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2istoliver · 3 years

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The Era of Misinformation Is Here To Stay

[Article extrated from THE INTERPRETER - THE NEW YORK TIMES]

By Max Fisher & Amanda Taub

This week alone, there’s a decent chance you’ve had at least one of these rumors, all false, relayed to you as fact: that President Biden plans to force Americans to eat less meat, that Virginia is eliminating advanced math in schools as part of a scheme to advance racial equality, and that border officials have been mass-purchasing copies of Vice President Kamala Harris’s book to hand out to refugee children.

All were amplified by partisan actors. But you’re just as likely, if not more so, to have heard it relayed from someone you know. And you may have noticed that these cycles of falsehood-fueled outrage keep recurring.

We are in an era of endemic misinformation — and outright disinformation. Plenty of bad actors are helping the trend along. But the real drivers, some experts believe, are social and psychological forces that make people prone to sharing and believing misinformation in the first place — and those forces are only on the rise.

“Why are misperceptions about contentious issues in politics and science seemingly so persistent and difficult to correct?” Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth College political scientist, poses in a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It’s not for want of good information, which is ubiquitous. Exposure to good information does not reliably instill accurate beliefs anyway. Rather, Dr. Nyhan writes, a growing body of evidence suggests that the ultimate culprits are “cognitive and memory limitations, directional motivations to defend or support some group identity or existing belief, and messages from other people and political elites.”

Put more simply, people become more prone to misinformation when three things happen. First, and perhaps most important, when conditions in society make people feel a greater need for what social scientists call ingrouping: a belief that their social identity is a source of strength and superiority, and that other groups can be blamed for their problems.

As much as we like to think of ourselves as rational beings who put truth-seeking above all else, we are social animals wired for survival. In times of perceived conflict or social change, we seek security in groups. And that makes us eager to consume information, true or not, that lets us see the world as a conflict putting our righteous ingroup against a nefarious outgroup.

This need can emerge especially out of a sense of social destabilization. As a result, misinformation is often prevalent among communities that feel destabilized by unwanted change or, in the case of some minorities, powerless in the face of dominant forces.

If you are, say, a conservative American who feels a sense of lost control amid the pandemic and Mr. Trump’s election loss, then misinformation reframing it all as a grand conflict between patriotic true Americans and scheming social justice warriors can feel enormously reassuring.

It’s why perhaps the greatest culprit of our era of misinformation may be, more than any one particular misinformer, the era-defining rise in social polarization.

“At the mass level, greater partisan divisions in social identity are generating intense hostility toward opposition partisans,” which has “seemingly increased the political system’s vulnerability to partisan misinformation,” Dr. Nyhan wrote in an earlier paper.

Growing hostility between the two halves of America feeds social distrust, which makes people more prone to rumor and falsehood. It also makes people cling much more tightly to their partisan identities. And once our brains switch into “identity-based conflict” mode, we become desperately hungry for information that will affirm that sense of us versus them, and much less concerned about things like truth or accuracy.

(In an email, Dr. Nyhan stressed that it can be methodologically difficult to nail down the precise relationship between the overall level of polarization in society and the overall level of misinformation, but that there is abundant evidence that an individual with more polarized views becomes more prone to believing falsehoods.)

The second driver of our misinformation era is also upgraded by polarization: high-profile political figures who encourage their followers to go ahead and indulge their desire for identity-affirming misinformation. After all, an atmosphere of all-out political conflict often benefits those leaders, at least in the short term, by rallying people behind them.

And then there is the third factor: a shift to social media, which is a powerful outlet for composers of disinformation, a pervasive vector for misinformation itself, and a multiplier of the other risk factors.

“Media has changed, the environment has changed, and that has a potentially big impact on our natural behavior,” William J. Brady, a Yale University social psychologist, said.

“When you post things, you’re highly aware of the feedback that you get, the social feedback in terms of likes and shares,” Dr. Brady said. So when misinformation appeals to social impulses more than the truth does, it gets more attention online, which means people feel rewarded and encouraged for spreading it.

“Depending on the platform, especially, humans are very sensitive to social reward,” he said. Research demonstrates that people who get positive feedback for posting inflammatory or false statements become much likelier to do so again in the future. “You are affected by that.”

In 2016, the media scholars Jieun Shin and Kjerstin Thorson analyzed a data set of 300 million tweets from the 2012 election. Twitter users, they found, “selectively share fact-checking messages that cheerlead their own candidate and denigrate the opposing party’s candidate.” And when users encountered a fact-check that revealed their candidate had gotten something wrong, their response wasn’t to get mad at the politician for lying to them. It was to attack the fact checkers.

“We have found that Twitter users tend to retweet to show approval, argue, gain attention and entertain,” researcher Jon-Patrick Allem wrote last year, summarizing a study he’d co-authored. “Truthfulness of a post or accuracy of a claim was not an identified motivation for retweeting.”

In another study, published last month in Nature, a team of psychologists tracked thousands of users interacting with false information. Republican test subjects who were shown a false headline about migrants trying to enter the United States (“Over 500 ‘Migrant Caravaners’ Arrested With Suicide Vests”) mostly identified it as false; only 16 percent called it accurate. But if the experimenters instead asked the subjects to decide whether to share the headline, 51 percent said they would.

“Most people do not want to spread misinformation,” the study’s authors wrote. “But the social media context focuses their attention on factors other than truth and accuracy.”

In a highly polarized society like today’s United States — or, for that matter, India or parts of Europe — those incentives pull heavily toward ingroup solidarity and outgroup derogation. They do not much favor consensus reality or abstract ideals of accuracy.

As people get more prone to misinformation, opportunists and charlatans are also getting better at exploiting this. That can mean tear-it-all-down populists who rise on promises to smash the establishment and control minorities. It can also mean government agencies or freelance hacker groups stirring up social divisions abroad for their benefit. But the roots of the crisis go deeper than them.

“The problem is that when we encounter opposing views in the age and context of social media, it’s not like reading them in a newspaper while sitting alone,” the sociologist Zeynep Tufekci wrote in a much-circulated MIT Technology Review article. “It’s like hearing them from the opposing team while sitting with our fellow fans in a football stadium. Online, we’re connected with our communities, and we seek approval from our like-minded peers. We bond with our team by yelling at the fans of the other one.”

In an ecosystem where that sense of identity conflict is all-consuming, she wrote, “belonging is stronger than facts.”

Continue

#misinformation #anthropology #psychology #sociology #digital world #politics #inspainthesame socialmedia identity

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fostersffff · 4 years

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Trials of Mana Demo Impressions

The Bad

Hoo boy, this voice acting is something. I’ve become a lot softer on criticizing voice acting over time, accrediting the majority of bad performances to bad direction, but in this case I really think it’s a mix of lackluster direction and performance. I think Kevin is the prime example, where the actor is attempting to do the stilted caveman speak, but isn’t committing all the way. Reisz’s voice actress also has a handful of lines that sound like they were her reading the script for the first time and wasn’t sure how to inflect. The Japanese audio sounds a little better in terms of “feel”, but considering Square-Enix’s track record with good voice acting, this is slightly disappointing.

The new soundtrack is hit or miss. Some of the songs got the love and attention they deserve, like Where Angels Fear to Tread and Powell, but Left-Handed Wolf and Nuclear Fusion use some really crappy sounding electric guitar samples. I don’t feel compelled to switch over to the original soundtrack, but I’m glad the option is there.

I’ve done a lot of bitching about FE3H since its release for lackluster animations, but Trials of Mana is right up there with it. It’s a problem I notice in a lot of anime styled games where the way the characters move just doesn’t match up with the way they look, and that’s certainly the case here. What’s most confounding is how little facial emoting there is, but so many close ups on characters faces, highlighting exactly how little facial emoting there is.

All of these complaints are tied to the fact that this is definitely a medium budget game. It probably had more money to play with than the last few Tokyo RPG Factory games, but less than something like Octopath Traveler. I can’t really even be too mad about this considering the way the Secret of Mana remake turned out, because I was utterly convinced the options for a Seiken Densetsu 3 remake were something like that or nothing at all, but it is noticeable. But I can tell you where they probably spent the bulk of that money:

The Good

Combat is REALLY good!

All characters share a universal combo system. You have a weak and a strong attack, and they can be combined to either perform a repel attack (knock away a single enemy and interrupt them from attacking) or an area attack (self-explanatory). You can also string together three weak attacks, or charge up a single strong attack, and you even have some basic air combos. It’s simple, but it feels very good.

Because there’s now a proper combat system in place, your class skills are now essentially Super Moves. In the original, three/four hits would charge your meter enough so that you could do a slightly stronger attack. In the remake, you have a minor risk/reward system where using power attacks that require a little more commitment (especially charged power attacks) will reward you with more meter, but they also leave you prone to taking more damage. It’s terrifically implemented.

One of the biggest and best things about the combat system is the integration of MMO-style warning indicators. When an enemy is preparing to use a special ability or spell, a bright red indicator appears on the ground. They come in different shapes and sizes, and they gradually fill themselves in. Once full, the attack happens and if you’re still standing in it when it does, it’ll deal a ton of damage. This is where your dodge comes in: as far as I can tell, the dodge in Trials of Mana doesn’t have any invincibility frames like other action games, because the dodge is literally just to help you quickly evacuate from standing in bad. I’m thrilled to see MMO-style warning indicators make their way into something other than MMOs, and an action RPG feels like the perfect fit. Like, as much as I enjoyed the Final Fantasy VII Remake demo, it really feels like it could use something like this.

Not sure if this is limited to Hard Mode, but some enemies will be shielded, requiring you to use charged power attacks to break the shield before you can actually start dealing damage. I’m hoping it’s featured in at least Normal Mode, because it forces the player to not just mash weak attacks.

Now that I’m done gushing about combat: the character designs and general aesthetic of the game is also great. The main character designs all look great in 3D, and I’m glad a lot of minor characters have had their designs tweaked to make them stand out more, like the Beast King, Ludgar, and Bil & Ben. The environments are designed to match the characters in terms of color saturation, which makes every feel right.

The addition of a jump button has expanded out exploration to include some very light platforming. You’re incentivized to explore every nook and cranny not just of the wilderness but towns and cities to find treasure chests and loose items. The jump is a teensy bit floaty, but considering you don’t go very high and air combos don’t require precision positioning it all works perfectly well.

The map and objective markers are really welcome additions to the game, especially since multiple areas are considerably larger by virtue of being combined into one. However, if you’re a masochist, the game also includes the option to turn both of those off, so if you want to fumble around in the dark like the Super Nintendo original, you’re more than welcome to.

Finally, I love what they’ve done with the level up and skill system. You get exp bonuses in combat for fulfilling certain goals, like beating all the enemies within a certain timeframe, not taking damage, or using your class skill, which is another incentive for skillful play. Leveling up earns you points you can allocate towards your stat of choice, just like the original, but now hitting certain point totals will give you actual bonuses. The bonuses are either character specific- Charlotte gets one that causes her to gain meter whenever she uses a healing spell, for example- or “chain” bonuses, which you equip to one character but apply to the entire party. None of these (at least for the base classes) are tremendous and game changing, but I imagine these are going to be substantial for class changes.

The Rest

As expected, the Switch version runs worse than the PS4 and PC versions. I’m not an expert at distinguishing resolutions, but since the art style isn’t super photorealistic, the game looks quite good on the Switch outside of a handful of instances where textures popped in late. More importantly, the game is locked to 30 frames per second, compared to 60 on PS4 and up to 120 on PC. This isn’t as huge a deal as it could be since the game isn’t super reflex based the way other action games like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta are- even on hard mode you have adequate time to respond to enemy attacks- and I didn’t notice any severe framerate drops even during crowded battles or the boss fight, but the game definitely feels better at 60 FPS+.

The default movement speed feels a little slow, but you do have a dash. I get the impression that the game’s speed was designed around the combat first, which was probably the right decision.

I expressed a little concern after watching one of the gameplay demonstrations about the voice clips, and I hoped there wouldn’t be a voice clip after every combat encounter. Thankfully that appears to be the case. There are also different possible voice clips, and divided amongst three characters it seems like it won’t be grating, or at least not immediately.

Another thing I was worried about was the length/amount of disruptive animations, but in addition to only occurring on class skills and summons, there’s an option to disable animations entirely.

Some enemies will still explode into a pile of bones, which is just terrific.

You’re given the option to actually play through the unique opening segments of your chosen party members, as opposed to just seeing them in a brief flashback scene.

