#and yes I used his va for pose reference

[smolpotatobun]

reference:

#I love this outfit so much #I wanna recreate it bc I'm broke af #but I don't think I have time and money lmao #he's so fine I'm blushing so hard #and yes I used his va for pose reference #it fits so well aahhhhh #jujustu kaisen #jjk #jujutsu kaisen fanart #jjk fanart #kento nanami #nanami kento #nanami fanart #jjk nanami #the D&G collab is the collab we didn't know we needed #nariibun art

[sepublic]

Through the Looking Glass Ruins!!!!!

         …

         SO! Onto other things first…

         WRATH IS BRAXAS’ FATHER!??!!? HOLY SHIT, Wrath is a canonical dad, I’d always expressed my… OH MY GOD WRATH IS DAD! And of BRAXAS, that sweetie… How is Braxas such a sweetie with a father like HIM, also-

         Wrath was in casual wear? Either he has a day off, or he got fired by Belos/Kikimora after drawing Luz a map to Eda in Young Blood, Old Souls! Either way this guy has a sudden new level of NUANCE that I am reeling from, and yes I checked, that really is Wrath according to the credits! Dang this puts everything in a WHOLE new light…!

         AMITY HAIR OHMIGOD IT LOOKS SO ADORABLE SHE’S SELF-ACTUALIZING I AM FUCKING SCREAMING HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD!!! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD, it’s PINK and not green… They acknowledged it, Emira did! And they CHANGED IT I AM LOSING MY FUCKING MIND OVER THIS-

         She looks so BEAUTIFUL and I love the kind of foreshadowing with the bookends of our first shot of Amity having her hair down, and now it’s changed! And she looks adorable and EMIRA AND EDRIC BEING GREAT SIBLINGS I LOVE IT SO MUCH! This… THIS is everything I wanted! I was resigned to not much of them but HELL YEAH they’re being good siblings and we get a look at their rooms, we see them doing MAKEOVERS together this is everything from my favorite fanon content and MORE,

         Also Edric has a date?! Emira says ‘their’ mom… Unless the Golden Guard has a mom, DARN! Not gonna lie, I half-expected a big twist at the end that Edric was dating the Golden Guard, who was doing some sort of reconnaissance as his unrecognized normal self and/or screwing around with the Blights even further, but in a GENUINE sense… But then who knows Kikimora could be posing as GG’s ‘mom’, this is a stretch anyhow-

         JUST HELL YEAH Blight Twins! Blight Twins being sweet and mischievous and supportive of each other, Blight SIBLINGS being siblings, Emira being an older sister and giving advice! And AMITY, Amity mentioning how much Luz has changed stuff, I love that they acknowledge it openly how her life has completely shifted, and now… NOW…!

         No necklace! Red leggings! PINK HAIR?! Is this why Amity in the intro hasn’t been updated yet… She was getting TWO updates, so the animators decided to only animate a change after this final update?!

         King and Gus are also friends it seems, and they even recorded some fun together! I’m surprised at how much Bria and the others mock Gus’ illusion skills… Obviously Belos is kinda terrible but like; I don’t think he’d set aside an entire subset of magic into Illusions without reason! Also that nightmare trip… I LOVE IT, I love Gus applying the creativity of illusions in their ability to completely warp and distort someone’s sense of reality! And I called that dragon-thing being an illusion!

         A graveyard… I wonder if the Gallderstones (is that how it’s spelled) have any relevance or if they’re just neat? I hope Mattholomule and Gus help hide the Looking Glass Graveyard… Damn, that’s another Death reference with Gus, huh! Is it culminating in his respect for the dead, or will it continue further with Gus being a necromancer, or an Oracle who can commune with the deceased, and he has their respect as someone who treats them properly?!

         Also not to get dark but… What if all those Illusionists are dead because of Belos? I’m JUST SAYING…! And not gonna lie, every time someone insulted Illusions, I kept imagining the Illusion Head just suddenly waking up and feeling like there’s a disturbance in the force, as well as a weird compulsion to beat up some Glandus kids. It’d be even funnier if he had beef with the Construction, Plant, and Abomination Heads as well!

         Speaking of which, more confirmation on Construction Magic being related to earth! Glad to see Bria give us a look into that, which furthers my idea of Belos using construction magic… Also dang, Bria and the Glandus Kids really are the parallels/foils to the Detention kids! You’ve got the short ‘nice’ girl, the tall lanky kid, the furry… But the Glandus Kids start off looking nice and cool, but turn out to be rather nasty!

         Meanwhile the Detention Kids seem like bad news and delinquents, but no! They’re just demonized and actually very kind and chill! The Detention Kids are looked down upon, the Glandus Kids are appraised… The Detention Kids are dual-track, the Glandus Kids are singular; Glandus Kids from, well, GLANDUS, Detention Kids from Hexside… One’s ‘mischief’ is actually very neat and cool, the other’s is literal grave robbing.

         I guess that’s how the bleeding statues got past the censors- It’s technically just an illusion! Also more insight into how Glandus works with its Survival of the Fittest mentality, I wonder if we’ll get confirmation on which coven heads came from there, how that might influence them as adults…

         What is Glandus like, is it more whole-heartedly accepting of Belos’ rule, hence its harsh ideals? Was it made after Hexside? Does Bump hate it for being so cruel like that, or is it just school bias? And dang poor Mattholomule, I always had a feeling he sort of felt and knew that he wasn’t much, so he accepted and compensated by deliberately doing whatever he can for power…

         They confirmed he’s from Glandus, and I appreciate this new look at him! This new leaf turned… Hot take but he’s honestly not as bad as Boscha, his stint with Gus was a one-time thing that Gus was able to live with! And that seems pretty good to set them up as friends! Speaking of Boscha, Willow was injured by pixies? And the last time we heard of pixies, they belonged to Boscha and caused the school to get shut down… Did BOSCHA DO THIS I SWEAR SHE IS DEAD TO ME-

         (Also she’s mentioned in the credits for this episode but I don’t remember hearing her? I might’ve gotten distracted with so much other things.)

         Gus! I like the insight into his relationship with Illusions, and I appreciate how he’s considering other forms of magic… But this hesitation might just serve to reaffirm his believe in Illusions, which is okay! It’s all about choice… And yeah, it seems Gus also has a case of impostor syndrome like King, no wonder they get along so well! I love the glimpses into Gus’ house and the confirmation that he has a library card, no Perry though alas…!

         I appreciate how Gus feels overlooked, like he has no real substance, which is how his Illusions reflect a desire to draw attention, but also the idea that there’s nothing real beneath them… Again, very much like King! And Gus, he’s not a powerhouse like the rest, he’s SKILLED and smart, but strength isn’t his forte, it’s not brute force he operates on, but cleverness! Trickery, I like it…! It’s a nice callback to his last A-plot episode, SVSF, where instead of fighting Mattholomule physically, Gus’ solution is to think outside the box and pull the alarm!

         You go kid, not relying on brute strength but showing that some clever tricks and thinking are just as valid! Kinda wonder if this episode is lowkey a discussion on masculinity for young boys, especially with Gus growing older with puberty, though the latter is mostly because his actual VA grew… But maybe the writers rolled with that and incorporated it, or it’s just a very neat coincidence! Also, it is me or did Mattholomule’s voice change? And the gag that Gavin’s dad looks identical to him, even moreso because he’s NOT supposed to have a moustache… That’s great!

         Malphas! Love this reference to a classic demon, I wasn’t sure if Malphas was the librarian with glasses whom I’ve always headcanoned as a father figure to Amity… But maybe it’s actually this bird dude! He seems adept in Bard magic, and I love the reveal of his true crow appearance… Guess those theorists were right that the one-eyed figure is from the Forbidden Stacks! Also Malphas NOT COOL with Amity, but I’m glad Luz changed his mind, and I wonder how that adventure looked…

         Which- DAMN, the RSD with Luz! She looks so UTTERLY BROKEN when Amity mentions doing stupid things, and she didn’t mean it like that, but Luz just looks so completely shattered and you can tell she wants to cry but instead she bottles it up and tries to take it in stride, and that plays into her trying to overcompensate for her mistakes AGAIN… SOMEONE GET IT TO HER HEAD that she doesn’t need to! I’m scared for Luz, and I was SO scared this episode would end on a bad note…

         BUT DOAHLDdFAEONDKFHN LUMITY KISS LUMITY KISS! ONE-SIDED BUT THEY FINALLY FUCKING KNOW AND AMITY IS LIKE WHAAAAT AND I WAS WAITING FOR IT AND I COULD FEEL IT HAPPEN AND GAY KISS! GAY KISS ON-SCREEN!!! And the way Luz just FLOPS to the ground on her knees AAHJJFFKHGGK and no Alador nor Odalia to ruin this, UTTERLY PERFECT and the twins WATCHING OOOHHHHGGGG YYYEEAAAAHHH-

         This is EVERYTHING I ever wanted!

         What an AMAZING episode with wonderful characer beats and reveals! Again, Amity’s growth as a character, that brief insight into how Luz as a person is very chaotic and sometimes frustrating for Amity and forces her to reevaluate, but ultimately it’s good and Luz DOES try her best, and Amity clearly wanted to make things up for Luz and apologize, they’re BOTH doing things, just the little moments!

         Also, Alex Lawther voices Philip Wittebane! He has long hair and a vaguely british accent, he’s… He’s Belos isn’t he? And they got a new VA because having him voiced by Matthew Rhys would be really spoiler-y right? He’s got the long hair and he’s a nerd… And with how he talks of finding a way back home, maybe Belos really DOES just want to return home, after all? He talks of making a way back home…

         And we see a glimpse of the Portal, so it might’ve brought him there? Or did Philip succeed in making it, and that was his blueprint designs? Did he arrive by Titan’s Blood? What happened to the portal if it brought him there, or if he made it? Why the scar, why near Eda’s house, partially buried?

         Was it lost before he could finish his work, and Philip got side-tracked into something else… Perhaps going on a crusade, on behalf of a curse/demon that possessed him? A demon that killed King’s father…? Was the portal broken and he had to discard it, but then it naturally healed- Or did it just need to recharge, maybe Philip DID make it back home, WHAT IS THE ANSWER?! Is there some sort of doppelganger for Philip, is BELOS his doppelganger?! What is THIS WHAT-

         WHAT AN EPISODE!

#the owl house #lumity #the owl house gus #augustus porter #the owl house mattholomule #the owl house luz #luz noceda #the owl house amity #amity blight #the owl house bria #the owl house gavin #the owl house angmar #the owl house malphas #the owl house wrath #warden wrath #the owl house braxas #the owl house philip #philip wittebane #speculation #analysis #the owl house spoilers #spoilers #toh spoilers

[thejustmaiden]

After that event in August 1st, where the VAs of Sesshomaru and Rin revealed the twins' designs, the Jaken's VA send a letter on twitter (i don't have the link im sorry) where he congratulated to them as "newly weds" and he said that he wishes Rin hapiness. What do you think about this? Do you think this is a confirmation that Rin is the mother?

Hey there, nonnie! Thanks for passing through. Apologies it took some time to respond. ☺

So based on what I know, no, I do not take this is as confirmation that Rin is the mother. That's not to say she can't turn out to be it, I just wouldn't use this as evidence. The letter you are referring to never actually mentioned anything about a wedding or newly weds, as that rumor has been debunked.

Since it's almost been a month already, I had to refresh my memory and ask a couple others to recall what exactly it was that Jaken said to Sesshomaru and Rin throughout that livestream. Jaken's VA couldn't make it to the event or maybe it was that he wasn't invited, Idk.

First thing's first, it wasn't only a single letter Jaken('s VA) sent. It was 3 separate ones- one to Sesshomaru, one to Rin, and one to the audience. Now I'm not sure about the order they were showed in, but in this instance I don't think it matters all that much.

In the letter to the audience, he was wishing everyone the best during these trying times of covid-19.

The second was to Sesshomaru. In this particular letter he says he "doesn't understand" in reference to either something happening or what Sesshy did/said. He also says he hopes he's doing well.

The third letter was for Rin. He says something along the lines of "my daughter, I wish you well."

All in all, the three letters were pretty short and vague. There is however no mention of a marriage or a congratulations.

I believe what happened was that a lot of pro-Sessrin fans took his wishes for Rin to mean she got married to Sesshomaru. I think the confusion started because the contents of all letters were initially believed to be only the one letter.

This part has bugged me forever haha but I'm still not sure why Jaken being her dad has to automatically mean Sesshomaru isn't like one, too. By leaving him out one assumes so, I guess? Or why does Jaken being Rin's dad somehow translate to Sesshomaru being her husband? Please explain to me how we arrived at such a wild deduction. I suppose we can partially owe these interpretations to fans getting overly excited and carried away.

There's just so many (unknown) factors we have to take into account. If I were a Sessrin shipper, I'd probably jump to a similar if not the same conclusion ngl. It would be hard not to "read between the lines" and take these small potential clues as proof, but fans must be wary. I totally get the temptation, alright, but wishful thinking may be getting the best of us if we allow ourselves to mistake potential fanbait for legitimate assurance something will guaranteed happen.

The way I look at it, keeping the mom a mystery is nothing but a marketing ploy to keep all sides of this fandom appeased for as long as possible until the sequel is out.

If we try and acknowledge only the facts provided to us (accompanied with as little bias as possible), then all I'm really witnessing is Jaken dedicating sweet handwritten letters to his beloved Lord Sesshomaru and his former traveling companion/sister/daughter Rin. I'm not sure why they can't simply be letters without turning them into some riddle we need to solve or a code we need to crack.

Sunrise is well aware of the risk Sessrin going canon poses. But if Sunrise decided to go through with it and the mom is just going to end up being Rin anyway, what's with all the secrecy? Especially seeing as that livestream with her VA present would've been the perfect opportunity to reveal it. The entire fandom- shippers and antis alike- were expecting it. So what gives? For some reason Sunrise insists on keeping the mom's identity a secret, which tells me one of two things:

1) it's a new character

and/or

2) she's integral to the plot for this sequel

Supposedly Rumiko was behind the idea of keeping the mom's identity hidden, which makes this predicament that much more curious. One fan recently pointed out in the comments section for an ask I answered 2 days ago here that the VAs from that livestream keep talking about Jaken being a dad to Rin probably to "protect their products." Although this is a valid point, we must consider it from the opposing side. A similar and sound reasoning can be applied to a counter-argument, as well.

What I mean by that is what if the VAs' efforts to go out of their way to please the Sessrin fandom could be partly due to the fact that they want to give those fans a little something knowing what's in store. They know what's to come won't go in their favor, but better to give them crumbs and keep them satisfied and engaged until the sequel than nothing at all. We've all been there before, where we get hooked by the promo interviews but the end results wind up being almost nothing like those actors described it. It can be disappointing when we allow ourselves to get our hopes up high, but it happens all the same. The baiting/trolling stops for no one, ha! Of course I'm directing this at all Inuyasha fans, not only Sessrin fans. Gods know I've been guilty of being let down, I just pray this time ain't one of them. 😉

Yes, I'm well aware that many of the staff on Inuyasha support or even ship Sessrin. We must however remind ourselves that this wouldn't be the first time staff shipped a pairing on a series they worked for, but that doesn't necessarily mean these ships go canon either. In all actuality, I'd say most if not all times these pairings in question never go canon. The shippers among the staff can create all the unofficial merchandise or advertisement they want- drama cds, calendars, what have you- but that may be all they're allowed to do when all is said and done. At the end of the day, those aren't what ultimately shape and define the story Sunrise and Rumiko are collaborating on together. Let's just hope this ain't solely some cash grab and that Rumiko isn't a sellout. If neither is the case, we may very well have ourselves a decent sequel. 🤞🤞

#inuyasha #hanyo no yashahime #sesshomaru #rin inuyasha #jaken #anti sessrin #anonymous asks #answered ask

[hcpefulmarshmallow]

I wanted to take some time out of our irregularly scheduled content to talk about something near and dear to my heart: Komaeda’s voice. Specifically, two of his character songs which I have been more eager to dissect than you know. 

A couple of points before we begin:

These songs were not written by the same people who designed, scripted or even localised Komaeda, but rather his Japanese VA, Megumi Ogata. It has, however, been sanctioned as canon material, even released under the Danganronpa brand. Therefore, I will treat it with the same consideration that I do explicitly canon material.

The songs are, of course, in Japanese. I do not speak this language, so I’ll be going off the translations available on the DR wiki. If you do speak Japanese and you realise I’ve missed or misinterpreted something due to the language barrier, please let me know. Otherwise, as an English speaker, I’ll do my best with what I have. 

My goal here is to reconcile his musical characterisation with his canon characterisation, as well as extrapolate whatever new things we can learn from these songs about our beloved boy. And if you’re reading this crazy long post and thinking, “wow, she’s reading way too into this,” ... yeah. That’s sort of the fun of it. My goal isn’t to challenge anybody, or shame anyone’s headcanons. This is just a weird niche hobby of mine.

Apologies for the lack of a cut. This much text, I felt, might be a little hard on some peoples’ eyes on my theme. It is tagged though.

Okay, onto the good stuff.

 Zettai Kibou Birthday is, according to Megumi, a song about how Nagito feels on the “outside”. It contains a literal narrative and a metanarrative which is a word I like to use to sound smart, but in this case, just refers to an overarching interpretation that isn’t necessarily verbatim, but rather is represented, or is provided a structure, or is given meaning by the actual text. 

 In this case, the literal narrative is this: Nagito meets somebody on campus he was “born to meet”, and they have some sort of steamy rendezvous, and in amongst all the smooshing, there are several references to absolute hope. However, the song isn’t supposed to be a literal recount of events, but rather an expression of Nagito’s feelings; about hope, love, intimacy and connection. This is the metanarrative. The plot, if you will, is simply a presentation of that message. 

 While the song functions on a conceptual level and not a physical one, it interests me that sex is the medium through which he allegorises hope, intimacy and interpersonal connection. I think it’s also interesting that hope and intimacy are grouped together, as if to find one is to find the other. To quote Nagito himself, “Now that I’m on the verge of death, I’ve finally realised what I wanted all along: somebody’s love.”

 Again, the song isn’t literal. It captures a feeling, likening that exhilaration and comfort of making a deep and impossible connection to the feeling of finding Ultimate Hope. And for someone who has been so lonely for so long, it makes sense he would find that hope in another person. Someone who isn’t afraid to be close to him in every possible sense of the word. 

 Now let me get it out there - I don’t expect a song like this to have explicit depictions of sex or anything. There is a fine line to walk when using the topic in media lest you be branded with a hard “lewd” rating, but there’s still no shortage of ways to use it without being explicit. Take, for instance, Carla Gugino & Oscar Isaac’s cover of Love Is The Drug. (Why the cover and not the original? Because I actually liked Sucker Punch, fight me.)

Late that night I park my car / Stake my place in the singles' bar / Face to face, toe to toe / Heart to heart as we hit the floor Lumber up, limbo down / The locked embrace, the stumble round / I say go, (and I say yes) / Dim the lights, you can guess the rest

 The words describe literally what is going on, while still invoking the right mood and the emotions the characters in the song were feeling. It’s very well-balanced lyrically, especially with what Oscar and Carla’s performance brings to it. Contrast, if you will, with:

So lock up, mix up, cut up… key up, sex up, wrap up /  I'll let you mess me up and indulge  That's it, break up, use up, end up… hook up—because we're connected / The omen of hope after the worst disaster

 If you look close, you can definitely see what’s happening in the actual narrative of the song. However, the details are more or less obfuscated under this layer of words that don’t really mean anything on their own. It’s more like a flurry of different sensations rather than one, tangible experience. These feelings he’s having during these experience are, in the next breath, directly correlated with connection, and then hope. 

 Nagito is a guy who works on the conceptual and the philosophical more than the literal. Even in canon, he’s heavily into symbolism. He likes to carry around Go stones because of what the colours represent to him. So this use of intimacy and word play to describe a significant bond between two people is remarkably fitting. What’s literally happening isn’t half as important as what is going on beneath the surface, and the way it makes him feel. 

 Like I said, it’s interesting that, of all the ways he could express hope and connection, this is the one he went with. I do believe that this also expresses an underlying attitude towards intimacy; that it’s something he only wishes to share with someone truly special. In many fan circles he is portrayed as a highly sexualised character, even though in the canon media, he is quite chaste, never taking any sexual interest in a situation that isn’t sexual; for instance, any of the many times Mikan falls over herself and winds up in a suggestive pose. (And nor should he, let me stress.) 

 And I can already foresee the counterargument that Nagito is gay, so of course he won’t enjoy seeing a girl’s underwear; and to that, I have two points. One is that, personally, I disagree. This doesn’t have to matter, but I headcanon him as bi or pan, possibly even demi. Either way, I don’t believe gender plays a major role in who he is attracted to. There’s no canon evidence to say who is “right” here (as right as anyone can be regarding fiction), but I don’t judge. If that’s your interpretation, you do you. The second is that, even towards the characters he is shown to be attracted to (namely, Hajime) his expressions of interest tend to be pure, for lack of a better word. Yes, there’s the joke about stripping naked on the beach, but I’m pretty sure that’s just a joke. He does tend to play a lot, after all.

 And let me be clear -- there is nothing wrong with being a sexual person, or expressing one’s desire’s healthily. And certainly, Nagito has that side to him. He absolutely has sexual interest, urges and whatnot. It’s just not a highly key component to his characterisation. The point I want to make is: this song was a really good method to explore his feelings towards intimacy in a natural way, as well as provide more depth and context to attitudes he expressed in canon but couldn’t be explored to their fullest because, you know, it’s a story about murder, not Nagito’s feelings. The way he groups hope, love and sex as this euphoric thing, a singular whirlwind of emotions rather than separate happenings, is telling toward this desire he has for these things, the way he sees them as interconnected, and, with the way the song is so upbeat and uplifting, his hope that he can achieve it. 

 Nagito is someone who strongly believes in the idea that people are born a certain way, either hopeful or hopeless, talented or untalented. In short, destiny. And in this song, he speaks directly to the person he believes he’s destined for.

In the school campus at midnight, my heart throbs as I continue waiting "I was born for the sake of meeting you" I’II think at the moment

 This song puts a tangible goal on this “Absolute Hope”, rather than the vague “overcoming Despair” thing he talks about all the time. Nagito really, truly wants to believe - and seems to believe - that his soulmate is out there, and it isn’t too late to make a deep and meaningful connection with somebody; someone who will be just as eager to reciprocate. Someone he can be unafraid with, captivated with, and with whom, he can experience that Ultimate Hope. It’s even in the title - the moment he meets such a person, is the moment true Hope itself is born. Something far stronger than what already exists in the world. 

 Zansakura, the companion piece to ZKB, is worlds apart in many ways. 

 It is, according to Megumi, how Nagito feels on the “inside”, the other side of the proverbial coin to ZKB being how he feels on the “outside”. Likely, this means that part deep within him he doesn’t let others see. This is present in the overall tone alone. While ZKB embodied in it that uplifting way which Nagito talks about Ultimate Hope, Zansakura is much more somber. ZKB echoes the Nagito we see through Hajime’s eyes; while Zansakura is more congruent with those fleeting moments we experience the game from his perspective, wherein he is even more down on himself. As we play through the Final Dead Room with him, we see that the excessive way which he berates himself out loud is nothing compared to the second-guessing and self-debasement that goes through his mind. It truly is a dark and melancholy place, which shows through in the slow, sad melody of Zansakura. 

 This one takes the imagery to a whole other level, relying primarily on the cultural and symbolic relevancy of cherry blossoms. I’ve written about all this before, so for the sake of those who have been around this blog a while, I’ll try to summarise as best as I can. 

 In Japan, Cherry Blossoms are symbolic of the ephemeral nature of life -- in other words, the fleetingness and impermanence of it all. In no small degree, the connection between the symbolism of Cherry Blossoms and life and death comes from the influence of Buddhist culture, and is embodied specifically in the concept of mono no aware. This can be translated a number of ways that all pretty much come back to the same idea of existing for only a short period of time. It’s used to describe the awareness of impermanence, the transience of things, and a sadness or wistfulness as their passing; and a deeper sadness about this being the reality of things. I know this seems boring and irrelevant, but please keep especially this last bit in mind, as it’s very important to the meaning behind this song. 

