Tag: Information technology

The victory by the nationalist Forum voor Democratie in the provincial elections earlier this week has generated a flurry of speculation in the Dutch press about what will happen next. Here’s a round-up of the main points. Trouw writes that Baudet’s win is a signal ‘something is seriously wrong with Dutch politics’. The common ground between leaders such as Baudet and PVV leader Geert Wilders is, the paper says, ‘ a faked aversion to the political handiwork which is unavoidably necessary in the Netherlands’. Trouw says negotiating in the time-honoured Dutch way is not Baudet’s style, and will not work. Saving Rutte’s climate agenda ‘would seem to be a guarantee for a new victory for Forum voor Democratie’, the paper says. The NRC expects ‘complicated formation talks in the provincial capitals’. This will be made worse because of ‘the spectacular entry of Forum voor Democratie which, with no knowledge of provincial programmes and no experienced politicians, will have to be part of the negotiations. Although Jansen expects that partners will vary according to the issue being debated in the senate at the time, ‘It would be a dangerous game to isolate and marginalise Forum’ because it will ‘only increase people’s dissatisfaction with issues such as climate and the Marrakesh accord.’ Elsevier’s Arendo Joustra says that after such ‘punishment’ the government has only one option: step down. Joustra also puts the coalition’s loss and Forum’s gain firmly at the door of the climate agreement which has, Joustra says, ‘given birth to Baudet’.

Joe Biden knows what you’re thinking. He has seen the stories, too. He knows that, as a senator representing Delaware for nearly half a century, his extensive ties to the banking, credit, and financial industries are liabilities in an increasingly populist Democratic Party. The other is to name Stacey Abrams, a black woman 31 years his junior, as his running mate early in the race. Such a “big play,” in the New York Times’ words, “would send a signal about the seriousness of the election, and could potentially appeal to both liberal activists and general-election voters who are eager to chart the safest route toward defeating President Trump.” But the fact that Biden is even considering these moves only underscores his innumerable flaws, rather than addressing them. Biden’s age, like that of the 77-year-old Bernie Sanders, undoubtedly would be a concern for some Americans, given the erratic and seemingly cognitively impaired septuagenarian currently in the White House. He bragged that one Democrat-backed crime bill in 1992 did “everything but hang people for jaywalking”; two years later he would be a principal author of the 1994 crime bill that exacerbated mass incarceration. I know we haven’t always gotten things right, but I’ve always tried.” Biden also recently suggested that he owes an apology to Anita Hill for his handling, as chair of the Judiciary Committee, of her accusations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas. I wish I could’ve done more to prevent those questions and the way they asked them,” he said on the Today show last year. And if you’re a career-long politician who can’t run on your record, then why are you running at all?

We loaned it out for a bit now we’re stealing it back.” To further bring it up to date, it’s been a conscious decision by Hardsuit Labs for Bloodlines 2 to reflect fifteen years of change in the game and real world, and its setting of Seattle. “The world is a very different place,” says Clooney. “One of the reasons we went to Seattle for Bloodlines 2 is there’s a lot of conflict in Seattle that is a microcosm of a lot of conflict that’s going on all over the place. It just felt like a good place to start to ground it; the conflict between tradition and progress, conflict between money and artistic endeavours. In terms of the main conflict what is interesting is it’s one of those truly balanced issues.” It’s not just politics where Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 takes a progressive approach. “In the first game you start out by picking the clan. They don’t so much have a direct influence on gameplay, there are a few minor influences like dialogue options, but we were really interested in following the progression and having the roleplay experience for the player to get a handle on that side of the game before they get a handle on the political clan-oriented side of it. So it’s an informed decision.” It’s roughly the first third of the game that can be described as the character creator. “In Vampire the Masquerade you definitely play a monster, the big question is are you beyond redemption?” says Schwarzer. It is a matter of you’re in our world but what can you do to keep yourself humane?” Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is due for release in Q1 2020.

