troubling incident, as they should with any credible allegation of sexual harassment.

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) November 16, 2017

Almost all of these comments said that sexual harassment must be taken very, very seriously. But the remedy they propose for Franken — referring the allegations to the Senate ethics committee, a step that Republican leader Mitch McConnell, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Franken himself have also called for — isn’t particularly serious. Unless, that is, the committee process led to Franken’s expulsion. But there have been many ethics investigations and very few expulsions — none since 1862 — and none of the statements made by Schumer or the other leaders raised the possibility of expulsion.

Moreover, it’s not quite clear what behavior the ethics committee would actually be investigating: Franken hasn’t really denied Tweeden’s claim that he kissed her without her consent, and there’s already photographic evidence that appears to show he groped her. It’s possible the investigation could turn up evidence of similar incidents involving Franken and other women. But if Franken is a repeat offender — as so many sexual harassers are — that’s all the more reason for Democrats to want him out of office now instead of dragging the party through the mud.

Of course, what might be politically expedient for Democrats isn’t necessarily expedient for Schumer — or for McConnell, or for the White House, all of whom may be acting out of a sense of institutional self-preservation. If there’s a precedent that sexual harassment is grounds for removal or resignation from office, then a lot of members of Congress — including some of Schumer’s colleagues and friends — could have to resign once more allegations come to light, as they almost certainly will. President Trump’s conduct could also come under renewed scrutiny, as could the conduct of former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. Politics is a male-dominated institution, and a conservative3 institution, and conservative, male-dominated institutions have pretty much no interest in flipping over the sexual harassment rock and seeing what comes crawling out from underneath it.

When we were thinking through the Franken story in FiveThrityEight’s internal Slack channel today, most of the men in our office thought that Franken was in deep trouble (“I think he’s toast,” I wrote at 11:07 this morning). Most of the women thought he’d hang in and survive. We’re less than a day into the story, but no surprise — it looks like the women will be right.

[billyagogo]

When will you know if Biden or Trump wins? Look to these battleground states

New Post has been published on https://newsprofixpro.com/moxie/2020/11/01/when-will-you-know-if-biden-or-trump-wins-look-to-these-battleground-states/

When will you know if Biden or Trump wins? Look to these battleground states

A record number of Americans — more than 59 million — had returned absentee ballots for the general election as of Sunday, after states expanded mail voting in an attempt to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

Now, election officials just have to count them all.

But in some of the states that could decide the presidential race, election officials aren’t allowed to process, must less tally, mail ballots before election day. When America learns the final results could depend on when ballots are due and when they can be counted.

Some battleground states, such as Arizona and Florida, have long histories with absentee voting and have adopted laws to start at least the initial stages of ballot processing — like opening envelopes and checking signatures — early. Other states don’t allow ballots to be processed or counted until election day or the day before.

And Republicans nationally and in several states — including Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin — have fought extended legal battles over added voter access and whether ballots postmarked by election day can be counted after Nov. 3. In 2016, President Trump carried Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by razor-thin margins.

Election officials have emphasized that it’s more important to get an accurate and complete count than a speedy one, but Trump and his campaign have claimed otherwise. As part of his attacks on mail voting and his efforts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of an election in which polls show him behind, the president has falsely suggested that counting ballots after election day violates U.S. law, when in fact it is the norm.

“It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on Nov. 3, instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate,” Trump said Oct. 27. Experts say that’s just not true; results are never finalized on election night.

After months of policy changes and lawsuits, here are the rules on when ballots are due and can be processed in the battleground states:

Arizona (11 electoral votes) Excuse needed to vote absentee? No.

When are ballots due? Must be received by 7 p.m. Nov. 3.

When are ballots processed? Signature verification happens upon receipt. Vote tallying may begin 14 days before the election, but results may not be released until polls close.

Arizona residents have been voting by mail for decades, and the state allows people to permanently sign up to receive absentee ballots. The state is also familiar with the extended counting period that comes with mail ballots — it took six days for the Associated Press to call the 2018 Senate race for Kyrsten Sinema.

Florida (29 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Must be received by 7 p.m. Nov. 3.

When are ballots processed? County officials were allowed to start tallying votes up to 30 days before Nov. 3.

The state has allowed no-excuse absentee voting since 2002, so voters are familiar with the process. State law says counties can begin processing ballots 22 days before the election. In June, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order allowing them to start processing up to 30 days before, once they’d tested tabulation equipment.

Georgia (16 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Ballots are due at 7 p.m. Nov. 3.

When are ballots processed? Signatures on the envelopes are verified when ballots are received. Ballot scanning began Oct. 19. Counting of votes may not begin before polls close.

In August, a federal judge blocked the state law requiring ballots to be received by 7 p.m. on election night and ruled that the state must accept ballots postmarked by election day and received in three days. After Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger appealed, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the election day deadline.

Michigan (16 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Ballots must be received by 8 p.m. Nov. 3.

When are ballots processed? Processing starts Nov. 2; counting begins Nov. 3.

After thousands of ballots arrived too late to be counted in the state’s August primary, a state judge ruled that ballots postmarked by Nov. 2 would count if received within 14 days after the election. But the state appeals court on Oct. 16 blocked that decision, so by law, ballots are due by 8 p.m. Nov. 3. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation Oct. 6 that allows election officials to begin processing ballots Nov. 2.

Minnesota (10 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Mailed ballots must be postmarked by election day and received by Nov. 10. Voters can also turn in ballots in person by 3 p.m. Nov. 3.

When does ballot processing begin? Ballots are verified and accepted or rejected upon receipt. At the close of business on the seventh day before election day, officials may open the ballots and place them in a ballot box. Counting begins after polls close.

In Minnesota, which enacted no-excuse absentee voting in 2014, 6 out of 10 voters sent in ballots in the August primary. That month, a county judge ruled the state should allow general election ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 to be counted if they’re received by Nov. 10. An appeals court panel last week ordered all mail-in ballots received after 8 p.m. on election day be set aside, but it did not rule on the validity of those ballots.

North Carolina (15 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Ballots postmarked by election day will be accepted until Nov. 12.

When are ballots processed? Election officials were allowed to begin processing ballots starting Sept. 29. Counting begins election day.

North Carolina officials expect to report on election night the totals for all in-person early voting ballots, election day ballots and mail-in ballots that arrive by Nov. 3, according to Patrick Gannon, a spokesman for the state’s election board. “Whether the media and/or candidates will be able to call winners … will depend on how close contests are and how many absentee and provisional ballots remain to be counted after election day,” Gannon wrote in an email. State election officials agreed to extend the deadline for absentee ballots postmarked by election day from Nov. 6 to Nov. 12 as part of a consent decree resolving a lawsuit filed by a retirees group. After a protracted legal battle, the Supreme Court denied Republicans’ request to overturn the agreement.

Ohio (18 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Ballots postmarked the day before the election will be accepted until Nov. 13.

When are ballots processed? Ballots can be processed as soon as they arrive and counted on Nov. 3.

Ohio’s secretary of state said the earliest tallies announced on election night will be the absentee ballots.

Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Ballots postmarked by election day must be received by election officials by 5 p.m. Nov. 6.

When are ballots processed? Counting and processing may begin at 7 a.m. Nov. 3.

Pennsylvania passed legislation last year allowing voters to request absentee ballots without an excuse. Following a request from election officials and a lawsuit from the state Democratic Party, the state Supreme Court in September ruled that ballots postmarked by election day and received by 5 p.m. three days after the election would count. The court also ruled that ballots that had a missing or illegible postmark would be considered on time if they weren’t obviously mailed after election day. Pennsylvania GOP leaders asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the order. On Oct. 19, the high court deadlocked on the emergency request, allowing the Nov. 6 ballot deadline to remain.

Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf had called for allowing election officials to begin processing ballots sooner, after it took more than two weeks to complete the count of the June primary, but the state Legislature did not change the law.

Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Ballots are due by 8 p.m. Nov. 3.

When are ballots processed? Processing and counting begins at 7 a.m. Nov. 3.

The state’s April 7 primary in some ways set the tone for the November election — voters chose to mail in their ballots in record numbers even in the midst of a chaotic legal fight; nearly 1 million people — 60% of primary voters — mailed in their ballots. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that ballots in that primary had to be postmarked by April 7 but could be counted if they arrived by April 13. About 79,000 ballots arrived between April 8 and 13.

A federal judge in September granted voters the same six-day grace period for the November election in a Sept. 21 ruling, but after challenges from the Republican National Committee, the Wisconsin GOP and state Republican lawmakers, the ruling was blocked by a federal appeals court. So under state law, absentee ballots will be due by 8 p.m. Nov. 3. Democrats appealed, but the Supreme Court declined to overturn the lower court’s ruling.

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[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on http://techcrunchapp.com/ex-cops-charged-in-george-floyds-death-appear-in-court-as-judge-warns-he-may-move-trial-cbs-news/

Ex-cops charged in George Floyd's death appear in court as judge warns he may move trial - CBS News

A Minnesota judge on Monday warned that he’s likely to move the trials of four former police officers charged in George Floyd’s death out of Minneapolis if public officials and attorneys don’t stop talking about the case. Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill spoke as the ex-officers, who were fired after Floyd’s May 25 death, appeared in court for a second pre-trial hearing.

Cahill stopped short of issuing a gag order on attorneys, but he said one is likely if public statements continue. Cahill added that such a situation would also make him likely to grant a change-of-venue motion if one is filed.

“The court is not going to be happy about hearing about the case in three areas: media, evidence and guilt or innocence,” Cahill said.

Derek Chauvin, 44, is charged with second-degree murder and other counts, while Thomas Lane, 37, J. Kueng, 26, and Tou Thao, 34, are charged with aiding and abetting Chauvin. Lane and Kueng, who have posted bail, were seen walking into the courtroom, where no cameras were allowed. Thao, who remains in custody along with Chauvin, appeared in person while Chauvin appeared via video from a detention facility.

Former Minnesota police officer J. Alexander Kueng arrives for his hearing on charges of aiding and abetting in the killing of George Floyd, at the Minneapolis Public Safety Facility in Minneapolis on June 29, 2020.

NICHOLAS PFOSI / REUTERS

Floyd died after Chauvin, who is White, pressed his knee against the handcuffed 46-year-old Black man’s neck for nearly eight minutes. The officers were responding to a call about a man trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill at a nearby store.

Floyd’s death was universally condemned in Minnesota, with elected officials including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey calling for the officers to be charged. Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said Floyd’s death was “murder.” Disturbing video of Floyd’s death triggered massive nationwide demonstrations protesting systemic racism and police brutality against Black and Brown men and women.

During the hearing Monday, Cahill asked Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank to use his influence to keep public officials silent, warning that if they continued to discuss it publicly, he likely would “have to pull (trials) out of Hennepin County and they need to be aware of that.”

Defense attorney Robert Paule, who is representing Thao, said he is “fighting this battle with one hand” because of the pre-trial publicity, reports the Star-Tribune.

Frank said prosecutors are “just as interested in a fair trial and are acutely aware of the issues” surrounding publicity, the paper reports.

“We have asked people not to talk about this case … we’ve done our best to make the court’s concerns known to them and will continue to do so,” Frank said.

Hennepin County Jail

Cahill set a March 8 trial date for the former officers if they are tried together, though he said he expects motions to be filed to separate their trials. The next court date is September 11.