 The most popular variety of Cherry Blossom in Japan are the Somei Yoshino, which are almost pure white and tinged with pale pink near the stem. Although this song was written after the fact, I have to wonder if this was always intended to be part of the character’s aesthetic, because these colours are reflected in Nagito’s character design - specifically, his hair. Anyway, the Somei Yoshino typically bloom and fall within a week. Winter Sakura or Fuyuzakura begin blooming in autumn and continue sporadically throughout winter alone. 

 Though Cherry Blossoms are an important, and even iconic image for the country, most people are surprised to learn they don’t last for very long. For Nagito to compare himself to these flowers is to admit that he, too, is here to bloom for a short period of time. It’s also worth noting that Cherry Blossoms are considered their most beautiful, not as they bloom, but rather as they wither and fall. And all of a sudden, I’m reminded of all the times Nagito talks about attaining hope through despair, and how his life has only found meaning as he inches closer to death.

 Yeah, I don’t like remembering this detail because it’s profoundly sad, but our marshmallow boy doesn’t exactly have long to live. He was given a year, at most, before starting at Hope’s Peak - and, at the end of the series, is presumably in his early-to-mid 20s. He’s beaten his own life expectancy, but not his illnesses. 

 The song starts in the most typical Nagito way I can think of:

“We can see again tomorrow", I laughed, short-lived cherry blossoms within my heart

 As he always does, he laughs and is cheerful with others, even though deep down, he’s tremendously sad. 

 The song then takes us through this most beautiful and haunting imagery, of cherry blossoms in bloom after surviving a storm*, preparing to wither and fall; until at last they do, and as the flowers are carried away by the wind and water, a lonely, broken branch is left behind, wanting to bloom again.

 (*The actual word used is ‘struggle’, however further down, the survival of a storm is mentioned, along with the flowers (aka hope) which will bloom after. The whole thing is a metaphor for his hope/luck cycle, is what I’m saying.)

 He talks about this imagery as someone observing it (The storm of flowers, the sudden wind / I halt and open my eyes); again, with this idea of a metanarrative lurking beneath a literal one. He does, however, break the narrative to address (presumably) that same elusive “you” from Zettai Kibou Birthday:

To live an ordinary life, and die together with you / Oh, if that could come true

 This seems so disconnected from the Nagito we know, who seems to have no interest in ‘ordinary’ things, and chases only hope. But as we’ve established, the place he most desires to seek hope is in another person. As he spends more time with Hajime during Island Mode, we know already that he admits to seeing hope in himself, and that he doesn’t necessarily take it as good news. But this line, right here, I feel embodies what this song is about, and what Nagito is all about. 

 Nagito is a very lonely person, desperate by his own admission for love and understanding. He knows he has little time left, and his prospects are...dim. Everyone he’s ever loved has either died or suffered at the hands of his luck, a force far beyond his control. And those who remain - namely, his classmates - either don’t like or don’t understand him. In ZKB - again, how Nagito feels on the “outside” - he expresses a hopefulness that there’s still someone he can love, who can love him, who he can experience that Absolute Hope with. But Zansakura has far more pessimistic expectations. 

 By breaking the metaphor to be straightforward and honest for a line, we get Nagito’s most core desire: to live a life with somebody; to love and be loved. Which, yeah, he’s already admitted to. For someone who’s been through so much, that probably seems like the most unattainable thing. Every time he gets comfortable, something invariably rips all that out from under him. And of that, he is painfully aware. Oh, if only that could come true - in other words, he knows it won’t. 

 Once again, do recall the concept of mono no aware. It’s not just an awareness of transience and impermanence, but also an intense, wistful sadness in the face of it. He knows he’s dying, and he knows he’s dying alone. But he’s not frustrated or angry, or even defiant. He’s not trying to fight it. As much as Nagito wants to hope for the best, deep down, he just can’t. He knows this is the reality, and he doesn’t have it in him to fight back. He’s just completely, deeply, helplessly sad. 

 In this song, Nagito’s life is represented as the petals that bloom for a short time, then fall; while he is the broken branch left behind; forgotten, wounded and unappealing; yearning for more time. Deep down, this is how he feels about himself. He is boring and unextraordinary, and yet (perhaps selfishly) he wishes that brief taste he has of being alive would last if only a little longer. He’s not quite ready to die yet, not until “the day this ordinary life is devoted”.

#meta; #( holy damn this went on #but i have been meaning to do this forever ) #zansakura #zettai kibou birthday #long post/ #( 2775 WORDS YO )

[swampgallows]

after SEVERAL DAYS ive finally completed my own version of this. not to be confused with husbando squares. i had to really reach for a couple of these as i was trying very hard to make this a favorite list and not a kin list but you can see the parts where i failed

descriptions under the cut, starting at the top and left to right:

JAN VALENTINE from Hellsing: i was obsessed with this dude when i was like 13. i wanted his beanie and i loved his fucked up piercings. also the first blowjob i ever saw. i covered my eyes. traumatizing!

RED DEATH from Venture Bros.: a dignified killer. the voice of clancy brown is absolutely integral to this character and my affinity for him. cant go wrong with a murderous family man. “brownies? yes, thank you!” plus he had a sick mohawk in the 80s.

GENERAL GRIEVOUS from Star Wars: coughing bastard wields four glowsticks at once. what’s not to love?

LURTZ from Lord of the Rings: ground zero for the closest thing to a sexual awakening

KUP from Transformers: that’s just ME, babey! old know-it-all curmudgeon stops at mcdonalds for one black coffee and leaves

JANE LANE from Daria: if i’d watched Daria in high school instead of college I would have modeled my entire existence after her. she treads between being an ideal older sister and being the greatest lesbian/girlfriend ever

THRALL from Warcraft: thrall practically raised me through my teen years and was there for me as a surrogate orc dad before he became an actual dad. the horde is thrall’s family and when i say i’m his child i MEAN it

MEWTWO from Pokémon: mewtwo knocked my socks off when i encountered him in cerulean cave in 1998 on pokémon red, and then once i found out about the first 10 minutes cut from the english version of the movie in 99, it was all over

REXXAR from Warcraft: that’s just my strong asexual mok’nathal husband. i used to pal around with him in desolace back when he was champion of the horde, and once he made his way back to his people at thunderlord stronghold we consummated our vows

DIN from Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons: this is the only zelda game i have ever played, one i bought with my own money, with CASH, and i played the shit out of it. i love nature magic and dancing and din has both. 

CHERNABOG from Disney’s Fantasia: i warped the VHS watching this part over and over as a kid. he’s called chernabog now but he was referred to as “satan” initially, and bela lugosi modeled his movement (though they ended up using the director’s poses instead). when he unfurls his wings? that’s the real shit

TWILIGHT SPARKLE from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: i love all of the ponies in their own way and despite how much i abhor tara strong’s VA work twilight remains a top favorite. her anxiety and perfectionism show the downsides of her ardent studiousness, but dont portray her erudition in a negative light. a lot of cartoons i saw growing up always had an “egghead” nerdy character who was unpopular for doing well in school or caring about academia. while i know as an adult that it’s all essentially worthless it’s really affirming to see that pressure candidly portrayed while also not being totally dismissive of it. school was one of the only things i was ever good at, and twilight’s character shows both its heavy downsides and the ways in which it actually can be applied to the real world. 

[free space] GARROSH HELLSCREAM from Warcraft: literally me

WASHU HAKUBI from Tenchi Muyo!: one of my longtime faves! washu is a genius scientist, but with tenchi muyo being a mythological sci-fi series, that points her closer to witch/mad scientist/alchemist. i also liked the gimmick of her being thousands of years old but insisting on portraying herself as a short snarky teenager. plus i love her crab motif and her little wooden cheerleader puppets

JOHN SILVER from Treasure Planet: bear cyborg dad. super huggable, great voice, and has a lil irish jig follow him around in the soundtrack. neck rolls + tooth gap = hell fuckkin yeah babey

AIUSHTHA THE ENCHANTRESS from DotA 2: sproink!

PEPPER ANN from Disney’s Pepper Ann: this show made me excited to attend middle school LMFAO because i related to pepper ann so much as a kid. much like twilight sparkle, PA is super neurotic but has an explosive, if not borderline delusional, imagination. she dressed and behaved like an actual kid, and plus she looked like me too. even in the 90s it was rare to see a kid with glasses that wasn’t shafted to the poindexter stereotype, especially a girl (e.g. Gretchen from the fellow Disney show Recess). i liked that she wasn’t feminine but also wasn’t a hard tomboy; she gave me space to feel like i was allowed to exist outside of that kind of gender binary (and especially her younger sister Moose blows all gender expectations out of the water). 

ASUKA LANGLEY SORYU from Neon Genesis Evangelion: foundation of my childhood identity along with all the trauma and posturing therein. think garrosh if he were a 12 year old girl who piloted a mech

DEVIL ZUKIN from Dance Dance Revolution: amazing outfit, rocked the konamix. i like evil zukin too but devil zukin is the fave. sleeveless crop top hell yeah

UNDYNE from Undertale: my bi awakening at 25. strong fish lady love spagety

HELLBOY from Hellboy: mike mignola’s art style has influenced a lot of my own. he’s a demon who chooses to be the good guy and that’s everything to me. he loves kitty cats and pancakes and punches nazis, and hellboy ii: the golden army is one of the best movies of all time.

BLACKARACHNIA from Beast Wars (Transformers): LOVE this bitch. she got to hang out with tarantulas and also expressed that moral grayness i totally love, chillin with rattrap and makin jokes. spider motif is v good also

LEAH from Stardew Valley: life goals. wife goals.

NAILS from Cool World: this movie fucking blows LMFAO it’s absolutely awful but it has the most banger rave soundtrack next to hackers and ralph bakshi’s animation as always is a spectacle. Nails is a hapless anxious cop-spider who can barely load his own gun and looks like a predecessor to a Cuphead reject. plus he’s voiced by charlie adler so he’s got huge personality. funny spider guy

HAWK MOTH from Miraculous: i know what i am. im a bitch who loves bug motifs and villains who are outwitted by literal children, who are utterly convinced they are doing the right and just thing, who stare a redemption arc in the face and go “...nah”

#favorite character bingo #it me #i have a kintype and it is ORANGE #of the four non-magical typical humans on this list 3 are children LMAO

[thisdaynews]

‘Another white guy in the race’: Dems perplexed by Tom Steyer’s run

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/another-white-guy-in-the-race-dems-perplexed-by-tom-steyers-run/

‘Another white guy in the race’: Dems perplexed by Tom Steyer’s run

Billionaire activist Tom Steyer has raised the battle cry for impeachment, but some elected Democrats wish he would dial the tone down. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

2020 elections

Some Democratic lawmakers wish the billionaire impeachment advocate would drop his presidential bid.

Tom Steyer’s eleventh-hour presidential bid is confounding Democrats. And some party officials are ready for him to butt out.

The billionaire environmental activist is antagonizing Democratic leaders, whacking Speaker Nancy Pelosi for going on August recess and criticizing House Democrats for not immediately impeaching the president.

Story Continued Below

And as Steyer vows to spend as much as $100 million of his own money in the primary to boost his long-shot candidacy, Democrats are growing frustrated that he’ll only further clog the crowded campaign — particularly if he can buy his way onto the debate stage this fall.

“It’s very difficult for me to see the path for Tom Steyer to be a credible candidate,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), who has endorsed Pete Buttigieg. “So yes, I would rather that he spend his money taking back the Virginia House, the Virginia Senate and supporting people who can win.”

“I wish he wouldn’t do it. Especially at this late date,” added Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.), who has endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden. “Things are set except for those who are going to drop out.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio observed that Steyer is basically “another white guy in the race,” albeit a wealthy one who is “a major progressive player.” Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia was mostly perplexed by the wealthy Californian’s entry when asked about it: “I kind of wonder why?”

Steyer’s entry into the 2020 race — which he had previously passed on — further complicates an already complex relationship with the Democratic Party.

Some lawmakers know him personally and have been beneficiaries of his largesse. Democrats have also praised his efforts to combat climate change. Others are less pleased to see another self-funding ex-businessman trying his hand at politics when the stakes are so high.

And many lawmakers are familiar only with his ads demanding impeachment — or his visits to their congressional districts to pressure them with town halls pushing Donald Trump’s ouster.

Given how wrenching the impeachment issue has been for Democrats, there’s not a lot of love for Steyer in the House Democratic Caucus.

“Do I think he’s wasting his money on [impeachment] ads against me? Yes,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), who has not endorsed a presidential candidate and declined to comment on his presidential run.

Steyer has already used his multimillion-dollar impeachment campaign to target prominent House Democrats, including Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler of New York and Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings of Maryland. And he’s floated the idea of turning his financial firepower on Democratic leadership, including Pelosi.

Steyer issued a blunt statement directed at the speaker last week after Democrats voted to kill an effort to immediately launch impeachment proceedings against Trump. Then he dinged Congress on Monday for “going on vacation for six weeks,” calling on Pelosi to cancel the House’s August recess.

“Whether it was pushing for Donald Trump’s impeachment, demanding a more robust plan to address climate change, or insisting that Democrats protect Dreamers, I’ve been willing to stand on principle even when it is at odds with my party,” Steyer said in a statement for this story, vowing to help whoever wins the nomination but acknowledging: “I understand that our message makes some insiders uncomfortable.”

In the past, Pelosi has tried to privately contact Steyer — one of her constituents — to urge him to knock off the public impeachment campaign. But Steyer has refused, instead funneling millions more dollars into an effort that Pelosi and other House Democrats have derided as a “distraction.”

A spokesman for Pelosi declined to comment for this story. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also declined to talk about Steyer.

But Steyer can’t simply be written off.

He’s a formidable figure in the Democratic Party, able to bury what he sees as weak-kneed Democrats with pro-impeachment ads and still have enough money left over to fund his own presidential run.

Steyer’s focus on climate over the years could also be an asset, some Democrats argued, especially since he may have more resources than other candidates to climb in the polls.

“As a climate hawk, I think it’s good for climate. I don’t think Jay Inslee has got much traction,” argued Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), referring to the Washington state governor.

Whitehouse has criticized the slew of candidates running for the presidency that could be pursuing winnable Senate seats in red states, and he notes that Steyer isn’t among them.

“Between his sincerity and his not being a drag on Senate races and his likely enhancement of the climate issue? I’m pretty glad he’s there,” he said.

Less glad are Democratic presidential candidates. For one, they argue a billionaire in the race paints the party in a bad light.

In an interview, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a leading presidential candidate, took a shot at Steyer when asked about his candidacy.

“All campaigns should be grassroots funded in a primary. This is our chance to build our coalition that not only is going to help us win in 2020 but also help us make change come 2021,” Warren said. “Everyone should be doing grassroots funding. Everyone.”

And it’s easy to see how Steyer could be a problem for lower-tier presidential hopefuls.

Steyer can spend inordinate sums just to get donors to pitch in $1 to his campaign, which could lift him to the debate stage despite his late entry. A number of his competitors will struggle to accrue the 130,000 donors and 2 percent polling bump needed to make the fall debates.

“People’s votes can’t be bought,” argued Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), whose presidential campaign is running on a small-donor insurgent strategy to stay on the stage.

Though Steyer may pose a short-term threat to some Democratic candidates, his overall effect on the race may be muted, according to interviews with more than a dozen prominent Democrats.

He’s likely to press his competition on impeachment and climate change, potentially helping elevate issues that are hot on the left. But his own candidacy probably has little chance of catching fire, elected officials in Washington said.

“There is always going to be a lane in a Democratic primary to run on impeachment. So I don’t know whether he can capture that lane,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “Had he gotten in the race six months ago, when he was the only person calling for impeachment, maybe he would have [had] a different impact than today.”

“It really makes it hard because there’s so many candidates. Steyer gets in, it’s just another candidate to get in of many. He just happens to have money,” added Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). “But it’s going to be very difficult for these folks that are on the bottom tier.”

Perhaps the biggest issue Democrats take with Steyer is that he’s fueling a negative narrative in the primary: that their field is cartoonishly large and only growing.

On July 8, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) dropped out of the race and for the first time it looked like the field of two dozen was finally shrinking.

Yet exactly one day after Swalwell left, Steyer got in. In an interview, Swalwell predicted Steyer’s spending would get him in at least one debate and registering in the polls.

But he also had a pointed warning to the newcomer.

“It’s rough out there,” he said.

Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.

Read More

#Foreign #perplexed #Politics #Steyer

[connectingals]

Welcome, everyone, to Connecting ALS, a podcast dedicated to all facets of the disease, that we will produce monthly from the headquarters of the Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Chapter of The ALS Association, in St. Paul Minnesota.

For our debut episode, we had the opportunity to sit down with Ryan Tofteland to discuss ALS advocacy and his role as a voice for the community. We were able to connect with  Dr. David Walk from the University of Minnesota to get his view on the current state of ALS research, as well as his own work in the field.  We were then joined in studio by young ALS advocate, Serena Robb, so she could pose some important questions that have been on her mind. And finally, we chatted with Beau Bedore of the Minneapolis VA Health System and Kristin Wallock of The ALS Association about how smart home tech is changing lives. In conversation, Beau also mentioned some new research recently published in Nature. The article is titled Speech Synthesis from Neural Decoding of Spoken Sentences. This episode was produced by Garrett Tiedemann and is brought to you by the Connectivity Center at the ALS Association MN/ND/SD Chapter.

Transcript:

Serena: I think it's important to help the ALS Association to help people recognize ALS, know about it, and start finding a cure for it. And I just think it's really important because it just is.Like, if it's something that has no cure, then I think it's really important. A ton of people's lives are like sort of in a huge palm of your hand so I just think it's really important to just like step up and do it.

Mike (narration): Welcome everyone to Connecting ALS, a podcast dedicated to all facets of the disease, that we will produce monthly from the headquarters of the Minnesota,North Dakota, South Dakota Chapter of the ALS Association in St. Paul.

I am your host Mike Stephenson, I am the Director of Marketing and Communications at this chapter, but for the purposes of this podcast I'm just the person who asked the questions. Our hope is that each month we'll deliver information about the latest research and technological developments as they relate to ALS, keep you updated on national advocacy efforts, and first and foremost connect you to individuals and families who have been impacted by this disease. 

For our debut episode, we sat down with Ryan Tofteland who spoke with us about his experiences as an advocate and voice for the ALS community. We then met with Dr. David Walk from the University of Minnesota to discuss the current state of ALS research. Shortly after that, we had a very special guest in-studio;nine-year-old Serena Robb, who you heard of the intro of the episode. She stopped by to ask some questions about ALS that have recently been on her mind. And, finally, we met with Beau Bedore, who is an absolute tech wizard from the Minnesota VA, our own Kristin Wallock and I chatted with Beau about how smart home equipment is changing lives.

A few weeks back we had an opportunity to sit down with Ryan Tofteland who was diagnosed with ALS in 2016 and lives with his wife Martha and their two young children in Orono, Minnesota. Ryan and Martha have been extremely active in the ALS community and have taken a special interest in advocacy over the last year so, we spent the bulk of our time discussing his thoughts in that advocacy space. The following is how that conversation played out.

Mike (in Ryan's home): We are fortunate to be in the home of Ryan and Martha Tofteland of Orono, Minnesota and we are here with Ryan who is currently living with ALS and was gracious enough to agree to let us pick his brain about ALS advocacy efforts, which we will get into momentarily, but first Ryan, if you could,tell us a little bit about when and where you were diagnosed with ALS.

Ryan: Yeah, hi. I was diagnosed with ALS August of 2016 at the age of 36. For me, it started in my left foot. I was limping a little bit.We had a bunch of tests done, went down to Mayo and they confirmed it. Since then, kind of progressed up through the rest of the body. I'm full-time in a wheelchair now, my left arm has kind of lost most of its ability, and now I would say in the last two months you can hear my voice getting a little funnier than normal, so that's starting to go as well. So if, I'll do the best I can, hopefully you can understand what I'm saying.

Mike: No, no you're doing great. And as many of our listeners know Ryan, ALS is a disease where each day becomes slightly more challenging than the one prior.

Ryan: Absolutely

Mike: And, you mentioned your voice, has that been the most challenging thing of late for you physically?

Ryan: Yeah, recently that's the toughest part; especially with two young kids where Finn is seven right now, Liv is four. Reading to them at bedtime, it's getting me to be more of an adventure than it used to be and just, I think, I I tend to speak in shorter spurts now than I used to.

Mike: Understandably, and I suppose with the kiddos, when you when you need to kick that dad voice in, 

Ryan: Yes.

Mike: looking for that, are you

Ryan: It sounds more like this now (BEEP sound from wheelchair).

Mike: You got the beeps, there you go.

Ryan: I got the beep on the wheelchair I use when we need a stern voice.

Mike: Smart, they know to listen to that like, oh I better pay attention.

Ryan: That's the equivalent of using their full name.

Mike: Perfect, perfect. No kid wants to hear the full name.

Ryan: Yep.

Mike: So, since your diagnosis Ryan you've become very involved with the cause and the fight against ALS and you have a record-breaking walk to defeat ALS team that is filled with your friends and family, you were featured and spoke at a gala event last fall, and you recently joined the board of the local chapter of the ALS Association. Everyone's path is a little bit different and for various understandable reasons some folks choose not to be involved at any level, what made you decide to basically go all-in on raising awareness and funding for ALS?

Ryan: I think it just got to the point where we wanted to find a way we could do something you know this disease tends to take over all aspects of your life and there's a lot to be done to fight back; whether that's awareness, whether that's advocating legislators, whether that's raising money for treatments or to find a cure, or maybe even cures, plural, we just felt like we had to do something.

Mike: And, I've had the good fortune of meeting a lot of your friends and family who have seemed very supportive of you in this fight; did it take much arm-twisting and cajoling to say to them "hey, this is where we're at now and and we need you behind us"?

Ryan: No, it didn't take any arm-twisting.The outpouring of support has been incredible. Family, friends, co-workers,neighbors, across the board has really been I think heartwarming to see how easily people are willing to jump in and help out.

Mike: Right, and more recently, over the last year, you have joined the advocacy front and you went to DC last year, you and Martha, to meet with legislators in their offices and I think you're planning to go back again this year is that right?

Ryan: We are, yes.

Mike: Why do you believe it's so important for you personally to be heard in that arena as well.

Ryan: Yeah, well I think there's a lot of ways, like I said, to go at ALS. One of the big ones is getting government help not only for research funding, you know I've heard that, I've heard people say ALS is not incurable it just needs more funding. And so, if we can get government funding that can make a huge difference on top of what people are already doing privately, but I also think on top of that there's other issues out there that are important to educate and make sure legislators know we're heard.

Mike: Of course. What was that experience like for you and Martha going into those offices in DC? I mean it's one thing I think to go to the local office somewhere in the Twin Cities and sit down with an aide or a legislator and say this is my story and here's why we need your support. Entirely different to go to fly out to Washington DC and kind of be in that environment and going through those halls and going into those offices, it can be kind of intimidating. What was it like for you to open up and share a story like that in that place?

Ryan: Well, for us a lot of it was educational; learning about the process of getting out to DC, meeting with legislators, learning about Co-Sponsorships and Dear Colleague letters and all the weird stuff that goes on in DC. We didn't have any of that political background, so being our first year we had a lot to learn, but then I think it's motivating to get out there and actually get face time in hopes that you can move the agenda forward.

Mike: Right and ALS truly a bipartisan issue. If you are a human being, it doesn't matter which side of the aisle you're on,

Ryan: Absolutely.

Mike: you really should be helping to end this disease in any way possible so I suppose when you're going into those meetings you have that on your side to say 

Ryan: Absolutely

Mike: you're Republican you're a Democrat, doesn't matter to me, here's why we need your help.