Speaking of the introductory segments, I love that they altered Kevin’s journey to Jadd so that instead of taking a boat he tries to swim across the ocean.

With the exception of some inter-party banter during gameplay, the script is exactly the same as the original version included in Collection of Mana, confirming my suspicion that the only reason we finally got CoM was because they were bringing this script over anyway. I’m ultimately glad that’s the case because I’m glad to have CoM, but there are certainly moments I wish they would have massaged out the script to accommodate for the fact that they can do much more with the story than on the Super Nintendo. It’s got me really curious about whether or not that newly announced post-game story is going to stick out like a sore thumb against the rest of the game.

If the opening credits are anything to go by, it looks like this game is being developed for Square-Enix by a company called “Xeen”. I can find literally no information on them whatsoever, so if they are a brand new studio, fucking big kudos to them.

#long post #Trials of Mana #Seiken Densetsu 3 #Secret of Mana #Seiken Densetsu #Square-Enix #video games

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thesovietbroadcast · 5 years

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Rethinking Socialism: What Is Socialist Transition II

As opposed to Liu's attempts to institute contract labor, the Anshan Constitution was the most serious attempt made to change the organization of work and the labour process in the workplace. The workers of the Anshan Metallurgical Combine took the initiative to lay out new rules to change the existing operation of their workplace. On March 22, 1960, Mao proclaimed that these new rules should be used as guidelines for the operation of state enterprises, and named them the Anshan Constitution.

The Anshan Constitution contains the most fundamental elements as well as concrete steps in revolutionizing the work organization and the labour process of state-owned enterprises. There are five principles in the Anshan Constitution:

(1) put politics in command. (2) strengthen the party leadership. (3) launch vigorous mass movement. (4) systematically promote the participation of cadres in productive labour and of workers in management. (5) reform any unreasonable rules, assure close cooperation among workers, cadres, and technicians, and energetically promote technical revolution [1]

The principles in the Anshan Constitution represent a spirit leading toward the direction of eventually phasing out wage labour.

However, before the Cultural Revolution began, the factories only paid lip service to the Anshan Constitution. When management was in firm control of the decision making process in running the factory, it did not see any need to change. On the other hand, workers, who were content to have the state-endowed privileges and benefits, assumed that the conditions of their employment and the benefits endowed were there to stay.

The political struggle within the Chinese Communist Party over the direction of the transition was reflected in the factory in changes in the wage and employment policies. At times, policies issued from above pushed the implementation of the piece wage rate and expanded the employment of temporary workers. Then, often during mass movements, these policies were criticized and reversed. Before the Cultural Revolution, however, workers did not comprehend the reasons behind these reversals of policies. They were not aware that Liu had made several attempts to abolish permanent employment status.

Without the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, Liu and his supporters might have succeedcd in their attempts to repeal the laws that protected the state employees. If that had been the case, permanent employment status and other benefits endowed to state employees might have become history decades ago.

When workers participated in the mass movements in the 1950's and 60's, their class consciousness was gradually raised; but workers did not realize, until the Cultural Revolution, that class struggle continued after the judicial transfer of the ownership of the means of production to the state. It was during the Cultural Revolution -- a period of intensive political struggle in the factory and in society at large -- that many crucial issues were raised.

The workers and cadres in the factories openly discussed and debated many important issues such as material incentives, cadres' participation in production work, workers' participation in management, and factory rules and regulations. For the first time, workers in China's state enterprises grasped the meaning of putting politics in command and the other principles in the Anshan Constitution.

[2]

#tsb txt

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andrewjohnsonmpls · 5 years

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The Comprehensive Plan (2040)

Every ten years, the City of Minneapolis is required under state law to update its Comprehensive Plan – a document that guides land use and hundreds of policies. For years, City staff and policymakers have been preparing for this latest update, and will spend years after an updated plan is passed working on setting specific details and implementing components of the plan; in this way, the Comprehensive Plan is part of a continuous cycle of policy work.

Given the monumental challenges before us – climate change threatening our way of life, some of the worst racial disparities in the entire United States right here in our city, and an affordable housing crisis devastating families across Minneapolis – we wanted more than a light refresh of the Comp Plan, we wanted to revisit all policy areas and seriously consider the causes of the problems we face today and how we might work to address them during this next cycle of policy work. This work was informed by a wide-variety of open houses and input sessions to gather a diverse range of feedback from across our city. What our staff produced is a well-written draft, which you can find here. I encourage you to read it.

The initial draft of the plan, released this spring, was meant to be bold and start a conversation – that it did. That first draft proposed allowing property owners up to four units of housing (through new construction or conversion of an existing home) on what are today single-family home lots. Many residents, myself included, had concerns about the impact of this for a variety of reasons, and it became the focal point of criticism of the plan; in many ways that was unfortunate, as it overshadowed so many other important policy suggestions – most of which are also bold and would have widespread support if they received more attention. Public input on the initial draft plan was gathered over months, and with more than 10,000 comments received, staff went to work updating and releasing a final draft which was unveiled this fall. This final draft reduced the maximum allowable housing density for today’s single-family house lots from four units to three, downzoned many corridors from what was initially proposed, and added more detail and supporting information throughout the plan.

Since the initial release, I have held four meetings in Ward 12 in partnership with our three neighborhood associations (LCC, SENA, and NENA) to share information, answer questions, and most importantly, hear from constituents. Beyond these meetings and the emails and phone calls I have received, I have also been intentionally asking residents what they think at block parties, neighborhood meetings, and community events for the better part of the year. While meetings, emails, and phone calls have been fairly split between those that are supportive of the draft plan or have significant concerns (along with a handful of individuals who think it does not go far enough), I have found that most residents I approach and ask about this in the community are aware of the Comp Plan and think it’s fine. Where people have been opposed, I have sought to understand what their specific concerns are to see if they are being addressed or consider how we might address them.

After carefully reading the draft Comp Plan multiple times, spending hundreds of hours listening to thousands of opinions, and doing a ton of research, I brought forward more than 40 amendments to the plan which successfully passed (more than any other Council Member). These ranged from implementing technology solutions along Highway 55 (Hiawatha Ave) which will improve signal timing and relieve traffic congestion, to analysis of property tax trends on burdening homeowners and developing plans to mitigate those impacts (particularly for those with low or fixed incomes). Other amendments of mine included improving our recycling efforts and working to ensure every resident has access to high-speed fiber optic internet, to significantly improving snow and ice clearance from sidewalks and going further in supporting our locally-owned small businesses. On the land use maps, I worked with residents who expressed concerns to build consensus among neighbors and amended the proposed zoning to better fit the neighborhood.

With such a truly comprehensive effort, there are inevitably parts of both the plan and the process around it which I have mixed-feelings on. While every home in the ward received information on their doorstep about the Comp Plan and meetings through multiple editions of our local community newspapers, and while we worked to get notice out via many other channels (such as my e-newsletter, e-Democracy, NextDoor, social media, and of course traditional news media), I am disappointed that mailed notice was not included in the City’s communication strategy – something I had pushed for internally. I also disagreed with the decision by staff to hire a PR firm to counter misinformation, which seemed not only wasteful when the City has a Communications Department that could have been leveraged, but destined to entrench critics.

As for the most controversial element of the plan – allowing up to three units of housing on a single-family lot – after extensive consideration, I do not expect our community to see much change as a result. Property owners on a typical single-family lot who wish to take advantage of this will still be restricted to the existing height and setback limitations (in other words, they can’t build anything bigger than what is already allowed). And the economics for the most part are just not there, at least for rentals, to justify duplex or triplex development. But sometimes there are other reasons to build when the economics don’t make sense. Take Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), which the City Council legalized for all single-family lots back in 2014; the same can be said of ADUs - that there is not a good economics case to be made for building them. Yet we have seen nine ADUs built in Ward 12 over the past three years. In many if not all cases, there was some personal or family reason to do so. As many residents in our ward continue to age, it is undeniable that there exists a case for multi-generational households to consider building duplexes or triplexes. For individual with declining mobility, new construction is often a necessity – putting a bathroom and living quarters on the main level, along with bringing the washer, dryer, and utility access up from the basement. And having family just a floor away not only provides critical support, but obvious social value. The desire for seniors to continue living independently within our neighborhoods and the lack of housing options that help facilitate this need cannot be overlooked. When we legalized ADUs, we knew the vast majority of property owners would never build one (just 9 of more than 11,000+ homes in Ward 12 have), and I am confident that the same is true of this added flexibility for converting existing homes to multi-family or building new; our charming community with its quiet streets comprised mostly of single-family homes, a community I fell in love with just as so many of you have, will continue to be charming, quiet, and mostly single-family homes. Development of new housing units will predominantly continue to be focused along Hiawatha Avenue, where transit access, commercial amenities, and economically-sound opportunities for new construction are abundant.

Whether increased market-rate housing supply will help ease the affordability crisis is of debate and concern with the plan. In addition to the record levels of funding for affordable housing as part of Mayor Frey’s 2019 budget (more than $40 million), the City Council also passed an inclusionary zoning policy tied to the Comp Plan. This policy requires most developers to make at least 10% of their units in new projects available at 60% or less of Area Median Income (AMI) for at least 20 years, and offers incentives to make 20% or more units available at 50% or less of AMI for 30 years. Like the rest of the Comprehensive Plan, there will be regular reporting on progress towards achieving these goals, what if any unintended outcomes we may be seeing, and opportunities to adjust policies and even the plan itself along the way.

The Comprehensive Plan was passed by the City Council today 12 votes in favor to 1 opposed (CM Palmisano). For such a comprehensive rewrite of such a comprehensive plan to receive this near unanimous level of support is noteworthy and helps illustrate the level of thought and care that went into this update, the overall widely-supported policies within it, the compromises made, and the many checks and balances in place to ensure that it moves our city and our community in a positive direction – enhancing the neighborhoods we love while helping address the most pressing challenges that face us. I will continue working hard over the coming years to listen to our community and represent it well in the fine-tuning of detailed regulations as they relate to this plan. Thank you for everyone who shared your thoughts on this with me and I hope you will continue to stay engaged in our policy work together over the coming years.

(If you have any questions or would like to discuss this further, please contact me or stop by my weekly open office hours).

#comp plan #zoning and planning

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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What Do Republicans Believe About Education

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-do-republicans-believe-about-education/

What Do Republicans Believe About Education

Energy Issues And The Environment

Majority Of Republicans Believe Education Is BAD For America

There have always been clashes between the parties on the issues of energy and the environment. Democrats believe in restricting drilling for oil or other avenues of fossil fuels to protect the environment while Republicans favor expanded drilling to produce more energy at a lower cost to consumers. Democrats will push and support with tax dollars alternative energy solutions while the Republicans favor allowing the market to decide which forms of energy are practical.

Where Do Democrats And Republicans Stand On The Issue Of Healthcare

The chasm between the parties approach to providing healthcare to Americans couldnt be more vast. Simply put, Democrats have had some form of healthcare reform on their agenda for nearly a century. Republicans not so much. They feel that the status quo is just fine. At the core is a philosophical disagreement about the role of government. Democrats believe that government should be responsible for the people in some ways, and Republicans believe that the less government, the better. In the current climate, this boils down to Democrats wanting to retain, improve, and expand the ACA, and Republicans working overtime to repeal it with no replacement.

How Far Apart Are Democrats And Republicans On School Reform

Americans are more polarized than at any point in recent history.; On issue after issueabortion, the Affordable Care Act, or just about anything else Democrats stand on one side and Republicans stand on the other. It can be difficult for leaders to build consensus around policy when the two sides each have their own base of support.; But is the public so divided over school issues?;;;;;

Last year, Education Next conducted a poll asking Americans about 17 education issues.; On eight of these issues, there is no evidence that parties differ.; Democrats are no more or less supportive than Republicans when it comes to universal vouchers, vouchers for students in failing schools, tax credits for donations to scholarship programs for private schools, higher pay for teachers in hard to staff subjects, higher pay for teachers in hard to staff schools, and awarding tenure on the basis of student performance.;

There are differences on other issuesincreasing spending, raising teacher pay, government funded universal preschool, government funded preschool for low income families, charter schools, vouchers for low-income families, merit pay, tenure, and Common Corebut these differences hardly pit the parties in opposing corners of the ring.; In only one case does the majority from one party oppose the majority from the other.; Nearly three-fourths of Democrats favor more spending on public schools, and 54 percent of Republicans oppose it.;;;;;;;;;

Recommended Reading: How Many States Are Controlled By Republicans

Federal Government In Education

The Republican Party believes in doing away entirely with federal loans. College tuition, and its consequential debt, is rising uncontrollably. At this point, it is rising far above the rate of inflation. College debt in America, as of 2012, had exceeded the amount of credit card debt. Republicans believe federal loans exacerbate this problem by their lack of transparency, and the fact that they are often more expensive than private loans. For these reasons, republicans believe that the federal government should no longer issue student loans. Greater private sector participation in loans would drive tuition costs down. The party believes that the federal government should, however, serve as an insurance guarantor for private sector loans.