The defendants have not entered pleas. Chauvin’s attorney has not commented publicly on the charges, while Lane’s and Kueng’s attorneys have sought to minimize their clients’ roles and deflect blame to the more senior Chauvin in Floyd’s death. Chauvin remains in custody on $1 million bail and Thao is being held on $750,000 bail.

George Floyd

Cahill also rejected a defense request to reconsider his earlier decision to bar cameras in the courtroom during pretrial proceedings. Defense attorneys asked to allow such coverage, but prosecutors objected. The judge has not ruled on whether to allow cameras for the trial itself, which in Minnesota usually requires the consent of all parties.

Kueng’s attorney, Tom Plunkett, was the attorney asking Cahill to reconsider his ruling on cameras. He asserted that prosecutors and other officials forfeited their right to object to cameras in the courtroom by making public comments that went as far as “saying the defendants are guilty of murder.” He said allowing electronic coverage of pretrial proceedings would actually make it easier to impanel a fair jury by helping to “educate the public that there may be more to the cases than what has been told to them by the state.”

The charges against Chauvin are unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Second-degree murder carries a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison, third-degree murder carries up to 25 years and manslaughter up to 10.

The other three former officers are charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Those charges are legally tantamount to the counts against Chauvin and carry the same penalties.

[sinrau]

(CNN) Ever since the coronavirus began its deadly march through the US, Donald Trump has been accused of lacking the empathy presidents typically draw on to lead and soothe a nation in crisis.

This week the question of presidential compassion was a consistent storyline.

You could pick your lyrics: Was the President like the Tin Man from the “Wizard of Oz,” plaintively singing, “If I only had a heart.” Or was he suffering from, as the 80s hit song put it, “a total eclipse of the heart”?

We saw a President who slammed the Supreme Court for blocking his effort to subject 650,000 Dreamers to deportation. He also bemoaned the court’s historic ruling Monday that LGBTQ people can’t be fired because of their sexuality. His former national security adviser John Bolton claimed in a book excerpt that Trump had encouraged China’s leader to set up concentration camps for the Uyghur minority. He plowed ahead with a non-socially distanced rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, even as coronavirus cases mounted.

Yes, some rallygoers could get sick, Trump told the Wall Street Journal, but “it’s a very small percentage.”

In a private meeting with the families of Black victims, though, Trump was “very compassionate,” according to the mother of Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot to death while jogging in Georgia. But in his public remarks, the President made law-and-order his primary message.

“Trump went on the attack against his political rivals and doubled down on his hard-line, ‘law and order’ stance, a political calculation solidified by his use of the words ‘safety and security’ and his statement that Americans ‘demand law and order,'” wrote Issac Bailey. “His effort to address growing national suffering and protest over police brutality was, at best, a thinly veiled excuse to defend law enforcement and signal to white voters where he stands.”

A chilling view of the private Trump emerged from the Bolton book. It painted a credible “portrait of the most amoral, autocratic and unprepared man to ever serve as president of the United States,” wrote John Avlon. “This is not a partisan attack by activists from the opposition party. This is the first-person view of the President’s former national security adviser, bolstered by contemporaneous notes, a standard which is admissible in court. It is a damning portrait of a president untethered to anything resembling morals, who cannot separate his self-interest from the national interest and doesn’t even care to try.”

Jen Psaki viewed the book through the lens of the upcoming election: “All of the observations, accusations and specific anecdotes are about one person — Donald Trump — and whether he is fit to lead the country and the lasting damage he would inflict if given four more years.”

In fact, the revelations show Bolton as complicit, in Elie Honig‘s view: “John Bolton has offered the nation a staggering profile in cowardice…Bolton directly witnessed not one but multiple acts that could have been cited in the impeachment of President Donald Trump. But Bolton did nothing about it while he held a powerful post in the Trump administration. And he stayed quiet and took cover when Congress and the nation pleaded with him to speak out during the impeachment process.”

Writing about China policy, Bolton gave this devastating description: “The Trump presidency is not grounded in philosophy, grand strategy or policy. It is grounded in Trump.” As if to prove that such a verdict applies more broadly, on Friday night Attorney General William Barr ousted Geoffrey Berman, US Attorney for the Southern District of NY which has been investigating and prosecuting Trump’s associates. “The news of Berman’s ouster is one more piece of evidence that Trump is the anti-law-and-order President, despite his claims to the contrary. Trump touts law and order when it suits him, but attacks the courts and erodes our judicial system when it comes to his agenda and actions,” wrote Julian Zelizer.

One critic described Bolton’s book as a slog. “It toggles between two discordant registers: exceedingly tedious and slightly unhinged,” wrote Jennifer Szalai in the New York Times. “Still, it’s maybe a fitting combination for a lavishly bewhiskered figure whose wonkishness and warmongering can make him seem like an unlikely hybrid of Ned Flanders and Yosemite Sam.”

Another book Trump may be dreading is due out in July from the President’s niece, Mary L. Trump, who is a psychologist. Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio wrote that the book promises to shed light on the President’s fraught relationships with his father and elder brother, Fred Trump Jr., who was Mary Trump’s father. “Three and a half years into the Trump era, endless words have been spent illustrating the chaotic and cruel personality that can, to cite just one example, schedule a huge ego-gratifying rally in the middle of a deadly pandemic caused by a viciously contagious virus,” noted D’Antonio.

A rally fizzles

Given that cases of Covid-19 have been rising sharply in Tulsa County, wrote infectious disease expert and Oklahoma native Dr. Kent Sepkowitz in advance of Trump’s Saturday rally there, “from a strict public health perspective, the selection of Tulsa is a terrible decision.”

Trump’s first rally since the pandemic began was “supposed to trumpet his return to greatness — and the country’s return to normalcy,” wrote Frida Ghitis. But it “instead brought embarrassing scenes of empty bleachers, a dismantled stage and a familiar speech unsuccessfully trying to reignite public fears…The speech was typically self-centered, with a bizarre more than ten-minute long riff on his ultra-slow descent from the West Point ramp, and absolutely no words of compassion for the nearly 120,000 people in this country who have died during the pandemic.”

Days of freedom

Friday was Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the US. Another historic day of freedom came on October 1, 1962, when James Meredith became the first African American student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. He had to sue for his right to an education there, and it took the courts, hundreds of federal marshals and thousands of troops to overcome rioting and protect Meredith.

“The gates of higher education in the United States were opened for all Americans,” Meredith wrote. “This victory for me and for the US Constitution shattered the system of state-sponsored white supremacy in Mississippi…”

“When I see people across America — and around the world — peacefully marching for racial justice and honoring the memory of George Floyd and other martyrs like Medgar Evers…I am filled with both joy and hope. White supremacy may be the most evil beast that’s ever stalked the halls of history, and today it may finally be mortally wounded.”

Some companies and some states marked Juneteenth as a holiday, but it should be observed nationally, wrote Peniel Joseph. It “would spur not only conversation about the origins of our current racial and political conflicts, but would also prompt vitally necessary education about white supremacy and its manifestations in policies and political actions that are anti-Black, anti-democratic and anti-human,” wrote Joseph.

Rayshard Brooks’ own words

Months before he was shot to death by Atlanta police, Rayshard Brooks took part in an interview for a research project. A video of that February interview aired on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 show Wednesday, and in it, Brooks described the lasting burden of being on probation: “I just feel like some of the system could, you know, look at us as individuals. We do have lives, you know, just a mistake we made, and you know, not just do us as if we are animals.”

Van Jones noted that for people on probation “any contact with a police officer — for any reason — means an almost certain return to the horrors of a jail cell. It is safe to assume that Brooks did not want to go back to jail over sleeping in his car or failing a sobriety test, lose everything he had and be forced to start his life over again.”

“In other words, we do not know why the Atlanta police officer chose to shoot a man who was running away from him. But we can guess why that man chose to run, in the first place. Brooks didn’t want to lose his liberty. Instead, he wound up losing his life.”

Melvin Carter, the first African American mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota, is the son of a police officer who served his city for 28 years. But even with that background, he doesn’t think the answer to public safety is solely a matter of spending billions on police and prisons. “Our country’s enforcement-heavy approach to safety isn’t designed to address the root causes of crime, but the symptoms,” he wrote. “Instead of equipping us all with tools to guard our own future security, it further alienates those on the outer edges of society and impedes funding for critical social infrastructure like schools and housing.”

A former mayor, Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans, wrote that the US Justice Department was investigating his city’s police department when he took office. A consent decree which is still ongoing has resulted in a dramatic improvement in how residents view the police, but there’s more work to be done, Landrieu wrote. “We must go further. We can no longer ask police to handle the failures of our social and educational systems.”

Anne Milgram, the former New Jersey Attorney General, worked on the reinvention of policing in what was once America’s most dangerous city, Camden. “We had a police department that had no idea of what it was doing or whether it could do better. It lurched wildly from 911 call to 911 call, sometimes taking hours to respond to calls of serious violence. It failed to solve serious crimes…that plagued the city, and yet hundreds of arrests were being made for low-level crimes, driven most often by drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness, poverty and homelessness.” New leadership, new systems and ultimately a new police department made a difference — the city is “the safest that it has been in more than 50 years” and the police department is a model for others, Milgram wrote.

Supreme surprises

When Donald Trump ran for President, he promised to appoint conservative justices to the federal courts — and he’s been true to his word, naming Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and scores of others for lower courts.

But it was Gorsuch who wrote the majority opinion this week upholding civil rights for LGBTQ Americans, rejecting the Trump administration’s position in declaring that the anti-discrimination provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protect gay and transgender people. “It’s surprising that it’s taken this long,” wrote John D. Sutter. “Until this week in the United States of America, many LGBTQ workers lacked these simple legal protections.

“In over half the states in America, you could be fired for being gay. Until now.”

Then on Thursday, Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed by George W. Bush, sided with the court’s four liberals in blocking the Trump administration’s effort to kill the Obama-era DACA program, which shields young people who had been brought to the United States as children from deportation. DACA “was life-changing for hundreds of thousands of people — Americans in all but the paperwork — who were now free to work, go to school, seek promotions and continue their academic careers without fear of being detained and sent back to countries they barely knew,” wrote Raul A. Reyes. The decision was “a win for Dreamers, for the American ideal of welcoming immigrants — and for the independence of the high court.”

Happy Father’s Day

Mother’s Day this year came as most Americans were still locked down, and a lot of the holiday get-togethers were virtual. Today is Father’s Day and the advice from Kent Sepkowitz is consistent with what he recommended for the earlier holiday: get together with your father on Zoom, Facetime or whatever platform you prefer. America’s “approach to reopening — which has been unscientific and uncoordinated — has failed miserably. Rather than cautiously peeling back the various Covid-19 containment safeguards, most states have supported an ‘everybody-back-in-the-pool’ return, as if we were all teens partying during Spring Break.”

“Besides, let’s be honest — Father’s Day is no Mother’s Day, “wrote Sepkowitz, noting that total US spending on Mother’s Day gifts is more than 50% higher. “As a dad myself, this junior varsity status is fine by me. This year in particular, I want nothing to do with celebrating a holiday in the middle of a poorly managed pandemic.”

For more on Father’s Day:

Marcus Mabry: A Father’s Day message to all dads

Arick Wierson: George Floyd was my wake-up call

After Aunt Jemima

The debate over systemic racism touched off by the killing of George Floyd rippled into many parts of America. Consumer-facing companies reacted, with Quaker Oats announcing that it would end the 131-year-old Aunt Jemima brand, noted Elliot Williams.