Ryan: And we're and we don't we don't take either side in this, politically speaking, we push forward no matter who our representative is, who our senators are, saying here's what's important, we want you to hear us, here's what we need, we'd like your help. And it has been encouraging to see the bi-partisan support a lot of our legislative issues do have.

Mike: Sure. Looking at the lead initiatives for ALS advocacy at the moment, at least what the ALS Association is helping to guide, we've got waiving the five month waiting period for Social Security Disability Income, or SSDI as it's often referred to, increasing or at least maintaining federal research funding from the Department of Defense, NIH, for the National ALS Registry, and then reducing barriers to home health care for those living with ALS; considering those priorities, all of which are obviously important, is there one that stands out to you and your family that you are particularly passionate about?

Ryan: I would say two. The first being eliminating the SSDI waiting period. As a family with kids, figuring out when you can no longer work and needing those Social Security and Medicare benefits, a five month waiting period before you can get the benefits is a long time for families to wait and I think especially with ALS the prognosis could be so short that five months waiting can make a big difference. The other thing I'd like to emphasize,that I mentioned earlier, is the importance of research funding, to get treatments, to find cures, we need more research funding and so I'd really like to emphasize our Congress do more to help that effort.

Mike: Yeah, that is always going to be a topic for diseases like ALS. No matter how much funding is currently available, we need more to advance treatments and to make things happen more quickly.

Ryan: Yeah, it's not cheap to research and find ways to treat this disease.

Mike: And as we saw with the Ice Bucket Challenge five years ago, that influx of dollars and that, you know, splash of funding can really go a long way quickly.

Ryan: Yes.

Mike: We need things like that

Ryan: Exactly.

Mike: and knowing that the Department of Defense and NIH had those funds available we just need to access them that's where we're at.

Ryan: I agree.

Mike: Outside of those kind of core issues, is there anything on the fringe or something for you personally that you think, "this really should be added to the agenda" or at least should be discussed more and we should consider bringing something to our legislators.

Ryan: Yeah, one of the things, and I'm not as educated on this topic, but right now we need better and more modern guidance from the FDA on clinical trials. Our current FDA guidance is out-of-date and archaic and there's an effort out there to modernize that and I think clinical trials are the avenue to finding treatments and a cure so we need to improve that process to improve our odds. 

Mike (narration): We hope you appreciated hearing Ryan's perspective on ALS advocacy and we want to thank the Tofteland's once more for giving us their time and allowing us to record in their home. Next up is an interview we recorded on the campus at the University of Minnesota with well-known neurologist and researcher Dr. David Walk and Dr. Walk provides some really interesting insight and education on the state of ALS research in 2019.

Mike (at U of M): We are joined today by Dr. David Walk who is a professor and head of the Neuromuscular Disease Division of the Department of Neurology at the University of Minnesota. He is also the Director of the ALS clinic at the U, which is an amazing clinic and we are so appreciative of your time doctor. Welcome and how are things in your world?

Dr. Walk: Great, thank you.

Mike: We obviously want to talk to you today about ALS research because you are someone that is deeply involved in that field and, in addition to your work with individuals and families in the ALS clinic, we want to talk about your own research in a little bit here, but first I want to more broadly address the state of ALS research. So, this summer we're marking the fifth anniversary of the original ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which was obviously the most transformative event in the disease's history. The 220 million dollars raised globally provided funding for a wave of new projects and initiatives - in your opinion, which area of ALS research do you think has made the most significant progress as a result of all those dollars that came in from ice bucket?

Dr. Walk: Well, first I want to emphasize that in addition to the funding for research I think ice bucket was important because it raises awareness, raised awareness of ALS among the general population substantially and also you know it raises awareness of ALS amongst those who are starting a career in research. People are finishing their training, have lots of opportunities to use the tools they've acquired, and if they know that there's a lot of excitement, interest, enthusiasm, progress,and funding in ALS research, that gives them more reason to work in an ALS research lab, to grow into their own lab, and to really contribute to the field. So, I think that that awareness is important not only in the general community, but also amongst scientists. 

There are a few things I think that are critically important in terms of where things are going with fundamental biology in ALS research because if you don't understand a problem it's a lot harder to solve it.There's a greater understanding of the relevance of aggregates of proteins and cells the basically clumps of molecules that are not in the right orientation that are not able to do what they're supposed to be doing and that are clumping other proteins in the process. That's probably a really really important part of the problem. We know more about that than we have in the past.There may be a problem with them getting back and forth between two different compartments in the cell so I think that basic biology is critical and I think more has been learned about that. 

A lot of attention has also been focused on genetics, as you're likely aware, even though most people with ALS do not have an obvious genetic basis. Our understanding of the genes that can lead to ALS tells us a lot about how the disease can develop and there are probably a lot of other genes there that are relevant to severity or other aspects of ALS so I think those are among the things that have become high profile in the past five years.

Mike: You mentioned the genetic side and I want to ask you about a term that I think a lot of people hear and may not necessarily be aware of what it means and kind of how it impacts research and that is the word biomarkers. Can you just explain what a biomarker is and how that plays into research?

Dr. Walk: Sure. So, biomarker is basically a test, if you will, that tells you something important about a person's condition. There are lots of kinds of biomarkers. For example, the diagnostic biomarker helps us understand whether a person has a condition or not, a progression biomarker tells us how is this moving forward or how's a person's condition changing, a prognostic biomarker will tell us on the day that we do the tests what the likelihood is that somebody's condition will get worse quickly or stay stable or be relatively mild. A prognostic or I'm sorry a predictive biomarker will tell us whether a particular treatment is or is not likely to be helpful. These are extremely valuable and I'll give you a few examples 

Mike: Please.

Dr. Walk: outside of ALS. For example, in multiple sclerosis MRI scans have proven very very valuable in telling us how active a person's MS is. There are parts of the brain where they may not develop symptoms, but the MRI will show us that a person's condition is very active or not.

Mike: Okay.

Dr. Walk: That's been really important in developing treatments for MS because if the MRI gets better, the treatment is probably working. In cancer, as you're probably aware, there are certain cell surface markers that you can test on a biopsy to determine whether a person's cancer will respond to a particular treatment or not. Some of these treatments are extremely effective for somebody who has that marker and ineffective for somebody who doesn't. So, that's a sort of predictive biomarker.

We don't have things like this in ALS and there's been a lot of progress in developing them, but those sorts of biomarkers can be extremely valuable in helping us treat people living with ALS.

Mike: And it's reasonable to assume I suppose that if you're able to identify more of those biomarkers those can provide targets for potential therapies and treatments that are either in the pipeline or being developed down the road?

Dr. Walk: Absolutely.

Mike: That's promising to hear something like that. Just getting back to the Ice Bucket Challenge briefly, for many folks who are learning about this type of research for the first time and aren't necessarily aware of the complexities of how neurological research go; they're wondering - we raised all this money, how come we haven't uncovered more treatments or a cure? You got that 220 million dollars,really, what does it take and how would you explain to them and sort of the nuance of this type of disease research?

Dr. Walk: Well, I'm not sure that anybody knows when, where, or how, you know, the great breakthrough is going to come in any condition like this, but again I would simply reemphasize that much of the difficulty with ALS is we don't understand enough of what's actually happening and why it's happening in the cells and how to fix it and so a lot of clinical research that we do, trying out new treatments for example, is based upon some pretty good hunches, but that's what they are. They're not targeted to a guaranteed cause of disease and so I think a lot of what is playing out is a better understanding of what actually causes ALS and I think that's gonna be really really really important.

Mike: And I've heard from some of your colleagues that they believe when we do have significant treatments that are going to slow ALS down, there's not gonna be one that works for a vast majority of people it's probably going to be several or some kind of cocktail that depending on your form of ALS, and your progression, will hopefully slow the disease down for you, is that right?

Dr. Walk: I don't think we know. That's one thought and again, in cancer, in multiple sclerosis, you know, that applies. I still hold out hope that there would be some magic detergent that would undo the aggregates and if these aggregates actually are causing the disease that would be a major breakthrough regardless of what triggers your disease. 

That said, for example, people with genetic forms might have treatments that are targeted to that particular gene, whereas people with non-genetic forms not so much. So, I think time will tell we just need better treatments, better answers, and I don't care if it's a cocktail or one magic bullet as long as it happens fast.

Mike: Magic detergent, I like that. I'm going to use that going forward. I want to ask you about your own clinical research in a moment doctor, but first just a bit on clinical trials.There has been a fair amount of frustration in the ALS community recently about access to clinical trials and it seems like much of it's related to restrictions based on either disease progression or date of diagnosis, things like that. How can we address that?

Dr. Walk: So that's a fundamental dilemma in ALS clinical trials and development of ALS treatments because on the one hand if a potential treatment has a moderate benefit you've got a much better chance of seeing that benefit if you enroll what we would call a homogeneous population: a group of people who have, and I think this is kind of the emerging paradigm, who are relatively early in their disease course, clearly getting worse, and similar in certain respects to each other, if you will. Historically, when we've enrolled a wide variety of individuals living with ALS in clinical trials, we've learned that a meaningful proportion don't get any worse over the course of the trial, just normally. In other words, there are some people who have thankfully slowly progressive ALS. Well, if you're trying to show that something has a say thirty to fifty percent benefit, which is not a cure, but is still something important, and 25 percent of the people in the study weren't gonna get any worse at all, thankfully, it's gonna be really hard to prove that benefit. 

So, these are reasons why the clinical trials seem to be getting more and more restrictive. The converse of that dilemma, the other the other horn of that dilemma of course, is number one people who are graciously enthusiastic about participating in studies are not able to participate in those and you could still make the argument that if you prove that something works in a very limited proportion of people living with ALS, how do you know that you can generalize that to everybody? That's another kind of logistical problem, but we all love to have that problem of having ten or twenty treatments that seem to work in ten or twenty percent of people with ALS, then we can try to generalize that and find out with time.

Mike: Sure, that makes sense. Along those lines, folks that have experienced placebo portions of studies and you hear about historical control versus placebo, you understand the science behind it obviously, is there a way that we can get move away from more of those placebo studies or is that just the nature of the research?

Dr. Walk: So, there are a few ways to address that. First of all, I want to state very clearly that participation in clinical trials is a courageous act to help everybody living with ALS and is no guarantee of benefit and there have been trials in the past in which the people who got the proposed treatment did worse than people who were receiving placebo. So, it's really important that people understand that they are contributing their time and they're courageously contributing themselves to this effort. It is no guarantee of individual benefit. But, to your point, I also recognize the participation in clinical trials for a very good reason provides hope and there are ways of working around the placebo issue. 

So, for example, one way is what's called open label extensions. So, several clinical trials will say we are very grateful for your participation, after this six-month study is over until we either know that it works and is approved by the FDA and is available to everybody or know that it doesn't work, if you would like to go on the active drug or treatment we will provide it to you free of charge. So, an open label extension is a little bit of a kind of encouragement that regardless of whether you're in the placebo group or not, we will offer it to you if it turns out it might ultimately prove beneficial. 

Another approach is to change the randomization, so instead of having half of the people receiving placebo and have receiving treatment, you can often statistically still do good quality science and offer the treatment to two-thirds of people and the placebo to one-third. So, by changing the randomization, people feel as though they have a better opportunity statistically. 

Another way of doing that is to have, what's being developed is called a platform trial, where you can share the placebo group amongst several studies so you might be evaluating three or four or five different treatments in the same platform and so if there are five different treatments you may only need one out of five people to be on placebo and that group is used as the placebo group for each of the five studies. There are some limitations to that, but you know the point is that that allows us to provide some potentially effective treatment to a larger proportion of people. 

Finally for, and I think this is important to emphasize, for people who do not qualify for clinical trials and are interested in certain compounds or treatments, and I I put it that way because not every treatment is a drug, there are emerging opportunities, which are still not wide open, but these include of course expanded access programs and some of the changes that have come through right to try. Not guarantees of access, but more than was previously the case. 

There is also conversation about, if resources permitted, enrolling people who might not qualify for the clinical trial, as a separate group for two purposes. So, say for example you have a clinical trial of drug X and you have a hundred people who qualify for the study and three hundred people who don't, but all four hundred want to try drug X. If, again, the resources are there you could say to those other three hundred: we'll give you a drug X, we guarantee it's drug X, or maybe we'll do a placebo controlled study for you as well. You won't qualify and your outcomes won't be part of the major research study that will be sent to the FDA however, this allows us more opportunity to learn just in general about the safety of the drug. It allows us more opportunity to learn in general about the generalizability of its potential benefit. In other words, will it help people who wouldn't have been candidates for the study, and will give you an opportunity to participate on some level. So, that's another way that under some circumstances might expand access to therapeutic trials.

Mike: Thank you for that breakdown, that's really helpful to have those multiple perspectives on really what's being done to kind of address the the frustration that people are experiencing. In talking about the number of ways that these studies are evolving and trying to maybe branch out a little bit from the traditional methods of placebo and historical control, those sort of things,do you find that clinicians and researchers are more open to trying new things and exploring different avenues given what we're trying to do in ALS research?

Dr. Walk: A couple of ways of answering that. I think there's a greater recognition of the interest in being able to participate, which is tremendous even if somebody doesn't fulfill certain criteria. So, to the extent that there are a lot of conversations about finding ways to take advantage of that interest, yes. 

The other thing that's happened, I think, in recent years is that there's been an increasing recognition of the opportunity to utilize our connectedness. So, for example, Rick Bedlack, who spoke here last year, is a very creative guy and has taken advantage of things like PatientsLikeMe or other connectedness that is bubbling up from people living with ALS and saying hey I'd like to evaluate this particular intervention, the science might be more challenging to do it this way, but let's just do a study, send us your data, find a way to try to at least learn something from what people are doing on their own anyway. If people are going to be doing it on their own, we should take advantage of the opportunity to learn more for the entire community.

Another approach, which was done by Michael Benatar, who's a brilliant neurologist at University Miami, was in studying a treatment for a rapidly progressive form of ALS, recognizing that it would be very difficult for people to travel to Miami or to Atlanta or other sites, tried to again to kind of gather data locally after enrolling people in the study. 

So, there are ways to try to expand access to clinical research that weren't available in the past, particularly when we have so many people who either have a great deal of difficulty with mobility and travel or who live in rural communities far from any sort of ALS center.

Mike: Right, and the power of the internet and being able to crowdsource some of that data as well as communicate more quickly and easily I'm sure is making a difference in how research is conducted.

Dr. Walk: Right and it also allows us to study and try to treat rarer forms of ALS. So, again, using the example of Dr. Benatar's study, if you're looking for you know a particular type of a particular genetic form of ALS and there might only be a very small number throughout the country, you have to reach out to people and have a way, have to have a way of communicating with them.

Mike: Sure, sure, that makes sense. For those that are looking for new trials and maybe not having any luck or aren't aware of the best avenues to search what what advice would you give them?

Dr. Walk: Right, so all clinical trials in the US are required to be listed on clinicaltrials.gov so it's clinicaltrials, one word, dot gov. And, in there you can put in filters so you could say Minnesota or a 500 mile radius of your zip code and put in ALS, you can put in actively recruiting or not recruiting, you can put in observational studies or basically studies to learn more about ALS or you could only put in treatment studies. Okay? So, you can use clinicaltrials.gov to get a very accurate, very comprehensive view of what's available.

I also like to let people know that there are some more consumer-friendly ways to access that information because clinicaltrials.gov is very comprehensive, has a certain amount of medicalees, they don't make much of an effort to...

Mike: It can be kind of overwhelming I'm sure.

Dr. Walk: Yeah, exactly, so you know ALS Association also has on their website information about clinical trials that are available. Another one that I like very much is ALS.net which is ALS TDI's website, if you drill down to trials to research in ALS.net, again they have the active trials listed in a way that's a little easier to understand. I'm sure MDA does as well. 

So, there are other resources, but very easy to find out what's available by going online.

Mike: That's great to know, thanks for that. I want you to tell us doctor a little bit about the research that you're leading and we're fortunate to be in a region with some pretty amazing facilities, one of them being the University of Minnesota and we've got the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Talk about what you've got going on and kind of what you're seeing from that.

Dr. Walk: Right. First of all, we have tremendous resources in terms of clinical care in the Dakotas and in Minnesota. Within the Twin Cities we've established what we call the Twin Cities ALS research consortium because there are research projects going on at Hennepin County Medical Center, at the University, at Health Partners, and we're all colleagues at the University in terms of faculty assignment, but we want to be sure we're working collaboratively with people interested in research. 

So, the consortium basically presents all of the active trials at all three sites to all of the people that we see in our clinics and will refer them to whichever site is running a trial that they're interested in and that they qualify for. So, currently we have about five interventional and three or four observational studies that are still open at these sites. Some of them are finishing up, some of them are starting up, but we make every effort to work very collaboratively and of course we notify people of the studies that have been done at Mayo as well. 

At the University we have got a few things that are centered at our site. One is a three site study to investigate a way of slowing down the disease with a supplement. Another is funded by the ALS Association, which we're proud of and very pleased to have received, and that is a study of a technique to help with breathing and we hope speech and swallowing in ALS. A rather straightforward, simple technique and we're well into our second year of that two year project. So, a lots happening and we're very very grateful to people who are willing and able to participate.

Mike (narration): Thanks again to Dr. Walk for the time and the informative discussion. I know I learned quite a bit, I hope you did as well.

We're gonna keep things moving and jump right into a conversation led by one of the youngest ALS advocates you'll ever meet.Nine-year-old Serena Robb has lost both her grandmother and aunt to ALS and naturally has been curious about different aspects of the disease so she sat down with Anne Supplee, a Care Services Coordinator at the ALS Association, to ask a few questions.

Anne: Well, hi Serena, thanks for coming in today.

Serena: Uh, hi! (laughs) Today, I'm gonna ask you some questions about ALS.

Anne: Okay, what did you want to ask me?

Serena: If my family member can't speak or swallow, how will they eat?

Anne: That is a very good question. So, one of the first things that people do when they start having trouble swallowing is they puree the food, so they mash it up in a blender and make it more like a milkshake consistency, so they can they can swallow it more easily. 

The other thing is there is something called Thick-It and it's like a powder that you put in liquids to make them a little thicker. It's easier to swallow thick things than super thin, like water is one of the hardest things to swallow. 

And then, if they still are having trouble swallowing they can get a feeding tube and that's a tube that goes right into your tummy and they pour liquid nourishment down the tube. So, like cans of protein and vitamins and that kind of thing.

Serena: Do people with ALS sleep in their wheelchairs? Do you have to get them out of their chair to go to bed?

Anne: Well, some people do sleep in their wheelchairs and that is not very comfortable. So, some people just find it easier to sleep in their wheelchair because the wheelchairs are made for them and they can lean back and put their feet up, but it's really you get a better night's sleep if they get out of the wheelchair and into bed.

Serena: Adults talk a lot about grief, do I need to worry about what's going to happen?

Anne: Grief is a very complicated thing. Did you see the movie Inside Out?

Serena: Yeah.

Anne: Yeah? With all those emotions? So, that's kind of what I think about with grief like it's a little bit of sadness and a little bit of anxiousness and nervousness and kind of all rolled up in one. 

What, what would you be worried about happening? I guess I'm, I would just kind of want to clarify the second part of the question. Was there anything specific?

Serena: Like, what's it gonna look like or feel like when it happens?

Anne: When somebody has ALS?

Serena: Yeah or when they die?

Anne: Oh, when they die. Yeah. So,actually that's a really good point that, there's grief sort of all along the ALS journey because people get, are, people really feel the loss of not being able to walk. They grieve not being able to walk or maybe not being able to eat. 

One of the things that people talk about is not being able to hug people and that that's really hard.

Serena: Oh.

Anne: Yeah.

Serena: That's sad.

Anne: It is and it's really hard for people not to be able to do that. And then when the person dies, there's a whole different kind of grief and sometimes, usually it's a lot of tears,most of us cry when we're sad. Some of us get angry. 

The other thing that happens is people get really forgetful. Like, they just don't remember things or feel really spacey and forget to do homework or forget a meeting that they have at work and that's also really typical of grief where you just kind of kind of feel like you're losing your mind a little bit. So, grief is really complicated and it can last forever, really. I mean my dad died, not of ALS, but my dad died nine years ago and I still think about him and I still miss him sometimes.

Serena: Yeah, same thing with my grandma and my aunt.

Anne: Yeah, and you you probably have more memories of your aunt than your grandma. Cause you were pretty little when your grandma died, right?

Serena: Yeah.

Anne: But, you can also miss somebody that you didn't know very well. Like, you can just miss not having a grandma.

Serena: Yeah.

Anne: Does that happen sometimes too?

Serena: A little bit.

When I get sick, I take medicine to get better. Can't people with ALS just take medicine to get better?

Anne: Unfortunately, they can't. We don't yet have a way to make ALS go away or fix it or make it better. There are a couple medications that people take to slow down the ALS a little bit, but we really don't know what to do yet to make ALS go away.

Serena: When I have questions, who do I go to to ask?

Anne: Yeah, that's a great question.I would encourage you to talk to your parents first or maybe another family member that you trust.

Serena: Okay.

Anne: There are also teachers or coaches, maybe your Girl Scout leader, any anyone that you think you feel comfortable talking with and who might be helpful to you. And then the ALS Association is always here, you're always welcome to call and say "I have a question" and we'll do our best to answer it.

Mike (narration): Well, Serena is obviously a very bright and thoughtful young person and it's clear that she's going to do her part to make this world a better place and to advance the fight against ALS. We cannot thank her enough for coming onto the podcast to chat so thank you again Serena. 

For the last segment of this episode, my colleague Kristin Wallock and I met with Beau Bedore, a speech-language pathologist and assistive technology expert at the VA here in the Twin Cities. I think that's putting that lightly; when you hear from Beau you'll hear what a wizard he is about this kind of stuff. Kristin heads up our chapter's communication and assistive device program and she and Beau go back and forth discussing some of the details about how far smart home technology has come in the last few years and what that means for those living with ALS. 

And just as a side note, before you listen to the segment, I want to point out that the VA and the ALS Association do offer different services in their respective programs so if you're someone who may be interested in learning more about smart home resources I encourage you to check in with your local chapter of the ALS Association or the VA in your area.

Mike (at VA): We're on campus at the Spinal Cord Injury and Disorders Center at the Minneapolis VA Health Care Headquarters today. Did I get that correct?

Beau: Close enough, Mike.

Mike: Okay. and I am joined by Beau Bedore of the VA and Kristin Wallock, my colleague at the ALS Association. Hello to the two of you and welcome to the podcast.

Kristin: Good morning.

Beau: Good morning. Welcome to the Minneapolis VA Healthcare System.

Mike: Thank you. We are we're happy to be here. We've got some really interesting things to dig into today, but to start with could each of you tell us a little bit about your respective roles to give our audience some context.

Beau: So, my name is Beau Bedore and my clinical background is that of a speech-language pathologist. I started as a medical trainee here at the Minneapolis VA when I was a graduate student at the University of Minnesota. I was here when the Spinal Cord injury and Disorder Center opened in 2007. And just in the last two years I am now acting as the Program Director of the Spinal Cord Injury and Disorder Center - Assistive Technology Program. 

So, our whole mission, which ties in really well with that at the ALS Association, is to help individuals with spinal cord injuries and disorders have access to technology solutions to promote health, well-being,and functional independence.

Mike: Sure. Thank you for that. Kristin, how about you?

Kristin: I'm Kristin Wallock. I'm a Care Services Coordinator here at the ALS Association. I'm clinically trained as an Occupational Therapist and I've been working in that capacity for over 17 years. I'm currently managing the Hrbek-Sing Communication & Assistive Technology here at the ALS Association. So...

Mike: You're our tech expert, that's how I talk about you. Tech wizard is the term I think I use and that's how I'd probably describe both of you. We're talking about technology today and you're both obviously entrenched in that world and many of the assistive devices that you work with every day are really considered cutting-edge and in a very rapidly changing and evolving marketplace. 