Crime And Capital Punishment

Republicans generally believe in harsher penalties when someone has committed a crime, including for selling illegal drugs. They also generally favor capital punishment and back a system with many layers to ensure the proper punishment has been meted out. Democrats are more progressive in their views, believing that crimes do not involve violence, such as selling drugs, should have lighter penalties and rehabilitation. They are also against capital punishment in any form.

You May Like: How Many Democrats And Republicans Are In The House

Do The Republicans Even Believe In Democracy Anymore

They pay lip service to it, but they actively try to undermine its institutions.

By Michael Tomasky

Contributing Opinion Writer

A number of observers, myself included, have written pieces in recent years arguing that the Republican Party is no longer simply trying to compete with and defeat the Democratic Party on a level playing field. Today, rather than simply playing the game, the Republicans are simultaneously trying to rig the games rules so that they never lose.

The aggressive gerrymandering, which the Supreme Court just declared to be a matter beyond its purview; the voter suppression schemes; the dubious proposals that havent gone anywhere yet like trying to award presidential electoral votes by congressional district rather than by state, a scheme that Republicans in five states considered after the 2012 election and that is still discussed: These are not ideas aimed at invigorating democracy. They are hatched and executed for the express purpose of essentially fixing elections.

We have been brought up to believe that American political parties are the same that they are similar creatures with similar traits and similar ways of behaving. Political science spent decades teaching us this. The idea that one party has become so radically different from the other, despite mountains of evidence, is a tough sell.

Or is there?

So were not there right now. But we may well be on the way, and its abundantly clear who wants to take us there.

For Teachers The Agenda Includes Bonuses And Tax Credits

To reward teachers who are highly effective, Republican lawmakers have proposed directing $50 million of the states $13.5 billion public education budget toward bonuses. They believe it is the biggest step the state can take to directly increase teacher pay set by local districts.

They deserve it, said Sen. Paul Lundeen, R-Monument and a bill sponsor. The reality is all teachers deserve more pay, but the teachers who are doing a great job are the first ones we should be getting more pay to.

Teacher pay is determined by local school districts, and bonuses offer the state a way to add more dollars to their compensation. Lundeen said 47% of Colorados public school teachers are currently rated as highly effective. Senate Democrats defeated legislation to this effect a year ago.

Republicans are also eager to draw more top-notch teachers into Colorados struggling schools through financial incentives included in a separate bill sponsored by Sen. Kevin Priola, R-Henderson, and Rep. Bri Buentello, D-Pueblo.

The state, Priola said, should at a minimum hold them harmless financially for doing the right thing and using their excellent skills to teach the kids that really need help closing the achievement gap.

Every teacher across this state invests in their students, not only with their time and with their energy and with their heart and their soul, but those teachers also spend dollars, Lundeen said. They pay for supplies to support the students in their classroom.

Read Also: How Many Republicans Are In The 116th Congress

Shift To Community Colleges And Technical Institutions

The first step is to acknowledge the need for change when the status quo is not working. New systems of learning are needed to compete with traditional four-year colleges: expanded community colleges and technical institutions, private training schools,online universities, life-long learning, and work-based learning in the private sector. New models for acquiring advanced skills will be ever more important in the rapidly changing economy of the 21st century, especially in science, technology,engineering, and math. Public policy should address all these challenges and to make accessible to everyone the emerging alternatives, with their lower cost degrees, to traditional college attendance.

Republicans and Democrats Explained! What is the Difference?

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Rep. Evan Goyke, D-Milwaukee, said there was no excuse for underfunding schools at a time when the state budget was sitting on a roughly $2 billion projected surplus.

“We have the money,” Goyke said. “We have the money to make the investments we need.”

As part of the GOP proposal, Republicans would also set aside $350 million in Wisconsin’s budget stabilization fund, commonly referred to as the state’s “rainy day fund.” While Republicans indicated that the funding could eventually go toward schools, there would be no limits on how a future governor and Legislature could spend the money.

“The money’s going to stay there,” said Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Saukville. “It’s a safe place to put it.”

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Senator Jim Inhofe Republican Of Oklahoma

Incoming chairman of the Senate committee on the environment and public works

Inhofe is the poster boy for Republican climate change denialism, not only for his stridency on the issue but because he is the once and future leader of the key Senate committee on environmental policy. Inhofe will be able to lead the committee for two years before running up against term limits . This time around, Inhofes committee is expected to focus on transportation and infrastructure bills.

But it seems likely that Inhofe will devote some energy to blocking the regulation of carbon emissions. We think this because on 12 November he told the Washington Post: As we enter a new Congress, I will do everything in my power to rein in and shed light on the EPAs unchecked regulations.

Inhofe has climate change the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people, has said God, not humans, controls the weather, and has denied climate change in many other ways.

Gop Education Budget Would Spend $14b Less Than Evers On Schools

Thursday, May 27, 2021, 5:30pm

Republicans who run the Legislature’s budget committee parted dramatically with Gov. Tony Evers Thursday, passing a K-12 education budget that would spend $1.4 billion less than the governor asked for.

The roughly $150 million they would spend, which includes $128 million in state tax funding,;is hundreds of millions less than the increase they supported just two years ago, and it comes at a time when state government’s budget is as flush as it’s been in decades.

It also comes at a time when Wisconsin schools are receiving more federal funding than ever before through three coronavirus relief packages, a total of $2.6 billion that Republicans say reduces the need to spend state funds on schools.

“We would be so remiss if we did not account for that money as we move forward,” said Rep. Tony Kurtz, R-Wonewoc. “To me, this is a no-brainer.”

At the same time, the GOP education plan raised the prospect that Wisconsin might not qualify for the federal funds.;That’s because one of the conditions of receiving the federal money is that states maintain the amount they spend on education as a percentage of their overall budgets. As of Thursday, the budget crafted by Wisconsin Republicans would fall short.

“You’re not going to get it,” Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-West Point, told Republicans. “One side of the aisle is not being honest here.”

In largely setting aside the governor’s proposal, Republicans rejected key pillars of Evers’ education budget.

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In Favour Of A Constitutional Monarchy

Not inherently undemocratic: Opponents of the republican movement argue that the current system is still democratic as the Government and MPs of Parliament are elected by universal suffrage and as the Crown acts only on the advice of the Parliament, the people still hold power. Monarchy only refers to how the head of state is chosen and not how the Government is chosen. It is only undemocratic if the monarchy holds meaningful power, which it currently does not as government rests with Parliament.

Safeguards the constitutional rights of the individual: The British constitutional system sets limits on Parliament and separates the executive from direct control over the police and courts. Constitutionalists argue that this is because contracts with the monarch such as the Magna Carta, the , the Act of Settlement and the Acts of Union place obligations on the state and confirm its citizens as sovereign beings. These obligations are re-affirmed at every monarch’s coronation. These obligations, whilst at the same time placing limits on the power of the judiciary and the police, also confirm those rights which are intrinsically part of British and especially English culture. Examples are Common Law, the particular status of ancient practices, jury trials, legal precedent, protection against non-judicial seizure and the right to protest.

What Is A Republican Republican Definition

April 11, 2014 By RepublicanViews.org

This article fully answers what a Republican is and gives the definition of a Republican in a fair, unbiased, and well-researched way. To start the article we list out the definition of a Republican, then we cover the Republican Partys core beliefs, then we list out the Republican Partys beliefs on all the major issues.

The Definition of a Republican:;a member of the Republican party of the U.S.

Source Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Also Check: When Did The Republican And Democratic Parties Switch Ideologies

History Of The Democratic Party

The party can trace its roots all the way back to Thomas Jefferson when they were known as Jeffersons Republicans and they strongly opposed the Federalist Party and their nationalist views. The Democrats adopted the donkey as their symbol due to Andrew Jackson who was publicly nicknamed jackass because of his popular position of let the people rule. The Democratic National Committee was officially created in 1848. During the civil war a rift grew within the party between those who supported slavery and those who opposed it. This deep division led to the creation of a new Democratic party, the one we now know today.

What Is Critical Race Theory And Why Do Republicans Want To Ban It In Schools

The latest front in the culture wars over how U.S. students should learn history and civics is the concept of critical race theory, an intellectual tool set for examining systemic racism. With roots in academia, the framework has become a flash point as Republican officials across the country seek to prevent it from being taught in schools.

In reality, there is no consensus on whether or how much critical race theory informs schools heightened focus on race. Most teachers do not use the term critical race theory with students, and they generally do not ask them to read the work of legal scholars who use that framework.

Some lessons and anti-racism efforts, however, reflect foundational themes of critical race theory, particularly that racism in the United States is systemic. The New York Timess landmark 1619 Project, which addresses slaverys role in shaping the nation, also has an associated school curriculum.

At least five Republican-led state legislatures have passed bans on critical race theory or related topics in recent months, and conservatives in roughly nine other states are pressing for similar measures. Some teachers have said they worry that the legislation will have a chilling effect on robust conversations, or could even put their jobs at risk, at a time when the nation is embroiled in a reckoning on race relations.

Read Also: Did Trump Say Republicans Are Stupid

America Should Deport Illegal Immigrants

Republicans believe that illegal immigrants, no matter the reason they are in this country, should be forcibly removed from the U.S. Although illegal immigrants are often motivated to come to the U.S. by companies who hire them, Republicans generally believe that the focus of the law should be on the illegal immigrants and not on the corporations that hire them.

Likely Voters Want Continued Government Funding For Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Programs Rutgers Researcher Finds

ASU Democrats vs Republicans: Federal Standards & Initiatives

Democrats and Republicans disagree on many policies but not on sex education for teenagers, a Rutgers-led national survey finds.

The study, published in the journal;Sex Education,;surveyed close to 1,000 likely voters who identified as Democrats or Republicans. The findings show a strong majority of them support sex education within schools and the continued funding by the government for teenage pregnancy prevention programs that include information about both abstinence and contraception.

“Sex education remains a vital component to reducing unintended teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases among young people as well as providing young people with the information and skills they need to build healthy relationships,” said professor Leslie M. Kantor, chair of the department of urban-global public health at the;Rutgers School of Public Health. Recent attempts by the government to shift funding away from evidence-based pregnancy prevention programs and back to abstinence-only-until- marriage-approaches are out of alignment with what likely voters want.

“Planned Parenthoods mission includes providing sex education programs and resources that teach teens to make healthy, informed choices,” said Nicole Levitz, Director of Digital Products at;Planned Parenthood Federation of America;and a co-author of the study. “This study validates that most likely voters want comprehensive sex education for middle and high school students.

Recommended Reading: What Is The Pin The Republicans Are Wearing

No Federal College Loans; Just Insure Private Loans

Federal student aid is on an unsustainable path, and efforts should be taken to provide families with greater transparency and the information they need to make prudent choices about a student’s future: completion rates, repayment rates, future earnings,and other factors that may affect their decisions. The federal government should not be in the business of originating student loans; however, it should serve as an insurance guarantor for the private sector as they offer loans to students.Private sector participation in student financing should be welcomed. Any regulation that drives tuition costs higher must be reevaluated to balance its worth against its negative impact on students and their parents.

The Founders Studied History

The Founders studied the history of governments. They were very interested in what they read about the government of the Roman Republic. It was located in what is now the country of Italy. The Roman Republic existed more than 2,000 years before our nation began.

The Founders liked what they read about the Roman Republic. They learned some important ideas from their study of the government of ancient Rome. They used some of these ideas when they created our government.

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ethanduan · 3 years

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From carrots to sticks: What‘s wrong with U.S. Past China Policy and Rethinking of U.S. China Policy

Kurt Campbell's discussion on China (Campbell & Ratner, 2018) mentioned that the U.S. had adopted a much stricter approach towards China. To some extent, his words are a microcosm of U.S. Policy toward China. Also, he pointed out that China has outplayed the U.S. in its relationship because China got the benefits they wanted from the United States but ignored the pressure and threats from the United States on China. However, the past U.S. China policy has not changed China: China not only go in the direction that the U.S. wants, but it has also become more authoritarian and offensive under Xi Jinping (Anderlini, 2019). Several factors have led to American past China policy. In the short term, if China does not undergo drastic political changes, the United States should adopt a smarter and tougher policy toward China to benefit the development of China's freedom and democracy and the safety of the United States and its allies.