As a Black child, it was upsetting for him to discover that the light-pink Crayola crayon was labeled “flesh” colored. “I put it back in the bin, pulled out ‘burnt sienna’ or ‘raw umber’ and continued whatever (probably “Star Wars” themed) self-portrait I was working on… By implying that the only color called ‘flesh’ looked like white skin, Crayola decided who was ‘normal.’ Everyone else had to work around that.” (The “flesh” color was phased out in 1962, replaced by “peach.”)

“In the midst of a national debate on life-and-death matters around racism and public safety, fussing about the logo on instant rice may seem trivial,” Williams wrote. “It’s not. The images our society chooses to elevate are reflective of who we are, and more importantly, whose voices — and yes, even lives — matter.”

Now that Aunt Jemima has been retired, wrote Crystal Echo Hawk, what should be next? She argued that the many uses of Native American images and symbolism in sports must end. “Professional sports have the power to influence and inspire people of all ages. In this unprecedented moment of solidarity, t hey have the opportunity to take a strong stand and show — not just say — that racism will not be tolerated.”

Covid-19 is still here

America’s top two elected officials did their best this week to argue that Covid-19 is going away, despite clear signs to the contrary. “Other countries whose governments addressed the crisis forthrightly have managed to wrestle down the curve, and now they are carefully, safely reopening,” wrote Frida Ghitis. “In the US, the curve is trending up, not down, even if Vice President Mike Pence deceptively declared in an op-ed this week, ‘We are winning the fight against the invisible enemy,’ unctuously declaring that the good news is ‘a testament to the leadership of President Trump.'”

As Ghitis noted, “On Monday, during a roundtable discussion on senior citizens, Trump said ‘If you don’t test, you don’t have any cases,’ a belief reminiscent of a baby thinking you disappear if he covers his eyes. To state the obvious, if we stopped testing, people would continue to become infected and die.”

Don’t miss:

Kamala Harris: The fight continues to protect Americans’ health care from Trump.

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr.: Trump’s tweet exploits and defames toddlers

Vicky Ward: Telling the truth makes a huge difference

David Gergen and Caroline Cohen: The next Greatest Generation

Merrill Brown: Federal government abdicates duty to inform public on coronavirus

Claire McMullen, Yael Schacher and Ariana Sawyer: Trump’s cold-blooded move to shut out desperate asylum seekers

Jeff Yang: It turns out your favorite movie is racist. What now?

Nayyera Haq: Why Stacey Abrams deserves applause

AND…

At last, summer

A summer like no other begins this weekend. In the first of a new series of weekly columns for CNN Opinion, biologist Erin Bromage wrote, “Our choices over the coming months will determine the trajectory of this pandemic. If we continue to pursue activities that pose a high risk for infection, such as large indoor gatherings, then we will hear the roar of that second wave sooner than later.”

“If we take a more measured approach, by improving hand hygiene, limiting daily interactions with other people, maintaining physical distance and increasing face mask use when we can’t maintain the distance, then businesses can operate safely, people can return to work and the activities our children are missing can resume.”

But even in the midst of the pandemic, Bromage wrote that he’s looking forward to some traditional summer activities: “my first meal at a restaurant (dining outdoors), visiting with more than one or two households at a time, and spending time at the beach. These interactions will be a little different than last summer.

“We will have to keep personal risks and risk mitigation measures in mind, but these adjustments are well worth the payoff of getting to enjoy some of my family’s usual summertime activities.”

Donald Trump’s heartless week #web #website #copied #to read# #highlight #link #news #read #blog #wordpress post# #posts #breaking news# #Sinrau #Nothiah #Sinrau29

[thisdaynews]

POLITICO Playbook: The case for tuning out the White House

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/politico-playbook-the-case-for-tuning-out-the-white-house/

POLITICO Playbook: The case for tuning out the White House

A FEW DATA POINTS TO PONDER WHEN CONSIDERING HOW MUCH TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE WHITE HOUSE …

— THE WSJreported a few days ago that the president was looking to buy Greenland. The White House brushed it aside, saying it was just idle chatter, and then PresidentDONALD TRUMPsaid: “It’s not No. 1 on the burner, I can tell you that.” The president also said bluntly: “We’re going to Poland and then we may be going to Denmark — not for this reason at all.”

THEN TUESDAY NIGHT,the president pulled out of a trip to Denmark, because the prime minister said Greenland wasn’t for sale.

— THE WASHINGTON POSTreported Monday evening that the White House was considering pushing for a payroll tax cut to juice the economy. Shortly after that, the White House said to ignore the chatter, because there were many ideas floating around, and this was no more serious than any of the other proposals bouncing around the building. Then the president said this Tuesday: “Payroll taxes — I’ve been thinking about payroll taxes for a long time.”

— THE PRESIDENTsaid for a week or two that he was serious about bucking his party and pushing Congress to create a new background-check system for gun purchases. He said he was going to listen to both Republicans and Democrats and get something done in the wake of the tragedies in Dayton and El Paso. Then on Tuesday, he called the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre and told him he would not be pushing for new background checks, The Atlantic’s Elaina Plott reported.

IF THE PRESIDENT MAKES A PROCLAMATIONand then reverses, what is the use of the proclamation in the first place?

WE DID A ROUND OF PHONE CALLSTuesday to people in Hill leadership and at the White House to find out how seriously we should be taking the payroll tax idea. The answers ranged from “not seriously” to “no one has any information on it.”

— CONSIDER THIS: BARACK OBAMAsigned a payroll tax holiday into law in early 2012 after a frantic December trying to squeeze it through a divided Congress. What hasTRUMPpassed through this divided Congress — the one that’s on the brink of impeaching him — that gives you the inclination he could get this through?

Good Wednesday morning. SPOTTED:Paul Ryan on a delayed flight from DCA to Chicago.Pic

THE PRESIDENT’S FOREIGN POLICY …

— WAPO: “Trump postpones Denmark trip after prime minister declines to sell him Greenland,”by Felicia Sonmez, Anne Gearan and Damian Paletta: “People familiar with the president’s interest in Greenland said he had been talking about the potential purchase for weeks.

“Senior administration officials had discussed the possibility of offering Denmarka deal in which the United States would take over its annual $600 million subsidy to Greenland in perpetuity, said two people familiar with the talks who were not authorized to reveal the internal deliberations. They also discussed giving Denmark a large one-time payment as well to incentivize the transfer, the people said.” WaPo

— CNN’s @kylieatwood:“Trump & Macron spoke over the phone today & agreed they wanted to invite Russia to the G7 next year, a sr admin official said. Trump is expected to broach the topic w/ world leaders at the G7. Today Trump told reporters it would be ‘appropriate’ for Russia to re-enter G7.”

— THEY’RE BACK! … WAPO’S PAMELA CONSTABLEin Kabul andKAREN DEYOUNG:“The U.S. is nearing a deal with the Taliban. But another major threat looms in Afghanistan: The Islamic State”:“The official government line here is that the Islamic State has been defeated.

“The local branch of the extremist Sunni militia,Afghan officials say, has been corralled into a mountainous area near the Pakistani border by Afghan and U.S. forces and can no longer control populated areas. They say it has been reduced to staging suicide attacks against ‘soft’ targets, like the wedding party bombing here on Saturday that killed 63 people and wounded 190. …

“But local leaders in the border provinces of Nangahar and Konartell a different story. They say Islamic State forces continue to terrorize villagers in areas under their control, forcibly recruiting boys and banning girls from school. They and U.S. officials say that Taliban and Islamic State forces have continued to fight each other, but that they also fear that some Taliban fighters will join the more ruthless Islamic State forces if Taliban leaders make a deal with U.S. officials.” WaPo

READING FOR JARED AND GREENBLATT … NYT’S TOM FRIEDMAN: “How the Palestinian-Israeli Peace Process Became a Farce”:“Last week’s ugly mess involving the abortive visit to Israel of two Democratic congresswomen was useful for only one reason: It exposed how much the Palestinian-Israeli peace process has become a pathetic festival of magical thinking, performance art, reality denial, political fund-raising and outright political fraud. It’s become about everything except what it needs to succeed: courageous, fair-minded, creative diplomacy and leadership.

“At the official U.S. level, Jared Kushner has spent three yearsginning up a peace plan that he still won’t show anyone. So far, his only achievement is an Israeli-Palestinian economic conference in Bahrain that no Israeli or Palestinian officials attended.

“Kushner actually seems to believe that the problemcan be solved by the Israelis and Gulf Arabs funding a leveraged buyout of Palestinian aspirations for sovereignty and statehood. Kushner deserves some credit for fresh thinking about how to attract investment to the West Bank, but he lapsed into magical thinking when he allowed all the diplomatic features of his plan to be dictated by the political needs and desires of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.” NYT

— AP’S JONATHAN LEMIREandDARLENE SUPERVILLE: “Trump: Any Jew voting Democratic is uninformed or disloyal”:“Showing a fresh willingness to play politics along religious lines, President Donald Trump said Tuesday that American Jewish people who vote for Democrats show ‘either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.’

“Trump’s claim triggered a quick uproar from criticswho said the president was trading in anti-Semitic stereotypes. It came amid his ongoing feud with Democratic congresswomen Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, both Muslim.

“Trump has closely aligned himself with Israel,including its conservative prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while the Muslim lawmakers have been outspoken critics of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Tlaib is a U.S.-born Palestinian American, while Omar was born in Somalia.

“‘Where has the Democratic Party gone? Where have they gonewhere they are defending these two people over the state of Israel?’ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. ‘I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.’” AP

NEEDLESS TO SAY:Jews — like everyone else in America — are not subservient to an ideology, political party or person.

WHAT DINA POWELL’S UP TO … FT: “Goldman Sachs claws its way into contention for Saudi Aramco IPO,”by Anjli Raval and Andrew England in London, James Fontanella-Khan in New York and Simeon Kerr in Dubai: “Goldman Sachs has clawed its way into contention for a role in Saudi Aramco’s planned stock market listing, after a months-long charm offensive by top executives, including former Trump administration official Dina Powell, said several people briefed on the matter.

“Ms Powell, who left Goldman in 2017 to work at the White Houseand came back to the Wall Street bank a year later, has leveraged her knowledge of the region and relationships with the kingdom’s highest authorities to seek business for Goldman, said one person close to the Saudi state energy giant.” FT

HEADS UP … NYT’S MIRIAM JORDAN:“As early as Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security is expected to issue a sweeping new set of regulations for detaining migrant children, replacing more than two decades of protections that were put into place as a result of what happened to Alma and her fellow detainees in 1985. The new standards could allow the government to detain children and families for longer periods, revise the minimum standards of care and end the 22-year-old consent decree, known as the Flores agreement, that has protected the nation’s youngest and most vulnerable new arrivals.” NYT

SCOOP … NANCY COOK: “Trump team braces GOP donors for a potential ‘moderate and short’ recession”:“At a fundraising luncheon this week in Jackson, Wyo., headlined by both Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged the risks to the GOP elite behind closed doors. If the U.S. were to face a recession, it would be ‘moderate and short,’ Mulvaney told roughly 50 donors, according to an attendee.” POLITICO

2020 WATCH …

— CHICAGO TRIBUNE: “Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg’s overwhelmingly white crowd at event on Chicago’s South Side reinforces his struggles to draw support from black voters,”by Bill Ruthhart: “South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg held a self-described grassroots campaign rally in Bronzeville on Tuesday night, but the overwhelmingly white audience he drew to the event in a historic black neighborhood reinforced the difficulty the Democratic presidential hopeful has had in connecting with African American voters.