The Conservative party’s second biggest donor has called for a government of national unity to be formed as soon as possible to solve the Brexit crisis. John Griffin, the taxi tycoon who has given £4m to the Tories over the last six years, said the party should reach out to MPs from Labour, the Lib Dems and the Scottish National Party if it is to emerge from EU negotiations with a successful deal. It follows similar demands from fellow Tories including Nicky Morgan and Sir Nicholas Soames. Other Conservative donors have threatened to withhold funds unless it solves the current political crisis, it emerged on Thursday. Griffin, founder of the cab firm Addison Lee, told the Guardian that Theresa May’s government should use a new team and adopt a different negotiating strategy with the EU. Morgan, the treasury select committee chair, told MPs in December that the Commons should come together to stop a no-deal scenario. A national unity government was first formed during the Napoleonic Wars in 1806 and last occurred in 1931. Soames has previously mooted the idea of a national unity government, telling Channel 4 News: “I must say, if I had my way, we would have a national government to deal with this. It is the most serious problem this country has faced since the war.” It emerged on Thursday that donations to the Conservatives are drying up as backers unhappy with splits over Brexit refuse to fund the party. All said they were unsure whether to give cash to the party at present.

Two candidates are running for the District 2 seat on Madison's City Council. On TLNA, where I lead and guide neighborhood input when evaluating development proposals, my appreciation of the concerns of neighbors, as well as the needs of both the city and developers, has grown. Due to years of advocacy for my neighborhood, District 2, and the City of Madison, I understand city processes, the important role of city staff and how city ordinances are crafted and enacted. My years of working with District 2 neighbors on parking, traffic issues, and pedestrian/bike safety, gives me the knowledge to represent and convey the District's diversity of opinions on Common Council. I'm a community organizer who has been organizing the community for progressive candidates. The 2nd District has more than 1,000 new housing units since our last competitive alder election. Our next alder needs to engage these new residents and bring everyone into the political process. Madison has an affordable housing crisis. I want to see us rewrite our neighborhood plans more often and ask neighborhoods themselves to find places to accommodate new growth. Since then, the people of my community have given me a sense of place that I have never had anywhere else.

Chronicle File Photo Research on white Americans in political science has historically concentrated on racial prejudice, but a Duke professor is shifting the focus to white racial identity. Ashley Jardina, assistant professor of political science, provides a new perspective on race and racial attitudes in American politics in her book "White Identity Politics." "One is in fact racial prejudice; we know that racial prejudice still really informs a lot of white people's political preferences. But the second is also, independently, this desire that whites have to try to preserve their group's privileged status." To examine these trends, she analyzed survey data from the American National Election Studies and from her own research. She pointed to a couple of factors that have made white identity salient in recent years. One factor motivating the trend Jardina found in white identity is immigration and the consequent demographic shifts in the United States, she explained. "Subsequently, some whites are now much more aware of the importance of their racial identity.” Although racial prejudice is an out-group sentiment—when one group dislikes another group—white identity is an in-group sentiment about favoring your own group. It's motivated by wanting to just keep the power, the status, the privileges that you have and the things you benefit from as a member of your own group,” Jardina said. “Then this research became even more relevant in 2016 when Donald Trump entered the scene and was clearly actively appealing to whites and to their sense of identity," she said.

Some saw a dereliction of Constitutional duty, summed up by Rep. John Yarmuth’s (D-Ky.) claim that the failure to use impeachment against a president this lawless renders the constitutional tool “meaningless.” On a recent Sunday show, ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos incredulously asked if the decision meant impeachment was “simply political?” As though there would be something wrong if it were. It ignores the way our Constitutional framers ingrained politics into the very design of impeachment and intended the choice whether or not to impeach to require many extra-legal considerations. Once given to politicians, Hamilton acknowledged that political considerations would come into play including “animosities, partialities, influence, and interest.” Hence the two-thirds threshold for removal to ensure that this powerful tool was only deployed in times of real and overriding consensus – not as just another tool in the legislative back and forth. So it’s entirely unsurprising and appropriate that Speaker Pelosi appears to be weighing politics, including whether pursuing impeachment will expose Democrats to charges of partisanship or make them seem out of touch with the people’s more practical needs; whether enough senators will vote for removal of the president to make the impeachment effort have a concrete impact or what harm would flow from an impeachment that died in the Senate; and whether the news media will meaningfully cover any other issue once while the possibility of impeachment hangs in the air. If those are some of her questions, it’s hard to argue with her answers. And on the subject of cable news’s impeachment obsession, the one-day wall-to-wall coverage of Pelosi’s statement about not impeaching kind of proves the point. In my view, the public record is replete with facts that strongly suggest the president has committed numerous impeachable offenses. Nor is there any inkling that even one Republican senator would break with the president, let alone the twenty needed to remove the president from office. Of course, they should continue to investigate and hold the president and the rest of the administration accountable for their many misdeeds and breaches of the public trust without the oxygen-sucking shadow of impeachment hanging over every hearing. And if those hearings – or the report to Congress on the results of the Mueller investigation - do produce the kind of evidence that shifts public opinion and Senate votes, Speaker Pelosi can revisit this issue.