Were either of you tech enthusiasts before you got into this work? Did you realize that you'd be kind of this deep into technology?

Kristin: No.

Mike: Short answer is no from Kristin.

Beau: I agree with Kristin. I think when I entered the field I had no idea that on a day-to-day basis I'd be working primarily with state-of-the-art technology like this.

Mike: Sure, but as you've gained the experience and grown into your roles, do you feel like now, even in your everyday life, you're embracing tech on a higher level?

Kristin: Absolutely, absolutely. I always say that it's a part-time job staying on top of all the emerging technology and it's critical to those that we serve to make sure that we do stay on top of that.

Beau: I couldn't agree more. I think that all of us use technology in our daily lives and if you can imagine what it would be like not to have access to that technology, that would be a huge limitation. And, so, much out of necessity in the patients that we work with, we have to stay on top of this ever-changing field.

Mike: That makes a lot of sense given how quickly these products become obsolete and how quickly the whole field is advancing. When you consider how ALS impacts the body, robbing you of muscular function and, in many cases, your ability to verbally communicate -clinicians, like the two of you, have been searching for answers in the form of technology. Things like speech generating devices, Eyegaze systems, environmental controls; one area that has really taken off over the last three years is smart home tech and more recently it's become a very solid option for people living with ALS. 

Kristin, the Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Chapter of the ALS Association now has a smart home program. Can you talk a little bit about how that program came about?

Kristin: Yes. So, a couple of years ago we decided to roll out our smart home program, as a pilot, as we knew the potential that it had to impact those living with ALS. And I would say that this program has been widely successful much due to the support that we've had from our donors and from our agreement with Best Buy who have a big part in setting up training and providing ongoing tech support for those living with ALS.

Mike: With Best Buy, was that something where Best Buy came to the Association and said we have this idea or was it more you were exploring the idea of smart home and thought is there a good local partner or a good national partner that we could work with on this?

Kristin: Yes. We sought out Best Buy and they were very desirable because they were able to serve individuals living with ALS in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

Mike: Okay, Beau, I want to ask you a similar question in a moment, but first Kristin can you tell us what kind of products are offered through the smart home program at the Association?

Kristin: Absolutely. Currently we are providing the Amazon Echo, the Amazon Echo Dot, the TP-Link plugs, the Harmony Hub, the Echo Connect, and also the Canary.

Mike: The Canary and that's a camera right? A smart camera that

Kristin: In-home security, correct.

Mike: Beau, here at the VA, when was it that smart home gadgetry really entered your purview.

Beau: So, when we built this Assistive Technology Lab back in 2007, many of the smart home technology solutions were actually dedicated devices and many of them functioned as both speech generating devices with infrared controls that could be used for home control of say a television. In the last three to four years there's been a dramatic increase in smart home technology becoming more commercially available so, even if we think about the technology that we have in our homes, it's designed in a universal fashion where everybody's using it. 

So, what we've done from a clinical standpoint is we've really sought out ways that we can use these commercially available solutions to improve the functional independence, safety, and quality of life of individuals living with ALS. And, so, just like Kristin said, at last count there were probably six Amazon Echo devices that are available and they're adding more new product lines all the time and we provide a variety of those options through our Center in addition to the Google Home products that are available.

Mike: Wow. And it's, I'm sure it's a lot. We've already mentioned a few times, there's so much to keep up with and these products are being added and changed and iterated on at all times. 

For the two of you, what are you hearing about the biggest benefits of smart home equipment for both people living with ALS as well as their caregivers?

Beau: So, when I think about the functions that are most useful or, in terms of the feedback that we get, that have the greatest impact on their lives; I think it comes down to being able to control lighting and their environment, things like the television, but another huge feature that I see is imperative for individuals with ALS are the communication features. 

So, what I really like about the Amazon Echo smart speakers is that they have incredibly powerful communication features like drop-in, voice calling, as well as the ability to create an interconnected intercom system within one's home. And so, I have family members of individuals with ALS where they'll go out shopping to the grocery market and from their phone they can remotely drop in either by audio or through a video conference link and have a connection with their loved one at home, all hands-free, all done in a matter of seconds on their devices.

Mike: That must provide a lot of peace of mind for folks leaving the home and, knowing that their loved one's gonna be there, that they can check in with them via both audio and video at any time.

Beau: You can't imagine, that's the consistent feedback that we hear from caregivers and spouses is the peace of mind that it affords them because they want to be there for their loved one and oftentimes they feel like they can't leave and so having that option to be able to run a quick errand and know that they can check in at the drop of a hat

Mike: Right, that means a lot.

Beau: is invaluable.

Mike: That means a lot. Kristin what are you hearing at the Association?

Kristin: So, just to kind of add on to what Beau said, I think that that's been incredibly helpful for our individuals living with ALS as well because with the Respite Program, for example, families are often afraid to leave their loved one at home, but with that technology they feel safe to do so.

Mike: And, are they doing that mostly using the smart hubs that had the cameras built-in or is it a combination of the Canary, like you mentioned? Is it both, and?

Kristin: Both.

Mike: Okay, okay. And all of these devices or most of these devices have apps that run that interface with smartphones, is that correct?

Beau: So, I think what we see most common in the field is we're using the Amazon Echo Show or the Amazon Echo Spot, both of which are smart speakers that have a camera and video conferencing capability. The Echo Show has a 10-inch screen, which is really great, and then the smaller Echo Spots have a two and a half inch screen, but both allow you to see the person on the other end of the call and I think that's a really important distinction for people to understand between the Amazon Echo speakers and the Google Home speakers. 

The Google Home Hub, which is a video display, does not allow you to see the caller on the other end because there's no built-in camera. So, that's a really important distinguishing feature in my mind when we consider the two different product lines.

Mike: Right and I want I do want to ask you about the differences in just a moment here, before we get that far down the line. I think when people hear Smart Home, Alexa immediately pops into mind.

Beau: Certainly.

Mike: And those Echo devices that you mentioned, the Google Home devices, these things seem to be everywhere and how much have those in particular, which in many ways act as the kind of brain or hub of a smart home system, how have they changed the landscape because that seemed like a really big jump.

Beau: Yes, so what you're really talking about is the virtual assistant software. Amazon brands their virtual assistant as Alexa and Google brands their virtual assistant as Google Assistant. And, so, Alexa is a female only voice whereas Google Assistant you can have a male or female voice. 

I think in terms of the accuracy or the intelligence of the virtual assistant, they're very comparable. If you read some of the tech blogs people will say that Google Assistant's search query features, so for instance if I want to know where a nearby movie is playing or if I want to ask it a specific question, it's using Google Analytics in their search engine to pull that data and so a lot of tech columnist would give Google the upper hand in that arena. 

However, the Amazon system and Alexa uses what's called Far-Field Voice Recognition and so once you learn the command structure, the accuracy is incredible and people catch on to it very quickly. So I think, at the end of the day, they're they're very comparable, but I would give the virtual assistant of Amazon the upper hand in that there are many more functions and abilities and that's where we'll get into talking about the skills and what you can do when you integrate these smart speakers with some of the other technologies and products that are available.

Mike: Sure and I don't I don't want to ask you personally which is your favorite, I suppose that's a little bit like asking you to pick your favorite child. You've got Alexa and Google Home and Smart Things and Apple HomeKit in Siri. Kristin, would you say Alexa is probably more widely used at the Association as well?

Kristin: Absolutely.

Mike: Okay. Do families that you work with in most cases are they asking you which should I choose or are they saying I want Alexa or I want Google Home or what are you hearing?

Kristin: I would say it's rare that we receive are quest for the Google Home. People are generally more interested in the Echo.

Mike: Yeah. It seems to be more popular just anecdotally.

Beau: And certainly, if you are an Android user and you're a Google loyalist, you might have a particular interest in that product line, but what I think is really unique about whether it's the Google Home products or the Amazon Echo speakers; either system can run on any other smart devices whether it's iOS or Android, they have apps available on both app stores, and so where I tend to focus the conversation is really on the features and functions that they want. And strictly speaking if we had to compare the Amazon features to the Google Home features at this point Amazon is gonna win everyday.

Mike: Okay, okay. That's good to know. Outside of the hubs and those voice assistance which we just discussed, which type of product seems to be the most popular, most useful for families living with ALS? Is it the lighting or the Harmony Hub to control entertainment devices, the smart doorbell security cams? What are people asking for?

Kristin: I would say the lighting or the Harmony Hub.

Beau: I couldn't agree more. I think Kristin nailed it.The other product that's become very popular are the Amazon Smart Plugs and the benefit of going with a Smart Plug is if people don't want to buy the Philips Hue light bulbs, which are compatible with the various systems, they can just plug their current lamp into that Smart Plug and now they have a voice-activated light.

Mike: Oh, that's nice.

Beau: The other products Mike that are really popular would be some of the; so in addition to the Harmony Hub, which allows you to control your TV via voice, Amazon has two options that are available, the Fire TV Stick and the Fire TV Cube, and then the Google equivalent is the Google Chromecast. And then you mentioned the Canary Kristin, the two other systems that we see commonly used or requested are the Ring Video Doorbell and the Nest Hello Video Doorbell in addition to the Nest Thermostat, but again that's where we talk about a more comprehensive smart home package.

Mike: And the learning curve on this stuff because it can be a little bit intimidating to look at all these devices and say wow how am I going to set this up, how am I going to make this work, and I know we've got Best Buy and other experts helping with that, but is it something that's fairly intuitive where folks can, as they start to explore and experiment themselves, they can figure it out fairly quickly?

Beau: So, this is one area where I think that the Alexa system, at least, initially is going to require more specificity in how you give the commands. There's a particular structure that you have to adhere to, where as the Google Home virtual assistant is more intuitive and so you don't have to follow a strict structure in how you give the commands, but either system with repetition and practice I think is learnable for anyone.

Mike: Right.

Beau: Even my five-year-old wakes up in the morning and he says Alexa light on.

Mike: I know, I know. It's amazing to see young people and children embracing this stuff and just having total comfort speaking to a virtual assistant about something they want them to do.

Beau: You're absolutely right and we hear that from our from our patients. There are so many people that will come in and say "yeah, my grandson or granddaughter was over the other day and taught me how to add a shopping item to my list".

Mike: Wow, wow. That's incredible.

Kristin: Which is so great too because this smart home technology has benefits beyond just a single end-user.

Beau: Right.Mike: Yeah, yeah. One of the benefits we haven't really touched on yet is quality of life and for someone living with ALS, where their muscular function is being lost and their quality of life is inherently dropping as days and months go, being able to improve things on this scale for them is important. 

In terms of quality of life, what do you think smart home tech is doing for folks?

Beau: I think it's revolutionizing quality of life. We hear from veterans and patients with ALS all the time that talk about what a dramatic increase it's had in their quality of life because they're able to...it can be a simple Mike as not having to ask your spouse or caregiver to turn on the television or to turn on a light and you just can't imagine how much independence it gives that person when they're so reliant on everything else for someone else to do for them.

Mike: Yeah, Kristin I imagine you hear that a lot. I bet some of the families are saying to you this has been really helpful, is that what you hear?

Kristin: Absolutely, yes, just because with ALS there is so much loss and so by continuing to support one's independence in this capacity we can really support their emotional well-being and their quality of life.

Beau: I think the other thing that we should add to that Mike is just the sense of social isolation that is a risk for individuals with ALS and one of the things that we see in terms of quality of life with these smart speakers is the connectivity that it provides. So, people can connect through video conferencing, they can connect through calling and text messaging; and if you lose the ability to use your hands and you can no longer use that tablet or that smartphone, having these voice-activated speakers that are hands-free now restores that connectivity, improves social connectivity, and quality of life.

Mike: That's huge being able to give that back that means that means a lot. Thanks for elaborating on that. Beau, one question I think many of us have, I know I've been curious on this front as well, relates to privacy. You're putting all these devices with microphones and cameras actively listening and in some cases watching you, in your home. Are we being recorded? Should we be concerned about the back end of this stuff?

Beau: I think certainly with some of the recent press that's come out, it's a valid concern now more than ever. The bottom line, what I tell people, is if you're using any type of smart technology, whether it's your phone or tablet or a smart speaker, there are inherent privacy risks. And so, I think the only alternative to satisfy everybody's privacy concerns, I think, is to not use the technology or to turn off their devices. And that's certainly an option. 

Just the other day somebody was into clinic and they said "well, you know, we're gonna be having a party and some friends will be coming over," they have an Alexa system in their home, and they said "you know, what can we do about that? Should we be worried if our guests fear that they'll be being recorded?" And so, during that party they can unplug their devices and that eliminates the risk. 

The other thing that I'll mention is that these devices are programmed to listen for specific wake words. And so, with the Alexa ecosystem there are four weak words that you can give it.

Mike: Okay.

Beau: You can say "Alexa", "Amazon", "Echo" or "Computer" and those words are going to wake up the speech recognition engine that will initiate the recording process.

Mike: Right.

Beau: So, without saying those wake words, you don't have an active microphone that's recording you. Now, you do have to pay attention to the light source on the top of the devices because that is your visual cue that it's listening and so there have been instances where people, people's devices have been active and listening and they didn't realize it and so that certainly could jeopardize their privacy. 

On the flip side, with the Google products, there are really two wake words that you're listening for: "Hey, Google" and "Okay, Google". And so, again, I think if you keep in mind what the wake words are and if you watch the speakers to make sure they're not listening at an inopportune time you're gonna be just fine.

Mike: Well it's helpful to hear that and it's obviously a conversation that's going to continue and the big five tech companies your Amazons and Apples and Googles and Facebooks; privacy is more up front for them than ever before and people are concerned so it's good that they're thinking about that and addressing that and knowing that these products can have so many wonderful uses and are so convenient and life-changing, having those privacy concerns put to rest is important.

Beau: And I think it's a balance, right? You have to weigh those privacy concerns with the functions and features that it's enabling and everybody at the end of the day has to make their peace with that tension.

Mike: We've been talking a lot about these voice commands and wake words and the voice assistance, ALS is of course a condition that affects your voice in many cases. When someone ends up losing their voice over a period of time, which does happen for many folks living with the disease, are you able to then operate most of these devices either via touch on a tablet and then if hand or arm function becomes an issue is that something you can, that translates to eye gaze or are we not there yet?

Beau: No, absolutely it is Mike. So, I think what you're really talking about is scalability and there was a great framework that was introduced by Kathy Yorkston out of the University of Washington and she had been participating in a multidisciplinary ALS clinic for decades and, through her research with her team, what they found is that you can think about individuals with ALS in three different groups and the groups are based on what she called functional capabilities and those three capabilities are speech, hand function,and mobility. 

So, if we think about somebody perhaps in the earlier stages of ALS they might have adequate speech, but impaired hand function, and so for them the obvious way to access the technology is by voice, voice-activated systems. As the disease progresses another group of individuals might have impaired speech and adequate hand function and so they can use direct selection by touching the screen of a device to generate speech output that would then be able to control the devices. And I think in the final stages that last group would include individuals where their speech is impaired, their hand function is impaired, and they're wheelchair-bound. And so,that's where we consider EyeGaze speech generating devices, but the speech output, whether you're touching the screen or selecting with your eyes, is going to be able to activate the devices regardless so I think we have really good options through the whole continuum of progression.

Mike: And I have to imagine those that are working on EyeGaze software and developing that technology are now starting to take that into consideration, how is this going to interface with this smart home equipment?

Beau: And the EyeGaze technology is getting better all the time.

Mike: Kristin, for individuals that are maybe on the fence about this kind of technology, are a little bit wary, they're unsure about how to dip their toes, so to speak, in the smart home universe; what advice would you give them?

Kristin: You know, I think for a lot of people they are searching for a way to maintain the control and independence in their home environment for as long as possible and smart home technology provides a way to do that. So, when smart home technology is really being used in assistive capacity it can bridge the gap between an individual's ability and the environmental demands. So, it becomes a very useful product.

Beau: That's really well said.

Mike: You're in the clinic working with a lot of these families, you must hear about how it's going and the devices they're using and I'm not expecting you to name any names, but what are the sort of things that people tell you about their experience with the smart home tech?

Kristin: Oh, boy. There are so many people that provide positive feedback about smart home technology. Just last week, a spouse of an individual living with ALS told me that, "just so you know, the Harmony Hub saved our marriage".

Mike: Oh, wow. Wow.That's great.

Beau: That is great. You love hearing those stories.

Kristin: I know. I know.

Another family was telling me about how every morning they use their Amazon Echo to stream in a comedy series and how that's been so beneficial to them and starting the day out with a laugh because ALS can really be difficult and to, you know, utilize technology in that way and start their day that way was really amazing.

Mike: Needing those lighter moments, needing those lighter moments is important and we've mentioned entertainment and recreation a few times and I think initially, as you're approaching this, it's "well, how can I be more independent and stay safer and connect with my loved ones" and maybe secondarily those entertainment functions start to come in, but that's a really, that's a great thing.

Beau: Certainly. I mean you think about "Netflix and chill". It's become part of our modern vocabulary and so I think being able to"Netflix and chill" with your spouse or your caregiver or your kids is every bit as essential before as it is now with the diagnosis.

Mike: That's wonderful to hear. The last main thing I want to ask you about because you're both obviously tracking these products so closely. What is it that you think is next? Is it going to be kind of minor improvements or iterations to the suite of stuff we already have or is there something maybe lurking on the horizon that's going to be a game changer?

Beau: So, one recent development that got me very excited was an article that was published just last month in the journal of Nature. There is a researcher named Edward Chang out of the University of California San Francisco and he and his team published a paper on synthetic speech generation from brain recordings.

Mike: Oh, wow.

Beau: So, what we're talking about is true brain-computer interface and what they were able to do was to create a synthesized version of a person's voice, controlled by the activity of the brain speech centers and I think that's going to be just groundbreaking because certainly, in the ALS community, we do encounter individuals who are unable to use eye gaze for a number of reasons. So, then we're left with low-tech or more crude options and if we could really see that brain computer interface on the horizon I think that would give people a lot of hope.

Mike: Right, that's amazing to hear. Kristin is there anything on your mind?

Kristin: Thankfully, I think, there's now a greater level of awareness of the needs of the disabled so I think a lot of tech developers are utilizing more principles of universal design to support those of varying abilities. So, I would hope that there will be better things on the horizon.

Mike: It seems like this segment is only going to grow and we're only gonna have more options and more control and for the ALS population as well as humanity that's a, that's a good thing.

Kristin: Um, hmm.

Beau: Absolutely.

Mike: Beau, what are you hearing from veterans at the VA? As we know, veterans are about two times more likely to develop ALS so there is a large ALS population within the veteran community. What are you hearing from veterans about smart home tech?

Beau: So, recently I was out to do an installation of an Alexa system in a veteran's home and after about a month or so, when he's had an opportunity to really use it and put it through its paces, I asked him I said "you know, does this technology help you live more independently?" And his answer I thought was really illuminating. He said, "absolutely and it's a perfect fit for me as a veteran because in the military I was trained to adapt, to find a way to overcome any circumstance no matter how impossible it may seem, and trained never to give up and these adaptive devices provided by the VA fit right in to that philosophy." So, I think whether it's the ALS Association or the VA, having access to this technology helps people overcome barriers. It provides independence, quality of life, and it's changing lives.

Mike: Access is so important. Thank you for sharing that with us Beau. 

Kristin: Access is empowering.

Mike: It is, it really is. Kristin talk to us a little bit about adaptability. We've said scalability, we're throwing around a lot of words, but being able to adapt these systems is important to families. What, what do you have to say about that?

Kristin: Absolutely. The adaptability, the affordability of smart home products, the reliability, and the relative ease of use really makes these products very appealing.

Mike: Affordability is important too.

Beau: Certainly.

Mike: Ten years ago you'd be paying thousands of dollars to have these kind of products installed in your home. You'd be rewiring and going into walls and now it's you're plugging something in, and maybe you're paying 50 to $100 for it, but it's going to work right away. That's, that's nice.I think another question folks have is about the use of the internet and Wi-Fi. Not everyone is in an area where excellent broadband is available or maybe they haven't yet brought Wi-Fi into their home. Are all these products reliant on Wi-Fi? Do you need that to get started in a smart home?

Beau: Yes, they are. And I think the two concerns that I always have when we use these products for smart home technology, particularly if people are depending on them for communication. 

So, for instance, the Echo Connect allows you to take your home phone and connect it to a smart speaker so if you fall and you need to call 911 you can say Alexa call 9-1-1 and that Echo Connect product will allow for that functionality, but keep in mind that these devices are dependent on Wi-Fi and they're dependent on electrical power and so when we go into these homes to set up the systems we use the Speedtest app to test the Wi-Fi and the network settings for transmission speeds to make sure it's going to be reliable and that they have enough broadband network to support all of these different devices that are on their network and then also emphasizing that if the power goes out they are without access to their system and that is a concern that we have to be upfront about.

Kristin: Absolutely and I always mention that too when I'm talking about the Echo Connect, with individuals in clinic, just so they know it can kind of be a backup 

Beau: Yes.

Kristin: to their emergency alert system.

Mike: Beau and Kristin I want to thank you both so much for joining us on the first episode of Connecting ALS. Really valuable to have your expertise in this space and to educate our audience about these sort of products. Thank you.

Beau: What a pleasure, thank you.

Kristin: Thank you so much.

Mike (narration): Thanks so much for tuning into the debut episode of Connecting ALS. We'll be sure to put a link to the article that Beau mentioned in the show notes for those interested in reading more and we'll be back next month with a new group of experts and topics.

In the meantime, make sure you subscribe at ConnectingALS.org or wherever you get your podcasts. 

We also want to hear from you about how you think we can improve the show and which topics are most important to you, we want your feedback. You can submit questions and comments to [email protected].

Connecting ALS is produced by Garrett Tiedemann and it's brought to you by the ALS Association's Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Chapter.

Mike (at VA): Beau, can you give us some examples of some of these commands in action? I think it's one thing to hear it described, but another to see it and hear it in action. Are you able to demonstrate what some of these commands sound like?

Beau: Certainly Mike. As I mentioned earlier, lighting is one of the most desirable features that people are looking for and so on this speech-generating device that you see I have the voice commands programmed on the device so, whether the individual is touching the screen or using their eyes to make the selection, if I give it a command like 

Speech Device: Echo, room on.

Beau: it's going to power both lights on in the same room because I can name these lights to activate at the same time. Similarly if I want to control the lights individually I can name them light 1 or light 2 and then my voice command becomes 

Speech Device: Echo, light 1 on.

Beau: The other feature that patients and families like if they want to set the mood is that you can dim the lights to a certain percentage so if we want to bring the lighting down to 50% we can give it the command 

Speech Device: Echo, room 50%.

#alsawarenessmonth #endals #TalkALStome #als association #health #wellness #alexa #smart home #clinical trials #caregiving #podcast #transcript #nature #veterans #lou gehrig #debut episode #debut #university of minnesota #neural #spoken #spokenword #decoding #decode #demystifying #ConnectingALS #connect #ryan tofteland #Dr. David Walk #Beau Bedore #minneapolis

[marjaystuff]

Elise Cooper Interviews with Joseph Finder

House on Fire by Joseph Finder brings back private investigator Nick Heller. This story of greed and family dynamics follows the relatives who have a vested interest in a pharmaceutical company that manufactures Oxycontin and Oxycodone.  Finder brilliantly explores how these drugs can be addicting, but also shows the other side, those patients that need the pills to cope with their pain.

The story opens with Nick receiving devastating news: his old army buddy Sean has died of an overdose. Sean, who once saved Nick’s life, became addicted to opioids after returning home wounded from the Afghanistan war. While at the funeral Nick is approached by one of the daughters, Susan Kimball, who wants him to find a devastating piece of evidence that shows her family’s pharmaceutical company knew the drug was addictive. Posing as her latest boyfriend, he attends a family gathering at the Kimball estate, where Conrad Kimball supposedly has the only copy of the Oxycontin and Oxycodone drug trial that was buried because of its explosive contents. While there, Nick runs into one of his old flames who was hired to find the matriarch’s will. Nothing goes as planned and to make matters worse after someone is killed, Nick realizes that the family members will do anything to protect their dynasty.