“Buttigieg did not acknowledge the makeup of the audiencein his remarks or in answering questions from the 1,000 people at the sold-out event, but did touch on it briefly as he closed the hourlong rally with a plea for his supporters. ‘Find the people who don’t look like most of you in this room and let them know they have the chance, not just to support this campaign, but to shape it,’ Buttigieg said.” Chicago Tribune

BIG CASH ALERT(big July donations):RNC:Sheldon and Miriam Adelson gave $142,000 each. …NRCC:Sheldon and Miriam Adelson gave $142,000. …NRSC:August A. Busch gave $110,000.

TOP-EDS …

— REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WYO.)in theWAPO: “How to lose a war, but not end it”:“President Trump knows a bad deal when he sees one. He extricated the United States from President Barack Obama’s disastrous nuclear accord with Iran. He pulled us out of an arms-control agreement with Russia that Vladimir Putin repeatedly violated. But if news reports are accurate, the State Department is about to capitulate to the Taliban, al-Qaeda’s longtime ally, as U.S. forces are withdrawn from Afghanistan. The president should reject this deal.”

— MITCH MCCONNELLin theWSJ: “We Stand With Hong Kong”

DANIEL LIPPMAN: “Inside Trump’s feud with Anthony Scaramucci”

— BTW … WHAT HAPPENED TO JOHNNY MAC? … PER DANIEL:Earlier this summer, Scaramucci let Trump’s former body man, John McEntee, use his office for six weeks. “He is creating a lifestyle app and he just needed to have a place to hang his hat for a little while,” Scaramucci explained.

— BACKSTORY:After McEntee left the White House in March 2018 over concerns about his gambling habits, he was named “senior adviser for operations” on the Trump campaign. But he quietly left late last year, according to a former White House official. (Although he’s friends with Scaramucci, McEntee is “by no means is a Mooch sympathizer” in Scaramucci’s current feud with Trump, this person said.)

THE JUICE …

— NEW GEORGETOWN INSTITUTE OF POLITICS AND PUBLIC SERVICE FELLOWS: Jonathan Burks,Paul Ryan’s former chief of staff … former Kansas Gov.Jeff Colyer…Olivia Alair Dalton,SVP of communications and marketing for the Human Rights Campaign …Karen Travers,ABC White House correspondent …Stephanie Valencia,co-founder of EquisLabs.

THE PRESIDENT’S WEDNESDAY: TRUMPwill leave the White House at 11:15 a.m. for Andrews, where he will fly to Louisville. He will arrive in Kentucky at 1:25 p.m. and go straight to the Galt House Hotel. At 2 p.m., the president will speak to the AMVETS 75th annual convention. At 3:05 p.m., he will leave the hotel for the Seelbach Hilton Louisville and will participate in a roundtable at 3:15 p.m., and speak at a fundraiser at 4:15 p.m. At 5:25 p.m., he will fly back to Washington. He’s due back at the White House at 7:10 p.m.

JULIA IOFFEinGQ: “The Summer of Warren”

MORE 2020 … “Outside money flows into race for Susan Collins’ Senate seat,”by AP’s David Sharp and Brian Slodysko: “Money is pouring into Maine’s high-profile Senate race, threatening to upend the state’s reputation for genteel politics and giving way to a new era of partisanship. … Advertising data shows Democrats plan to spend at least $1.2 million on ads through December, including a spot that aired for the first time this month that accuses Collins of failing to protect Medicare. A newly formed GOP group, meanwhile, has $800,000 already in the bank, thanks to a small group of wealthy financiers.” AP

EPSTEIN LATEST — “Jeffrey Epstein lawsuits offer sordid details, including sex while on work release,”by the Miami Herald’s David Ovalle: “While serving a lenient jail sentence in Palm Beach County, wealthy financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was allowed to leave jail for ‘work release’ — at an office at his own organization, the Florida Science Foundation.

“But at the foundation, according to a newly filed lawsuit,Epstein and his web of associates repeatedly arranged for sex with at least two girls, including one he met when she was 17.”

— BOSTON GLOBE: “At MIT, more fallout from the university’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein”:“A well-known member of the MIT Media Lab plans to resign over revelations that the research center and its top leader took money from Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased financier who was accused of trafficking in underage girls.

“Ethan Zuckerman, director of the lab’s Center for Civic Media,last week told officials at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology of his plans.” Boston Globe …Zuckerman’s Medium post

MEDIAWATCH — “Tucker Carlson’s Fox News Show Loses More Advertisers,”by NYT’s Tiffany Hsu: “The Monday episode of ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight,’ the host’s first since he left the airwaves for what Fox News said was a planned vacation two days after making the remarks on white supremacy, had fewer commercials than usual.

“There were spots for turmeric drink mixes, ear wash systems and cup-holder mountsfor smartphones, as well as ads for Dyson, Raymour & Flanigan and USAA, but none for products from SoFi, Calm or SteinMart. Those companies advertised on the program earlier this summer but said in statements in recent days that their commercials would not appear during Mr. Carlson’s nightly hour.

“A Monday night episode from one year ago,the broadcast of ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ on Aug. 20, 2018, had 16 minutes of ads, with 38 commercials that aired across the nation, according to iSpot.tv, the television ads measurement company. The Monday night episode this week, by contrast, had 13.5 minutes of commercials, with 23 nationally aired spots. Eight of the 23 were promotions for other Fox properties.” NYT

— CNN: “Playboy columnist sues Trump White House over press pass suspension”

— Alexandra Robertsis now communications director for news programming at MSNBC.

Send tips to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at politicoplaybook@politico.com.

TRANSITIONS — Shawn Gaylordis now executive director of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus. He previously worked in LGBT advocacy at the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and Human Rights First. …Tim Doyleis joining GuidePost Strategies as principal and general counsel. He was previously at the American Council for Capital Formation.

WEEKEND WEDDING — Sam Jammal,regulatory affairs director and counsel at Firefly, andJennifer Molina,press secretary for California A.G. Xavier Becerra and a Hillary 2016 and CAP alum, got married Saturday in Cartagena, Colombia. They met at a White House Correspondents’ Association reception and then reconnected at a friend’s barbecue before they started dating.Pic…Another pic

WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Matthew Borowski,an information graphics producer in the Fox News research department, andMelanie Borowski,a teacher, welcomed Lola Pearl Borowski, who came in at 5 lbs, 13 ounces. She joins big sisters Saige and Drew.Pic…Another pic

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Manuel Roig-Franzia,WaPo feature reporter.How he’s celebrating:“I’ll be celebrating my birthday with the love of my life, Ceci Connolly, my parents, my beloved 98-year-old grandfather and an enormous mountain of shellfish at the beach in Spain, just outside the city of Huelva, where I was born.”Playbook Plus Q&A

BIRTHDAYS:Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) is 63 … Steve Case, chairman of Revolution and the Case Foundation and co-founder of AOL, is 61 … Ken Mehlman, member and global head of public affairs at KKR and co-head of KKR Global Impact … Peter Hamby, host of Snapchat’s “Good Luck America” and a Vanity Fair contributor … NBC News correspondent Harry Smith is 68 … Arkansas Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin is 51 … Greg Bell … Ben Howard, deputy assistant to the president for legislative affairs (h/t dad Jack) … POLITICO’s David Beavers and Ian Jenkins … Vianovo’s Mike Shannon is 45 … Margaret Chan, former director-general of the WHO, is 72 … Elizabeth Stoltz … Brian Parks of Locust Street Group … Puja Murgai … Joe Minges … Hunter Lipscomb … Katie Brown … The Atlantic’s Elaine Godfrey … Rubén Olmos,president of Global Nexus LLC … Cheyne Worley … Mary Ann Naylor …

… Jana Winter,2018-2019 Boston Globe Spotlight fellow and Yahoo contributor …Joan Kirchner Carr … Marguerite Biagi … Alisa Maso … Sarah Rusciano … Business Insider’s Pamela Engel … Reuben Jeffery III … Robert Wells … Stephen Neuman, managing director for government affairs at American Airlines … Joe Mathieu … CNN’s Cameron Hough … Lindsay Fisher, student at U.Va. law school and Citi alum … Heather Hunter … Tericka Lambert, digital strategist at Authentic Campaigns … David Heifetz, chief comms officer for New Politics … Francine McMahon … former California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado is 52 … Paul Harstad … Larry Martin (h/ts Teresa Vilmain) … Lamont Black… Jack Kelly … Tom Houck … Adam Dubitsky … Rachel Hirschberg Light … Amelia Penniman, comms director for Senate campaigns at American Bridge … Katherine Perez … Bruce Evans

Anna Palmer @apalmerdc

Jake Sherman @JakeSherman

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[andrewjohnsonmpls]

$15 Minimum Wage in Minneapolis

A city-wide $15 an hour minimum wage phased-in over five years for large businesses and seven years for small businesses was passed last Friday by the Minneapolis City Council by a vote of 11-1. This comes after several years of listening, debate, and analysis (including an attempt by advocates to place the question on the ballot). This action will benefit an estimated 71,000 workers in our city who are currently paid the state minimum wage, and will disproportionately help people of color at a time when our city faces serious racial inequities. While opponents predict job loss whenever efforts take place to increase minimum wage, meta-analysis of seven decades of increases suggests no correlation with lower employment levels. Many proponents also argue that $15 an hour is still not enough, see: Even at $15 an hour, Twin Cities renters must work overtime for a decent apartment.

Personally I believe that Minneapolis should have a higher minimum wage than the exurbs and rural areas of Minnesota because the cost of living here is substantially more. I believe that if someone works 40 hours a week, their employer(s) should pay them enough to live a modest life. As a former small business owner, I have approached this issue with sensitivity to the many challenges of running one’s own business, and the risks that come with adding more. I also believe a regional approach is ideal, and absent state leadership, it starts when the largest city takes the lead.

Remarkably, of the approximately 170 people who spoke at the public hearing, only 3 were against increasing the minimum wage. While most (including tipped servers and bartenders) spoke in favor of “one fair wage” of $15, a good number who showed up to the public hearing spoke in favor of amending the $15 minimum wage proposal to include a “tip credit”.

The idea of a tip credit might sound reasonable at first. For restaurants which tend to operate on thin margins and where many servers and bartenders receive a majority of income from tips, why not count tips towards what otherwise is the employer’s responsibility to pay in wages? In other words, if a server doesn’t make $15 an hour on average, then the employer would “backfill” their wages to ensure they take home at least $15 an hour, but otherwise if they average, say, $28 an hour after tips, then the employer would only have to pay the state minimum wage (less than $15 an hour).

A number of servers and bartenders (along with restaurant owners) have advocated for a tip credit. For these tipped workers, the big concern is that without a tip credit, their employers may either change the operating model (i.e. switch from full-service to counter-service – a substantial loss of jobs) or eliminate tipping in favor of adding a 20% service charge to each check which would then be used by the employer to cover their increased labor expenses as a result of complying with a $15 minimum wage (a substantial reduction in income for said workers). Thus, the intent of a tip credit can be viewed as a way to maintain the status quo for these tipped servers and bartenders, or to create a de facto exemption from the minimum wage increase (considering that advocates of a tip credit self-report tipped workers making on average $28.56 an hour).