For US-China relations and US-China policy, there are some main different views. The realists represented by Mearsheimer (2014, p. 840) have a pessimistic view of US-China relations. They believe that China will not rise peacefully and that the United States should adopt containment measures as soon as possible to replace war. In other words, more “stick policy” should be used against China. Moreover, there are two relatively optimistic views. Graham Allison (2020) represents the first point of view and believes that the Tosita trap can be avoided through communication between China and the US. Supporters of the contact policy represent another point of view. For example, Rowen (1996, p61) believes that although China is still a dictatorship, through the development of a market economy, China will develop many factors that are conducive to the development of a democratic system, such as the middle class, grassroots democracy and the rule of law. As a result, these factors conducive to freedom and democracy will make China a liberal democracy. The current US-China relationship shows that Mearsheimer's analysis of China is more convincing. As long as China remains a communist dictatorship, China will never rise peacefully. However, “carrot policy” still works partly. For instance, Mearsheimer also admitted that China had abandoned communism (2014, p.881), partly due to the engagement policy and the economic and trade relations between the two sides. More importantly, Changing China cannot rely solely on the "carrot policy" that includes financial temptation but requires more use of "sticks."

Evaluation of U.S. Past China Policy and US-China relationship

According to the Council on Foreign Relations(2021), the United States and the People’s Republic of China ended their hostilities and made a relationship firstly in the Nixon-Kissinger era. Nixon and the Carter administration maintained a friendly attitude towards China and established diplomatic relations in 1978. Before the Tiananmen Square incident, to win over China to deal with the Soviet Union, the United States had always maintained a friendly policy towards China, including the Reagan administration and the Bush Senior administration. However, the extent of China's contribution to the fall of the Soviet Union is questionable. Aron (2011) believes that the reasons for the fall of the Soviet Union mainly came from internal factors. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that the U.S. China policy made China, a nuclear-weapon state, at least not support the Soviet Union. Furthermore, China has also stopped exporting revolutions to foreign countries, especially Southeast Asia. Therefore, the US-China policy promotes East Asia’s stability and security (Steinberg 2020, p.131).

At this stage, China’s benefit from the US-China relationship recognised the "One China" policy (Lhowe, 1996). The United States recognised that the Beijing government represented China instead of the Taipei government. It dramatically improves the legality of CCP's rule of China. However, objectively, the CCP has dominated the Chinese regime for about 30 years. Whether the United States recognises it or not, it is the actual runner of China. In terms of economy and trade, the Nixon government lifted most of the restrictions on trade with China except for strategic commodities in 1969. The United States conditionally granted China most-favored-nation (MFN) status In 1980 (Americanforeignrelations, 2020). Nevertheless, this status must be renewed per year under the 1974 Trade Act, which makes Chinese critics in Congress question U.S. China policy every year. In June 1984, the Reagan administration allowed Beijing to purchase American military equipment (American foreign relations, 2020). In general, in US-China relations before the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, the United States and China had their own needs, and the United States' China policy did not receive much questioning. After the Chinese economic reform, China's economy had begun to develop rapidly. In addition，according to the World Bank (2020), the average economic growth rate was about 10% from 1978 to 1988.

The most criticised U.S. China policy is the 30 years from the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 to Trump’s trade war with China in 2018 (Steinberg 2020, p.122). During this period, there are the three most important events affecting US-China relations, and the corresponding decisions of the US government occurred: the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, China's accession to the World Trade Organization and the permanent most-favoured-nation (MFN) status of the US, and the Scarborough Shoal standoff in 2012. After the Tiananmen Square incident, the Bush Senior administration eased the US response, allowing the US to maintain contact with China. Bush himself argued that continuing to engage with China, including through trade, will promote the values agenda (Steinberg 2020, p.121): business incentives encourage a totalitarian shift to democracy. Now, Bush’s proposal is unsuccessful: China has not become a democratic country. However, after 1989, Chinese politics is full of uncertainty; at least China has not returned to the past Maoist era.

The second event that affects US-China relations is that the United States supports China's accession to the WTO and grants Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR). To this day, this decision is still controversial (Salam, 2018). Nevertheless, this decision allowed China to enter the international trading system and immensely helped China's economic development (Krugman, 2009). To join the WTO, the Chinese government made many financial promises and concessions, but some contracts have been fulfilled now, such as the reform of state-owned enterprises (Yang 2007, p.25). For China to join the WTO, Zhu Rongji's cabinet led the reform of state-owned enterprises in 1998, causing tens of millions of workers to lose their jobs (Yang 2007, p.36). Thus, to some extent, the United States has played a role in China's "carrot" policy. However, some of China’s promises have not been fulfilled (Ezell 2015, p.53). An interesting phenomenon here is that the part that China has not fulfilled is often related to the safety of the Communist Party’s governance (Ezell, SJ and Atkinson, RD 2015, p.22). For example, when China joined the WTO, it promised to open up China's telecommunications market, but it violated its promise (Ezell, S.J. and Atkinson, R.D. 2015, p.5).

Regarding the impact of WTO accession on China’s economy, here are two economists’ views on China’s economy. One is Paul Krugman, representing Neo-Keynesianism, and the other is John Cochrane, representing Neoclassicism. Paul Krugman believes that China's accession to the WTO will help China's economy take off (Krugman, 2013), but Coherence (2018) believes that regardless of China's accession to the WTO, China's economy will grow at its current growth rate. The difference will not exceed 1%. They both unanimously support free trade but oppose China's actions in international trade. For example, Paul Krugman pointed out that China manipulates the exchange rate (Krugman, 2009), and mercantilist policies have led to unemployment in the United States (Krugman, 2010). Cochrane (2018) is more optimistic that China's industrial policy will harm the Chinese economy, not the United States. However, Steinberg (2020, p.126) pointed out: if the United States does not expand the most-favoured-nation treatment (MFN), it will cause significant damage to the United States. This is because exporters from other countries will have a greater opportunity to enter China than the United States, such as Japan. Furthermore, the United States needs to use many diplomatic resources to prevent China from joining because China is likely to consent to two-thirds of WTO members.

The third incident was that after the Scarborough Shoal incident in 2012, the United States failed to prevent China's offensive actions against the Philippines in time (Steinberg 2020, p.127). Steinberg (2020, p.127) reports that the United States has insufficient support for its allies. Many people believe this has promoted China's future expansion ambitions in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. Notably, China has never stopped its aspirations for the South China Sea and the East China Sea. As early as 1996, there was a missile crisis in the Taiwan Strait. In the end, President Clinton sent the US Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait and successfully prevented the outbreak of war (Steinberg 2020, p.128). These two events reflect China’s attitude towards the security field: if the United States chooses to intervene and support its allies, China often decides to give in. If not, China will become aggressive.

It is worth noting that from the Tiananmen incident to the US-China trade war, China has not stopped its persecution of human rights. The Jiang Zemin government continued to persecute Falun Gong (Greenlee 2006, p.556), and the Hu Jintao government arrested Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo (Brown, 2010). During the Xi Jinping administration, this persecution of human rights has become even more severe, far exceeding His predecessor (Anderlini, 2019). Moreover, the Xi Jinping government has become more aggressive in foreign relations and has even begun to export its influence and values (Anderlini, 2019).

By combing the history of U.S.-China relations and U.S. policies toward China, we find that U.S. past policies are often dominated by "carrot" policies. Ding (2012, p.6) believes that compared with other dictatorships, the United States has adopted more “carrot” policies against China and even lost its principles because the United States is considering its commercial interests. Indeed, the United States has received some economic benefits, such as a semi-open Chinese market, a stable supply chain, and a Chinese market-oriented economy (Steinberg 2020, p.126). This shows that the "carrot" policy has significantly impacted China's economic reforms, and the United States itself has achieved certain economic benefits. However, the United States has not changed China's political system and human rights conditions. As Steinberg (2020, p.126) commented:

“The possibility of a better outcome seems greatest in the case of economic relations, weakest in the case of human rights and political reform in China, with the security realm lying somewhere in the middle. ”

A disturbing fact is that the political system and human rights situation is in turn affecting US-China relations. The most typical example is the opening of the Chinese market. China opened up all private economic demands to the world but rejected critical strategic industries, such as the telecommunications industry (Ezell, S.J. and Atkinson, R.D. 2015, p.5). This is because state companies dominate these strategic industries.

Rethinking the U.S. China policy

American policymakers should have a basic understanding of the strength of the United States and China. For the US, Berkley's (2018) reports that the United States still is a superpower, and the United States still has supremacy in East Asia and the world. Regarding China, Medeiros and Blanchette (2021) point out the Chinese economy has neither turned into global supremacy nor has it rapidly fallen to the verge of eventual collapse. Their views are a reasonable projection of the current strength of China and the United States. There is a significant disparity in power between China and the United States, but China will not quickly fail and has very close relations with the United States. Therefore, the U.S. China policy should be based on the fundamental power structure and evaluating the U.S. past China policy.

First, the US-China relationship is different from the US-Soviet Cold War (Allison, 2015). Campbell and Sullivan (2019) also believe this is an extreme Competition Without Catastrophe. This is due to the work of the previous "carrot" policy of the United States, so the "carrot" policy of the United States has not entirely failed, but it should be brighter. Remarkably, the United States should use its economic power to force China to comply with its trade commitments when it joined the WTO, protect intellectual property rights, and open its domestic market. According to the above analysis, the economic temptation of the United States can often change China's economic and trade policies. However, it is far from enough for the United States to use a "carrot" policy because it cannot change China's political behaviours. As a result, if the Chinese political system does not change, China will possibly not implement any economic and trade agreements.

Second, the United States should use more "stick" policies. Similarly, Kurt Campbell's claims (2018) that the U.S. policy towards China should be much more challenging. Xi Jinping, unlike his predecessors, has greater political ambitions and aggressiveness. Also, the United States policymaker should realise that the CCP has long been hostile to the United States (Broomfield, 2003). This is a competition between dictatorship and liberal democracy. Therefore, the United States needs to adopt more political, diplomatic and even military means to contain China’s ambitions. Notably, the United States needs to support its allies in East Asia and Southeast Asia and strengthen its military activities to prevent the Scarborough Shoal incident in 2012 from happening again. Moreover, the U.S. government should avoid Trump's policies in the economic and political fields and instead strive to unite Europe and the Five Eyes Alliance to exert pressure on China together. Furthermore, the United States should not give up its advantages in the field of ideology. In recent years, China has been actively exporting its values and ideology (Ding 2012, p.7), and the United States should be vigilant and adopt a policy of counterattack.

Third, the US should stand with Chinese people and support Chinese human suitable activities and the liberal democracy movement. the Chinese Communist Party's core goal is to maintain its dictatorship (Swaine. 2011, p4), so they do the only thing they do fear is just their people. The root cause of all US policy failures in China can be attributed to the failure of the United States to change China's politics. Even many American policymakers themselves do not believe that China's political system can change. Historically, South Korea and Taiwan, as countries in the Confucian cultural circle, started democratisation when they entered the level of middle-income countries (Jacobs, 2007). Before Xi Jinping came to power, the buds of civil society had begun to emerge in China (Nicholas 2012, p1-4): the people’s awareness of rights began to awaken, and the people were willing to participate in discussions on the Internet, many Internet media professionals and news media criticised The government and society have also begun to see a large number of mass incidents. Although China now seems silent because of the brutal suppression by the Xi Jinping government (Anderlini, 2019), it also reflects the fear and fragility of the Chinese Communist regime. Furthermore, only when China becomes a free and democratic country can the relationship between the United States and China become positive and healthy. Finally, promoting the democratisation of China is the strict policy that the United States should do most in its China policy.

Reference list：

Allison, G., 2015. The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed for War?. [online] The Atlantic. Available at: <https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/united-states-china-war-thucydides-trap/406756/> [Accessed 1 April 2021].

Allison G, Chen, Q. and Bai, Y., 2021. Compete and Coexist: US, China could develop new concept of relationship between great nations, Graham Allison says - Global Times. [online] Globaltimes.cn. Available at: <https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1209820.shtml> [Accessed 24 March 2021].

Aron, L. 2011, Everything You Think You Know About The Collapse Of The Soviet Union Is Wrong, Foreign Policy, Washington.