This thrilling plot has readers on the edge of their seats as the tension increases with each page. Although all of Finder’s books are captivating the Nick Heller stories seem to be a notch above.

Elise Cooper:  How did you get the idea for the story?

Joseph Finder:  I wanted to write a story about a family.  I am from a family of five children and as we get older the dynamics between the siblings have changed.  I read how some families made their money on Opioids and decided to have Nick investigate them. Instead of focusing on the business side, I dealt with the personal side.  

EC:  What about veterans and Opioids?

JF:  This is a serious crisis.  I did want to show both sides.  It is perfect for veteran Nick Heller.  Because of his military background he would know people who the Opioid crisis has affected.  I spoke with a couple of Special Forces personnel and those who treat vets to get it right, but also make the story feel real.  

EC:  Something that has not been talked about a lot was written in the story?

JF: You are referring to Breacher Syndrome. Repeated exposure to low level blasts can cause traumatic brain injury.  Nick’s friend Sean came back from Afghanistan with terrible headaches and shooting pain in his forehead. He also started getting regular migraines. It is similar to a boxer who keeps getting punched with blows to the head. A VA doctor prescribed Oxycodone to him and he was hooked.

EC:  Suicide versus overdose?

JF:  The problem is that someone who stops taking Opioids and then starts up again can overdose. They will not be used to taking the same amount as they had before. Nick is unsure if Sean died from a suicide or relapsed.

EC:  How would you describe Susan?

JF:  Artsy, Bohemian, talented, wealthy, smart, manipulative, and hard to figure out.

EC:  How would you describe Nick?

JF:  He hates bullies, and is contrarian. He likes to take care of people, sometimes going too far.  Nick demands justice.  I think in this book readers saw more of a philosophical side and are able to get deeper into his thoughts.  He wants to set things right and is driven by righteous anger.  

EC:  One of the characters compares people to dogs?

JF:  The Kingpin’s fiancé Natalya is a dog lover and sees everything through their eyes.  To her, Nick is a sheepdog because he is willing to protect the flock and is a guard dog. One of the sons, Paul, is compared to a Chow Chow because they appear to be friendly but are actually biting dogs.

EC:  Are you a dog person?

JF:  Yes.  I think real dog people resemble their dogs with a similar personality.  For example, I have a friend who I think is a Golden Retriever because he is always happy.  I would be a Labrador Retriever because they are devoted and loyal.  They are a great dog.

EC:  Can you explain this book quote by Sean, “We all get wounded and we all take our scars with us.  And if we don’t accept our scars, we haven’t really healed.”

JF:  It is in the context of Sean’s life and death.  It is repeated throughout the book.  People have to accept the scars and keep going instead of dwelling on them.  They need to move forward, which I think is a lesson learned later in life.

EC:  What about your next books?

JF:  A stand-alone out next year, but I am not ready to talk about it yet. There will be another Nick Heller book in a few years.

THANK YOU!!

[bountyofbeads]

🚨 🚨 BREAKING NEWS ALERT 🚨 🚨 House approves measure limiting Trump’s authority to take further military action against Iran

By Karoun Demirjian | Published Jan. 09 at 6:21 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 09, 2020 |

The House passed a war powers resolution Thursday seeking to limit President Trump’s ability to take military action against Iran without congressional approval.

The 224 to 194 vote fell largely along party lines, with only three Republicans and Republican-turned-independent Justin Amash (Mich.) voting for the resolution from Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.). Eight Democrats opposed the measure, which instructs Trump “to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces to engage in hostilities in or against Iran or any part of its government or military” unless Congress has made a declaration of war or there is “an imminent armed attack upon the United States.”

The vote comes just a day after the administration’s top national security officials met with lawmakers behind closed doors to discuss the intelligence and decision-making that informed Trump’s order to kill top Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, who was responsible for the deaths of more than 600 U.S. troops since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Yet Democrats and a handful of Republicans emerged from those briefings so frustrated by the administration’s refusal to fully engage Congress that it fueled new momentum behind efforts to restrain Trump’s actions as commander in chief when it comes to Iran.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a close Trump ally who has publicly defended the strike, spent a significant amount of time following Wednesday’s briefings in discussions with House Democrats about fine-tuning the resolution. On Thursday, he announced on the floor that he would support it.

“I support the president, killing Soleimani was the right decision. But engaging in another forever war in the Middle East would be the wrong decision,” Gaetz said, announcing his yes vote.

But the critical forum is the Senate, where Democrats are in the minority and will need the help of at least four Republicans to pass a similar war powers resolution from Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), which could come up for a vote as early as next week. Republican Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Rand Paul (Ky.) committed to supporting Kaine’s resolution upon exiting the administration’s briefing Wednesday, after administration officials failed to specify when, if ever, they might seek Congress’s approval for military strike.

“They struggled to identify anything,” Lee told reporters, complaining that the officials instead communicated that lawmakers “need to be good little boys and girls and run along and not debate this in public. I find that absolutely insane. I think it’s unacceptable.”

Kaine said Thursday that he is discussing his resolution with Sens. Susan Collins (R-Me.) and Todd C. Young (R-Ind.), in addition to Lee and Paul, each of whom has proposed changes to the text — such as removing language that specifically addresses Trump by name — that could help build a critical mass to get it across the Senate floor.

Procedurally, it is likely that the House will have to take up the Senate’s resolution, should it pass in that Chamber, in order to send Trump a war powers resolution that has the weight of potential law. It is also extremely likely that the president will veto it — and that Congress will not be able to muster the votes to override that veto.

But Kaine sounded undeterred Thursday about that ultimate prospect, arguing that Congress could still influence Trump’s thinking, even if supporters cannot override his veto. As evidence, he pointed to last year’s experience when Congress voted to invoke its war powers to curtail U.S. support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen.

“He vetoed it, we couldn’t override it. But he stopped doing what we were complaining about. It had an impact,” Kaine said, noting that the administration stopped refueling Saudi jets. “President Trump may not care about Congress, but he does care about the American public … and if he sees a strong vote on this, and it goes to him, it’s an expression not just of what we think but of what our constituents think.”

At this point however, Republicans and Democrats remain bitterly divided over whether Trump’s strike was prudent and justified, or illegal and reckless, with the dispute coming down to whether Soleimani posed such an imminent threat to warrant going after him without the consent of Congress.

The administration has argued that it had a right to target Soleimani under the Congress’ 2002 authorization for use of military force in Iraq and the president’s constitutional right to self-defense of troops directly and imminently in harm’s way. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that the House would vote to repeal the 2002 AUMF “soon.”

The war powers resolutions going through Congress recognize an exception for an imminent threat, but Democrats are not buying the Trump administration’s argument that one existed — and are upset with the administration for withholding intelligence from lawmakers that could inform their determination.

“We deserve the respect from the administration, and the Congress deserves by dint of the Constitution, the requirement of the Constitution, to consult Congress,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday, arguing that the administration’s justification for the strike should be redacted and made available to the American public as there was “no reason for it to be classified.”

Republicans, meanwhile, have endorsed the administration’s approach, arguing that “this Congress leaks like the Titanic,” as Sen. John D. Kennedy (R-La.) put it, and thus could not always be trusted with the most sensitive information.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) argued Thursday that the administration’s briefers had provided lawmakers all the information they needed to support the strike.

“In terms of where there is an imminent threat, General Milley was compelling and chilling about what was going to happen and what had happened,” Graham said, referring to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, who briefed lawmakers Wednesday along with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and CIA director Gina Haspel.

“I think a third grader could have believed there was an imminent threat coming from the man that we killed,” Graham said.

Republicans are also warning their colleagues against voting for the war powers resolutions, arguing they are “only intended to try to undermine the president in the middle of a conflict with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism,” as House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) put it Thursday.

“How can you sit here and try to apologize for the things that he did by saying taking him out was wrong?” Scalise continued. “This world is a safer place with Soleimani gone.”

House Democrats have been taking pains to condemn Soleimani as they complain that the administration’s moves were illegal for having cut out Congress.

“Qassem Soleimani was a malign force responsible for the death of many Americans,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said, adding that he nonetheless has “no confidence that there is some broad strategy at work, or the policies of the president are doing anything but increasing the dangers to the American people.”

He called the House’s vote the first step “of a broader reassertion of Congress’s war powers. … It is past time for Congress to do our job and not simply write the executive a blank check.”

*********

By Claiming Democrats Support Terrorism, Republicans Hit A New Low

By Max Boot | Published January 09 at 2:37 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 09, 2020 |

If truth is the first casualty of war, dissent is the second. The United States has a long, ignominious history of attacks — both physical and rhetorical — on critics of its conflicts.

Loyalists during the American Revolution were sometimes tarred and feathered. Southern sympathizers in the North during the Civil War were arrested and held without trial. Critics of America’s involvement in World War I were arrested and deported. Anti-Vietnam War protesters were investigated and harassed by the FBI and attacked by police and blue-collar workers (“hard hats”).

Such excesses were not repeated during the Iraq War, thankfully, but anti-war advocates were still routinely slandered. The most common claim was that opponents of the invasion were, as Glenn Reynolds (a.k.a. Instapundit) wrote, “objectively on [Saddam Hussein’s] side, and not neutral.” After Hussein’s capture in 2003 — which was as celebrated as Qasem Soleimani’s death is today — James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal claimed that “the Angry Left” was “pretty bummed.”

I was guilty of some over-the-top rhetoric myself. I wrote a strained op-ed in early 2003 arguing that anti-war protesters made conflict more likely by encouraging Hussein to hold out against U.S. demands. I now cringe when I read that column, because of course the anti-war protesters were right and I was wrong: The invasion of Iraq was a terrible idea even though Hussein was a terrible person who deserved what he got.

Instead of learning from past mistakes, President Trump and his unscrupulous supporters appear intent on repeating them by labeling all critics of his confrontation with Iran as traitors and supporters of terrorism. After Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) complained that he was not given advance notice of the drone strike that killed Soleimani, pardoned felon Dinesh D’Souza wrote, “Neither were the Iranians, and for pretty much the same reason.” Trump then retweeted this vile suggestion that Democrats were equivalent to anti-American terrorists. This week, Trump claimed that “elements” of the Democratic Party are “openly supporting Iran” — another noxious falsehood.

Both Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo falsely argue that the current crisis was created by President Barack Obama. Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R.-Ariz.) jumped in with a Photoshopped image of Obama shaking hands with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani even though the two men never met. His defense: “No one said this wasn’t photoshopped.” What a license to lie! When he’s caught, Gosar can simply say, “No one said this wasn’t false.”

Competing for the title of the most dishonest McCarthyite in Congress are Rep. Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.), who said Democrats are “in love with terrorists” and “mourn Soleimani more than they mourn our Gold Star families,” and Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.), who accused Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) of being part of a “squad of Ayatollah sympathizers ... spreading propaganda that divides our nation and strengthens our enemies.” But while dismaying and appalling, their vile comments are hardly surprising coming from such rabid Trump apologists.

We expect better from former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley. Fat chance. Seemingly eager to shred the last remnants of her dignity, she said: “The only ones mourning the loss of Soleimani are our Democrat leadership and Democrat Presidential candidates.” This is offensive and false. What most Democrats actually said was that Soleimani’s demise was a good thing (Joe Biden: “No American will mourn Qassem Soleimani’s passing”) before going on to raise well-warranted doubts about whether it’s wise, as Biden put it, to toss “a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox.”

Bernie Sanders, admittedly, went over the line by comparing the killing of Soleimani to Vladimir Putin “assassinating dissidents.” But Republicans have no standing to criticize him after giving Trump a pass for excusing Putin’s killing of dissidents by saying, “You think our country’s so innocent?” Likewise, Haley’s lame defense of her indefensible statement ("Leading Democrats are aggressively arguing that we would be better off if Qasem Suleimani was still alive today. That is effectively mourning his death”) falls apart, as my colleague Aaron Blake notes, because Trump expressed regret about Saddam Hussein’s overthrow. Does that mean Trump mourned Hussein’s death? And of course it’s pretty rich that Collins accuses Democrats of dishonoring Gold Star parents when the only person who has insulted them is Trump.

The Republican position seems to be that it’s fine to attack and undermine a Democratic president in his conduct of foreign policy (as 47 Republican senators did in 2015 when they sent a letter telling Iran’s leaders not to make a deal with Obama), but it’s treason to question anything a Republican president does. Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs compared Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) to Benedict Arnold for criticizing an administration briefing and said: “It is a shame that this country which is benefiting so much from this president’s leadership does not understand their obligations to this leader who is making it possible.”

Theodore Roosevelt had a different view of what we owe the president. In 1918, he protested his successor Woodrow Wilson’s attempts to criminalize wartime dissent: “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” So, by Roosevelt’s definition, guess who is being “treasonable”? Hint: It’s not Trump’s critics.

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Trump proved himself to be America’s biggest security risk

By Jennifer Rubin | Published January 09 at 11:00 AM EST | Washington Post |

Posted January 09, 2020 |

President Trump and his senior advisers’ rhetoric and actions on Iran over the past week have deeply unnerved many Americans and even cracked the previously solid wall of Republican sycophancy. USA Today reports: “Americans by more than 2-1 say the killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani has made the United States less safe, a nationwide USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds, amid broad concerns about the potential consequences ahead. A majority of those surveyed, by 52%-34%, called Trump’s behavior with Iran ‘reckless.’" Even worse: “[There] was overwhelming agreement — in each case by more than 6-1 — that the attack made it more likely Iran would strike American interests in the Middle East (69%), that there would be terrorist attacks on the American homeland (63%), and that the United States and Iran would go to war with each other (62%).” Finally, “By 52%-8%, those polled said the attack made it more likely that Iran would develop nuclear weapons.”

It was not just Trump’s slurred words or the incoherent screed he delivered on Wednesday. It was not just his threat to commit war crimes. It was not just Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s arrogant dismissal of any skepticism about an “imminent threat,” nor the administration’s contempt for Congress’ role in war-making. It was not just the administration’s blithe disregard for Iran’s capacity to inflict serious harm on Americans through surrogates or cyberterrorism. It was the recognition that we were dependent on the Iranians, of all people, to deescalate and that left to his devices, Trump surely would have sent us careening into a disastrous war.

Each time Pompeo snidely declared we should take the administration’s words as gospel, he heightened the conviction that we should not trust these people any farther than we could throw them. Vanity Fair’s T.A. Frank aptly writes: “Trump looks less like a stealth strategist than a loony gambler who wins low rewards in exchange for sickening risks.” The administration is so reckless and thoughtless that even some Republicans or ex-Republicans who generally would defer to the president on national security matters are now hollering for Congress to tie his hands.

Brian Katulis and Peter Juul from the Center for American Progress remind us that Iran’s most potent tools — its capacity for cyberwarfare and its “network of terrorist organizations, proxies and criminal organizations stretching from Afghanistan to West Africa and including the Western Hemisphere” — remain available in the weeks and months ahead to avenge Soleimani’s killing. Katulis and Juul deadpan that “we need a more balanced and steady approach on Iran than we’ve seen in the past three years.” Yes, a sane, stable and informed president would be helpful right about now. Unfortunately, it turns out that Trump’s unhinged conduct is not only self-impeaching, but self-enfeebling.

“We must restore trust and confidence in America’s own intelligence and law enforcement institutions, not launch corrosive political inquisitions against them,” Katulis and Juul warn. "We must work with our allies and partners around the world to defend against terrorism and cyberattacks, not undermine our credibility through social media bluster we’re unwilling to back up.” But wait a minute. After the last week, does anyone think there is the slightest chance Trump can do any of those, let alone all of them? Americans can barely persuade Trump not to start a disastrous war. Indeed, removing Trump is a prerequisite to pursuing the smart objectives Katulis and Juul outline.

Trump and his advisers have nowhere near the understanding, judgment, self-discipline, competence or diplomatic deftness to conduct themselves in ways designed to lower tensions, and even if they suddenly acquired those qualities, the damage they already have wrought will take months or even years to reverse. Trump’s trashing of the intelligence community, of allies and of cold-hard facts has done lasting harm to our international standing and to his ability to rally the country. He has bled himself dry of moral authority and credibility, both of which are essential to carry out the duties of commander in chief. Trump cannot lead us; he can only scare us.

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Republicans accuse majority of Americans of hating America

By Paul Waldman | Published January 09 at 1:01 PM EST | Washington Post |

Posted January 09, 2020 |

Perhaps it’s no surprise that the possibility of yet another war in the Middle East has brought out the worst in so many conservative supporters of President Trump. But even if that prospect seems to have been put off for now, it’s likely that the ugly impulses that have surfaced will emerge again and again as we approach the elections in November.

Democrats should decide now how they want to respond.

First, let’s take a little tour around the Republican authoritarian mind-set in the wake of President Trump’s decision to assassinate Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani:

Rep. Douglas A. Collins said that Democrats are “in love with terrorists, we see that they mourn Soleimani more than they mourn our Gold Star families.” I have a vague memory of a presidential candidate attacking a Gold Star family in 2016; can’t quite recall who that was.

“The only ones that are mourning the loss of Soleimani are our Democrat leadership,” said former U.N. ambassador and future presidential candidate Nikki Haley. After it was pointed out to her that literally zero Democrats were mourning Soleimani’s death, she argued that “mourning” means wishing he were still alive, and anyone who criticized the decision to kill him wishes he were still alive and is therefore “mourning” him. That, of course, is not what “mourning” means.

When Rep. Pramila Jayapal said the administration had presented no evidence of an “imminent threat” that necessitated Soleimani’s assassination, Rep. John Rutherford of Florida responded by saying, “You and your squad of Ayatollah sympathizers are spreading propaganda that divides our nation and strengthens our enemies.”

White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said, “The alarmists and apologists show skepticism about our own intelligence and sympathy for Soleimani.”

Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina tweeted that “the vast majority” agrees with the killing, while “Democrats are falling all over themselves equivocating about a terrorist.”

Republicans are quite certain not only that the American public shares their belief that the Soleimani assassination was the right thing to do, but that anyone who disagrees must love terrorists.

There will be much more polling in coming days, but as it happens, the first poll out from USA Today finds that 55 percent of the public say the killing of Soleimani and its aftermath made the United States less safe, with only 24 percent saying it made us more safe. The poll also found:

There was overwhelming agreement — in each case by more than 6-1 — that the attack made it more likely Iran would strike American interests in the Middle East (69%), that there would be terrorist attacks on the American homeland (63%), and that the United States and Iran would go to war with each other (62%).

By 52%-8%, those polled said the attack made it more likely that Iran would develop nuclear weapons.

It’s true that the poll found that a plurality of 42 percent supported the killing, but that’s actually pretty low given all the noise that Trump’s propaganda machine has whipped up. And the more important point is that solid majorities reject the arguments Trump is making around the killing — that it was necessary to keep us safe and to weaken Iran as a threat.

America, it seems, is a nation of Ayatollah-sympathizing, terrorist-loving Soleimani-mourners. Or maybe most people just don’t buy the proposition that unless you support every decision Donald Trump makes you’re a traitor.

This has a familiar ring: Going all the way back to the Alien and Sedition Acts, advocates for war have accused those who don’t share their enthusiasm of being traitors. More recently, the September 11 attacks were followed by endless accusations from Republicans that any Democrat who failed to support whatever the Bush administration wanted to do was supporting al-Qaeda, and later, Saddam Hussein. As George W. Bush himself said, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

The difference now is that Democrats don’t appear particularly frightened of that charge. But how should they respond to the specific accusation that if they disagree with Trump, they love terrorists?

In the past, they’ve responded by trying to show they can be tough. That’s why so many Democratic leaders voted for the Iraq War, at a time when memories of 9/11 were still fresh and nearly two-thirds of the public supported the war.

But now they have an opportunity. While Republican rhetoric may be the same, the public is on the side of Democrats and against a deeply unpopular president. So instead of whimpering in fear and trying to change the subject, they can actually call attention to the execrable charge and make Republicans the issue.

For instance, a presidential candidate could say:

I refuse to allow you to say that the majority of Americans who question President Trump’s erratic decision-making are terrorist sympathizers. And when I’m president, I’ll treat Americans with respect for a change. When Republicans disagree with me, I’ll explain why I think they’re wrong, but I won’t call them traitors. I think we’ve all had enough of that kind of poisonous politics.

To be clear, I’m not saying that candidates should say that we can all join hands and work together. This is about what kind of rhetoric is going to be tolerated and what should be condemned. This is the perfect opportunity to get Republicans on the defensive for their hatefulness.

And it isn’t going anywhere, no matter happens with Iran. As we get closer to the election and the possibility of Democratic victory becomes real, Republicans will get more extreme in their words. Their predictions of cataclysm (the governor of Mississippi, Phil Bryant, recently said that if Democrats win the Senate “we will take that first step into a thousand years of darkness”) will regularly bleed over into accusations that if you don’t support Trump then you wish for the apocalypse and therefore hate America.

That kind of rancid bile shouldn’t go unchallenged for a second.

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Suspected shoot-down of passenger jet near Tehran mirrors 1988 Iran Air tragedy

By Adam Taylor | Published January 09 at 1:59 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 09, 2020 |

The Wednesday crash of a passenger jet near Tehran that killed all 176 people aboard carries echoes of a 1988 tragedy in which a plane that had originated in the Iranian capital was shot down, leaving 290 people dead.

But while that catastrophe has fueled antipathy among many Iranians toward the United States for 32 years, the latest incident raises a different set of questions for the Iranian state — which may be both victim and perpetrator in the tragedy, if early reports prove accurate.

The passenger plane, bound for the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, had just left Tehran’s international airport Wednesday when it lost contact with ground control and plummeted into a field. A preliminary investigation by Iran found that the Ukraine International Airlines jet was on fire before it went down, citing witness statements that the plane had tried to turn around.

However, Ukrainian investigators have been considering the possibility that an antiaircraft missile brought down the jet. A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, told The Washington Post that it was likely that Iranian forces accidentally shot down the plane.

President Trump told reporters Thursday that he had “suspicions” about what had happened to the plane. “Someone could have made a mistake on the other side,” Trump said, adding, “It has nothing to do with us.”

The jet was destroyed in the midst of heightened tensions between the United States and Iran in the wake of the killing of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike Friday in Baghdad. Roughly four hours before the Wednesday plane crash, Iran had launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles targeting U.S. personnel in Iraq, an unprecedented direct strike against U.S. forces.

The allegations of a shoot-down would mirror a tragedy that has hung over relations between the United States and Iran for more than three decades, fueling grievances and suspicion between the two nations.

On July 3, 1988, Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down by the U.S. military. The flight, a passenger jet that had originated in Tehran and had already stopped in Bandar Abbas, Iran, was flying over the Strait of Hormuz toward its destination, Dubai, when it was hit by two surface-to-air missiles.

Though Pentagon officials at first denied any knowledge of the incident, it soon emerged that the plane had been targeted by the USS Vincennes, a cruiser that had been involved in a skirmish with Iranian boats in the Persian Gulf and had mistaken the passenger jet for an Iranian warplane.

President Ronald Reagan expressed sympathy for the “terrible human tragedy” but suggested that the plane had “failed to heed repeated warnings.” However, an investigation by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. agency, found that U.S. military ships in the region did not have the equipment necessary to monitor civilian air-traffic-control frequencies.

Iran reached a settlement with the United States in 1996 after it sued in the International Court of Justice. The U.S. government refused to accept liability but agreed to pay $61.8 million to the families of victims.

Though the tragedy appears to have largely faded from public memory in the United States, the memory of it lingers in Iran, where it is frequently commemorated.

At the time, many suspected that the United States struck down the plane deliberately in a bid to aid Iraq in the war it was fighting with Iran. Iranian hard-liners have long suggested that the downing of Flight 655 shows that the United States cannot be trusted.