I spent a lot of time listening to both sides on this and carefully considering the issue, and I was open-minded through the listening sessions held by the City. At the end of the day though, I could not support the proposed tip credit for the following reasons:

When servers said they want to keep their tips, I agree. With a tip credit, from a simple accounting standpoint, a customer can give a server $1 but that server will not bring home any additional income, instead their employer will save $1 (have $1 more in their pocket). A tip credit fundamentally changes the act of tipping by allowing the value to be redirected to another party than originally intended, and without required consent or knowledge.

Covering the cost of a minimum wage increase without a tip credit can be accomplished by raising prices on average less than 5% over 7 years. This is according to the economic study commissioned by the City Council and conducted by the University of Minnesota. This intuitively makes sense if you consider this question: what is the average sales revenue per server per hour? Most times when I asked servers this I was told ~$200/hr. If that is the case, seven years from now (when $15 is fully phased-in) restaurants will need their prices adjusted to at least $205.50 to cover this wage increase for what they are currently charging $200. $200 -> $205.50 is a 2.75% price increase (this doesn't include back of house nor other associated labor costs, which would help explain why the study suggests a ~5% price increase on average). Again, this is over seven years. Owners I spoke with who support a tip credit did not dispute that they can make this work by adjusting prices gradually over time. There are of course arguments to be made for a tip credit and/or against a minimum wage increase, but hyperbole that menu prices will double and businesses will be forced to move to counter-service or eliminate tipping is just that: hyperbole, with no demonstrable basis.

Introducing a tip credit poses a serious risk that servers would face a wage cut. Servers benefit today from our state not having a tip credit, unlike neighboring Wisconsin where employers can pay servers as little as $2.13 an hour. This is despite threats over the years that employers would do away with tipping en mass should the wage go up (it did, they haven’t). But if Minneapolis endorsed a tip credit, I really do believe we would see it passed into state law, which would mean the $9.50 wage floor that servers enjoy today would drop (and income along with it). While some respond to this by saying “a minimum wage cut has never happened”, it just did in Missouri.

 While I did not support the proposed tip credit, I have worked with small business owners on amendments to more gradually phase-in the minimum wage so that they have a smoother adjustment, to treat local restaurant owners with a few locations as small businesses (they are and should be), and I also authored a staff direction to begin creation of a matching grant program to help small businesses with two massive costs they often face – SAC fees and ADA compliance. This is on top of my work as a leader on business support, including the elimination of dozens of regulations and formation of the Small Business Office.

I genuinely listened to both sides, did a lot of research, and kept an open mind throughout most of the process. It hasn't been an easy issue, and reasonable minds will disagree. While I personally do not believe this minimum wage increase is a panacea, I do believe that overall it will be more beneficial for our society than not, and I will be closely monitoring the results and am willing to make adjustments as necessary. As several surrounding cities work to pass minimum wage increases as well, I extend my support in working together to ensure a cohesive regional approach through municipal leadership.

Finally, a special thank you to all my constituents who weighed in over the years on this! I read each email carefully, reviewed your petitions, listened throughout our countless hours of in-person conversations, and valued your thoughts and ideas. Whether you were in support or opposed, your voices helped shape my views and work on this issue over time, and I have been honored and humbled to represent the diverse perspectives across our ward throughout this process.

Footnote: Days before passing the wage increase, a study from Seattle was released and cited by some as evidence of negative outcomes from their $15 minimum wage implementation. There have been many responses to this study pointing out its flaws, which you can read here, here, here, here, and here. Regardless, this illustrates the need for careful and close monitoring as the wage increase is phased-in so that adjustments can be made as necessary.

[fitnesshealthyoga-blog]

New Post has been published on https://fitnesshealthyoga.com/get-ready-to-show-off-your-aflove/

Get Ready to Show Off Your #AFLove

It’s February which means we’re excited to celebrate the month of love! Our members mean the world to us and to show our love for you, we’re kicking off an Instagram giveaway.

Healthy Happens Together

Whether you’re new to the AF family or you’ve been with us for years, we couldn’t be happier you’re a part of it. The community found inside the walls of our gyms is our greatest pride and it wouldn’t be possible without YOU!

Show Off Your #AFLove

Feel like showing off your #AFLove? Next time you post a gym selfie to Instagram while you’re working up a sweat in your local Anytime Fitness, make sure to show off your purple pride with the hashtag #AFLOVE. Not into gym selfies? No problem! Try sharing a pic of your purple fob or your gym bag packed and ready to hit the purple turf. Whatever way you choose to show your #AFLove will make us smile!

Each entry posted with the hashtag #AFLove will be entered to win a gift basket filled with fit and fun goodies including a foam roller, an exercise mat, workout snacks and more. We’re here to help you continue to make healthy happen!

Get Posting

Here’s how it works:

Take a picture that shows your #AFLove

Post the picture to Instagram from February 11thto February 25husing the hashtag #AFLove

Each participant will be entered to win in a random drawing

We will repost our favorite entries on our Instagram page

We will draw a winner on February 26thand once the winner is chosen, we will reach out via direct message on your Instagram page!

Need more info? Check out the official details below and get ready to show off your #AFLove.

OFFICIAL RULES – ANYTIME FITNESS® #AFLove

INSTAGRAM GIVEAWAY

These Official Rules for the Anytime Fitness® #AFLove Instagram sweepstakes (the “Sweepstakes”) are subject to change at any time at the sole discretion of Anytime Fitness, LLC (“Sponsor”). Void where prohibited.

Eligibility. To be eligible to win you must be at least 18 years old as of the date prizes are awarded and a legal resident of the United States.

Sponsorship. The sponsor is Anytime Fitness, LLC (“Sponsor”), located at 111 Weir Drive, Woodbury, MN 55125.  Sponsor and its respective officers, directors, shareholders, and employees, including without limitation, the immediate family members of such individuals, are not eligible to participate.  Sponsor will conduct the Sweepstakes substantially as described in these Official Rules.

Sweepstakes Period. This Sweepstakes period begins on February 11, 2019 at 12:01 AM CST and ends on February 25that 7:00 PM CST (“Sweepstakes Period”).

How to Enter. During the Sweepstakes Period, to enter, entrants post a photo to Instagram demonstrating why they love their Anytime Fitness club using the hashtag “#AFLove”.

Sponsor’s decisions and interpretations on all matters relating to the Sweepstakes and these Official Rules are final and binding in all respects.

Winner will be selected by random drawing and notified by direct message through Instagram.  Winners who fail to respond to Sponsor’s direct message within 72 hours may be disqualified.  Sponsor reserves the right to disqualify any entrant or winner and may refuse to award a prize to a person who is not eligible, has violated a rule, or gained unfair advantage.  No other form of entry is valid.  Sponsor reserves the right, but not the obligation, to review any entry for violation of the Official Rules and may, in its sole discretion, reject or otherwise exclude an entry if deemed invalid or ineligible.

Prize. One winner will be randomly selected from all eligible entrants and one (1) prize will be awarded to the winner.  The prizes will each consist of:  (1) athletic mat, (1) foam roller, (1) box of shower wipes, (1) electrolyte supplement, (1) Anytime Fitness jacket, (1) box of protein bars, (1) water bottle chosen at Sponsor’s discretion.  Each prize has an equivalent cash value not to exceed $175.00.

Winner agrees to accept the prize “as is” and entrants hereby acknowledge that Sponsor is not, in any manner, responsible or liable for any warranty, representation, or guarantee relative to the prize.  Additional terms and conditions may apply and Sponsor shall not be responsible or liable in any way for any cancellations, losses or damages.

Winner is solely responsible for any federal, state, and local taxes. Each prize is awarded “as is” with no warranty or guarantee, either express or implied, by Sponsor. Sponsor reserves the right to substitute prizes of equivalent value.

Odds. The odds of winning will depend on the number of entries.

Winners Names. Winners’ names are available only within thirty (30) days after the close of the Sweepstakes.  To receive the name of the winners, where permitted by law, or a printed copy of the Official Rules, please contact Kristen Pechacek at Kristen.pechacek@sebrands.com.

DISCLAIMERS, CONSENT AND RELEASE. By entering this Sweepstakes, you promise to abide by the Official Rules and decisions of Sponsor, which will be final and binding in all respects.

WARNING: ANY ATTEMPT BY ANY PERSON, WHETHER OR NOT AN ENTRANT, TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE, DESTROY, TAMPER WITH OR VANDALIZE ANY SPONSOR-OWNED WEBSITE OR MOBILE APPLICATION OR RELATED SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE, THE ENTRY PROCESS, OR OTHERWISE INTERFERE WITH OR UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THE DRAWING, MAY BE A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAWS AND SPONSOR RESERVES THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES AND PURSUE ALL REMEDIES AGAINST ANY SUCH PERSON TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.

By entering, each entrant releases, discharges and holds harmless Sponsor and its affiliated companies, and any other party associated with the development, communication or administration of this Sweepstakes, their parent, subsidiary, and affiliated entities, and each of their respective officers, directors, members, shareholders, employees, independent contractors, agents, representatives, successors and assigns (collectively, “Sponsor Entities”), from any and all liability whatsoever in connection with this Sweepstakes, including without limitation legal claims, costs, injuries, losses or damages, demands or actions of any kind (including without limitation personal injuries, death, damage to, loss or destruction or property, rights of publicity or privacy, defamation, or portrayal in a false light).

Sponsor Entities, Instagram®, Inc., their respective parents, affiliates, subsidiaries, and advertising and promotion agencies, any other entity involved in the development or administration of the Sweepstakes, and each of their respective directors, officers, employees and assigns (collectively the “Released Parties”) are not responsible for any computer, network, technical, electronic, human or other errors or problems of any kind, for any injury or damage to participants or to any person’s computer or mobile phone relating to or resulting from entering or downloading materials or software in connection with entering, or for entries that are stolen, misdirected, garbled, delayed, lost, or late.  By participating, each entrant agrees to release and hold the Released Parties harmless against any and all claims and liability of any kind arising in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, out of their participation in the Sweepstakes.

This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Instagram®.

By entering, you confirm that you have read, understand, and agree to abide by these Official Rules and the decisions of Sponsor, which are final and binding.  Sponsor Entities are not responsible for votes that are lost, late, misdirected, incorrect, garbled, or incompletely received, for any reason, including by reason of hardware, software, browser, or network failure, malfunction, congestion, or incompatibility at Sponsor Entities’ servers or elsewhere.

Sponsor reserves the right to cancel, terminate or modify the Sweepstakes if it is not capable of completion as planned for any reason as determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion, including, for example, by reason of infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, force majeure or technical failures of any sort.

Sponsor Entities are not responsible for errors in the administration or fulfillment of this Sweepstakes, including without limitation mechanical, human, printing, distribution or production errors, and may cancel, terminate or modify this promotion based upon such error at its sole discretion without liability.

APPLICABLE LAWS AND JURISDICTION.

This Sweepstakes is subject to all applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations.  Issues concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of these Rules shall be governed by the laws of the State of Minnesota without regard to any principles of conflict of laws.  All disputes arising out of or connected with this Sweepstakes will be resolved individually, and without resort to class action, exclusively by a state or federal court located in Washington County, Minnesota. Should there be a conflict between the laws of the State of Minnesota and any other laws, the conflict will be resolved in favor of the laws of the State of Minnesota. To the extent permitted by applicable law, all judgments or awards shall be limited to actual out-of-pocket damages (excluding attorneys’ fees) associated with participation in this Sweepstakes and shall not include any indirect, punitive, incidental and/or consequential damages.