Americanforeignrelations.com. 2020. Cold war sanctions - Embargoes and Sanctions. [online] Available at: <https://www.americanforeignrelations.com/E-N/Embargoes-and-Sanctions-Cold-war-sanctions.html> [Accessed 26 April 2021].

Anderlini, J., 2019. Under Xi Jinping, China is turning back to dictatorship. Financial Times.

Broomfield, E.V., 2003. Perceptions of danger: The China threat theory. Journal of Contemporary China, 12(35), pp.265-284.

Campbell, K. and Ratner, E., 2018. Eresources provided by The University of Sydney Library. [online] Go-gale-com.ezproxy.library.sydney.edu.au. Available at: <https://go-gale-com.ezproxy.library.sydney.edu.au/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=usyd&id=GALE%7CA531242232&v=2.1&it=r> [Accessed 1 April 2021].

Campbell, K. and Sullivan, J., 2019. Competition Without Catastrophe. [online] Foreign Affairs. Available at: <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/competition-with-china-without-catastrophe?utm_medium=email_notifications&utm_source=reg_confirmation&utm_campaign=reg_guestpass> [Accessed 1 April 2021].

Council on Foreign Relations. 2021. Timeline: U.S. Relations With China 1949–2021. [online] Available at: <https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-relations-china> [Accessed 26 April 2021].

Data.worldbank.org. 2021. GDP growth (annual %) | Data. [online] Available at: <https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG> [Accessed 26 March 2021].

Ding, L. 2012, "What Went Wrong with the U.S.'s China Policy", Chinascope, , no. 60, pp. 6-9.

Jacobs, J.B., 2007. Taiwan and South Korea: Comparing East Asia's Two``Third-Wave''Democracies. ISSUES AND STUDIES-ENGLISH EDITION-, 43(4), p.227.

Layne, C., 2020. Roundtable 11-11 on Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower. [online] H-Diplo | ISSF. Available at: <https://issforum.org/roundtables/11-11-unrivaled#Introduction_by_Christopher_Layne_Texas_AM_University> [Accessed 1 April 2021].

Lhowe, M., 1996. China on the World Stage: Weighing the US Response. Choices for the 21st Century Student and Teacher's Guide. Revised.

Mearsheimer, JJ 2014, ‘Chapter TEN: Can China Rise Peacefully?’ in The tragedy of great power politics , Updated edition., W.W. Norton, New York, NY, pp.800-907

Medeiros, E. and Blanchette, J., 2018. Beyond Colossus or Collapse: Five Myths Driving American Debates about China - War on the Rocks. [online] War on the Rocks. Available at: <https://warontherocks.com/2021/03/beyond-colossus-or-collapse-five-myths-driving-american-debates-about-china/> [Accessed 1 April 2021].

Nicholas, J., 2012. The Development of Civil Society in China. A look at new research on philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and impact investing in China. Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), pp.1-11.

Rowen, H.S., 1996. The short march: China's road to democracy. The National Interest, (45), pp.61-70.

Swaine, M.D., 2011. China’s Assertive Behavior: Part One: On ‘Core Interests,’. China Leadership Monitor, 34(22), pp.1-25.

Steinberg, J.B., 2020. What Went Wrong? US-China Relations from Tiananmen to Trump (Winter 2019/2020). Texas National Security Review, pp.119-133

Krugman, P., 2009. Macroeconomic effects of Chinese mercantilism. The New York Times, 31.

Krugman, P., 2010. Chinese new year. New York Times, 1.

Krugman, P., 2013. Hitting China’s wall. The New York Times, 18.

Yang, K., 2007. State-owned enterprise reform in post-Mao China. International Journal of Public Administration, 31(1), pp.24-53.

Ezell, S., 2015. China's Broken Promises. The International Economy, 29(4), p.52.

EZELL, S.J. and Atkinson, R.D., 2015. China’s, W.T.O., False Promises: The Yawning Gap Between China’s WTO Commitments and Practices. The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation | September 2015, pp.1-37.

Cochrane, J., 2018. Summers on China. [online] Johnhcochrane.blogspot.com. Available at: <https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2018/12/summers-on-china.html> [Accessed 26 April 2021].

Greenlee, M.J., 2006. A king who devours his people: Jiang Zemin and the Falun Gong crackdown: A bibliography. Int'l J. Legal Info., 34, p.556.

Salam, R., 2018. Normalizing Trade Relations With China Was a Mistake. [online] The Atlantic. Available at: <https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/06/normalizing-trade-relations-with-china-was-a-mistake/562403/> [Accessed 26 May 2021].

Brown, K., 2010. China's leader Hu Jintao leads a country in ferment. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/15/china-leader-hu-jintao> [Accessed 26 March 2021].

#politics #us china relations #us china trade war

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khalilhumam · 3 years

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Black people are still seeking racial justice – why and what to do about it

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/black-people-are-still-seeking-racial-justice-why-and-what-to-do-about-it/

Black people are still seeking racial justice – why and what to do about it

By Kwadwo Frimpong On July 9th 2020, in the wake of nation-wide protests over George Floyd and other Black victims of police violence, David M. Rubenstein Fellow in Governance Studies Rashawn Ray joined actor and producer Boris Kodjoe to talk about policy solutions to address systemic racism and police brutality. Below are highlights from their conversation for the Instagram podcast series #19for20, which aims to inspire public dialogue about difficult topics in social justice. You can watch the full interview here.

What is different about today’s climate compared to prior national uprisings around race?

Ray highlighted how both the visceral public display of George Floyd’s murder and COVID-19 had engulfed the nation in a manner markedly distinct from Ferguson, Black Lives Matter (BLM) and other previous nation-wide racial justice movements. “George Floyd is the twenty first century Emmett Till, a moment similar to [his] murder in 1955 [and] by his mother having the foresight and also the bravery to show his decomposed body in that casket”, he said. The gruesome imagery of witnessing another human being lose their life, with their neck buried under the knee of a police officer for roughly 8 minutes and 46 seconds languishes us psychologically, emotionally and physically. At the same time, with the globe and mainstream media gripped in the sweeping standstill of the pandemic, BLM took to social media, unleashing raw footage of Floyd and other Black victims to signify that they were not isolated, but were the remnants of a larger scourge of racially charged police violence rippling across the country.

View this post on Instagram

For blessing us with your insight and passion for solutions on social justice and equality. #19For20

A post shared by Boris Kodjoe (@boriskodjoe) on Jul 9, 2020 at 5:54pm PDT

Why do Black Lives continue to be devalued and over-criminalized?

Ray remarked on how the nation’s historical legacy of slavery continues to be the foundational epicenter of racial discrimination against Blacks and other minorities. “Bad apples often times come from a rotten tree. And that tree in the United States of America is rooted in systemic racism, particularly when it comes to law enforcement that has roots back to slavery”, he explained. What’s more, according to recent research, disturbing levels of white nationalism and domestic extremist groups have been shown to have infiltrated law enforcement. Kodjoe described a personal encounter he had had with a white businessman in his own neighborhood while dressed in a hoodie and flip flops to illustrate what he referred to as “the magic pause”: how Black individuals continually internalize and deflect a series of micro-aggressions and discriminatory behavior from white individuals. The man was initially disdainful towards Kodjoe but after noticing that he owned one of the most opulent houses in the community, he sharply reversed his tone, adopting a more friendly and positive demeanor. “And that criminalization of Black people is the direct result of the lack of those muscles and the lack of consideration for the fact that I’m a father, I’m a husband, I’m a professional, I have family, I have a job,” Kodjoe emphasized. Ray concurred, remarking that “the magic pause” also reflects the collective memory of traumatic experiences that Blacks have undergone in the past, triggering fresh waves of encounters that either did or could have ended fatally, but also revealing how a white person will attempt to code-switch according to the perceived social class of a Black person. “And I think fundamentally it highlights that we can’t outclass racism. It doesn’t matter if you’re Boris Kodjoe [and] that you have the biggest house on the street….all that matters is that in that moment, he’s seen your skin tone and his skin tone, [which gives] him the script for how to make sense of what was going on,” he added. In essence, these racial attitudes undergird and perpetuate the over-policing and dehumanization of Black people and the long-standing perceptions that they are not only one-dimensional but are more likely to engage in crime. Conversely, crime is inherently racial but there is a tendency to zero in on Black related violence. “94% of Black people kill other Blacks, 86% of white people kill other whites. But we never say white-on-white crime. It’s only talking about Black-on-Black crime,” Ray underscored.

What remedies can help shape the path forward?

1. Re-allocate and re-invest in police departments Simply assigning more police officers to these crises will not solve the underlying issues. Further, not only is crime hovering at historic lows but existing law enforcement funds are not being utilized efficiently: Roughly 40% of homicides and 70% of robberies go unresolved and 9 out of 10 response calls handled by law enforcement stem from non-violent issues, ranging from mental health to homelessness. Defunding the police or re-assigning non-violent crimes to entities better equipped to handle these societal challenges will help to boost efficiency and augment the clearance rate for resolving violent crimes. 2. Implement accountability & transparency in law enforcement Not only does the status quo reward police officers who ratchet up the highest quotas of tickets and arrests but taxpayers routinely foot the bill for civil payouts involving victims of police brutality and even then, the culpable officers are rarely held financially or criminally liable.

Institute police department liability insurance: By shifting the source of funds for civilian payouts from taxpayers to police budgets, police departments will not only have a greater incentive to hold police officers accountable for misconduct but the aggrieved families will receive more just recompense for the loss of their loved ones, through the parties that are directly responsible as opposed to through their own hard-earned tax dollars.

Create a national registry: This will allow police officers to be terminated for misconduct or if they resigned under trial for misconduct as outlined in the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

Remove qualified immunity: This is a legal safeguard currently upheld by the Supreme Court which shields police officers from criminal liability and being sued financially, however, recently enacted state led reforms such as in Colorado can serve as a promising model.

3. Active civic engagement, particularly down ballot Activism across the electoral spectrum is paramount but local politics largely determines the policies and outcomes within one’s immediate community. Rallying and electing local officials such as state representatives and attorney generals who can impact the judicial system can yield concrete pathways towards significant results. 4. Corporate America needs to embrace meaningful action, not just slogans and words Black assets and intellectual property have been systematically disenfranchised and under-invested in and members of the C-suite and other large conglomerates have a significant role to play in not only reshaping the narrative and incentive structure around business but by also leveraging the existing resources within the Black community to drive sustainable and meaningful change. ”[We] don’t need handouts, we need real partnerships and corporate allies that are ready to invest in us,” Kodjoe reiterated.

Invest in minority-owned small businesses. Roughly 40% of black small businesses went under because 90% didn’t receive relief funds, however, large corporates can leverage their existing sub-contracts to combat this area.

Diversity upper management; there is a rich pool of untapped talent to be capitalized upon.

Compensate individuals for doing the emotional work of anti-racism; they are not there to do it for free.

Institute bi-annual surveys for minorities to capture their experiences in the workplace and promote greater equity.

Implement reparations to close the racial wealth gap.

In essence, Black people don’t want a seat at the table, they want their own table, apportioned with equal weight and size to be acknowledged, seen, and heard across all spectrums of society. W.E.B Dubois encapsulated this enduring plight of Black individuals over a century ago as “double consciousness”, a longing to be both Black and American without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in one’s face. And yet Blacks are still clamoring for that promise of equal justice and opportunity to be recognized as fully equal citizens in America.

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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years

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Where Does Joe Biden Stand on Climate and Agriculture?

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The Democratic presidential candidate supports a zero-emissions goal for ag and wants to incentivize carbon markets, but his platform makes no mention of animal agriculture or organic farming

This story was originally published on Civil Eats.

Last fall — in debates, Town Hall meetings, and interviews — nearly every Democratic presidential candidate pointed to connections between food production and the climate crisis.

And the similarities went further than that: a whopping 10 candidates agreed that the next administration should pay farmers to adopt climate-friendly practices. Nearly as many also pointed to the need for regenerative practices that make soil a carbon sink, rather than a source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Now, as the general election looms, the Biden agenda and the Democratic Party’s 2020 platform both include a “zero emissions” goal for agriculture as well as increased investment in conservation practices.

Meanwhile, the climate crisis is front and center like never before, with unprecedented wildfires raging on the West Coast and devastating storms hitting Iowa, Louisiana, and other states. And while Biden has been out in front on linking the current catastrophes to climate, big questions remain about precisely how a potential Biden administration will approach farming for the climate, and farmer groups, agribusiness, and environmental advocates are all jockeying to exert their influence.

Progressive groups are working to push Biden’s campaign toward endorsing bigger systemic changes to agriculture.