“Those who refer to the number 52 should also remember the number 290,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani wrote on Twitter after Trump threatened earlier this week to target 52 Iranian sites, a reference to the number of Americans who were held hostage in Iran from 1979 to 1981.

Rouhani, who has previously supported dialogue with the United States, was referring to the number of people killed aboard the 1988 flight. “Never threaten the Iranian nation,” he said.

A U.S. official told The Post that authorities think the Ukrainian plane was probably hit by an SA-15 surface-to-air missile, a Russian-made system also known as a Tor air-defense system. Ukrainian officials have said they want to search the site for evidence of Russian missiles.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, wrote on Facebook that a Ukrainian investigative team sent to Iran includes specialists who helped probe the July 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine.

That disaster killed all 298 people aboard. Investigators later concluded that a Russian military missile had shot down the plane.

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I’m a U.S. citizen. My family was detained at the border because we’re from Iran.

By Negah Hekmati | Published January 09 at 10:26 AM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 09, 2020 |

My family often crosses the border between the United States and Canada. We live in Seattle and visit friends and family in Vancouver once a month. At this point, it’s become a routine: We drive up, show our documents, answer a few questions and then go on our way. The trip usually takes under three hours.

We planned to drive home after a party on Saturday evening in Vancouver. Earlier that evening, a friend had called to warn us that his wife, who was born in Iran, and their children had been detained and questioned at the border that afternoon. He thought that this must be related to the American military strike that killed the Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani. We told ourselves we shouldn’t have any problems. Everyone in our group was an American citizen; we were even enrolled in NEXUS, a border prescreening program for frequent travelers.

Around midnight, as we approached the Peace Arch Border Crossing in Blaine, Wash., our friends in the car ahead of us were instructed to pull over. We saw them get out of their vehicle and follow the Customs and Border Protection officers into a nearby building. When my husband and I pulled up to the booth, our children sleeping in the back seat, the officer asked us when we had left the United States. Then he asked where we were born. We, too, were pulled aside, our car keys and passports confiscated.

When we entered the building, we saw around 50 or 60 people already sitting on benches and the floor. All of them were Iranian. Some had been there for 10 hours. When it was our turn to be called up, the officers asked us endless questions: Where were you born? Where did you go to high school? To college? Did your father serve in the military? Are you on Facebook, Instagram? What are your account names? Do any other family members live in the United States? What are their names? Afterward, we went back to the sitting area for another four hours, waiting to be told what to do.

This was the first time my husband and I had faced a problem like this. Around us, everyone was so calm that it disturbed me. They didn’t seem frightened or bewildered; they seemed resigned. They asked the officers for pen and paper to play word games and settled in for a long night. The whole time I was there, I didn’t see anyone complain or even ask why this was happening. When they got their passports back, they thanked the officers pleasantly. I thought to myself, Why are you thanking them? Why should any of us thank them for this unfair treatment?

Eventually, the officials called our names, returned our documents and told us we could go. We finally made it home two hours later, exhausted and shaken. Later, we learned that the U.S. government denied treating us differently because of our ties to Iran, claiming that the delay was because of high traffic, not enough staff and “the current threat environment.” That’s when I knew I had to speak up.

The experience terrified my children. That night, as we walked through the chilly parking lot, they were bursting with questions we couldn’t answer. My daughter told me, urgently, not to speak Farsi. If I didn’t speak Farsi, she said, they wouldn’t know that we were from Iran, and we wouldn’t get into trouble. The officers’ uniforms scared her and her brother — they thought that we were being taken to a detention center or to jail — and the line of questioning confused them. As someone who has immigrated from Iran to Canada, and then from Canada to the United States, I’m used to a certain amount of scrutiny (though never anything this arbitrary and unexpected). But I never imagined that my American children would have to experience it. I never expected them to have to worry about where their family is from, to be anything but proud of their heritage. They didn’t sleep at all that night, fearful that if they did, they might wake up and find us gone.

I grew up in Iran during the war with Iraq. Years after the conflict ended, its traumas restricted our sense of the future. My husband and I left our home country for more opportunities and personal freedom; we were drawn to the United States because it seemed like a place where freedom was prized. We’d been told that it was truly a melting pot compared with Canada, where various communities tended to keep to themselves. When I moved to Seattle in 2014, I was delighted to meet people from all kinds of places — South Africa, Lebanon, Colombia, Venezuela — to befriend them, and learn about their lives. When I took the oath of citizenship in March 2016, I was so proud. I have voted in every election since.

My husband and I became Americans during the Obama administration, a more hopeful and positive time. The following winter, Donald Trump got elected, and almost immediately announced a travel ban on people from Iran and four other mostly Muslim countries. Ever since then, my father’s green card application has been on hold, and he’s had difficulty getting visas to enter the country to visit, including when my brother passed away last year. Throughout my time living in America, no American had ever discriminated against me because of my ethnicity or religion. Even the Border Protection officers treated us as nicely as they could. But American policies are a different story.

After what happened to us last weekend, our friends and neighbors have shown amazing kindness, leaving flowers and even wine and cheese on our doorstep. They wanted to make sure that we felt free, safe and at home. I fear that I can’t say the same about our government.

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For Trump, foreign relationships aren’t about strategy. They’re about cash.

By Marc Fisher | Published January 09 at 12:52 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 09, 2020 |

George W. Bush explained his decision to send thousands of additional troops to Iraq, at a time when most Americans had soured on U.S. involvement there, as a strategic necessity: Without more boots on the ground, “radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits.” Barack Obama, who came to office promising to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, justified his “surge” of 30,000 more troops to the Afghan war as a matter of principle: “America will speak out on behalf of . . . human rights, and tend to the light of freedom and justice and opportunity and respect for the dignity of all peoples. That is who we are.”

Donald Trump, like Obama, campaigned on a pledge to get the United States “out of the nation-building business.” But when Iraqi leaders demanded that U.S. forces withdraw after Trump orderedthe killing in Iraq of a top Iranian military commander, the president’s instinct was to describe the crisis in purely mercenary terms: “We’ve spent a lot of money in Iraq,” he said. “We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. . . . We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it.”

Trump won the presidency by promising to run the country like a business. He would be the consummate negotiator, driven not by ideology or grand strategy but by his gut, by a plain-spoken, transactional commitment to winning. In this, perhaps more than any other realm, he has fulfilled his promise: He possesses a singular focus on transactions — deals, not relationships; the bottom line, not long-term goals or foundational principles.

In the Middle East, as in Europe, Asia and North America, Trump’s approach has hewed closely to his lifelong belief that a person is judged by the deals he makes, by a reckoning of wins and losses. Trump believes he wins because he can be purely transactional, free from the norms, ideologies and traditions that restrainhis rivals.

He turned against America’s European allies because he thought NATO saddled the United States with way more than its share of the cost of mutual defense. He overturned trade deals such as NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and then the Iran nuclear pact as well, because he perceived that the United States was giving more than it got in return. He has levied or threatened stiff tariffs on China, the European Union, Turkey and Mexico, arguing that they provide net profits for the United States, even though numerous analyses say they have raised prices for American consumers and cost the country hundreds of thousands of jobs. He argues that North Korea should join the community of nations so it can realize its prime beachfront real estate potential. (“Boy, look at that view,” he told reporters. “Wouldn’t that make a great condo?”

The controversy that got Trump impeached began when he wanted to withhold aid from Ukraine, in part because of his long-standing resentment of America’s tradition of helping other countries with humanitarian, military and economic aid: “Why aren’t all of these countries — why aren’t they paying? Why is it always the United States that has to pay?”

This is not an attitude he developed when he entered politics. In 1980, Trump gave one of his most revealing interviews, to TV celebrity interviewer Rona Barrett, saying that winning transactions was the core of his life: “I think about it literally 24 hours a day, and I really enjoy it. . . . I do understand it’s all basically a game. . . . The people that enjoy it are the people that have been winners.” Trump views existence as a battle to make the best deals. “I really look at life to a certain extent as combat,” he said at the time. His first bestseller described dealmaking as his “art.”

No unified theory of Trump explains his every provocation or impulsive decision. He has said throughout his life that his primary skill and motivation is to be a showman. And he struggles to balance his craving for respect with his desire to win the spotlight, even when it means alienating the very elites and authorities whose respect he seeks. That’s why he talks about hiring“the best people” as aides, yet often turns on adviserswho grabthe attention of the media.

But Trump’s obsession with the bottom line permeates his approach to governing, including his current stance toward Baghdad: We own you. You owe us. “We had Iraq,” Trump said on “Face the Nation” last year. “We spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it.” That idea has stuck with the president, and on Jan. 3, he tweeted that “the United States has paid Iraq Billions of Dollars a year, for many years. That is on top of all else we have done for them.”

Trump “boils complex issues down to things he can count,” said G. Richard Shell, a professor of business ethics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “He asks, ‘What’s the asset here, and how can I get it?’ He perceives unequal benefits being exchanged, and he immediately escalates to the highest level of conflict he can see. And then his people signal to him, ‘No, no, no,’ and he backs off. He backed off on separating families at the Mexican border, and he’ll back off on this crisis,” Shell saidTuesday. On Wednesday, Trump did just that, delivering a measured address, noting that “Iran appears to be standing down” and seeking to “work together” with Tehran on “shared priorities.”

Perhaps counterintuitively, Trump’s impulsive attraction to transactional thinking may make him less likely to stumble into a war than more ideologically driven presidents. “Many wars have begun because politicians felt they couldn’t lose face,” Shell said. “Trump relishes the unpredictability of his behavior. He would never say ‘my word is sacred to me, I have to pull the trigger.’ ”

The decision to kill Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani without any apparent plan for managing Iran’s inevitable retaliation is typical of how Trump has always operated. He takes pride in acting swiftly and decisively, in the moment. He does not want to hear about antedecents that might inform his decision-making or about how today’s decision might alter future options.

Trump’s attitude toward Iran traces back to the 1979 hostage crisis, the first time the young New York real estate developer opined on national TV about a matter of foreign policy. He focused immediately on the notion of acquiring Iran’s oil: “That this country sits back and allows a country such as Iran to hold our hostages, to my way of thinking, is a horror,” Trump said in the 1980 Barrett interview. If the United States had sent troops to Iran to rescue the American hostages, “I think right now we’d be an oil-rich nation,” he said, “and I believe that we should have done it.”

Trump’s willingness — eagerness, even — to focus on the financial bottom line and then take extreme measures to win, or rather, to be perceived as someone willing to go to extremes, is nothing new. It’s how he built his career, positioning himself as a provocateur who would destroy historic landmarks after promising not to do so or threaten to move homeless people into a high-end apartment building to pressure tenants to leave — all in service of higher profits and better deals.

Research on executives who favor transactional deals over enduring business relationships finds that “you get better deals and fewer of them” with the more impulsive approach, Shell said, but “you get many more deals, and they’re much more nuanced,” if they are based on lasting relationships.

In government, Trump has cycled through a series of top advisers, often frustrated that he hasn’t found people he thinks he can trust. Instead, he focuses on the one thing he can always measure — the value of a deal. As Trump put it in a speech in 2004: “Watch out for people, even [those] close to you, because in the end, if it’s a choice between you and them, they’re usually going to choose themselves. . . . You really have to think of yourself as a one-man show.”

Trump’s great strength — and his frightening emptiness — stem from the same character trait: He lives in the moment and is therefore liberated to take actions that more studious leaders might shy away from. His transactional focus has allowed him to take advantage of Richard Nixon’s “madman theory,” the notion that a president who is willing to be perceived as tough, unpredictable and even unhinged can force an enemy to make concessions for fear of suffering an immoderate attack. Threatening to bomb Iran’s cultural sites, and then backing away after his own defense secretary said it would be a war crime, comes easily to a president who cares mainly about winning the moment. Transaction complete, he moves on to the next deal with the slate clean, at least in his own mind.

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[marymosley]

Emojis in Court

Love them or hate them, it looks like “emojis” are here to stay. As of this writing, more than 3,000 emojis have been officially recognized, standardized, and named by the Unicode Consortium (a group that cares very deeply about emojis, among other things) and they have been adopted for widespread use on cell phones, tablets, email clients, and social media platforms.

Emojis now exist as a way to succinctly express everything from the ordinary and familiar ( smiling face;  thumbs-up) to the surprisingly specific ( mountain cableway; moon viewing ceremony) to the routinely misunderstood ( not “angry” but rather “persevering face;”  not “shooting star” but rather “dizzy”), to the criminally repurposed ( snowflake to mean cocaine;  rocket to mean high drug potency).

The explosive growth of this alternative form of communication is raising some interesting questions for criminal attorneys and the court system as a whole. Should emojis be considered “statements,” on equal footing with written or spoken words? If they’re not statements, then what are they? Who decides what is meant by the use of a particular emoji? Do they have to be published to the jury and included in the record as images, or can they be summarized and described by words? What should practitioners do to make sure that emojis are accurately reflected in transcripts, court orders, and appellate opinions, since many court systems are text-based and do not allow for the inclusion of images?

Let’s about it.

Emojis? Really?

I’m afraid so. If this topic makes you  and want to  your , I sympathize. It took me far longer to find and insert those three images than it would have taken to simply type the words. But like it or not, emojis are showing up as evidence up in court cases with increasing frequency.

This topic garnered some national attention a few years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Elonis v. United States, 135 S.Ct. 2001 (2015). The defendant in Elonis challenged his conviction for threatening his estranged wife on Facebook, and one of the arguments on appeal was that the posts could not be interpreted as threats because the defendant included a smiley face emoji with the tongue sticking out, indicating that he was not serious. The emoji did not end up factoring into the Court’s opinion, but to some observers it was proof that emojis had finally arrived as an issue on the legal landscape, and would likely become more common and more significant.

Recent cases across the country seem to bear that prediction out. See, e.g., United States v. Jefferson, 911 F.3d 1290 (10th Cir. 2018) (affirming defendant’s robbery convictions, and noting that the “substantial” evidence of his guilt included not only surveillance videos and his admissions, but also a “Facebook post made after the January 9 robberies, which included a firearm emoji”);  Commonwealth v. Hunt, 94 Mass. App. Ct. 1123 (Feb. 22, 2019) (unpublished) (evidence on cross-examination to show nature of relationship and alleged bias of witness included text messages with “three kissey emoji,” “emoji of … two people with [a] heart … above their heads” and an “emoji of … [a] diamond ring”); State v. King, 2018 WL 4868127 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div., Oct. 9, 2018) (unpublished) (evidence in witness tampering case included Facebook post that included a picture of a subpoena, multiple references to the subject as a “rat,” and “seven middle finger emojis”).

According to Professor Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University who tracks this issue, the prevalence of emojis in court cases across the country has followed a “J curve” pattern, beginning with just a few cases back in 2004 but then rising exponentially; in fact, more than 30% of all reported court cases mentioning emojis appeared in 2018 alone.

I have not yet seen any North Carolina or 4th Circuit cases in which the presence, admissibility, or meaning of an emoji was a crucial factor in the decision, but they are undoubtedly beginning to show up in the evidence. See, e.g., State v. Aracena, __ N.C. App. __, 817 S.E.2d 628 (Aug. 21, 2018) (unpublished) (evidence in robbery and assault case included a Facebook post directed at victim boasting about the assault, along with “five laughing emojis with tears coming out”); see also Nexus Services, Inc., v. Moran, 2018 WL 1461750 (W.D. Va., March 23, 2018) (concluding that an email between two co-workers which contained a “Hitler emoji” was not an attempt to chill plaintiff’s speech – it had to be “taken in context” where “one was jokingly calling the other a ‘meanie’ and a taskmaster”).

Emojis: Words, Thoughts, Both, or Neither?

As explained here, emojis first appeared in the mid- to late-1990’s as a feature on select Japanese cell phones, but their popularity exploded in the early 2000’s after they were standardized to work across multiple platforms and in different countries. The term “emoji” comes from the Japanese words “e” (絵, or “picture”) and “moji” (文字, or “character”), so emoji literally means “picture character.”

Emojis aren’t words in the traditional sense, of course, but it’s clear that they are something more communicative than mere doodles or illustrations.  Like their text-based ancestors known as “emoticons” (figures or symbols such as  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ or :-), created with regular keyboard characters), emojis can be used to add context and tone to an accompanying statement, or they can express a separate and independent thought on their own. Conceptually, this makes emojis analogous to gestures, nods, or facial expressions that can likewise modify the meaning of accompanying words (like a shrug for “no offense,” or a glare for “I’m not kidding”), or convey a complete thought (like a nod to mean “yes,” or pointing to mean “over there”), depending on the circumstances.

Until we receive specific guidance from North Carolina’s appellate courts, and in light of the fact that emojis are being used as a form of communication, the most logical approach is to treat them as “statements,” comparable to any other type of “written or oral assertion or nonverbal conduct intended by the declarant as an assertion.” G.S. 8C-1, Rule 801(a) (definition of hearsay); see also State v. Satterfield, 316 N.C. 55 (1986) (“An act, such as a gesture, can be a statement for purposes of applying rules concerning hearsay”). Treating emojis as nonverbal statements provides a ready-made body of law for tackling issues like relevance and admissibility, which is a great start, but it gets a little more complicated when we turn to the matter of interpretation.

What Do Emojis Mean?

Imagine a troubled young defendant who texts his girlfriend that he is willing to   her disapproving parents so that they can finally be together. She texts back with what the Unicode Consortium calls the “folded hands” emoji: . What does that reply mean? Is it hands clasped in prayer, begging him not to do it? Or praying that he will? Or perhaps she misunderstands the emoji and thinks it’s a “high five,” celebrating their murderous plan? Additionally, consider what happens if the sender and receiver are using different cell phones or operating systems. The same emoji, “pistol,” displays this way on a Microsoft device:  but it shows up like this on an LG smartphone:  . The potential for misunderstandings and conflicting interpretations is (literally) easy to see.

In many cases, the jurors will make the final determination about the true meaning or intent behind an ambiguous emoji, just as they would with any other potentially incriminating statement that the declarant contends was “only a joke” or “not how I meant it.” And to help the jury answer those questions, it appears that we have already entered the age of emoji interpretation expert witnesses. In a recent human trafficking case out of California, the state qualified a detective “as an expert in the areas of pimping, pandering and prostitution,” based on his training and experience, and the expert was permitted to testify about several emojis that the defendant texted (a crown, high heels, and bags of money) and the meaning of those images “specific to commercial … sexual exploitation.” See People v. Jamerson, 2019 WL 459012 (Cal. Ct. App., February 6, 2019) (unpublished).

But judges, magistrates, attorneys, and law enforcement officers also need to become at least conversationally fluent in emoji-speak, in order to address a number of other issues that could surface before trial. For example, is the “folded hands” emoji in the example above enough to charge the girlfriend with conspiracy? Is it admissible at trial as a statement of a co-conspirator? If the girlfriend testifies and insists that her reply meant “I’m praying you don’t do it,” can the state still argue the mistaken high five interpretation as a “reasonable inference” in closing? Opposing parties will inevitably disagree on what certain emojis mean, but it helps if both sides can at least agree on their names and recognize the differences between them.

How to Publish and Preserve

The growing use of emojis in texts, social media posts, and emails poses two additional problems for the court system. First, how should emojis be presented in court proceedings, such as when an officer is using them as part of a warrant application, or when an attorney wants to publish them to the jury? Second, how should they be documented and preserved in court records, such as transcripts or appellate opinions?

Whenever possible, the best option is to use the entire text, email, or post, showing all the words and emojis together. Officers can attach a printout or screenshot to their warrant applications, and attorneys can publish to the jury by handing out copies and letting the jurors see it for themselves. This approach helps to avoid disputes about misrepresentation or cross-platform display errors, and best ensures that the full and true intent of the communication will be conveyed (whatever the parties contend that intent is).

If including an image is not possible, it is imperative that the written description of the emojis be as complete and accurate as possible, preferably by using the standardized Unicode Consortium names. There are 148 different emojis listed in the “Smileys and Emotion” category alone, so a vague description like “smiley face emoji” could lead to confusion or error. In addition to its distinctive name, every emoji also has a unique code assigned to it. Including both the full name and the code in the description will ensure that “sleepy face” (, U+1 F62A) is not incorrectly characterized as “drooling face” (, U+1 F924).

The least desirable option is to leave the emojis out entirely, or replace them with a generic placeholder in brackets like [emojis omitted] or [various emojis]. For all the reasons explained above, this option doesn’t accurately convey the full meaning of the statement. See, e.g., United States v. Johnson, 280 F. Supp. 3d 772 (D. Md., Nov. 21, 2017) (referencing an Instagram post where defendant wrote “…they welcomed me home like it was 88 [emojis]. Real luv never fails…”). The post in Johnson would read quite differently if the defendant said he was being “welcomed home” with  instead of .

Emoji or Emojis?

Finally, what is the correct plural of emoji? If there are several of them in a row, is it still “emoji” like we would say “the seven samurai,” or should it be “emojis” like we would say “multiple tsunamis?” As you can tell from this post I’ve already made my choice, but for a contrary view check out this Atlantic article. Let the comment war begin.

The post Emojis in Court appeared first on North Carolina Criminal Law.

Emojis in Court published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

[deniscollins]

C.E.O.s Long Avoided Politics. Trump Is Changing the Calculus.

If you were a CEO, would you take a public stand on President Donald Trump’s views about the white nationalist activities in Charlottesville, including the death of a counter protester: (1) Yes, speak out, (2) No, remain quiet, (3) something else (if so, what?)? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

The bar for a chief executive of a public corporation to repudiate a United States president is extraordinarily high. Corporate leaders aren’t given their power, prestige, responsibility and nine-figure pay packages to use the corner office as their personal soapbox.

With President Trump’s comments on white supremacists and other right-wing extremists ringing in the ears of America’s chief executives, that high bar appears to have been passed.

This week, what had been a trickle of defections from the White House business advisory councils over issues like immigration and climate change turned into a torrent. By Wednesday, both of the councils had collapsed; Mr. Trump insisted that he had decided to disband them.

Such a public schism between a president and a business leadership long considered the backbone of the Republican establishment left corporate historians at a loss for precedent. “There’s never been anything to compare to this,” said Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, a dean of leadership studies at the Yale School of Management and the author of “Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound From Career Disasters.”

Charles M. Elson, a professor and director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, said he knew of no other examples, not even involving Richard Nixon at the height of the Vietnam War protests and during Watergate.

Referring to a tweet by Mr. Trump criticizing Kenneth C. Frazier, the Merck executive who led this week’s corporate retreat from the White House councils, Mr. Sonnenfeld said, “Never in history has a president attacked and threatened the chief executive of a major U.S. corporation like that.”

After provoking a furor with his initial failure to condemn the white supremacists behind last weekend’s violence in Charlottesville, Va., Mr. Trump might have staved off a full-scale exodus with his somewhat stilted but conciliatory comments on Monday. But then he reignited the flames at a news conference on Tuesday at which he blamed club-wielding members of the “alt-left” for the Charlottesville violence. The white nationalist leader Richard Spencer and the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke were quick to embrace his remarks.

As pressure mounted on prominent council members like Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, Stephen A. Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group, Ginni Rometti of IBM and Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo, as well as other chief executives who remained silent or issued platitudes, corporate boards were hastily meeting to map strategy. “I’ve heard from 24 chief executives in the past two days,” Mr. Sonnenfeld said on Wednesday. “Boards are having ad hoc conference calls. People are very worried and concerned.”

Those conversations have been far more complicated than one might expect. It’s safe to say that no chief executive wants to be identified with white supremacy, racism or domestic terrorism. At the same time the president wields enormous influence over their shareholders, employees and customers.

“Chief executives don’t have the luxury of ventilating their personal political opinions, whatever they might be,” Mr. Elson said. “They shouldn’t let their personal views influence their business decisions. If they really feel strongly about something, they can always resign and then say whatever they want.”

As he told me shortly after Mr. Trump took office, “When the president calls, you should go to see him, regardless of your political persuasion, out of respect for the office.”