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[thefreedomspray]

Rape Culture Readings

Abdullah-Khan, Noreen. Male Rape: The Emergence of a Social and Legal Issue (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Ballantine, 1969). Armstrong, Elizabeth A., Laura Hamilton, and Brian Sweeney, “Sexual Assault on Campus: A Multilevel, Integrative Approach to Party Rape,” Social Problems, vol. 53, no. 4 (2006), pp. 483–99. Azoulay, Ariella. “Has Anyone Ever Seen a Photograph of a Rape?” in The Civil Contract of Photography (MIT Press, 2008) Bederman, Gail. Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917 (University of Chicago Press, 1995). Bevacqua, Maria. Rape on the Public Agenda: Feminism and the Politics of Sexual Assault (Northeastern University Press, 2000). Block, Sharon. Rape and Sexual Power in Early America (University of North Carolina Press, 2006). Boswell, A. Ayres and Joan Z. Spade, “Fraternities and Collegiate Rape Culture: Why Are Some Fraternities More Dangerous Places for Women?” Gender & Society, vol. 10, no.2 (1996), pp. 133–47. Brison, Susan. Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self (Princeton University Press, 2003). Brownmiller, Susan. Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (Simon & Schuster, 1975). Buchwald, Emilie, Pamela Fletcher, and Martha Roth, eds., Transforming a Rape Culture (Milkweed, 2005). Bumiller, Kristin. In an Abusive State: How Neoliberalism Appropriated the Feminist Movement against Sexual Violence (Duke University Press, 2008). Burstyn, Varda. The Rites of Men: Manhood, Politics, and the Culture of Sport (University of Toronto Press, 1999). Butler, Judith. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? (Verso, 2016). Campbell, Kirsten. “Legal Memories: Sexual Assault, Memory, and International Humanitarian Law,” in Signs, vol. 28, no. 1 (2002), pp. 149–78. Cappiello, Katie and Meg McInerney, eds., SLUT: A Play and Guidebook for Combating Sexism and Sexual Violence (Feminist Press, 2015). Celis, William. “Date Rape And a List At Brown,” The New York Times, November 18, 1990. Clark, Annie and Andrea Pino, We Believe You: Survivors of Campus Sexual Assault Speak Out (Holt Macmillan, 2016). Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me (Spiegel & Grau, 2015). Connell, R. W. Masculinities, 2nd ed. (University of California Press, 2005). Crenshaw, Kimberle. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review, vol. 43, no. 6 (July 1991). Critical Resistance and Incite!, “Statement on Gender Violence and the Prison Industrial Complex,” in The Color of Violence: INCITE! Anthology (Duke University Press, 2016). Davis, Angela. “We Do Not Consent: Violence Against Women in a Racist Society,” in Women, Culture, and Politics (Vintage, 1990); “Rape, Racism, and the Myth of the Black Rapist,” in Women, Race, and Class (Vintage, 1983). Deer, Sarah. “What She Say, It Be Law” in The Beginning and End of Rape (University of Minnesota Press, 2015). Dick, Kirby and Amy Ziering, The Hunting Ground: The Inside Story of Sexual Assault on American College Campuses (Skyhorse, 2016). Dworkin, Andrea. Intercourse: Occupation/Collaboration (Free Press, 1987). Enloe, Cynthia. “Wielding Masculinity inside Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo,” in Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016). Estes, Steve. I Am a Man! Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights Movement (University of North Carolina Press, 2005). Estrich, Susan. Real Rape (Harvard University Press, 1987). Factora-Borchers, Lisa ed., Dear Sister: Letters from Survivors of Sexual Violence (AK Press, 2014). Falcon, Sylvanna. “Rape as a Weapon of War: Militarized Border Rape at the U.S.-Mexico Border,” in Women and Migration in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: A Reader, edited by Denise A. Segura and Patricia Zavella (Duke University Press, 2007). Feimster, Crystal. Southern Horrors: Women and the Politics of Rape and Lynching (Harvard University Press, 2011). Filipovic, Jill “The Conservative Gender Norms That Perpetuate Rape Culture, And How We Can Fight Back” in Yes Means Yes (2008) Flanagan, Caitlin “The Dark Power of Fraternities,” The Atlantic, March 2014. Freedman, Estelle. Redefining Rape: Sexual Violence in the Era of Suffrage and Segregation (Harvard University Press, 2013). Friedman, Jaclyn and Jessica Valenti, Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape (Seal Press, 2008). Funk, Rus Ervin. “Queer Men and Sexual Assault: What Being Raped Says about Being a Man,” in Gendered Outcasts and Sexual Outlaws: Sexual Oppression and Gender Hierarchies in Queer Men’s Lives, edited by Chris Kendall and Wayne Martino (Harrington Park Press, 2006). Gay, Roxane. “Peculiar Benefits,” The Rumpus, May 16, 2012. Gilmore, David. Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (Yale University Press, 1991). Goldin, Nan. The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1989); Nan One Month After Being Battered (color photograph, 1984) Gottschalk, Marie. “Not the Usual Suspects: Feminists, Women’s Groups, and the Anti-Rape Movement,” in The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America (Cambridge University Press, 2006). Griffin, Susan. “Rape: The All-American Crime,” Ramparts Magazine, September 1971. Halley, Janet. “The Move to Affirmative Consent,” Signs: Journal of Women and Culture (2015). Harding, Kate. Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture—and What We Can Do about It (Da Capo, 2015). Harding, Kate. Asking For It (De Capo Press, 2015). Hartman, Saidiya. “Seduction and the Ruses of Power” in Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America (Oxford University Press, 1997). Hasday, Jill Elaine. “Contest and Consent: A Legal History of Marital Rape,” California Law Review, vol. 88, no. 5 (2000). Hesford, Wendy. “Witnessing Rape Warfare: Suspending the Spectacle,” in Spectacular Rhetorics: Human Rights Visions, Recognitions, Feminisms (Duke University Press, 2011). hooks, bell. “Understanding Patriarchy.” Jarvis, Christina. The Male Body at War: American Masculinity during World War II (Northern Illinois University Press, 2003). Jones, Gayl. Corregidora (Beacon, 1987). Kahlo, Frida. A Few Small Nips (painting, 1935) Kimmel, Michael. Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era (Nation Books, 2015). Kimmel, Michael and Abby Ferber, eds., Privilege: A Reader (Westview Press, 2016). Kimmel, Michael Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men (Harper Perennial, 2009). Kollwitz, Käthe. Raped (etching, 1907) Krakauer, Jon. Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town (Anchor, 2015). Law, Victoria. “Sick of the Abuse: Feminist Responses to Sexual Assault, Battering, and Self-Defense,” in The Hidden 1970s: Histories of Radicalism, edited by Dan Berger (Rutgers University Press, 2010). Leo, Jana. Rape New York (Feminist Press, 2011). Levy, DeAndry. “Man Up,” The Players’ Tribune, April 27, 2016. Luibheid, Eithne. “Rape, Asylum, and the U.S. Border Patrol,” Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border (University of Minnesota Press, 2002). Luther, Jessica. Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape (Akashic, 2016). MacKinnon, Catherine. “A Rally Against Rape,” in Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law (Harvard University Press, 1988); “Rape: On Coercion and Consent,” in Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (Harvard University Press, 1991). Marcus, Sharon. “Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention,” in Feminists Theorize the Political, edited by Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott (Routledge, 1992). Mardorossian, Carine M. Framing the Rape Victim: Gender and Agency Reconsidered (Rutgers University Press, 2014). McGuire, Danielle. At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance—A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power (Vintage Books, 2011). McIntosh, Peggy. “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” Meyer, Doug. “Gendered Views of Sexual Assault, Physical Violence, and Verbal Abuse,” in Violence against Queer People: Race, Class, Gender, and the Persistence of Anti-LGBT Discrimination (Rutgers University Press, 2015). Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye (Vintage, 1970). Morrison, Toni ed., Race-ing Justice, En-Gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social Reality (Pantheon, 1992). November, Juliet. “It Takes Ass to Whip Ass: Understanding and Confronting Violence Against Sex Workers: A Roundtable Discussion with Miss Major, Mariko Passion, and Jessica Yee,” in The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities, edited by Ching-In Chen, Jai Dulani, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (AK Press, 2016). Pascoe, C.J. and Jocelyn A. Hollander, “Good Guys Don’t Rape: Gender, Domination, and Mobilizing Rape,” Gender & Society, vol. 30, no. 1 (2016), pp. 67–79. Pascoe, C.J. and Tristan Bridges, eds., Exploring Masculinities: Identity, Inequality, Continuity and Change (Oxford University Press, 2015). Patterson, Jennifer ed., Queering Sexual Violence: Radical Voices from Within the Anti-Violence Movement (Riverdale Ave Books, 2016). Peek, Christine. “Breaking out of the Prison Hierarchy: Transgender Prisoners, Rape, and the Eighth Amendment,” Santa Clara Law Review, vol. 44, no. 4 (2004). Prickett, Sarah Nicole. “Your Friends And Rapists,” December 16, 2013. Puar, Jasbir. “Abu Ghraib and U.S. Sexual Exceptionalism,” in Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (Duke University Press, 2007). Reeves Sanday, Peggy. Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus (NYU Press, 2007). Richie,Beth E. Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation (Duke University Press, 2012). Ristock, Janice L. Intimate Partner Violence in LGBTQ Lives (Routledge, 2011). Ritchie, Andrea. “Law Enforcement Violence against Women of Color,” in The Color of Violence: INCITE! Anthology (Duke University Press, 2016). Roberts, Mary Louise. What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France (University of Chicago Press, 2013). Rumney, Philip “Gay Male Rape Victims: Law Enforcement, Social Attitudes and Barriers to Recognition,” International Journal of Human Rights, vol. 13, nos. 2–3 (2009). Russell, Diane. Rape in Marriage (Macmillan, 1982). Sapphire, Push (Knopf, 1996). Scully, Diana and Joseph Marolla, “‘Riding the Bull at Gilley’s’: Convicted Rapists Describe the Rewards of Rape,” Social Problems, vol. 32, no. 3 (1985), pp. 251–63. Sebold, Alice. Lucky: A Memoir (Back Bay, 2002). Simmons, Aishah Shahidah. “NO! The Rape Documentary” (film, 2006). Simmons, Aishah Shahidah and Farah Tanis, “Better off Dead: Black Women Speak to the United Nations CERD Committee,” The Feminist Wire, September 5, 2014. Stone, Lucy. “Crimes Against Women,” Women’s Journal, June 16, 1877; “Pardoning the Crime of Rape,” Woman’s Journal, May 25, 1878. Sulkowicz, Emma. Self-Portrait (performance, 2016); see also Conversation: Emma Sulkowicz and Karen Finley (YouTube video, 2016) Sussman, Eve. The Rape of the Sabine Women (video-musical, 2007); Giambologna, The Rape of the Sabine Women (marble sculpture, 1583) Syrett, Nicholas L. The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities (University of North Carolina Press, 2009). Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (Haymarket, 2016). The Chrysalis Collective, “Beautiful, Difficult, Powerful: Ending Sexual Assault Through Transformative Justice,” in The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities, edited by Ching-In Chen, Jai Dulani, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (AK Press, 2016). The Hunting Ground (film, 2015). Thuma, Emily. “Lessons in Self-Defense: Gender Violence, Racial Criminalization, and Anticarceral Feminism,” WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, vol. 43, nos. 3–4 (fall/winter 2015). Tracy, Carol E. et al., “Rape and Sexual Assault in the Legal System,” Women’s Law Project (2012). Traister, Rebecca. “The Game Is Rigged,” New York Magazine, November 2, 2015. Van Syckle, Katie. “Hooking Up Is Easy To Do,” New York Magazine, October 18, 2015. Walker, Kara. My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love (exhibition, 2007) Wells, Ida B. “ Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases” (1892), “A Red Record” (1895), “Mob Rule in New Orleans” (1900). White, Janelle. “Our Silence Will Not Protect Us: Black Women’s Experiences Mobilizing to Confront Sexual Domestic Violence,” in The Color of Violence: INCITE! Anthology (Duke University Press, 2016). Williams, Sue. Irresistible (sculpture, 1992) Zirin, Dave. “How Jock Culture Supports Rape Culture, From Maryville to Steubenville,” The Nation, October 25, 2013. Zirin, Dave. “Jameis Winston’s Peculiar Kind of Privilege,” The Nation, December 5, 2014. Zirin, Dave. “Steubenville and Challenging Rape Culture in Sports,” The Nation, March 13, 2013. “In the Shadows: Sexual Violence in U.S. Detention Facilities; A Shadow Report to the U.N. Committee Against Torture” (2006).