“National Farmers Union members have long raised concerns about the fact that the climate is changing, that it’s affecting their operations and their lands, and that there are common-sense ways the government should work with farmers to help provide them with the tools and resources they need to lead on solutions,” said Jenny Hopkinson, senior government relations representative at the National Farmers Union (NFU).

That’s why when NFU members headed (virtually) to Washington, D.C. on September 14, climate change was on the agenda in meetings with legislators — even during a year when, for many farmers, it’s hard to focus on anything beyond the economic challenges caused by the pandemic. However, while Hopkinson calls the strategies NFU lobbied for “common sense,” other groups lobbying Democrats see some of the same policies — such as NFU’s support for methane digesters — short-sighted.

In fact, when it comes to building a resilient agricultural system that can both withstand the effects of the climate crisis and cut emissions, there is significant disagreement among advocacy groups and elected officials within the party as to just how radical the path forward should be.

While representatives of larger commodity agriculture (think industrial dairy) are advising Biden, progressive groups are working to push his campaign toward endorsing bigger systemic changes to agriculture. And those are changes that won’t likely please agribusiness.

At the end of August, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) delivered a letter to Congress that called for climate action on behalf of rural and agricultural communities, signed by more than 2,100 farmers and ranchers from around the country.

“There is a real desire to see transformative change in our agricultural production system,” said NSAC policy director Eric Deeble. “And many of those folks are frustrated by the fact that it does not appear to be a high priority for either potential administration. Within progressive, sustainable agriculture circles, he added, “folks don’t feel that their voices are being heard.”

Consensus on incentives, disagreement elsewhere

When adjusted for inflation, overall spending on U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation programs has risen only slightly over the past decade. Now, the one realm in which many Democratic lawmakers appear to agree is the need to significantly increase funding and expand programs that incentivize climate-friendly practices including cover cropping and rotational grazing.

In June, the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis released its first report, including a section dedicated to agriculture. It lays out plans to expand existing agricultural conservation programs such as the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and to support practices including agroforestry and organic farming.

Many of the recommendations in the report are tied to bills introduced by Democrats, such as the Agriculture Resilience Act introduced by Representative Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and the Climate Stewardship Act introduced by Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey). And when the Senate Democrats’ Special Committee on the Climate Crisis released its own report in August, the first bullet point on what Congress should do for farmers is to “expand existing USDA agricultural conservation programs and include improved soil health and soil carbon storage incentives.”

Another approach to incentivizing carbon storage that the Senate report endorses is establishing carbon markets — a strategy that many powerful voices in the agriculture industry opposed when it was on the table a decade ago. Biden’s plan for rural America also appears to lean toward helping farmers participate in carbon markets. And some environmental organizations and many big food companies and farm groups including the NFU support the bipartisan carbon markets bill that was introduced in June.

“We think that carbon markets are a tool that should be available to farmers and we’re hoping that this bill will lend some legitimacy to the nascent efforts [to develop them],” Hopkinson said.

Some advocacy groups, however, say carbon markets will only benefit the largest farms. Kari Hamerschlag, the deputy director of food and agriculture at Friends of the Earth (FOE) and its related PAC group, Friends of the Earth Action, doesn’t see voluntary markets as a strong enough step considering the urgency of the climate crisis. Instead, she wants to see subsidized crop insurance tied to practices that improve soil health — a tactic that many groups advocated for during the run-up to the 2018 Farm Bill but that didn’t make it into the final draft.

“If we are going to continue to provide subsidies, we need to ask farmers, in return, to implement healthy soil practices,” she says, adding that she sees carbon markets as “another false solution.”

Ethanol and other biofuels are also controversial. At a recent “Farmers and Ranchers Roundtable” hosted by the Biden campaign and moderated by NFU president Rob Larew, farmers brought up support for biofuels repeatedly, and NFU has long advocated for government support for ethanol as a financial boon for farmers and a climate-positive swap for fossil fuels.

But many progressive groups believe government support for ethanol props up the corn-dominated monoculture systems that dominate American farming in the Midwest, leading to depleted soil, polluted waterways, and dead zones in the Gulf. And they point to industry influence as a reason Biden still supports ethanol: The Democratic convention included a “Leaders of American Agriculture” symposium sponsored by a long list of seed and chemical companies that profit off of that system, including Bayer/Monsanto and Corteva, as well as the leading trade association for the ethanol industry. And last week, the Washington Post reported on the Biden campaign’s efforts to woo Iowa farmers by touting Biden’s support for ethanol and other biofuels.

Animal agriculture’s climate impacts

“The biggest thing that is missing from both the Biden plan and the DNC platform is a focus on the role of animal agriculture in generating greenhouse gas emissions and the need to curb those emissions through reducing the overall amount of animals that are produced in this country,” said Hamerschlag.

In July, eight national and state-level groups including Family Farm Action, the Land Stewardship Action Fund, and HEAL Food Action joined Friends of the Earth Action in asking the DNC platform committee to endorse a transition away from industrial-scale animal agriculture “starting with a moratorium on new Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and large-scale food and agriculture mergers.” But the final platform did not include any mention of animal agriculture.

The Biden campaign has so far stayed away from mentioning emissions from animal agriculture.

Elected Democrats, however, are increasingly focused on the issue. Last year, Senator Booker introduced a bill to halt mergers and acquisitions in agriculture and the Farm System Reform Act, which would place a moratorium on new large CAFOs and phase out the largest existing CAFOs by 2040. Then, this summer, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont), signed on to back the bill, and House Democrats introduced companion legislation. In early September, a coalition of 300 advocacy groups sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to pass the bill.

Recent polls show increasing public support for a moratorium on large CAFOs, and progressive Democrats are increasingly focusing on not just the negative environmental impacts, but also on the impact on farmers and rural communities. While NSAC has not endorsed Booker’s bill, Deeble said it was clear that NSAC’s “membership is headed in that direction” in terms of supporting a moratorium.

Despite all this, the Biden campaign has so far stayed away from mentioning emissions from animal agriculture, except in the context of methane digesters, an emissions-reduction strategy that some environmentalists say props up and even incentivizes the growth of large CAFOs, allowing them to continue to pollute in other ways.

Advocates say the Biden campaign’s silence isn’t surprising, since Tom Vilsack — the Agriculture Secretary under Obama, and who now represents a dairy group focused on large-scale exports — is advising the campaign. “There’s no way he’s going to be advocating for regulation of his industry,” Hamerschlag said.

There are also reports that Biden is considering former North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp to lead the USDA. In 2018, Heitkamp ranked number one in Senate campaign donations from the crop production industry. She frequently sided with Republicans on resisting environmental regulations and was a frontrunner to head the USDA under President Trump.

And, instead of a panel that included small, diversified vegetable farms, regenerative ranchers, or organic crop farmers, the farmers given the microphone during the Biden campaign’s Farmers and Ranchers Roundtable were primarily large commodity producers.

“Given the fact that local and regional direct market farmers play such an integral role in resilient local farm systems, that was a missed opportunity,” said Deeble. “But I also think that it’s not the fault of the campaign. We’re looking at the end of maybe a 30, 40, 50-year arc of concentration and consolidation and there’s a notion that not rocking any boats is the right play right now.”

And yet, there’s a real opportunity to talk about what a better system would look like. Biden��s plan, for example, does include a bullet point to make sure “small and medium-sized farms have access to fair markets” by strengthening enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act — something small farm advocates have long been fighting for.

For NSAC members and other groups, a better system would involve policies that drive large scale shifts away from monoculture commodity crops and CAFOs and toward more small, diversified farms that minimize inputs, raise animals on pasture, and sell food directly to their communities — all with an eye towards reducing emissions and building soil that can hold carbon while increasing biodiversity.

A growing number of Democrats are on board with those changes. The Farm System Reform Act includes support for independent livestock producers in the form of payments to help contract farmers transition out of industrial animal agriculture and a restoration of country of origin labeling (COOL) on meat. The House Climate report includes a plan to reduce emissions from livestock operations by significantly increasing support for farmers using rotational grazing and silvopasture.

And Democrats have introduced bills in both the House and Senate that would increase funding for small farms that sell into local markets, many of which were left out of the USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program.

But where Biden and his potential administration will land is still unclear. Progressives like Hamerschlag said that if the campaign were bolder on agriculture and climate, it could present a more hopeful path forward for rural America.

For example, the 2020 DNC platform includes a plan to fund research on “low-carbon crops” and organic farming, but Biden’s plan does not mention organics at all.

“Organic is such a bright spot for rural America . . . there’s just a lot of economic opportunity,” she said. “Big factory farms and big monocultures are not a winning economic development strategy for rural America, and we know that rural communities bear the brunt of the impacts from factory farms.”

This story originally appeared in Civil Eats and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/33JmT1q https://ift.tt/3kRwXg7

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The Democratic presidential candidate supports a zero-emissions goal for ag and wants to incentivize carbon markets, but his platform makes no mention of animal agriculture or organic farming

This story was originally published on Civil Eats.

Last fall — in debates, Town Hall meetings, and interviews — nearly every Democratic presidential candidate pointed to connections between food production and the climate crisis.

Progressive groups are working to push Biden’s campaign toward endorsing bigger systemic changes to agriculture.

Consensus on incentives, disagreement elsewhere

“We think that carbon markets are a tool that should be available to farmers and we’re hoping that this bill will lend some legitimacy to the nascent efforts [to develop them],” Hopkinson said.

Animal agriculture’s climate impacts

The Biden campaign has so far stayed away from mentioning emissions from animal agriculture.

And yet, there’s a real opportunity to talk about what a better system would look like. Biden’s plan, for example, does include a bullet point to make sure “small and medium-sized farms have access to fair markets” by strengthening enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act — something small farm advocates have long been fighting for.

For example, the 2020 DNC platform includes a plan to fund research on “low-carbon crops” and organic farming, but Biden’s plan does not mention organics at all.

This story originally appeared in Civil Eats and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/33JmT1q via Blogger https://ift.tt/3ckee9R

#Blogger #cooking #Eater #food #recipes

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brajeshupadhyay · 4 years

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Endangered GOP senators under pressure as Senate considers new coronavirus measures

In particular, the expiration of an additional $600-per-week in unemployment insurance by July 31 is adding pressure on vulnerable GOP senators as 20 million to 30 million people remain out of work. McConnell and many other Republicans adamantly oppose extending the enhanced benefit at its current level, saying it discourages some from returning to work because they make more money by staying home.

The Trump administration has further upended talks over the relief bill by trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing, angering some Republican senators. Some White House officials argue they have already approved billions in funding for testing and that some of that money remains unspent.

The election-year politics over the pandemic will be entwined with the contours of the next coronavirus package — a complicated dynamic McConnell will have to manage along with disputes within his conference over aid to states and localities, as well as a persistent negative view by the public of the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic.

“We have to — together — get through this by making sure that people are able to get back to work, that businesses are able to survive, that individuals know that they’re going to be okay,” endangered Republican Sen. Cory Gardner (Colo.) said in a phone interview.

Gardner said his constituents are pressing him for more federal assistance and said he supports extending the enhanced unemployment benefit, although he is open to an amount less than the additional $600 per week. He said he is also open to Democrats’ demands for more aid for states and localities, though he didn’t specify how much.

The first-term Republican senator, who is facing former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper (D) on Nov. 3, said he conveyed his request to McConnell in a call Thursday, pressing for the next relief package also to include more support for nationwide coronavirus testing.

Another at-risk Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, told reporters in her state last week that she is seeking more state and local aid — particularly for towns with smaller populations — and a fresh round of aid for small businesses and education funding to help schools reopen. She wants to continue expanded unemployment insurance, but only just enough that the money makes up for lost wages. Countering many in her party, she stressed that “now is not the time” to worry that another costly rescue package will add to the rising debt.

Nearly all Republican candidates’ standing has fallen somewhat in the past month, according to strategists involved in Senate races, except perhaps for Gardner and Collins.

All those factors will be taken into consideration as Congress rushes into the next phase of coronavirus legislation this week. McConnell is expected to unveil a pandemic relief proposal as early as Tuesday with a target value of $1 trillion, although some Republicans speculate that the figure could be larger. Extra attention is likely to be paid to the demands of vulnerable Republican senators, GOP officials said.

But there are several complicating factors. Trump is insisting on a cut in payroll taxes, which fund Social Security, as part of the next package, although few Republicans are warm to the idea and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has repeatedly expressed opposition.