Back then, Mr. Sonnenfeld, too, praised Mr. Trump’s openness to business views as a welcome change from an Obama administration perceived as anti-business. “He’s very charming and open to new ideas,” Mr. Sonnenfeld said then of Mr. Trump.

This week was a different story. After the Charlottesville events and Mr. Trump’s comments, “chief executives have a moral duty to use their position as a bully pulpit and to speak out,” Mr. Sonnenfeld said, adding that George Weyerhaeuser, a former chairman of the giant timber and wood products company bearing his name, had once told him, “We have a license to operate from society, and if we violate that license it can be revoked.”

Or as Mr. Elson told me, “At some point, if identification with the administration becomes so polarizing that it impairs your ability to run the company, then you may have to do something.”

Weighing the benefits of advising a president steeped in controversy versus the risks to shareholders and other constituents from potential consumer boycotts is a calculus that varies widely from company to company.

At one extreme is a company like Boeing, which, as I noted last week, has thrived by burnishing its ties to Mr. Trump, who posed for photos in front of a 787 Dreamliner at a nonunion Boeing plant in South Carolina. Boeing is one of the federal government’s largest contractors ($1.1 billion was allotted recently for 14 Boeing fighter jets); the Export-Import Bank once threatened by Mr. Trump finances many of Boeing’s buyers; a host of other executive-branch decisions affect its profits; and it has no direct exposure to consumers.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is Under Armour, the maker of athletic wear, whose chief executive, Kevin Plank, left the president’s council earlier this week. Under Armour’s success depends in part on endorsements from celebrity athletes, many of whom — like Stephen Curry, the basketball star — are African-American. Under Armour customers had already organized a consumer boycott on social media earlier this year, prompting Mr. Plank to issue an open letter pledging to be “a force of unity, growth and optimism for our city and our country” and to oppose “any new actions that negatively impact our team, our neighbors or their families.”

That new action appears to have arrived.

“The risk of consumer blowback is especially acute for companies like Under Armour, and you’ve seen this elsewhere in the retail space,” Mr. Sonnenfeld said. But he noted that speaking out against a social scourge like racism can also enhance a brand. “Taking a public stand doesn’t mean there’s a misalignment with shareholder interests,” he said. “It can be the right thing to do. Howard Schultz has done this very effectively at Starbucks.”

On Monday, Mr. Schultz publicly criticized the president’s response to the Charlottesville events, and on Wednesday he spoke at an emotional companywide meeting. “I come to you as an American, as a Jew, as a parent, as a grandparent, as an almost 40-year partner of a company I love so dearly,” he said. “I come to you with profound, profound concern about the lack of character, morality, humanity and what this might mean for young children and young generations.”

Historically, corporate aversion to politics has at times held firm even under national leadership that threatens the health of the economy, and with it the well-being of every company. The most notorious example was the support of German industry for Hitler and the Nazi regime, which ended up destroying the nation’s economy. American companies also worked with the Nazis before the United States entered the war, including — as the current Amazon production of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Last Tycoon” reminds us — Hollywood studios.

Comparing the Trump administration to the Nazis may be a stretch, but many business leaders are concerned that stirring up deep-seated racial and nationalist animosities could be destabilizing, leading to riots, property damage and widespread civil unrest reminiscent of the late 1960s. Two Vanderbilt University professors, William J. Collins and Robert A. Margo, documented the devastating economic impact of the 1967 race riots in a widely cited article, “The Economic Aftermath of the 1960s Riots.”

In such circumstances, collective action by business leaders is often the most effective course, as members of the president’s advisory councils appear to have decided this week. That way no one company bears the brunt of the president’s wrath.

After Mr. Trump’s comments about Charlottesville, Mr. Sonnenfeld has been among those calling for collective opposition. “Fomenting racial unrest is not in the nation’s interest and it’s not in businesses’ interest,” he said. “Divide and conquer has always been Trump’s strategy, and somehow it has worked until now. The way to take a bully down is through collective action.”

#Politics

[thisdaynews]

Democrats fear Republican sabotage in key Senate race

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/democrats-fear-republican-sabotage-in-key-senate-race/

Democrats fear Republican sabotage in key Senate race

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Cal Cunningham, left, in 2010. | Chuck Burton, File/AP Photo

Democrats are growing alarmed about Republican attempts to prop up an insurgent liberal candidate in North Carolina — fearful that GOP meddling will undercut the party’s prospects in a key Senate contest.

What seems like a generic campaign ad pitching Erica Smith, a North Carolina state senator, as “the only proven progressive” in the state’s high-profile Senate race is actually part of a multimillion dollar investment from a mysterious super PAC — the innocuously named “Faith and Power PAC” — with apparent ties to Republicans.

The ad campaign, which began last week ahead of the March 3 primary, immediately disrupted the bid from frontrunner and Democratic leadership favorite Cal Cunningham to emerge from his primary and face incumbent GOP Sen. Thom Tillis in November.

The North Carolina race is critical: Without beating Tillis, Democrats’ path back to the Senate majority is nearly impossible. Cunningham, a former state lawmaker and military veteran, lost a Senate primary in 2010, and Democrats are eager to avoid the same result this year. But things are getting messy — and expensive.

Smith, whose low-budget campaign has otherwise posed little threat to Cunningham, has denounced the intervention. But the episode threatens Democrats’ hopes of getting the better-funded, more moderate Cunningham through the primary unscathed.

“It’s so brazen and obvious. … They recognize that Cunningham is a strong candidate, and they’re worried about holding onto that seat,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). “When Republicans are weighing in for somebody, they’ve made the judgment that they’re worried about Cal, and they’re not worried about her.”

Privately, Senate Democrats have been discussing the matter internally, with one fretting that Smith is “unelectable” in a general election and will be painted as a Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) acolyte. Few in the party want to criticize Smith publiclysince no matter who emerges as Democrats’ nominee, North Carolina is a must-win to take back the Senate.

But the GOP infusion of money is increasing worries about disarray.

“You want your strongest candidate. And if she’s not the strongest candidate, yes, it makes it much tougher,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who supports Cunningham. “There’s just too much money in politics, and they spend it on trying to get the weakest candidate to run against” Tillis.

Democrats have used similar tactics in past Senate races in Missouri and West Virginia to elevate weak Republicans but decrythe practice in their own internal politics. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who referred to Tillis as “extremely weak” in his reelection campaign, said the GOP is “known for voter suppression and playing games with voters, and they are taking it to new heights here.”

Still, some Democrats worry the effort will be at least partially successful.

“It’scertainly made it more challenging to have over $2 million dumped into an ad buy against Cal Cunningham and what looks to be an attempt by Republicans to sway the primary,” said MaryBe McMillan, president of the North Carolina AFL-CIO, which endorsed Cunningham. “I still feel confident about his chances in the primary. It’s just unfortunate that it’s going to mean spending more resources.”

Faith and Power PAC’s ads were placed bya media buyer that is used by a number of conservative organizations, and the PAC uses Chain Bridge Bank, which has deep ties to Republicans. Faith and Power PAC did not respond to emails. A spokesperson for the GOP super PAC Senate Leadership Fund, which also uses Chain Bridge Bank,did not respond to requests for comment.

Cunningham and his campaign have sought to amplify the super PAC’s GOP ties.

“My gut tells me North Carolinians have a really strong BS meter. And this is triggering it,” Cunningham said in a statement.

The turn in the race has been stunning: Just three months ago, Tillis faced a barrage of attacks from his own party and booked a massive TV buy to defend against a challenger accusing him of being insufficiently conservative. His challenger ultimately dropped out and Tillis scaled back his TV buy, though he isstill working to win back his conservative base.

“Cal Cunningham’s spending a lot of his cash on hand. So, I think he must be worried. Otherwise you wouldn’t spend your cash on hand in advance of the primary,” Tillis said in an interview.

He also brushed aside a question about Republicans appearing to intervene in the Democratic race, pointing out the ads were a positive message about Smith.

Democratic leaders said the GOP’s interest in tanking Cunningham is a sign of his strength.

Republicans think “Cal Cunningham is the strongest, from what I’ve seen, to take on the Republican incumbent there,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairwoman Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.

The public polling in the race is scarce, though Democrats’ believe months of heavy spending laidthe groundwork for Cunningham to prevail. VoteVets, a group that supports Democratic veterans and endorsed Cunningham’s campaign, has spent $6 million between its super PAC and anaffiliated nonprofit on positive ads for his candidacy. Cunningham has spent six figures on TV, and his campaign is also running TV ads with coordinated spending from the DSCC. Most of those efforts were underway before the apparent intervention from Republicans, but the spending has increased in the past week.

Another mysterious super PAC — “Carolina Blue” — was created last week and has spent $1.1 million backing Cunningham, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.The group has ties to national Democrats: It uses the same media buyer and bank as Senate Majority PAC, a top Democratic outside group. A Senate Majority PAC spokesperson did not return requests for comment.

A pollreleased Wednesday showed Cunningham leading Smith by double digits, but with nearly half of likely voters still undecided. But even if Cunningham wins, Republicans are reveling in Democrats’ internal discord.

“Cal Cunningham has never won a federal race he’s ran for. To suggest that this is an unbelievable recruit that Chuck Schumer got? He has no proven track record and is not known in the state,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.). “Schumer has funded 100 percent of the Cunningham campaign. Why would they complain if somebody else funded the opponent?”

Cunningham, who represented an area north of Charlotte in the state Senate for one term nearly two decades ago, is an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran and has the endorsement of the DSCC, as well as a variety of North Carolina politicians and organizations.

Smith was first elected in 2014 to an eastern North Carolina state Senate seat. She’s struggled to raise money, hauling in only slightly above $200,000 last year, withjust $94,000 incash on hand at the end of 2019. Cunningham entered January with $1.7 million in the bank.

Smith expressed frustration at the idea that she is a weaker general election candidate, saying in an interview that there is there is a “certain privilege that exudes from these statements.”

“Traditional D.C. says that the strength and the weakness of a candidate is based on their money.… We know that their theory is wrong,” she said. “Time and time again, the DSCC and D.C. — they’ve backed well-financed candidates, only to have them lose.”

Still, the Republicans’ tactic may be a boon for Smith’s campaign, which hasn’t spent any money on TV.Harrison Hickman, a pollster and consultant for former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), said Republicans were “astute” in boosting Smith because what an unknown candidate “needs more than anything else is name recognition and popularity.” But he said there could be “backlash” if voters are aware of the group’s GOP ties.

Gary Pearce, a longtime Democratic strategist in the state, said Cunningham had a “very comfortable” lead in the race just a few weeks ago. Now, he said, it’s “no sure thing.”

Read More

#Foreign #Politics #sabotage #Senate

[marymosley]

Emojis in Court

Love them or hate them, it looks like “emojis” are here to stay. As of this writing, more than 3,000 emojis have been officially recognized, standardized, and named by the Unicode Consortium (a group that cares very deeply about emojis, among other things) and they have been adopted for widespread use on cell phones, tablets, email clients, and social media platforms.

Emojis now exist as a way to succinctly express everything from the ordinary and familiar ( smiling face;  thumbs-up) to the surprisingly specific ( mountain cableway; moon viewing ceremony) to the routinely misunderstood ( not “angry” but rather “persevering face;”  not “shooting star” but rather “dizzy”), to the criminally repurposed ( snowflake to mean cocaine;  rocket to mean high drug potency).

The explosive growth of this alternative form of communication is raising some interesting questions for criminal attorneys and the court system as a whole. Should emojis be considered “statements,” on equal footing with written or spoken words? If they’re not statements, then what are they? Who decides what is meant by the use of a particular emoji? Do they have to be published to the jury and included in the record as images, or can they be summarized and described by words? What should practitioners do to make sure that emojis are accurately reflected in transcripts, court orders, and appellate opinions, since many court systems are text-based and do not allow for the inclusion of images?

Let’s about it.

Emojis? Really?

I’m afraid so. If this topic makes you  and want to  your , I sympathize. It took me far longer to find and insert those three images than it would have taken to simply type the words. But like it or not, emojis are showing up as evidence up in court cases with increasing frequency.

This topic garnered some national attention a few years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Elonis v. United States, 135 S.Ct. 2001 (2015). The defendant in Elonis challenged his conviction for threatening his estranged wife on Facebook, and one of the arguments on appeal was that the posts could not be interpreted as threats because the defendant included a smiley face emoji with the tongue sticking out, indicating that he was not serious. The emoji did not end up factoring into the Court’s opinion, but to some observers it was proof that emojis had finally arrived as an issue on the legal landscape, and would likely become more common and more significant.

Recent cases across the country seem to bear that prediction out. See, e.g., United States v. Jefferson, 911 F.3d 1290 (10th Cir. 2018) (affirming defendant’s robbery convictions, and noting that the “substantial” evidence of his guilt included not only surveillance videos and his admissions, but also a “Facebook post made after the January 9 robberies, which included a firearm emoji”);  Commonwealth v. Hunt, 94 Mass. App. Ct. 1123 (Feb. 22, 2019) (unpublished) (evidence on cross-examination to show nature of relationship and alleged bias of witness included text messages with “three kissey emoji,” “emoji of … two people with [a] heart … above their heads” and an “emoji of … [a] diamond ring”); State v. King, 2018 WL 4868127 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div., Oct. 9, 2018) (unpublished) (evidence in witness tampering case included Facebook post that included a picture of a subpoena, multiple references to the subject as a “rat,” and “seven middle finger emojis”).

According to Professor Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University who tracks this issue, the prevalence of emojis in court cases across the country has followed a “J curve” pattern, beginning with just a few cases back in 2004 but then rising exponentially; in fact, more than 30% of all reported court cases mentioning emojis appeared in 2018 alone.

I have not yet seen any North Carolina or 4th Circuit cases in which the presence, admissibility, or meaning of an emoji was a crucial factor in the decision, but they are undoubtedly beginning to show up in the evidence. See, e.g., State v. Aracena, __ N.C. App. __, 817 S.E.2d 628 (Aug. 21, 2018) (unpublished) (evidence in robbery and assault case included a Facebook post directed at victim boasting about the assault, along with “five laughing emojis with tears coming out”); see also Nexus Services, Inc., v. Moran, 2018 WL 1461750 (W.D. Va., March 23, 2018) (concluding that an email between two co-workers which contained a “Hitler emoji” was not an attempt to chill plaintiff’s speech – it had to be “taken in context” where “one was jokingly calling the other a ‘meanie’ and a taskmaster”).

Emojis: Words, Thoughts, Both, or Neither?

As explained here, emojis first appeared in the mid- to late-1990’s as a feature on select Japanese cell phones, but their popularity exploded in the early 2000’s after they were standardized to work across multiple platforms and in different countries. The term “emoji” comes from the Japanese words “e” (絵, or “picture”) and “moji” (文字, or “character”), so emoji literally means “picture character.”

Emojis aren’t words in the traditional sense, of course, but it’s clear that they are something more communicative than mere doodles or illustrations.  Like their text-based ancestors known as “emoticons” (figures or symbols such as  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ or :-), created with regular keyboard characters), emojis can be used to add context and tone to an accompanying statement, or they can express a separate and independent thought on their own. Conceptually, this makes emojis analogous to gestures, nods, or facial expressions that can likewise modify the meaning of accompanying words (like a shrug for “no offense,” or a glare for “I’m not kidding”), or convey a complete thought (like a nod to mean “yes,” or pointing to mean “over there”), depending on the circumstances.

Until we receive specific guidance from North Carolina’s appellate courts, and in light of the fact that emojis are being used as a form of communication, the most logical approach is to treat them as “statements,” comparable to any other type of “written or oral assertion or nonverbal conduct intended by the declarant as an assertion.” G.S. 8C-1, Rule 801(a) (definition of hearsay); see also State v. Satterfield, 316 N.C. 55 (1986) (“An act, such as a gesture, can be a statement for purposes of applying rules concerning hearsay”). Treating emojis as nonverbal statements provides a ready-made body of law for tackling issues like relevance and admissibility, which is a great start, but it gets a little more complicated when we turn to the matter of interpretation.

What Do Emojis Mean?

Imagine a troubled young defendant who texts his girlfriend that he is willing to   her disapproving parents so that they can finally be together. She texts back with what the Unicode Consortium calls the “folded hands” emoji: . What does that reply mean? Is it hands clasped in prayer, begging him not to do it? Or praying that he will? Or perhaps she misunderstands the emoji and thinks it’s a “high five,” celebrating their murderous plan? Additionally, consider what happens if the sender and receiver are using different cell phones or operating systems. The same emoji, “pistol,” displays this way on a Microsoft device:  but it shows up like this on an LG smartphone:  . The potential for misunderstandings and conflicting interpretations is (literally) easy to see.

In many cases, the jurors will make the final determination about the true meaning or intent behind an ambiguous emoji, just as they would with any other potentially incriminating statement that the declarant contends was “only a joke” or “not how I meant it.” And to help the jury answer those questions, it appears that we have already entered the age of emoji interpretation expert witnesses. In a recent human trafficking case out of California, the state qualified a detective “as an expert in the areas of pimping, pandering and prostitution,” based on his training and experience, and the expert was permitted to testify about several emojis that the defendant texted (a crown, high heels, and bags of money) and the meaning of those images “specific to commercial … sexual exploitation.” See People v. Jamerson, 2019 WL 459012 (Cal. Ct. App., February 6, 2019) (unpublished).

But judges, magistrates, attorneys, and law enforcement officers also need to become at least conversationally fluent in emoji-speak, in order to address a number of other issues that could surface before trial. For example, is the “folded hands” emoji in the example above enough to charge the girlfriend with conspiracy? Is it admissible at trial as a statement of a co-conspirator? If the girlfriend testifies and insists that her reply meant “I’m praying you don’t do it,” can the state still argue the mistaken high five interpretation as a “reasonable inference” in closing? Opposing parties will inevitably disagree on what certain emojis mean, but it helps if both sides can at least agree on their names and recognize the differences between them.

How to Publish and Preserve

The growing use of emojis in texts, social media posts, and emails poses two additional problems for the court system. First, how should emojis be presented in court proceedings, such as when an officer is using them as part of a warrant application, or when an attorney wants to publish them to the jury? Second, how should they be documented and preserved in court records, such as transcripts or appellate opinions?

Whenever possible, the best option is to use the entire text, email, or post, showing all the words and emojis together. Officers can attach a printout or screenshot to their warrant applications, and attorneys can publish to the jury by handing out copies and letting the jurors see it for themselves. This approach helps to avoid disputes about misrepresentation or cross-platform display errors, and best ensures that the full and true intent of the communication will be conveyed (whatever the parties contend that intent is).

If including an image is not possible, it is imperative that the written description of the emojis be as complete and accurate as possible, preferably by using the standardized Unicode Consortium names. There are 148 different emojis listed in the “Smileys and Emotion” category alone, so a vague description like “smiley face emoji” could lead to confusion or error. In addition to its distinctive name, every emoji also has a unique code assigned to it. Including both the full name and the code in the description will ensure that “sleepy face” (, U+1 F62A) is not incorrectly characterized as “drooling face” (, U+1 F924).

The least desirable option is to leave the emojis out entirely, or replace them with a generic placeholder in brackets like [emojis omitted] or [various emojis]. For all the reasons explained above, this option doesn’t accurately convey the full meaning of the statement. See, e.g., United States v. Johnson, 280 F. Supp. 3d 772 (D. Md., Nov. 21, 2017) (referencing an Instagram post where defendant wrote “…they welcomed me home like it was 88 [emojis]. Real luv never fails…”). The post in Johnson would read quite differently if the defendant said he was being “welcomed home” with  instead of .

Emoji or Emojis?

Finally, what is the correct plural of emoji? If there are several of them in a row, is it still “emoji” like we would say “the seven samurai,” or should it be “emojis” like we would say “multiple tsunamis?” As you can tell from this post I’ve already made my choice, but for a contrary view check out this Atlantic article. Let the comment war begin.

The post Emojis in Court appeared first on North Carolina Criminal Law.

Emojis in Court published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

[marymosley]

Emojis in Court

Love them or hate them, it looks like “emojis” are here to stay. As of this writing, more than 3,000 emojis have been officially recognized, standardized, and named by the Unicode Consortium (a group that cares very deeply about emojis, among other things) and they have been adopted for widespread use on cell phones, tablets, email clients, and social media platforms.

Emojis now exist as a way to succinctly express everything from the ordinary and familiar ( smiling face;  thumbs-up) to the surprisingly specific ( mountain cableway; moon viewing ceremony) to the routinely misunderstood ( not “angry” but rather “persevering face;”  not “shooting star” but rather “dizzy”), to the criminally repurposed ( snowflake to mean cocaine;  rocket to mean high drug potency).

The explosive growth of this alternative form of communication is raising some interesting questions for criminal attorneys and the court system as a whole. Should emojis be considered “statements,” on equal footing with written or spoken words? If they’re not statements, then what are they? Who decides what is meant by the use of a particular emoji? Do they have to be published to the jury and included in the record as images, or can they be summarized and described by words? What should practitioners do to make sure that emojis are accurately reflected in transcripts, court orders, and appellate opinions, since many court systems are text-based and do not allow for the inclusion of images?

Let’s about it.

Emojis? Really?

I’m afraid so. If this topic makes you  and want to  your , I sympathize. It took me far longer to find and insert those three images than it would have taken to simply type the words. But like it or not, emojis are showing up as evidence up in court cases with increasing frequency.

This topic garnered some national attention a few years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Elonis v. United States, 135 S.Ct. 2001 (2015). The defendant in Elonis challenged his conviction for threatening his estranged wife on Facebook, and one of the arguments on appeal was that the posts could not be interpreted as threats because the defendant included a smiley face emoji with the tongue sticking out, indicating that he was not serious. The emoji did not end up factoring into the Court’s opinion, but to some observers it was proof that emojis had finally arrived as an issue on the legal landscape, and would likely become more common and more significant.

Recent cases across the country seem to bear that prediction out. See, e.g., United States v. Jefferson, 911 F.3d 1290 (10th Cir. 2018) (affirming defendant’s robbery convictions, and noting that the “substantial” evidence of his guilt included not only surveillance videos and his admissions, but also a “Facebook post made after the January 9 robberies, which included a firearm emoji”);  Commonwealth v. Hunt, 94 Mass. App. Ct. 1123 (Feb. 22, 2019) (unpublished) (evidence on cross-examination to show nature of relationship and alleged bias of witness included text messages with “three kissey emoji,” “emoji of … two people with [a] heart … above their heads” and an “emoji of … [a] diamond ring”); State v. King, 2018 WL 4868127 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div., Oct. 9, 2018) (unpublished) (evidence in witness tampering case included Facebook post that included a picture of a subpoena, multiple references to the subject as a “rat,” and “seven middle finger emojis”).

According to Professor Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University who tracks this issue, the prevalence of emojis in court cases across the country has followed a “J curve” pattern, beginning with just a few cases back in 2004 but then rising exponentially; in fact, more than 30% of all reported court cases mentioning emojis appeared in 2018 alone.

I have not yet seen any North Carolina or 4th Circuit cases in which the presence, admissibility, or meaning of an emoji was a crucial factor in the decision, but they are undoubtedly beginning to show up in the evidence. See, e.g., State v. Aracena, __ N.C. App. __, 817 S.E.2d 628 (Aug. 21, 2018) (unpublished) (evidence in robbery and assault case included a Facebook post directed at victim boasting about the assault, along with “five laughing emojis with tears coming out”); see also Nexus Services, Inc., v. Moran, 2018 WL 1461750 (W.D. Va., March 23, 2018) (concluding that an email between two co-workers which contained a “Hitler emoji” was not an attempt to chill plaintiff’s speech – it had to be “taken in context” where “one was jokingly calling the other a ‘meanie’ and a taskmaster”).

Emojis: Words, Thoughts, Both, or Neither?

As explained here, emojis first appeared in the mid- to late-1990’s as a feature on select Japanese cell phones, but their popularity exploded in the early 2000’s after they were standardized to work across multiple platforms and in different countries. The term “emoji” comes from the Japanese words “e” (絵, or “picture”) and “moji” (文字, or “character”), so emoji literally means “picture character.”