[brajeshupadhyay]

A Minnesota judge on Monday warned that he’s likely to move the trials of four former police officers charged in George Floyd’s death out of Minneapolis if public officials and attorneys don’t stop talking about the case. Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill spoke as the ex-officers, who were fired after Floyd’s May 25 death, appeared in court for a second pre-trial hearing. Cahill stopped short of issuing a gag order on attorneys, but he said one is likely if public statements continue. Cahill added that such a situation would also make him likely to grant a change-of-venue motion if one is filed. “The court is not going to be happy about hearing about the case in three areas: media, evidence and guilt or innocence,” Cahill said. Derek Chauvin, 44, is charged with second-degree murder and other counts, while Thomas Lane, 37, J. Kueng, 26, and Tou Thao, 34, are charged with aiding and abetting Chauvin. Lane and Kueng, who have posted bail, were seen walking into the courtroom, where no cameras were allowed. Thao, who remains in custody along with Chauvin, appeared in person while Chauvin appeared via video from a detention facility. Former Minnesota police officer J. Alexander Kueng arrives for his hearing on charges of aiding and abetting in the killing of George Floyd, at the Minneapolis Public Safety Facility in Minneapolis on June 29, 2020. NICHOLAS PFOSI / REUTERS Floyd died after Chauvin, who is White, pressed his knee against the handcuffed 46-year-old Black man’s neck for nearly eight minutes. The officers were responding to a call about a man trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill at a nearby store. Floyd’s death was universally condemned in Minnesota, with elected officials including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey calling for the officers to be charged. Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said Floyd’s death was “murder.” Disturbing video of Floyd’s death triggered massive nationwide demonstrations protesting systemic racism and police brutality against Black and Brown men and women. During the hearing Monday, Cahill asked Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank to use his influence to keep public officials silent, warning that if they continued to discuss it publicly, he likely would “have to pull (trials) out of Hennepin County and they need to be aware of that.” Defense attorney Robert Paule, who is representing Thao, said he is “fighting this battle with one hand” because of the pre-trial publicity, reports the Star-Tribune. Frank said prosecutors are “just as interested in a fair trial and are acutely aware of the issues” surrounding publicity, the paper reports. “We have asked people not to talk about this case … we’ve done our best to make the court’s concerns known to them and will continue to do so,” Frank said. Hennepin County Jail Cahill set a March 8 trial date for the former officers if they are tried together, though he said he expects motions to be filed to separate their trials. The next court date is September 11. The defendants have not entered pleas. Chauvin’s attorney has not commented publicly on the charges, while Lane’s and Kueng’s attorneys have sought to minimize their clients’ roles and deflect blame to the more senior Chauvin in Floyd’s death. Chauvin remains in custody on $1 million bail and Thao is being held on $750,000 bail. George Floyd Cahill also rejected a defense request to reconsider his earlier decision to bar cameras in the courtroom during pretrial proceedings. Defense attorneys asked to allow such coverage, but prosecutors objected. The judge has not ruled on whether to allow cameras for the trial itself, which in Minnesota usually requires the consent of all parties. Kueng’s attorney, Tom Plunkett, was the attorney asking Cahill to reconsider his ruling on cameras. He asserted that prosecutors and other officials forfeited their right to object to cameras in the courtroom by making public comments that went as far as “saying the defendants are guilty of murder.” He said allowing electronic coverage of pretrial proceedings would actually make it easier to impanel a fair jury by helping to “educate the public that there may be more to the cases than what has been told to them by the state.” The charges against Chauvin are unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Second-degree murder carries a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison, third-degree murder carries up to 25 years and manslaughter up to 10. The other three former officers are charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Those charges are legally tantamount to the counts against Chauvin and carry the same penalties. https://ift.tt/3dFoBE1 The post Ex-cops charged in George Floyd’s death appear in court as judge warns he may move trial appeared first on Sansaar Times.

http://sansaartimes.blogspot.com/2020/06/ex-cops-charged-in-george-floyds-death.html

[jobsearchtips02]

Nevada banking on health safety as Las Vegas casinos reopen

After 78 days of historic quiet, cards will be cut, dice will roll and jackpots can jingle once again 12: 01 a.m. Thursday at gambling establishments in Las Vegas and throughout Nevada.

There will be huge splashes– even in the middle of ongoing demonstrations over the death of a male in police custody in Minnesota– and huge wish for recovery from an unprecedented and pricey shutdown prompted by the coronavirus pandemic

CORONAVIRUS REOPENING STRATEGY DEALS LAS VEGAS CASINOS A LOSING HAND

” There’s an incredible amount on the line, not only for casinos, however for the neighborhood and the state,” said Alan Feldman, a long time casino executive now a fellow at the International Video Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “This is an exceptionally important minute.”

Casino resorts that had been notoriously constantly open were shuttered in mid-March– idling Nevada’s key tourist and hospitality market almost 89 years to the day because betting was legalized in1931 Gov. Steve Sisolak’s emergency situation order closed non-essential companies to avoid the spread of COVID-19

Now, property owners, state regulators and Sisolak, a Democrat who has actually been slammed for the closure, are stabilizing those issues against the loss of billions of dollars a month in gambling revenue and practically half a million unemployed workers.

They are betting that safety measures– disinfected dice; hand sanitizer and face masks all over; restricted varieties of gamers at tables; temperature checks at entrances to some resorts; touchless cellular phone check-ins– will draw tourists back.

CORONAVIRUS LEAVES VEGAS CASINOS ROLLING SNAKE EYES

They know it will look different.

” I’m optimistic that consumers will see that video gaming homes invested effort and time to invite them back to a safe and amusing environment,” state Gaming Control Board chief Sandra Douglass Morgan stated Wednesday.

The regulative board required detailed health safety plans by last week, prior to offering the consent to resume.

Morgan didn’t define if any strategies were rejected, saying agents “interacted issues or requested clarification” from an unspecified variety of the state’s 459 licensed gambling establishments. The board likewise manages nearly 2,000 bars, dining establishments and convenience stores that run out than 15 slot machines.

It won’t quite be organisation as usual when the iconic Bellagio water fountains dance back to life at dawn Thursday. Experts like Feldman think it will take a long period of time to recuperate.

” This is going to be a quite long, slow climb,” stated Feldman, who was with MGM Resorts when Las Vegas experienced an abrupt air travel stop after the Sept. 11, 2001, fear attacks, and later a crippling plunge in company during the Great Economic downturn over a decade ago.

Healing took years– reaching best-ever numbers last January and February: taxable gambling establishment payouts at $1 billion each month; unemployment at a lowest level of 3.6%.

By April, gambling establishment jackpots were a portion of 1%of a year earlier, and joblessness reached 28.2%, topping figures in any state even throughout the Great Depression.

” I’m confident it is a consistent climb, without setbacks,” Feldman included, “much better than a surge and after that a setback.”

UBS gaming expert Robin Farley kept in mind for investors that the most significant casino operators, MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment, will not right away open all their residential or commercial properties.

Wynn Resorts, the Venetian and Palazzo are slated to open Thursday morning, in addition to the landmark STRAT gambling establishment and tower, Derek Stevens’ downtown residential or commercial properties and others around Las Vegas owned by Boyd Video Gaming and Red Rock Resorts.

Station Gambling establishments homes are using slots icons with client advisories to “Touch buttons. Not faces, and “Stay Reel Healthy.”

The very first visitors are expected to be area homeowners, then drivers from nearby U.S. states and then air travelers.

” The market still relies heavily on air traffic, and the longer remain in Vegas are typically tied to mass celebrations, consisting of conventions … shows and fights, all of which might take longer to recover,” Farley stated.

The message will be, “Thank you for coming and thinking and trusting us. We’re excited to have you here, ′” MGM Resorts International chief executive Expense Hornbuckle said throughout a current walk-through of the Bellagio gambling establishment flooring.

Plastic partitions will separate mask-wearing dealerships and 3 players at blackjack tables. Workers and visitors will have the ability to use recently installed handwashing stations.

Convention halls, nightclubs, swimming pool parties and arena eyeglasses will stay primarily dark.

” It may be a little different,” Hornbuckle said. “However I believe it will be unforgettable, personable and special.”

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[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Three weeks ago, after Leeann Tweeden accused Minnesota Sen. Al Franken of groping her and kissing her without her consent, we argued that Democrats ought to have pushed for Franken to resign. Doing so would have allowed them to claim the moral high ground at a time when allegations of sexual misconduct had implicated both Democratic and Republican politicians — including President Trump and Roy Moore, the Republican Senate candidate in Alabama. It would also have come at a relatively small political price, since Franken’s replacement would be named by a Democratic governor and Democrats would be favored to keep the seat in a special election in 2018.

Democrats didn’t see it the same way; instead, the party line was that Franken’s case should be referred to the Senate ethics committee. But the party has since shifted gears: On Wednesday, a cavalcade of Democratic senators — first several female members, such as New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand and Hawaii’s Mazie Hirono, but eventually including party leaders such as New York’s Chuck Schumer — called on Franken to resign. Franken’s office has said he’ll make an announcement about his future on Thursday, which many reporters expect to be a resignation.

So what changed? Most obviously, several other women came forward with accusations that Franken had groped them or made unwanted advances toward them, including two new accusations on Thursday alone.

Unfortunately, this was fairly predictable: Sexual predation is often serial. (Consider, for instance, that, on Jezebel’s fairly exhaustive list of prominent men accused of sexual harassment or sexual assault, all but a handful have multiple accusers.) The lesson is that even if party leaders think that an initial allegation against one of their members may be politically survivable or morally tolerable, it will often be followed by other accusations.

But something else changed too: Democratic leaders got a lot of feedback from voters in the form of polls, and it wasn’t positive.