Some saw a dereliction of Constitutional duty, summed up by Rep. John Yarmuth’s (D-Ky.) claim that the failure to use impeachment against a president this lawless renders the constitutional tool “meaningless.” On a recent Sunday show, ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos incredulously asked if the decision meant impeachment was “simply political?” As though there would be something wrong if it were. It ignores the way our Constitutional framers ingrained politics into the very design of impeachment and intended the choice whether or not to impeach to require many extra-legal considerations. Once given to politicians, Hamilton acknowledged that political considerations would come into play including “animosities, partialities, influence, and interest.” Hence the two-thirds threshold for removal to ensure that this powerful tool was only deployed in times of real and overriding consensus – not as just another tool in the legislative back and forth. So it’s entirely unsurprising and appropriate that Speaker Pelosi appears to be weighing politics, including whether pursuing impeachment will expose Democrats to charges of partisanship or make them seem out of touch with the people’s more practical needs; whether enough senators will vote for removal of the president to make the impeachment effort have a concrete impact or what harm would flow from an impeachment that died in the Senate; and whether the news media will meaningfully cover any other issue once while the possibility of impeachment hangs in the air. If those are some of her questions, it’s hard to argue with her answers. And on the subject of cable news’s impeachment obsession, the one-day wall-to-wall coverage of Pelosi’s statement about not impeaching kind of proves the point. In my view, the public record is replete with facts that strongly suggest the president has committed numerous impeachable offenses. Nor is there any inkling that even one Republican senator would break with the president, let alone the twenty needed to remove the president from office. Of course, they should continue to investigate and hold the president and the rest of the administration accountable for their many misdeeds and breaches of the public trust without the oxygen-sucking shadow of impeachment hanging over every hearing. And if those hearings – or the report to Congress on the results of the Mueller investigation - do produce the kind of evidence that shifts public opinion and Senate votes, Speaker Pelosi can revisit this issue.

Let's not condone violence right now, that is one dangerous road to go down. Plus... What about the ones without oaths? Don Jr. Signed one of the checks to reimburse Michael Cohen for the Stormy Daniels payments - from the revocable trust that Trump was supposed to put his businesses in so politics couldn't get involved with it... Ivanka went on TV to state that her dad had nothing to do with security clearances in the last month, to cover for something that isn't illegal for a President to do... Remember when Trump's kids were trying to get CIA top level security clearance? After he was cleared by the White House, Kushner’s file was reportedly submitted to the C.I.A. to be evaluated for an S.C.I., or “sensitive compartmented information” clearance—an even higher designation. officers who make clearance decisions balked, two of the people familiar with the matter said. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that counterintelligence officials in early 2017 warned Jared Kushner that Wendi Deng Murdoch might be using her relationship with Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, to aid the Chinese government. A friend of Saudi Arabia's powerful crown prince Mohammed bin Salman was the mystery buyer of "Salvator Mundi," a painting of Christ by Leonardo Da Vinci that recently sold for a record $450 million.

That news was big enough as is, but it was compounded by the curious timing — Carrico’s announcement came after the deadline for candidates to file for the Republican nomination. Todd Pillion, R-Washington, who had been tipped off by Carrico, had already filed. Ken Heath found out Carrico was leaving just 30 minutes before the filing deadline and that the paperwork to seek the nomination had to be filed in person with the party’s district chairman. It’s a good thing for Heath, who’s from Marion, that he lived so close to the district chairman. This already-Republican district is becoming even more Republican. Bottom line: We have a retiring legislator handing his seat over to his preferred successor without the benefit of a competitive election. The reality is we have relatively few competitive districts in the state. Right now, there are just two state senators who live west of the Roanoke Valley —Carrico and Ben Chafin, R-Russell. Come next year, that’s likely to be Pillion and Chafin. Except maybe for the part about the sword.