Emojis aren’t words in the traditional sense, of course, but it’s clear that they are something more communicative than mere doodles or illustrations.  Like their text-based ancestors known as “emoticons” (figures or symbols such as  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ or :-), created with regular keyboard characters), emojis can be used to add context and tone to an accompanying statement, or they can express a separate and independent thought on their own. Conceptually, this makes emojis analogous to gestures, nods, or facial expressions that can likewise modify the meaning of accompanying words (like a shrug for “no offense,” or a glare for “I’m not kidding”), or convey a complete thought (like a nod to mean “yes,” or pointing to mean “over there”), depending on the circumstances.

Until we receive specific guidance from North Carolina’s appellate courts, and in light of the fact that emojis are being used as a form of communication, the most logical approach is to treat them as “statements,” comparable to any other type of “written or oral assertion or nonverbal conduct intended by the declarant as an assertion.” G.S. 8C-1, Rule 801(a) (definition of hearsay); see also State v. Satterfield, 316 N.C. 55 (1986) (“An act, such as a gesture, can be a statement for purposes of applying rules concerning hearsay”). Treating emojis as nonverbal statements provides a ready-made body of law for tackling issues like relevance and admissibility, which is a great start, but it gets a little more complicated when we turn to the matter of interpretation.

What Do Emojis Mean?

Imagine a troubled young defendant who texts his girlfriend that he is willing to   her disapproving parents so that they can finally be together. She texts back with what the Unicode Consortium calls the “folded hands” emoji: . What does that reply mean? Is it hands clasped in prayer, begging him not to do it? Or praying that he will? Or perhaps she misunderstands the emoji and thinks it’s a “high five,” celebrating their murderous plan? Additionally, consider what happens if the sender and receiver are using different cell phones or operating systems. The same emoji, “pistol,” displays this way on a Microsoft device:  but it shows up like this on an LG smartphone:  . The potential for misunderstandings and conflicting interpretations is (literally) easy to see.

In many cases, the jurors will make the final determination about the true meaning or intent behind an ambiguous emoji, just as they would with any other potentially incriminating statement that the declarant contends was “only a joke” or “not how I meant it.” And to help the jury answer those questions, it appears that we have already entered the age of emoji interpretation expert witnesses. In a recent human trafficking case out of California, the state qualified a detective “as an expert in the areas of pimping, pandering and prostitution,” based on his training and experience, and the expert was permitted to testify about several emojis that the defendant texted (a crown, high heels, and bags of money) and the meaning of those images “specific to commercial … sexual exploitation.” See People v. Jamerson, 2019 WL 459012 (Cal. Ct. App., February 6, 2019) (unpublished).

But judges, magistrates, attorneys, and law enforcement officers also need to become at least conversationally fluent in emoji-speak, in order to address a number of other issues that could surface before trial. For example, is the “folded hands” emoji in the example above enough to charge the girlfriend with conspiracy? Is it admissible at trial as a statement of a co-conspirator? If the girlfriend testifies and insists that her reply meant “I’m praying you don’t do it,” can the state still argue the mistaken high five interpretation as a “reasonable inference” in closing? Opposing parties will inevitably disagree on what certain emojis mean, but it helps if both sides can at least agree on their names and recognize the differences between them.

How to Publish and Preserve

The growing use of emojis in texts, social media posts, and emails poses two additional problems for the court system. First, how should emojis be presented in court proceedings, such as when an officer is using them as part of a warrant application, or when an attorney wants to publish them to the jury? Second, how should they be documented and preserved in court records, such as transcripts or appellate opinions?

Whenever possible, the best option is to use the entire text, email, or post, showing all the words and emojis together. Officers can attach a printout or screenshot to their warrant applications, and attorneys can publish to the jury by handing out copies and letting the jurors see it for themselves. This approach helps to avoid disputes about misrepresentation or cross-platform display errors, and best ensures that the full and true intent of the communication will be conveyed (whatever the parties contend that intent is).

If including an image is not possible, it is imperative that the written description of the emojis be as complete and accurate as possible, preferably by using the standardized Unicode Consortium names. There are 148 different emojis listed in the “Smileys and Emotion” category alone, so a vague description like “smiley face emoji” could lead to confusion or error. In addition to its distinctive name, every emoji also has a unique code assigned to it. Including both the full name and the code in the description will ensure that “sleepy face” (, U+1 F62A) is not incorrectly characterized as “drooling face” (, U+1 F924).

The least desirable option is to leave the emojis out entirely, or replace them with a generic placeholder in brackets like [emojis omitted] or [various emojis]. For all the reasons explained above, this option doesn’t accurately convey the full meaning of the statement. See, e.g., United States v. Johnson, 280 F. Supp. 3d 772 (D. Md., Nov. 21, 2017) (referencing an Instagram post where defendant wrote “…they welcomed me home like it was 88 [emojis]. Real luv never fails…”). The post in Johnson would read quite differently if the defendant said he was being “welcomed home” with  instead of .

Emoji or Emojis?

Finally, what is the correct plural of emoji? If there are several of them in a row, is it still “emoji” like we would say “the seven samurai,” or should it be “emojis” like we would say “multiple tsunamis?” As you can tell from this post I’ve already made my choice, but for a contrary view check out this Atlantic article. Let the comment war begin.

The post Emojis in Court appeared first on North Carolina Criminal Law.

Emojis in Court published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

[marymosley]

Emojis in Court

Love them or hate them, it looks like “emojis” are here to stay. As of this writing, more than 3,000 emojis have been officially recognized, standardized, and named by the Unicode Consortium (a group that cares very deeply about emojis, among other things) and they have been adopted for widespread use on cell phones, tablets, email clients, and social media platforms.

Emojis now exist as a way to succinctly express everything from the ordinary and familiar ( smiling face;  thumbs-up) to the surprisingly specific ( mountain cableway; moon viewing ceremony) to the routinely misunderstood ( not “angry” but rather “persevering face;”  not “shooting star” but rather “dizzy”), to the criminally repurposed ( snowflake to mean cocaine;  rocket to mean high drug potency).

The explosive growth of this alternative form of communication is raising some interesting questions for criminal attorneys and the court system as a whole. Should emojis be considered “statements,” on equal footing with written or spoken words? If they’re not statements, then what are they? Who decides what is meant by the use of a particular emoji? Do they have to be published to the jury and included in the record as images, or can they be summarized and described by words? What should practitioners do to make sure that emojis are accurately reflected in transcripts, court orders, and appellate opinions, since many court systems are text-based and do not allow for the inclusion of images?

Let’s about it.

Emojis? Really?

I’m afraid so. If this topic makes you  and want to  your , I sympathize. It took me far longer to find and insert those three images than it would have taken to simply type the words. But like it or not, emojis are showing up as evidence up in court cases with increasing frequency.

This topic garnered some national attention a few years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Elonis v. United States, 135 S.Ct. 2001 (2015). The defendant in Elonis challenged his conviction for threatening his estranged wife on Facebook, and one of the arguments on appeal was that the posts could not be interpreted as threats because the defendant included a smiley face emoji with the tongue sticking out, indicating that he was not serious. The emoji did not end up factoring into the Court’s opinion, but to some observers it was proof that emojis had finally arrived as an issue on the legal landscape, and would likely become more common and more significant.

Recent cases across the country seem to bear that prediction out. See, e.g., United States v. Jefferson, 911 F.3d 1290 (10th Cir. 2018) (affirming defendant’s robbery convictions, and noting that the “substantial” evidence of his guilt included not only surveillance videos and his admissions, but also a “Facebook post made after the January 9 robberies, which included a firearm emoji”);  Commonwealth v. Hunt, 94 Mass. App. Ct. 1123 (Feb. 22, 2019) (unpublished) (evidence on cross-examination to show nature of relationship and alleged bias of witness included text messages with “three kissey emoji,” “emoji of … two people with [a] heart … above their heads” and an “emoji of … [a] diamond ring”); State v. King, 2018 WL 4868127 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div., Oct. 9, 2018) (unpublished) (evidence in witness tampering case included Facebook post that included a picture of a subpoena, multiple references to the subject as a “rat,” and “seven middle finger emojis”).

According to Professor Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University who tracks this issue, the prevalence of emojis in court cases across the country has followed a “J curve” pattern, beginning with just a few cases back in 2004 but then rising exponentially; in fact, more than 30% of all reported court cases mentioning emojis appeared in 2018 alone.

I have not yet seen any North Carolina or 4th Circuit cases in which the presence, admissibility, or meaning of an emoji was a crucial factor in the decision, but they are undoubtedly beginning to show up in the evidence. See, e.g., State v. Aracena, __ N.C. App. __, 817 S.E.2d 628 (Aug. 21, 2018) (unpublished) (evidence in robbery and assault case included a Facebook post directed at victim boasting about the assault, along with “five laughing emojis with tears coming out”); see also Nexus Services, Inc., v. Moran, 2018 WL 1461750 (W.D. Va., March 23, 2018) (concluding that an email between two co-workers which contained a “Hitler emoji” was not an attempt to chill plaintiff’s speech – it had to be “taken in context” where “one was jokingly calling the other a ‘meanie’ and a taskmaster”).

Emojis: Words, Thoughts, Both, or Neither?

As explained here, emojis first appeared in the mid- to late-1990’s as a feature on select Japanese cell phones, but their popularity exploded in the early 2000’s after they were standardized to work across multiple platforms and in different countries. The term “emoji” comes from the Japanese words “e” (絵, or “picture”) and “moji” (文字, or “character”), so emoji literally means “picture character.”

Emojis aren’t words in the traditional sense, of course, but it’s clear that they are something more communicative than mere doodles or illustrations.  Like their text-based ancestors known as “emoticons” (figures or symbols such as  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ or :-), created with regular keyboard characters), emojis can be used to add context and tone to an accompanying statement, or they can express a separate and independent thought on their own. Conceptually, this makes emojis analogous to gestures, nods, or facial expressions that can likewise modify the meaning of accompanying words (like a shrug for “no offense,” or a glare for “I’m not kidding”), or convey a complete thought (like a nod to mean “yes,” or pointing to mean “over there”), depending on the circumstances.

Until we receive specific guidance from North Carolina’s appellate courts, and in light of the fact that emojis are being used as a form of communication, the most logical approach is to treat them as “statements,” comparable to any other type of “written or oral assertion or nonverbal conduct intended by the declarant as an assertion.” G.S. 8C-1, Rule 801(a) (definition of hearsay); see also State v. Satterfield, 316 N.C. 55 (1986) (“An act, such as a gesture, can be a statement for purposes of applying rules concerning hearsay”). Treating emojis as nonverbal statements provides a ready-made body of law for tackling issues like relevance and admissibility, which is a great start, but it gets a little more complicated when we turn to the matter of interpretation.

What Do Emojis Mean?

Imagine a troubled young defendant who texts his girlfriend that he is willing to   her disapproving parents so that they can finally be together. She texts back with what the Unicode Consortium calls the “folded hands” emoji: . What does that reply mean? Is it hands clasped in prayer, begging him not to do it? Or praying that he will? Or perhaps she misunderstands the emoji and thinks it’s a “high five,” celebrating their murderous plan? Additionally, consider what happens if the sender and receiver are using different cell phones or operating systems. The same emoji, “pistol,” displays this way on a Microsoft device:  but it shows up like this on an LG smartphone:  . The potential for misunderstandings and conflicting interpretations is (literally) easy to see.

In many cases, the jurors will make the final determination about the true meaning or intent behind an ambiguous emoji, just as they would with any other potentially incriminating statement that the declarant contends was “only a joke” or “not how I meant it.” And to help the jury answer those questions, it appears that we have already entered the age of emoji interpretation expert witnesses. In a recent human trafficking case out of California, the state qualified a detective “as an expert in the areas of pimping, pandering and prostitution,” based on his training and experience, and the expert was permitted to testify about several emojis that the defendant texted (a crown, high heels, and bags of money) and the meaning of those images “specific to commercial … sexual exploitation.” See People v. Jamerson, 2019 WL 459012 (Cal. Ct. App., February 6, 2019) (unpublished).

But judges, magistrates, attorneys, and law enforcement officers also need to become at least conversationally fluent in emoji-speak, in order to address a number of other issues that could surface before trial. For example, is the “folded hands” emoji in the example above enough to charge the girlfriend with conspiracy? Is it admissible at trial as a statement of a co-conspirator? If the girlfriend testifies and insists that her reply meant “I’m praying you don’t do it,” can the state still argue the mistaken high five interpretation as a “reasonable inference” in closing? Opposing parties will inevitably disagree on what certain emojis mean, but it helps if both sides can at least agree on their names and recognize the differences between them.

How to Publish and Preserve

The growing use of emojis in texts, social media posts, and emails poses two additional problems for the court system. First, how should emojis be presented in court proceedings, such as when an officer is using them as part of a warrant application, or when an attorney wants to publish them to the jury? Second, how should they be documented and preserved in court records, such as transcripts or appellate opinions?

Whenever possible, the best option is to use the entire text, email, or post, showing all the words and emojis together. Officers can attach a printout or screenshot to their warrant applications, and attorneys can publish to the jury by handing out copies and letting the jurors see it for themselves. This approach helps to avoid disputes about misrepresentation or cross-platform display errors, and best ensures that the full and true intent of the communication will be conveyed (whatever the parties contend that intent is).

If including an image is not possible, it is imperative that the written description of the emojis be as complete and accurate as possible, preferably by using the standardized Unicode Consortium names. There are 148 different emojis listed in the “Smileys and Emotion” category alone, so a vague description like “smiley face emoji” could lead to confusion or error. In addition to its distinctive name, every emoji also has a unique code assigned to it. Including both the full name and the code in the description will ensure that “sleepy face” (, U+1 F62A) is not incorrectly characterized as “drooling face” (, U+1 F924).

The least desirable option is to leave the emojis out entirely, or replace them with a generic placeholder in brackets like [emojis omitted] or [various emojis]. For all the reasons explained above, this option doesn’t accurately convey the full meaning of the statement. See, e.g., United States v. Johnson, 280 F. Supp. 3d 772 (D. Md., Nov. 21, 2017) (referencing an Instagram post where defendant wrote “…they welcomed me home like it was 88 [emojis]. Real luv never fails…”). The post in Johnson would read quite differently if the defendant said he was being “welcomed home” with  instead of .

Emoji or Emojis?

Finally, what is the correct plural of emoji? If there are several of them in a row, is it still “emoji” like we would say “the seven samurai,” or should it be “emojis” like we would say “multiple tsunamis?” As you can tell from this post I’ve already made my choice, but for a contrary view check out this Atlantic article. Let the comment war begin.

The post Emojis in Court appeared first on North Carolina Criminal Law.

Emojis in Court published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

[marymosley]

Emojis in Court

Love them or hate them, it looks like “emojis” are here to stay. As of this writing, more than 3,000 emojis have been officially recognized, standardized, and named by the Unicode Consortium (a group that cares very deeply about emojis, among other things) and they have been adopted for widespread use on cell phones, tablets, email clients, and social media platforms.

Emojis now exist as a way to succinctly express everything from the ordinary and familiar ( smiling face;  thumbs-up) to the surprisingly specific ( mountain cableway; moon viewing ceremony) to the routinely misunderstood ( not “angry” but rather “persevering face;”  not “shooting star” but rather “dizzy”), to the criminally repurposed ( snowflake to mean cocaine;  rocket to mean high drug potency).

The explosive growth of this alternative form of communication is raising some interesting questions for criminal attorneys and the court system as a whole. Should emojis be considered “statements,” on equal footing with written or spoken words? If they’re not statements, then what are they? Who decides what is meant by the use of a particular emoji? Do they have to be published to the jury and included in the record as images, or can they be summarized and described by words? What should practitioners do to make sure that emojis are accurately reflected in transcripts, court orders, and appellate opinions, since many court systems are text-based and do not allow for the inclusion of images?

Let’s about it.

Emojis? Really?

I’m afraid so. If this topic makes you  and want to  your , I sympathize. It took me far longer to find and insert those three images than it would have taken to simply type the words. But like it or not, emojis are showing up as evidence up in court cases with increasing frequency.

This topic garnered some national attention a few years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Elonis v. United States, 135 S.Ct. 2001 (2015). The defendant in Elonis challenged his conviction for threatening his estranged wife on Facebook, and one of the arguments on appeal was that the posts could not be interpreted as threats because the defendant included a smiley face emoji with the tongue sticking out, indicating that he was not serious. The emoji did not end up factoring into the Court’s opinion, but to some observers it was proof that emojis had finally arrived as an issue on the legal landscape, and would likely become more common and more significant.

Recent cases across the country seem to bear that prediction out. See, e.g., United States v. Jefferson, 911 F.3d 1290 (10th Cir. 2018) (affirming defendant’s robbery convictions, and noting that the “substantial” evidence of his guilt included not only surveillance videos and his admissions, but also a “Facebook post made after the January 9 robberies, which included a firearm emoji”);  Commonwealth v. Hunt, 94 Mass. App. Ct. 1123 (Feb. 22, 2019) (unpublished) (evidence on cross-examination to show nature of relationship and alleged bias of witness included text messages with “three kissey emoji,” “emoji of … two people with [a] heart … above their heads” and an “emoji of … [a] diamond ring”); State v. King, 2018 WL 4868127 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div., Oct. 9, 2018) (unpublished) (evidence in witness tampering case included Facebook post that included a picture of a subpoena, multiple references to the subject as a “rat,” and “seven middle finger emojis”).

According to Professor Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University who tracks this issue, the prevalence of emojis in court cases across the country has followed a “J curve” pattern, beginning with just a few cases back in 2004 but then rising exponentially; in fact, more than 30% of all reported court cases mentioning emojis appeared in 2018 alone.

I have not yet seen any North Carolina or 4th Circuit cases in which the presence, admissibility, or meaning of an emoji was a crucial factor in the decision, but they are undoubtedly beginning to show up in the evidence. See, e.g., State v. Aracena, __ N.C. App. __, 817 S.E.2d 628 (Aug. 21, 2018) (unpublished) (evidence in robbery and assault case included a Facebook post directed at victim boasting about the assault, along with “five laughing emojis with tears coming out”); see also Nexus Services, Inc., v. Moran, 2018 WL 1461750 (W.D. Va., March 23, 2018) (concluding that an email between two co-workers which contained a “Hitler emoji” was not an attempt to chill plaintiff’s speech – it had to be “taken in context” where “one was jokingly calling the other a ‘meanie’ and a taskmaster”).

Emojis: Words, Thoughts, Both, or Neither?

As explained here, emojis first appeared in the mid- to late-1990’s as a feature on select Japanese cell phones, but their popularity exploded in the early 2000’s after they were standardized to work across multiple platforms and in different countries. The term “emoji” comes from the Japanese words “e” (絵, or “picture”) and “moji” (文字, or “character”), so emoji literally means “picture character.”

Emojis aren’t words in the traditional sense, of course, but it’s clear that they are something more communicative than mere doodles or illustrations.  Like their text-based ancestors known as “emoticons” (figures or symbols such as  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ or :-), created with regular keyboard characters), emojis can be used to add context and tone to an accompanying statement, or they can express a separate and independent thought on their own. Conceptually, this makes emojis analogous to gestures, nods, or facial expressions that can likewise modify the meaning of accompanying words (like a shrug for “no offense,” or a glare for “I’m not kidding”), or convey a complete thought (like a nod to mean “yes,” or pointing to mean “over there”), depending on the circumstances.

Until we receive specific guidance from North Carolina’s appellate courts, and in light of the fact that emojis are being used as a form of communication, the most logical approach is to treat them as “statements,” comparable to any other type of “written or oral assertion or nonverbal conduct intended by the declarant as an assertion.” G.S. 8C-1, Rule 801(a) (definition of hearsay); see also State v. Satterfield, 316 N.C. 55 (1986) (“An act, such as a gesture, can be a statement for purposes of applying rules concerning hearsay”). Treating emojis as nonverbal statements provides a ready-made body of law for tackling issues like relevance and admissibility, which is a great start, but it gets a little more complicated when we turn to the matter of interpretation.

What Do Emojis Mean?

Imagine a troubled young defendant who texts his girlfriend that he is willing to   her disapproving parents so that they can finally be together. She texts back with what the Unicode Consortium calls the “folded hands” emoji: . What does that reply mean? Is it hands clasped in prayer, begging him not to do it? Or praying that he will? Or perhaps she misunderstands the emoji and thinks it’s a “high five,” celebrating their murderous plan? Additionally, consider what happens if the sender and receiver are using different cell phones or operating systems. The same emoji, “pistol,” displays this way on a Microsoft device:  but it shows up like this on an LG smartphone:  . The potential for misunderstandings and conflicting interpretations is (literally) easy to see.

In many cases, the jurors will make the final determination about the true meaning or intent behind an ambiguous emoji, just as they would with any other potentially incriminating statement that the declarant contends was “only a joke” or “not how I meant it.” And to help the jury answer those questions, it appears that we have already entered the age of emoji interpretation expert witnesses. In a recent human trafficking case out of California, the state qualified a detective “as an expert in the areas of pimping, pandering and prostitution,” based on his training and experience, and the expert was permitted to testify about several emojis that the defendant texted (a crown, high heels, and bags of money) and the meaning of those images “specific to commercial … sexual exploitation.” See People v. Jamerson, 2019 WL 459012 (Cal. Ct. App., February 6, 2019) (unpublished).

But judges, magistrates, attorneys, and law enforcement officers also need to become at least conversationally fluent in emoji-speak, in order to address a number of other issues that could surface before trial. For example, is the “folded hands” emoji in the example above enough to charge the girlfriend with conspiracy? Is it admissible at trial as a statement of a co-conspirator? If the girlfriend testifies and insists that her reply meant “I’m praying you don’t do it,” can the state still argue the mistaken high five interpretation as a “reasonable inference” in closing? Opposing parties will inevitably disagree on what certain emojis mean, but it helps if both sides can at least agree on their names and recognize the differences between them.

How to Publish and Preserve

The growing use of emojis in texts, social media posts, and emails poses two additional problems for the court system. First, how should emojis be presented in court proceedings, such as when an officer is using them as part of a warrant application, or when an attorney wants to publish them to the jury? Second, how should they be documented and preserved in court records, such as transcripts or appellate opinions?

Whenever possible, the best option is to use the entire text, email, or post, showing all the words and emojis together. Officers can attach a printout or screenshot to their warrant applications, and attorneys can publish to the jury by handing out copies and letting the jurors see it for themselves. This approach helps to avoid disputes about misrepresentation or cross-platform display errors, and best ensures that the full and true intent of the communication will be conveyed (whatever the parties contend that intent is).

If including an image is not possible, it is imperative that the written description of the emojis be as complete and accurate as possible, preferably by using the standardized Unicode Consortium names. There are 148 different emojis listed in the “Smileys and Emotion” category alone, so a vague description like “smiley face emoji” could lead to confusion or error. In addition to its distinctive name, every emoji also has a unique code assigned to it. Including both the full name and the code in the description will ensure that “sleepy face” (, U+1 F62A) is not incorrectly characterized as “drooling face” (, U+1 F924).

The least desirable option is to leave the emojis out entirely, or replace them with a generic placeholder in brackets like [emojis omitted] or [various emojis]. For all the reasons explained above, this option doesn’t accurately convey the full meaning of the statement. See, e.g., United States v. Johnson, 280 F. Supp. 3d 772 (D. Md., Nov. 21, 2017) (referencing an Instagram post where defendant wrote “…they welcomed me home like it was 88 [emojis]. Real luv never fails…”). The post in Johnson would read quite differently if the defendant said he was being “welcomed home” with  instead of .

Emoji or Emojis?

Finally, what is the correct plural of emoji? If there are several of them in a row, is it still “emoji” like we would say “the seven samurai,” or should it be “emojis” like we would say “multiple tsunamis?” As you can tell from this post I’ve already made my choice, but for a contrary view check out this Atlantic article. Let the comment war begin.

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