Voters care about sexual harassment allegations — and thought both parties were mishandling them

Polling suggests that voters care a lot about sexual harassment allegations — a Quinnipiac poll this week, for instance, found that 66 percent of voters thought that politicians should resign when “accused of sexual harassment or sexual assault by multiple people.” And the poll also found that only 28 percent of voters approve of the Democrats’ handling of sexual harassment and sexual assault claims, as compared with 50 percent who disapprove. That’s better than the numbers for Republicans (21 percent approve, 60 percent disapprove), but not by much. Meanwhile, a Huffington Post/YouGov poll last month found equally poor numbers for Democrats and Republicans when voters were asked whether the parties had a sexual harassment “problem.”

Voters are also not necessarily interested in making overly fine distinctions among different types of sexual misconduct. A YouGov poll this week, for instance, found that roughly the same proportion of voters wanted Franken (43 percent resign, 23 percent not resign, 35 percent not sure) and Moore (47/22/31) to step down.1 All of this goes to show that voters face a number of complexities when considering these allegations, such as the number of accusers; the severity of the alleged misconduct; the age of the victims and their ability to consent; the amount of time passed since the alleged misconduct; the credibility of the accusers; whether the politicians apologize for the conduct or how persuasive they were in denying the allegations; and whether the allegations involved an abuse of public office. As a human being, I have my own intuitive and moral sense for how to weigh these factors — but as someone who tries to diagnose their political impact, I don’t necessarily expect everyone else to sort them out in quite the same way.

The moral high ground could also be the political high ground for Democrats

It’s reasonable to be a little bit suspicious of polls showing voters to be highly worried about sexual harassment because sometimes partisanship can outweigh voters’ self-professed concerns.

There’s also some partisan asymmetry in how voters interpret these claims. As The Huffington Post’s Ariel Edwards-Levy points out, voters in both parties largely believe sexual harassment claims made against the other party — but Democrats also tend to believe claims made against fellow Democrats, while Republicans are more skeptical about claims made against GOP lawmakers. Note, of course, that Trump won the Electoral College last year and received 88 percent of the Republican vote despite more than a dozen accusations of sexual misconduct against him.

All of this can be frustrating to Democratic and liberal commentators, who complain about “unilateral disarmament,” i.e. the notion that Democratic legislators such as Franken and Rep. John Conyers will be forced to resign because of sexual misconduct allegations while Republicans such as Moore, Trump and Texas Rep. Blake Farenthold will survive theirs because their bases will rally behind them.

This may be more of a curse than a blessing for Republicans, however. Somewhat contrary to the conventional wisdom, the allegations against Moore have had a meaningful impact in Alabama. Moore has put Republicans in an unenviable position: He’ll either lose a race to a Democrat in one of America’s reddest states, trigger a nasty intraparty fight over expulsion, or stay in office but potentially damage the Republican brand for years to come. Voter concern over Republican mishandling of the accusations against GOP Rep. Mark Foley, who sent sexually explicit messages to underaged teenage pages, was a contributing factor in the landslide losses Republicans suffered in 2006. And while it isn’t a perfect analogy because they weren’t accused of sexual misconduct themselves, Missouri’s Todd Akin and Indiana’s Richard Mourdock lost highly winnable Senate races for Republicans in 2012 after making controversial comments about women who had been raped.

So it may well be that Democratic politicians usually resign from office when faced with accusations of sexual harassment while Republicans usually don’t. If so, that could work to Democrats’ benefit. If the Democrat is in a safe seat, he’ll be replaced with another Democrat anyway. And if he’s in a swing seat, the party would often be better off with a new candidate rather than one who’s damaged goods.2 In Minnesota, for instance, Franken’s approval rating has plunged to 36 percent, according to a SurveyUSA poll, down from 53 percent last year. Whichever Democrat replaces him would have to win the special election in 2018 but would then probably have an easier time than Franken holding the seat for the full six-year term that comes up in 2020.

Moreover, a tougher stance toward accused harassers such as Franken makes Democrats look less hypocritical when party leaders such as Nancy Pelosi talk about having “zero tolerance” on sexual harassment.

Maintaining the moral high ground isn’t always easy. It means you have to hold your party to a higher standard than the other party. It means you sometimes have to make real trade-offs. But it can also pay political dividends and mitigate political risks. Democrats just lost an election in 2016 against a historically unpopular candidate because their candidate was disliked nearly as much. The political environment is favorable for Democrats in 2018, but perhaps the easiest way that Democrats could blow their opportunity is if voters conclude that as bad as Republicans are, Democrats are no better. With Democrats coming around to a tougher stance on Franken and Conyers while Republicans equivocate on Moore and restore funding to his campaign, they’ll be able to draw a clearer distinction for voters.

[billyagogo]

When will you know if Biden or Trump wins? Look to these battleground states

New Post has been published on https://newsprofixpro.com/moxie/2020/11/01/when-will-you-know-if-biden-or-trump-wins-look-to-these-battleground-states/

When will you know if Biden or Trump wins? Look to these battleground states

A record number of Americans — more than 59 million — have returned absentee ballots for the general election, after states expanded mail voting in an attempt to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

Now, election officials just have to count them all.

But in some of the states that could decide the presidential race, election officials aren’t allowed to process, must less tally, mail ballots before election day. When America learns the final results could depend on when ballots are due and when they can be counted.

Some battleground states, such as Arizona and Florida, have long histories with absentee voting and have adopted laws to start at least the initial stages of ballot processing — like opening envelopes and checking signatures — early. Other states don’t allow ballots to be processed or counted until election day or the day before.

And Republicans nationally and in several states — including Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin — have fought extended legal battles over added voter access and whether ballots postmarked by election day can be counted after Nov. 3. In 2016, President Trump carried Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by razor-thin margins.

Election officials have emphasized that it’s more important to get an accurate and complete count than a speedy one, but Trump and his campaign have claimed otherwise. As part of his attacks on mail voting and his efforts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of an election in which polls show him behind, the president has falsely suggested that counting ballots after election day violates U.S. law, when in fact it is the norm.

“It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on Nov. 3, instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate,” Trump said Tuesday. Experts say that’s just not true; results are never finalized on election night.

After months of policy changes and lawsuits, here are the rules on when ballots are due and can be processed in the battleground states:

Arizona (11 electoral votes) Excuse needed to vote absentee? No.

When are ballots due? Must be received by 7 p.m. Nov. 3.

When are ballots processed? Signature verification happens upon receipt. Vote tallying may begin 14 days before the election, but results may not be released until polls close.

Arizona residents have been voting by mail for decades, and the state allows people to permanently sign up to receive absentee ballots. The state is also familiar with the extended counting period that comes with mail ballots — it took six days for the Associated Press to call the 2018 Senate race for Kyrsten Sinema.

Florida (29 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Must be received by 7 p.m. Nov. 3.

When are ballots processed? County officials were allowed to start tallying votes up to 30 days before Nov. 3.

The state has allowed no-excuse absentee voting since 2002, so voters are familiar with the process. State law says counties can begin processing ballots 22 days before the election. In June, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order allowing them to start processing up to 30 days before, once they’d tested tabulation equipment.

Georgia (16 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Ballots are due at 7 p.m. Nov. 3.

When are ballots processed? Signatures on the envelopes are verified when ballots are received. Ballot scanning began Oct. 19. Counting of votes may not begin before polls close.

In August, a federal judge blocked the state law requiring ballots to be received by 7 p.m. on election night and ruled that the state must accept ballots postmarked by election day and received in three days. After Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger appealed, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the election day deadline.

Michigan (16 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Ballots must be received by 8 p.m. Nov. 3.

When are ballots processed? Processing starts Nov. 2; counting begins Nov. 3.

After thousands of ballots arrived too late to be counted in the state’s August primary, a state judge ruled that ballots postmarked by Nov. 2 would count if received within 14 days after the election. But the state appeals court on Oct. 16 blocked that decision, so by law, ballots are due by 8 p.m. Nov. 3. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation Oct. 6 that allows election officials to begin processing ballots Nov. 2.

Minnesota (10 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Mailed ballots must be postmarked by election day and received by Nov. 10. Voters can also turn in ballots in person by 3 p.m. Nov. 3.

When does ballot processing begin? Ballots are verified and accepted or rejected upon receipt. At the close of business on the seventh day before election day, officials may open the ballots and place them in a ballot box. Counting begins after polls close.

In Minnesota, which enacted no-excuse absentee voting in 2014, 6 out of 10 voters sent in ballots in the August primary. That month, a county judge ruled the state should allow general election ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 to be counted if they’re received by Nov. 10. An appeals court panel last week ordered all mail-in ballots received after 8 p.m. on election day be set aside, but it did not rule on the validity of those ballots.

North Carolina (15 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Ballots postmarked by election day will be accepted until Nov. 12.

When are ballots processed? Election officials were allowed to begin processing ballots starting Sept. 29. Counting begins election day.

North Carolina officials expect to report on election night the totals for all in-person early voting ballots, election day ballots and mail-in ballots that arrive by Nov. 3, according to Patrick Gannon, a spokesman for the state’s election board. “Whether the media and/or candidates will be able to call winners … will depend on how close contests are and how many absentee and provisional ballots remain to be counted after election day,” Gannon wrote in an email. State election officials agreed to extend the deadline for absentee ballots postmarked by election day from Nov. 6 to Nov. 12 as part of a consent decree resolving a lawsuit filed by a retirees group. After a protracted legal battle, the Supreme Court denied Republicans’ request to overturn the agreement.

Ohio (18 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Ballots postmarked the day before the election will be accepted until Nov. 13.

When are ballots processed? Ballots can be processed as soon as they arrive and counted on Nov. 3.

Ohio’s secretary of state said the earliest tallies announced on election night will be the absentee ballots.

Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Ballots postmarked by election day must be received by election officials by 5 p.m. Nov. 6.

When are ballots processed? Counting and processing may begin at 7 a.m. Nov. 3.

Pennsylvania passed legislation last year allowing voters to request absentee ballots without an excuse. Following a request from election officials and a lawsuit from the state Democratic Party, the state Supreme Court in September ruled that ballots postmarked by election day and received by 5 p.m. three days after the election would count. The court also ruled that ballots that had a missing or illegible postmark would be considered on time if they weren’t obviously mailed after election day. Pennsylvania GOP leaders asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the order. On Oct. 19, the high court deadlocked on the emergency request, allowing the Nov. 6 ballot deadline to remain.

Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf had called for allowing election officials to begin processing ballots sooner, after it took more than two weeks to complete the count of the June primary, but the state Legislature did not change the law.

Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) When are ballots due? Ballots are due by 8 p.m. Nov. 3.

When are ballots processed? Processing and counting begins at 7 a.m. Nov. 3.

The state’s April 7 primary in some ways set the tone for the November election — voters chose to mail in their ballots in record numbers even in the midst of a chaotic legal fight; nearly 1 million people — 60% of primary voters — mailed in their ballots. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that ballots in that primary had to be postmarked by April 7 but could be counted if they arrived by April 13. About 79,000 ballots arrived between April 8 and 13.

A federal judge in September granted voters the same six-day grace period for the November election in a Sept. 21 ruling, but after challenges from the Republican National Committee, the Wisconsin GOP and state Republican lawmakers, the ruling was blocked by a federal appeals court. So under state law, absentee ballots will be due by 8 p.m. Nov. 3. Democrats appealed, but the Supreme Court declined to overturn the lower court’s ruling.

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