There also will be haggling between the parties on education aid. The White House and Senate Republicans want to attach either incentives or conditions to tens of billions of dollars in new aid to help schools reopen, although Republicans are still debating whether to pursue carrots or sticks.

Also, the package is expected to include some sort of stimulus check for consumers — a maximum of $1,200 was included in the last major bill — but the size of the payments is not yet clear.

“There may be a need for a broad-based payment of individuals like we did last time,” Sen. Roy Blunt (Mo.) the fourth-ranking Senate Republican, told reporters late last week. “But for sure, there’s a need to try to figure out how to have a more of a target in the recovery phase of the economy than (we) did in the March rescue phase.”

The prime red line for Senate leadership has been liability protections. McConnell has circulated a plan that offers schools, charities, businesses and medical workers a legal shield from being held responsible in coronavirus-related lawsuits unless there was gross negligence or intentional misconduct, according to a draft viewed by The Washington Post. The proposal has been shared with White House officials, who are reviewing it.

Meanwhile, the states that have seen the most dramatic spike in cases include Arizona, Georgia and Texas, all of which have Senate races in varying levels of competitiveness and where Democratic opponents have made the pandemic a central theme in their campaigns.

“David Perdue and Donald Trump have nothing to run on but widespread disease, mass unemployment, a record of being wrong and being wrong such that Americans lose their lives, millions have lost their jobs,” said Democrat Jon Ossoff, who is challenging Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), this November. “David Perdue will lose in November when his record is exposed.”

Perdue emphasized in a statement that he is seeking liability protections and more flexibility in aid for small towns in the next relief package.

“While Democrats, like my opponent, are spreading false information to score political points during this crisis, my top priority is to protect the people of Georgia so we can continue to safely reopen the economy and start to get kids back to school,” Perdue said.

In Texas, Democrat MJ Hegar has repeatedly hammered Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) for his response to the pandemic and comments the senator made this year that Democrats say minimized the severity of the crisis.

“He said it was a mistake to expand unemployment insurance, and I’m not confident that he would support it again,” Hegar said in a phone interview. “That’s not a handout. That is our country, our capitalist economy responding to the economic crisis. So he should be thinking more about what is best for his constituents and not what Mitch McConnell tells him to say.”

Travis Considine, a Cornyn campaign spokesman, said Cornyn opposes just the enhanced unemployment insurance and added: “Senator Cornyn has delivered billions in relief for Texas hospitals, front-line workers, schools, and small businesses hit by the pandemic. MJ’s false attack is just another example of her sticking to the script national Democrats have written for her.”

In Arizona, where case numbers are surging dramatically, polls have shown GOP Sen. Martha McSally well behind Mark Kelly, her Democratic challenger. Kelly, a former astronaut, has begun targeting ads toward Native American communities in the state, arguing that the federal government is ignoring their needs in the pandemic. He is calling for extending the enhanced unemployment benefit; McSally has not taken a position on the issue, according to a spokeswoman.

Kelly has also called on Congress to provide direct relief to Arizona’s cities and towns. McSally has declined to back the additional aid, instead saying she supports “maximum flexibility” for money already distributed, which could allow localities to spend the money on services not specifically related to the coronavirus.

Republicans are facing a somewhat unusual situation in Montana, where Sen. Steve Daines has found himself under increased pressure as his Democratic challenger, Gov. Steve Bullock, uses his gubernatorial perch to steer the state through the pandemic. Bullock declared a state of emergency and shut down schools, bars and restaurants early in March, then reopened the state early in late April.

For a long time, the rural state had among the lowest infection rates and is now among the top three in economic growth, according to the Labor Department — a feat that Bullock and his staff mention to voters. But in recent days, Montana has been among the cluster of states seeing a rise in cases, a fact Daines’s campaign has pointed out to reporters in a bid to cast doubt on Bullock’s statewide response.

Steven Law, a former top McConnell aide who heads the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC supporting Senate Republicans, said GOP incumbents have been effective in showcasing their response to the pandemic, including the trillions of dollars Congress has provided to support all elements of the economy.

Law said the public has been eager to hear from incumbents on coronavirus-related achievements that might otherwise gain little notice. This has also allowed them to create their own profiles on the issue, separate from that of the president.

“This class has been unusually forward-leaning in being part of the solution,” Law said, “And more importantly, being forward-leaning in communicating about it.”

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boomvagynamite · 7 years

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LONG POST BUT GOOD I THINK

Hello tumblr! I would like to take the time to explain some of this British/Irish politics stuff that is happening right now. I’m not an expert, but apparently neither is anyone else (including Theresa May), so I’m going to run down what I know, so that everyone who wants to understand can get up to speed (as much as I’m able to get you there). If anyone who is an expert wants to correct me or add anything then please, please do.

(Quick note: Remember that the UK is a country, but it also made of other countries including Northern Ireland.)

First, some history: Britain has had a very tumultuous relationship with Ireland basically forever. There’s a LOT to go over, so I’ll just kind of massively over-simplify and say that Ireland became a British colony and fought its way out until only 6 counties were undecided about being part of the UK.* Conflict known as The Troubles started in the ‘60s.

The Troubles: The counties of Northern Ireland consisted (and still consist) of a mixture of two key ideologies; those who considered themselves British (unionists), and those who considered themselves Irish (republicans).** The former, wanted Northern Ireland to stay as part of the UK, but the latter wanted Northern Ireland to rejoin the rest of Ireland as one sovereign state - they arguably settled into a kind of a ‘draw’*** in the 1920s. When the fighting began in the ‘60s, the republicans were, rightly, pissed that they were being discriminated against by the unionist authorities - they wanted to be treated fairly, and asking and then demanding it clearly wasn’t working, so they resorted to force. This kicked off thirty years of fighting, involving a variety of paramilitary groups, activists, Northern Irish police, politicians, and the British army. Thousands of people died (mostly civilians), and there was bombing throughout the UK. Eventually, after a lot of work, a peace-deal was brokered: The Good Friday Agreement (GFA).

The Good Friday Agreement: In order to bring an end to the both the fighting, but also the state-sponsored discrimination that started it, a contract was brought up between the republicans and the unionists. It’s pretty complex, but some key points are these:

A forced coalition of republicans and unionists must run the country

The majority of people want to stay in the United Kingdom but there are loooads who want to be part of Ireland: If there is ever a time when this switches, and the majority wants to unite with the Republic of Ireland, then the UK is bound to allow it.

(A reason this is so groundbreaking is because Britain had never before recognised that both these ideas were totally legitimate)

Key to this contract is the concept of ‘impartiality’. To properly manage a country with such distinct and opposing viewpoints, you have to be emphatically impartial between the two (and the legitimacy of both viewpoints therefore implicit). This is why the forced coalition is so important.

That was in 1998, and Northern Ireland has pretty much been peaceful ever since (there is the odd bombing every now and then) but obviously it’s kind of part of the whole deal that the two sides will never see eye-to-eye completely. Unfortunately...

Recent UK political history: I won’t go into too much detail, but basically the Conservative party were having a bit of a power struggle and David Cameron (the Prime Minister at the time) decided to sort it out by saying he’d hold a referendum about whether the UK should be part of the EU. And in 2016, he kind of had to follow through with that. It was a dumb decision with no forethought whatsoever, and the discussions around it were of the same ilk. Anyway, as we all know, without any idea what would happen once the decision was made, the UK slightly voted to Leave more than to Remain (this is known as Brexit because of course it is a dumb name like that). David Cameron resigned because whoops, and we got Theresa May - we didn’t get to vote for her or anything, we just got her.

This year, she decided she wanted a more firm support to go into Brexit negotiations with Europe, so she called a snap election. Elections are typically every 5 years and our last one was only in 2015, so it was early. LITTLE DID SHE KNOW, good old Jeremy Corbyn (who I could talk about at length as well but I won’t) and his Labour crew brought their A-Game, and destroyed the Tories as much as they could without actually winning the election.

Basically, Britain has a dumb system called ‘first-past-the-post’. The gist of it is as follows: Each political party has their own leader, and that leader becomes the prime minister if their party wins. When you go to vote, you vote for a local MP for your constituency (or local area) representing his or her party and that counts towards the national wins - or seats - of that party. For example, you might vote for a local Labour candidate and, if that Labour candidate wins, their seats are added to the Labour party seats to see whether or not the country wants them doing a good rule of the whole place. To have a strong mandate, i.e. to be large-and-in-chaaarge, a political party has to get a ‘majority government’ - this is defined as winning 326 seats. If they don’t get that, they must form a coalition with another party to pick up the seats that they’re missing - this tends to be the biggest party teaming up with one of the much smaller ones. In 2010 nobody got enough seats****, and the Tories took over from the Labour party by getting the Lib Dems into a coalition with them; then they somehow got even more control in the 2015 election by getting a majority government on their own little leggies (no Lib Dems required).

In this election, again, no party got enough seats - so the Tories had to try and get a coalition going. But there was a problem! All the other parties they could turn to, had said they would absolutely not form a coalition with them. WHAT TO DO? Well, remember we were talking about Northern Ireland earlier...

I KEEP THINKING I’M NEAR THE END AND THEN MORE INFORMATION IS HAPPENING: Northern Ireland has for a while been run by a coalition between the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin. The former is unionist (obviously); the latter is republican. This had been going pretty well, till something called the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). This was a system to help businesses move towards renewable energy sources, thereby reducing UK carbon emissions. Essentially, businesses were given subsidies to change their heating methods over from non-renewable sources. But it was done in a shambolic way - people were basically being paid to just have their heat on aaaall the time, and there was no cap on subsidies so they could just heat their way to an unethical, but apparently perfectly legal, fortune. SCANDAL HAPPENED when it was revealed that this whole thing was going to cost Northern Ireland huuuundreds of millions of pounds and also look what a hash job everyone has done. Arlene Foster, leader of the DUP was asked to stand down while an enquiry happened but she refused and, in protest, the leader of Sinn Féin (Martin McGuinness) resigned from his post (and then subsequently resigned from the party and then died). Sinn Féin refused to put someone else forward to lead their half of the coalition, so Arlene Foster couldn’t lead either! Northern Ireland, therefore, had to have an election even though they had JUST HAD ONE in 2016. So they had another in March and the unionists headed into shaky ground - they lost a whole lot of seats, so only had one more than Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin continued to demand that Arlene Foster step down, and Arlene Foster continued to refuse, meaning they still couldn’t form a government. They were given a deadline to form one, or they would be put under Direct Rule (this means Westminster taking over running Northern Ireland), which is NOT IDEAL considering. (Also Brexit is happening!!! Ireland is part of Europe!!! The Northern Irish border with Ireland is a sensitive thing!!! Nobody talked about this during Brexit and they’re all fucking idiots!!!) The deadline passed, so they extended the deadline... And then Theresa May called a national election! WHAT A CLEVER CLOGS. This fucking idiot called an election in the most unstable time in Northern Ireland since the fucking ‘90s. Northern Ireland now has to go back to the polls once again! So they push back the deadline some more and then the election happens and GUESS FUCKING WHAT...

CLUSTERFUCK: Theresa May, a monumental shitshower of idiocy, doesn’t have enough seats to run the country, and nobody wants to team up with her horrible party, and now she’s fucked! But WAIT, what about the party that is embroiled in a corruption scandal and is currently unable to run its own country? That’s a good idea. Let’s get them involved. Theresa May and the DUP decide to join up.

Now. Remember a little thing from nearer the beginning of this stupidly long post: The Good Friday Agreement? The culmination of years of peace-process discussions after and through decades of war and terror? The thing the relies on an impartial government? How impartial is the Tories getting in bed with the DUP - the unionists? Not very impartial, if you don’t mind me saying. So now not only is Northern Ireland in a mess over the Cash for Ash scandal, and unable to run itself, but ALSO Theresa May is shitting all over the only real thing that’s kept the peace for nearly 20 years. And we still don’t know what’s happening with the Ireland/NI border! And we still have a deadline for a NI government to be sorted out! And the official plan for when that doesn’t happen is Direct Rule! And you can’t possibly run Direct Rule with one of the coalition parties that is refusing to run the fucking country! And Direct Rule is kind of kryptonite for GFA anyway! IT’S A FUCKING LUDICROUS, ILLEGAL, DANGEROUS MESS.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

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*That’s not exactly what happened. Ireland was colonised, fought for home rule (which is like being in charge of their area, while still be a British colony), and was partitioned in the 1920s because lots of people in these few Northern counties wanted to be ruled by the British government. The Irish Free State was created soon after, and Northern Ireland had the option to be part of that as well, but their government decided nah.

**This divide invariably fell along Protestant vs Catholic lines which lots of wilfully ill-informed British people will tell you is all the fighting was about. Actually there is a very long history related to this divide, which involved purposeful subjugation of Catholics in Ireland, to the point that the Irish Potato Famine could be considered attempted genocide of Irish Catholics by the British (protestants).

***Northern Ireland has since had the right to leave the UK if that’s what its people want, but that hasn’t happened and... Well, read on.

****This is known as a ‘hung parliament’. Hung parliaments do not happen a lot. there was one in 2010, as detailed above, and I think the one last before that was way back in the ‘70s.

#british politics #DUP #Theresa May #general election #ge2017 #history #politics #DUP coalition #Brexit #David Cameron

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wolfandpravato · 7 years

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Why the rule of law suffers when we have too many laws

Lavrenti Beria, much-feared head of the NKVD secret police under Joseph Stalin.

Lavrenti Beria, the infamous head of the Soviet secret police under Joseph Stalin, supposedly once said, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” In the Soviet Union, the regime could always find some crime to pin on anyone it chose to target.

As a general rule, it would be silly to equate the modern United States with a mass-murdering totalitarian state. But in this one respect, the two regimes are more similar than we would like them to be.

Because of the vast scope of current law, in modern America the authorities can pin a crime on the overwhelming majority of people, if they really want to. Whether you get hauled into court or not depends more on the discretionary decisions of law enforcement officials than on any legal rule. And it is difficult or impossible for ordinary people to keep track of all the laws they are subject to and live a normal life without running afoul of at least some of them.

This sad state of affairs is deeply at odds with the rule of law. Whatever else that concept means, it surely requires that ordinary people be able to readily determine what laws they are required to obey, and that whether or not you get charged by authorities depends more on objective legal rules than the exercise of official discretion. Unfortunately, neither holds true in the United States today.

Several recent developments highlight these painful truths. President Trump’s controversial decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is one of them. Whether or not some 800,000 people will be subject to deportation ultimately depended on the whims of one man. Additional cases in point include conservative claims that President Barack Obama underenforced a variety of federal laws and liberal fears that Trump is “sabotaging” Obamacare by failing to fully enforce key provisions of that legislation. Few serious political observers are naive enough to believe that presidential decisions on any of these issues were primarily dictated by the neutral application of objective legal principles, as opposed to the political agenda of the administration in power at the time.

There is much to criticize in both Obama’s and Trump’s approaches to legal issues. But the problem goes well beyond the flaws of any particular politician. The real threat to the rule of law is inherent in the enormous scope of discretion possessed by the executive in a system where there are so many legal rules that almost everyone has violated some of them, and it is not possible for law enforcement to target more than a small fraction of the offenders.

Scholars estimate that the vast majority of adult Americans have violated criminal law at some point in their lives. Indeed, a recent survey finds that some 52 percent admit to violating the federal law banning possession of marijuana, to say nothing of the myriad other federal criminal laws. If you also include civil laws (which, though theoretically less severe than criminal laws, often carry heavy fines and other substantial penalties), even more Americans are lawbreakers. The federal government today regulates everything from light bulbs to toilet flows. There is even a federal regulation making it a crime to advertise wine in a way that suggests it “has intoxicating qualities.” The percentage of lawbreakers goes up even further if we include state and local laws and regulations as well as federal ones.

For most people, it is difficult to avoid violating at least some laws, or even to keep track of all the laws that apply to them. For example, it is almost impossible for small businesses to fully obey all the byzantine regulations that apply to them, for home and apartment owners to fully comply with every part of the complex building codes and zoning restrictions that apply in many jurisdictions, or for almost anyone to ensure perfect compliance with our hyper-complicated tax code.

Ignorance of the law may not be a legally valid excuse. But such ignorance is virtually inevitable when the law regulates almost every aspect of our lives and is so extensive and complicated that few can hope to keep track of it.

Most Americans, of course, never face punishment for their lawbreaking. But that is true only because the authorities lack the resources to pursue most violators and routinely exercise discretion in determining which ones are worth the effort. Unless you are very unlucky or enter the crosshairs of law enforcement for some other reason, you may well be able to get away with a good deal of low-level lawlessness.

In this way, the rule of law has largely been supplanted by the rule of chance and the rule of executive discretion. Inevitably, political ideology and partisanship have a major impact on the latter. For example, federal law enforcement priorities are very different under Trump than they were under Obama.

Even the law itself is often interpreted differently, depending on who is in power. Under the doctrine of “Chevron deference,” federal agencies have very broad discretion to interpret and reinterpret the laws they enforce, so long as the agency’s view is “reasonable.” The result is that the law can change substantially whenever a Republican administration replaces a Democratic one, or vice versa — even if Congress does not pass any new legislation. As Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch puts it, an agency can “reverse its current view 180 degrees anytime based merely on the shift of political winds and still prevail [in court].” The enormous scope of federal regulatory law enables agencies to exercise extensive discretionary authority over many aspects of the economy and society.

Some will argue that the answer to these problems is simply to enforce every law to the hilt, without any favoritism or discretion. But the enormous scope of current law — and the vast number of violators — make it impossible to do that. Apprehending and prosecuting more than a small fraction of lawbreakers would require a virtual police state and probably bankrupt the government, to boot.

Some conservatives argue that Obama’s systematic use of executive discretion in the case of his DACA and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans immigration policies is especially problematic, far worse than “case by case” discretion. I am skeptical of such claims for reasons outlined here and here. The difference between systematic and “case by case” discretion is more a matter of degree than kind. But even if such distinctions have greater merit than I believe, eliminating policies such as DACA would still leave enormous executive discretion in place. Even in the absence of formal, systematic orders from above, officials necessarily make choices about which lawbreakers to target, and those decisions are likely to be influenced by ideological and political considerations.

Often, such discretion will systematically treat some types of offenders more leniently than others, even in the absence of a formal directive to do so. For example, federal authorities have long chosen to ignore nearly all illegal marijuana possession (and most other illegal drug use) on college campuses. Lots of prominent politicians — including several recent presidents — have benefited from that forbearance. The feds are often less forgiving in other settings.

We might also be able to reduce executive law enforcement discretion if the Supreme Court were to abolish Chevron deference, as Gorsuch rightly advocates. But even if that happened, federal agencies would retain a great deal of discretionary authority to decide which lawbreakers to go after. That is unavoidable so long as the scope of federal regulation remains as enormous as is currently the case. And, in practice, judges would still often defer to agencies’ interpretations of complex regulatory laws on which bureaucrats seem to have greater expertise than the judges do. For these reasons, law enforcement priorities would continue to shift — sometimes drastically — whenever partisan control of the White House changed hands.

The only way to make major progress toward establishing the rule of law would be to greatly reduce the scope and complexity of legal rules. In a world where the scope of law is strictly limited, officials might have sufficient resources to go after a much larger percentage of lawbreakers. And if the law were limited to those areas where there was a broad consensus that the conduct in question should be illegal, there would be less incentive for officials to engage in selective enforcement based on the priorities of the party in power. If federal or state authorities engaged in such shenanigans with respect to laws that enjoyd widespread bipartisan support, they would risk provoking a major political backlash.

There is no way to completely eliminate executive discretion over law enforcement or to make the law completely transparent to laypeople. But cutting back on the amount and complexity of law can help us make progress toward those goals.

Of course, it may be we do not value the rule of law enough to sacrifice any other objectives to strengthen it. The laws on the books are not there by accident. Most were enacted because they were supported by majority public opinion, influential interest groups or some combination of both.

Perhaps we just do not care about the rule of law enough to eliminate any substantial number of current laws and regulations — especially those supported by our side of the political spectrum. The rule of law may be less important to us than the rule of men whose agenda we like. If so, we might have more in common with Lavrenti Beria than we like to think.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/10/01/why-the-rule-of-law-suffers-when-we-have-too-many-laws/

#Law #Lawyer

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go-redgirl · 5 years

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Proposed Easing of Obama-Era Labor Rules Yet Another Good Move by Trump Administration

By Andy Puzder June 03, 2019 The Trump Administration’s effort to reduce growth killing regulations gets far less coverage than it deserves. So, if you’re a franchised business owner — or hold one of the 7.6 million jobs they create — the Department of Labor’s (DOL) recently proposed “joint employer” rule may help you more than you realize.

Joint employer rules impose liability for violating an employee’s rights on entities in addition to the employee’s direct employer. Traditionally, to incur such liability, an entity had to meaningfully affect "matters relating to the employment relationship such as hiring, firing, discipline, supervision, and direction.”

In 2015, the Obama-era National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), expanded this traditional standard in cases involving collective bargaining and unfair labor practices. It imposed joint employer liability on entities that had an “indirect” — or even a “potential” — relationship to another business’s employees. Ostensibly, the NLRB intended this new standard to address “changes in the workplace and economic circumstances.” In practice, it blurred the lines between franchisers and franchisees, contractors and sub-contractors, staffing service and their customers, making it easier to unionize larger businesses and relieving unions of the need to unionize smaller entities one by one.

In 2016, the Obama-era DOL followed suit by issuing an Administrator Interpretation (AI) expanding joint employer liability consistent with the NLRB’s interpretation. The new rule applied to employee compensation claims such as those involving overtime pay and the minimum wage.

This expansion of joint employer liability posed a significant threat to the franchise business model. Franchised businesses are independently owned and operated, even if they license a name and follow operating standards from a larger brand. It is a basic premise of the franchiser/franchisee relationship that the franchisee controls its labor force including hiring, firing, benefits, wages and incentives. Executives in McDonald’s Chicago office have no control over who fries the fries in your local McDonald’s.

Under the expanded joint employer rules, franchisers suddenly found themselves potentially liable for their franchisees’ employment practices and targets for unionization if they had even a tangential connection to their franchisees’ employees. Understandably, this increased exposure hurt both parties.

A recent report by the International Franchise Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, found that franchises saw a 93% increase in lawsuits following changes to the joint employer standard, while 92% of respondents said it led to reduced support from franchisers, who were now concerned about incurring liability for making even innocuous suggestions that might impact a franchisee’s employees.

President Trump’s promise to eliminate job killing regulations was one of the reasons business optimism surged following his election. In June of 2017, Labor Secretary Alex Acosta took a step towards fulfilling Trump’s promise and withdrew the Obama era joint employer AI stating that the DOL intended to replace it with a full-fledged rule.

America’s 733,000 franchised small businesses — that add more the $400 billion to US GDP - breathed a collective sigh of relief.

On April 1st, as promised, the DOL issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking with respect to the joint employer rule. Under the proposed rule, joint employer liability would exist only for entities that can “hire or fire an employee; supervise and control employees’ work schedules or conditions of employment; determine employees’ rates and method of payment; and maintain employees’ employment records.” In other words, employers. The proposed rule and the DOL news release make it clear that the mere existence of a franchiser/franchisee relationship would not make a joint employer relationship more or less likely.

Acosta deserves credit for pursuing a rational joint employer rule that will allow franchising to thrive and franchise ownership to continue to be a pathway to prosperity for hundreds of thousands of Americans from all walks of life.

But, the administration and the DOL still have important work to do. The public comment period is open — which means that the lengthy period of reviewing, analyzing, and responding to the public’s input has just begun. The NLRB is further along in a similar process and is expected to revise its joint employer rule this year, returning to the traditional standard. Clearly, there should be one clear rule that reflects the realities of running a business and upon which employers can rely when assessing their potential liability under federal law — no matter the agency involved.

Some Progressive Democrats, especially those running for President, are vigorously opposing these changes. It isn’t hard to see why.

Thanks in great part to both deregulation and tax cuts, the unemployment rate and initial claims for unemployment benefits are sitting near 50 year lows. With employers competing for employees, year over year wage growth has been at or above 3 percent for eight consecutive months. Hardworking Americans are experiencing how common-sense, business friendly economic policies lead to job creation and increased wages. Eliminating the Obama-era’s expanded joint employer rule is a part of that effort.

Andy Puzder was chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants for more than 16 years, following a career as an attorney. He was nominated by President Trump to serve as U.S. labor secretary. In 2011, Puzder co-authored "Job Creation: How It Really Works and Why Government Doesn't Understand It." His latest book is "The Capitalist Comeback: The Trump Boom and the Left's Plot to Stop It" (Center Street, April 24, 2018).

Related Topics: Franchises, Trump Administration, Obama Administration, Labor Law, Employment Policy, Labor Policy, National Labor Relations Board, NLRB, Department Of Labor

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